October Currently

How is it October 1st already? I can't believe it. I also can't believe this little cutie just turned 6 months yesterday. It's ridiculous how big she is getting already! She is almost starting to crawl. She gets up on all fours and wiggles her butt. As soon as she figures out her hands, she'll be gone! :) We also started testing out some yummy foods, like banana and apple! Yum Yum!

Well, it is the first of the month, so that means it's time to link up with Farley for her monthly Currently! Go link up here.

So excited for Halloween this year! I've got baby girl's costume and it's a cute one! I have been so bad with Internet shopping lately... I blame Etsy, Zulily, and Zazzle! I already have Zoe's Thanksgiving, Christmas, and 1st birthday outfits already picked out... some even bought... lol

Now for the treat... I'm always a sucker for sweets ;) From now until Sunday night, these five fall products will be on sale for 50% off. Go check them out!

     

     

New Word Work Packs

I am *loving* being on maternity leave. The weather is finally warming up, we're starting to settle into our daily routines, and I get to spend all day with my sweet little muffin! I can't believe she is 7 weeks already. Wow, time flies!

I also love finding bits of time to work on some new products to use in my class when I go back and of course to share with you on TpT. I finally finished my word work centre packs. I just uploaded two new packs--Halloween Word Work and Fall Word Work. Each pack contains five different centres.

Halloween Word Work Centres focus on stamping Halloween words, putting Halloween words into alphabetical order, sorting short "e" word families, making words out of "Happy Halloween", and creating real or nonsense CVC/CCVC words.

Fall Word Work Centres focus on stamping fall words, sorting short "o" word families, unscrambling sentences, rhyming words, and a simple fall poem to practice colour words.

Here's a peak of all the available word work packs in my store. Click the links below to check them out at TpT.

Back 2 School Word Work Centres

Halloween Word Work Centres

Fall Word Work Centres

Christmas Word Work Centres

Winter Word Work Centres

Valentine Word Work Centres

Lucky Word Work Centres

Easter Word Work Centres

Spring Word Work Centres

Summer Word Work Centres

Camping Word Work Centres

I will be back soon with some new math centre packs!

More Excuses, What We've Been Up To, and Freebies!

If you are still here following my little blog, I truly apologize. I promise to get back in the blogging game, it's just been tough. I know I make a lot of excuses, but really... just listen to them all!

1. I have no internet--only the data from my iPhone. I'm hoping to get a better plan so I can do more blog browsing and updating my own blog!

2. Starting at a new school is always so busy. Add that to a new provincial report card and a new attendance/grading program, and I've got lots to learn and think about!

3. I'm slowly starting to think about our wedding plans... so far we have a date, a location, and now I have a dress! :) Each Monday, I model writing in our weekend journals. I remind students about capitals, spacing, sounding out words, adding details to our pictures, etc. Here is what I wrote about this Monday:

4. Which leads me into my last excuse... this summer we also found out we are expecting! I am about 15 weeks right now and due in April. It has been a lot to take in and think about. It also makes me have to miss some school for doctor's appointments and think about what I'm going to do when I go on maternity leave in April! It'll be a big life adjustment for all of us! :)

So life is a bit busy! I promise I am still doing fun and engaging things in my classroom, I just don't always take pictures or get around to blogging about it. But I'm going to turn this post over to my camera now and share some random pictures and freebies of things we've been doing since school started!

We started with an apple theme in September. We did a little KWL to see what we wanted to learn about apples. We didn't make apple smoothies (really?!) or jam, but we did make applesauce and decided which apple we thought was the best. 

Mmmmmm.... homemade applesauce. It made our classroom smell delicious all day! I need an air freshener that smells like this. This activity was definitely a highlight for the kids.

Yum yum! 20 out of 23 kiddos liked it. Not bad!

We did a fun making ten activity. After reading the awesome "Ten Apples Up on Top", we used colourful dot stickers to make combinations of ten on each character's head. I love that adding something simple like stickers makes math fun!

Here are a few apple freebies--title page (I like putting all my theme activities in booklets), sequencing apples, writing directions for applesauce, ten apples up on top, and colourful apples (for practicing colour words--print the large apples on different coloured cardstock). Click the picture below to download these freebies.

Next up, some fall writing and art. For the art project, we looked at different leaf shapes. On a piece of manilla tag the students drew a big leaf in pencil. Then they traced the leaf in black sharpie. 

After that, we modge-podged fall coloured tissue paper squares using a mixture of white glue and water.

Once cut out, they looked beautiful!

Looks great with our Hello/Goodbye poem.

For the poem we brainstormed fall things we will say hello to and summer things that we had to say goodbye to. A fun little writing activity for the season! You can download a copy of the poem {here}.

We also did some fire safety activities. We have weekly assemblies for the Grade 1-4 and each class is in charge of presenting about 5 per school year. We decided to do our first one on Fire Safety. We sang a couple of songs, put together a fire safety rule slideshow complete with photos of us demonstrating the rules, and just looked cute in our fire helmets and Clifford puppets.

