Pocket Chart Stand!!!!

CHECK. THIS. OUT.

I have been wanting to start a poetry center in my classroom and was trying to find a place for a pocket chart to go. I didn't have a stand or any available bulletin board or wall space. THEN, I went to Target. I bought this garment rack for $20...

...and ta-da!! Pocket chart stand!!!

ADJUSTABLE pocket chart stand!!!!!

The stand has the perfect height options for kids to use it on the floor OR for me to use during whole group instruction.

 I bought pocket chart rings from a teacher supply store for about $3-5 and borrowed the pocket chart from a friend (since all the ones I had on hand are too big for it). The chart even has pockets at the bottom to hold sentence strips!

 This is its home until we are ready to use it. It is super lightweight and is easy to move around the room--the kids could even move it. It actually came with wheels but I chose not to put them on.

Here is what the box looks like:

I am SO excited about it!!

'Twas a Short Week

Last week was a short week for me! How about you?

MONDAY

We had Monday off from kids, but not from school. We had a few meetings and got to work in our classrooms for a little while. Made lots of copies and cleaned up, and then made this:

We have been studying blends for two weeks now. We even started our unit by making a smoothie in a blender (you may recall from last week):

Once the blender is laminated, we will put the blends we have learned in it. I'm just waiting on our designated laminator person to have time to laminate it........don't get me started on that situation.

Also, after we identified our new l blends, my students were coming up with words that included them. You know, play, please, blue, flower, etc. And then there's this one:

Slay. Just look at that picture! Think he has seen a few horror movies in his short, little life?? (le sigh)......at least he was thinking??

TUESDAY

I posted on Instagram about the skip counting fun we had Tuesday!! The kids were so impressed that we got to use their real (clean and brought in from home especially for this activity) socks. We also talked about odd and even (which you can see from the color choices on the numbers).

WEDNESDAY

Wednesday, we finished up skip counting by with counting by 5s and 10s. MORE (mostly undocumented) fun!!!

THURSDAY

To finish up our big patterns unit, we had a PATTERN PARTY!!

The kids rotated through 6 stations to make patterns using different materials. They were way grossed out/excited when I bust out this tray of fake (thank goodness) roaches and spiders:

Check out this great additive pattern!

Also, I FINALLY beat level 79!!!!! Yes!!!!!

FRIDAY

I discovered this very disturbing sight pictured below. This is the wall/ceiling on a porch on our 1st grade building. See all of those little specks???

It's like a daddy longleg retirement village!!!! Those specks are the spiders!! There are at least a hundred of them!!! (insert ick face here)

Friday night got VERY (Texas) cold so we built a fire at home!! Don't be fooled though, this is just fake fall. It will be 90 again next week. 

How was your week??

Flash Sale!!

Having a quick little sale to celebrate 100,000 Facebook likes for TPT! 

(Thanks, Shuna, for the graphic!)

Check out some of my coolest products!

Click below to visit my store!

Another Week Down!

I can't believe another week has passed. This was a fast one, too!

MONDAY

Monday was the kickoff for blends month. We will be focusing on s blends, l blends, and r blends in phonics/spelling for 3 weeks. I actually went ALL out and planned an activity that involved a blender! What better way to introduce your students to blends than to make a smoothie in a blender??!

I bought this teeny tiny blender from Wal-Mart. We put a can of apple juice and half a bag of frozen chopped fruit in it. We talked about the properties of the fruit/juice before blending it and predicted what would happen once we pressed the button. After it was all blended, we discussed how the properties changed (gotta throw in some science!) and how the same ingredients were still there even though you can barely tell what it is made of. THEN, we related it to blends in words and tried our apple strawberry peach banana smoothie! They were THRILLED, to say the least! It was a great way to get us started and to help them remember why a blend is a blend.

Despite the two cups you see with smoothie still in them, the kids LOVED it!

Also on Monday, we finally talked about the math word for those "corners" on shapes. We made shapes on pieces of construction paper and used Do-a-Dots to count the vertices. What you see below is one of the construction paper pages underneath my document camersa, projected onto the Promethean Board. We used index cards and tape to label the shape. 

Then we continued to work in our shape book foldable that you can find here.

TUESDAY

We started patterns in math by using pattern blocks and macaroni to make patterns!

You can pick up this macaroni pattern freebie here!

WEDNESDAY

We FINALLY started Read to Someone after 6 weeks of Read to Self--took us that long to get it down, BUT the important part is that they got it down. They did fantastic with Read to Someone!

On Wednesday nights at church I assist in the gardening hobby bible class for 1-4th grade (I am NO gardener, by the way!!). We planted some seeds last week and, thanks to a bunch of rain last weekend, we were happy to see that they had sprouted!

We did sidewalk chalk after spending time in the garden; one little boy wrote this little reminder for us all. :)

I also shared this #midweekconfession via Instagram.

THURSDAY

Thursday brought additive patterns. Yikes. My class didn't have a clue. At all. Lots of ::face palms:: from yours truly. 

We got through it. But it was not easy. :) We will for sure continue to spiral review additive patterns.

Thursday night I almost completed level 79 of Candy Crush--I have been working on it here and there for A MONTH! A MONTH!!!! And I am STILL working on it because 2 moves to get those last two blocks of jelly was just not enough!     :O      >:(       :(

FRIDAY

Skip counting! We started out by reading this book:

This book was a GREAT introduction for skip counting!! GREAT! The animals in the book are competing for title of "King of the Jungle" and must find the fastest way to count to 10. Pick it up on Amazon here. I highly recommend it. 

This activity was the perfect lead-in for some exploration time with skip counting. We actually only had time for just the first page, but this is the investigation page we completed:

Click on the above images or here to download this freebie.

I gave each student a hundreds chart, counters, and the recording sheet (from above) and let them have at it. I loved seeing all of their little brains working. They had some GREAT ideas and thinking. Wonderful insight for me.

Counting by 1s to 48.

Skip counting by 2s to 48:

Check out her towers--she was skip counting by 2s!

On the recording sheet, they were allowed to use it however they chose. Some used it as a work mat while others used it to record the numbers they counted. That also gave me some insight as to what they knew about skip counting.

Phew. It was quite the week. And aren't you proud that I shared more than just math?! We do a billion things each day, but math just makes the most interesting pictures. ;)

What exciting things did you do this week??