Our second author study is Clifford the Big Red Dog. I did a little riddle/shared writing activity to figure out who are next author was. We have enjoyed reading Clifford books. My class especially loves the ones about Clifford as a puppy. They can't believe he used to be so small!

We did a little tree map about Clifford after reading the first story "Clifford the Big Red Dog."

Here's our author study wall.

We also had our (Canadian) Thanksgiving lunch. It's an annual tradition at our school. We provide the students with chicken noodle soup and a bun for lunch, and the whole school gathers in the gym to eat. Yummy and fun tradition for the kiddos. They had a table decorating contest while we waited for the food--our class one the prize for the Grade 1-3 category. They were so proud! :) Each class also made a list of all the things they are thankful for to hang up in the gym.

I was doing some organizing of my counters/cupboards and decided to invest in three palstic drawer sets. I wanted to get the big 12x12" drawers, but my Walmart didn't have them in stock anymore. I had to settle for 8.5x11" drawers, but they are working out just fine. I have a drawer for each day of the week, a drawer for extra work, and three drawers for stuff to file, copy, or laminate. You can download my drawer labels {here}.

Last up, my class really needed to work on an attention signal, so I pulled out my good listening poster from a couple years ago and turned it into a "Give me 5" poster. I got them really excited about showing me five by making it into a game--told them I would always be testing them and that it could happen at any time of the day! Sometimes they would even ask me if I was going to do the "5 Thing" today. If I try to get their attention another way, they usually remind me about it too. So funny, but it works! :)

And that's it for now! I promise I will be back sooner rather than later. I've got a few products in the works and a fun giveaway coming up soon! Have a great weekend all! 

Morning Meeting Ideas and Fall Freebies

Thank goodness for Thursdays that are Fridays! :) We have a professional development day tomorrow, so no kiddies! It's a nice little break.

I'm going to admit that the beginning of this year has been difficult for me.... combine moving to a new school with a large class of needy/weak students, and I have been stressing out since September. I just haven't been able to get into the groove of things and feel like I'm constantly one step behind! After my resource teacher popped in for a few lessons on personal safety, she commented on how emotionally needy my class is. I think that was the moment I decided to make some changes--for myself and my students.  

I really want to work on creating a strong sense of community, so we are starting each and everyday with a morning meeting. There are three parts to our meeting:

1. Greeting--We gather in a large circle to say good morning to each other. Today our greeting consisted of turning to the person beside us, shaking their hand, looking in their eyes, and saying, "Good morning, ___!" Very simple, but important skills for students to practice! I have eight EAL students in my room, so practicing oral language skills daily is super important for them as well! I have been collecting a variety of fun greetings, so we will change it up every few days or so. Eventually I might let the star of the day choose the greeting. Responsive classroom has some great ideas for greetings you can download here. I found some other cute greetings here too.

2. News & Announcements--This just consists of going over the daily schedule and talking about important upcoming events. Pretty simple!

3. Activity--My school is using the program Second Step this year. It is a social-emotional learning program that focus on learning skills, empathy, emotion management, and problem solving. I really like this program so far... it comes with cute puppy & snail puppets and large scenario photo cards. So far we have finished the first unit on learning skills. We have talked about good listening, focusing attention, following directions, and asking for help.

I found that the morning meeting really got us off to a good start! We started the day smiling, laughing, and talking about the things we wanted to accomplish that day. I found that the rest of the day just flew by and everyone seemed to be in a happier, calmer mood.

At the end of the day I implement the 3 H rule: "Say goodbye with a hug, handshake, or high five!" It ensures I make a connection with everyone at the end of the day too.

Now, to work on our noise level, I picked up this awesome idea from Teacher Tipster! Today we started the whisper bell. Just an ordinary bell. When the voice level gets a bit too loud, I ding the bell and the students whisper "whisper bell" (accompanied with jazz hands). The first time it happens is strike one. If they get three strikes/dings, then it's five minutes of NO TALKING! Eek! If we make it through the day without getting three strikes, we get to pick a number for our prize bingo (fantastic idea taken from the lovely Miss Kindergarten). We are hoping for a pajama party!!

This week we have been talking about fall. It's been a lot easier since the snow melted! Now we're just stuck with gloomy rain. Yuck! So I made up this little five senses fall book. It's called "Fall is here!" and each page has a sentence frame: I see, I hear, I feel, I smell, I taste. We brainstorm a list of ideas together, then students choose one to write and illustrate. You can download the book {here}.

I found this cute fall poem on Kinder Latino's blog. You can download the student version (in English and Spanish!) from her blog {here}. I made some larger poetry cards to use in the pocket chart. You can download them {here}. We did some shared reading together, then students glue the poem into their poetry book. We keep our poetry notebooks in our book bins. I love seeing the kids take them out during read to self or read to someone time!

That's it for tonight. Off to watch Grey's Anatomy! :) Happy Friday!