Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Adding Two Digit Numbers: Food Fun

Today, we used pretzel sticks and marshmallows to add two digit numbers without regrouping. My kids were beyond excited!  The pretzel sticks were tens and the marshmallows were our ones.

Here's the photo evidence for your viewing pleasure:


(I'm not sure why this isn't turning. It is turned before upload! Sorry guys!)

Monday, March 17, 2014

Our Wee Little Visitor

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I thought I'd celebrate by sharing a little classroom cuteness from our room today. Lucky the leprechaun came to visit and the kids really enjoyed it. They even wrote him their own notes during Art class!

Lucky made a giant mess of our room, leaving paint and glitter everywhere.






"I think Leprechauns can fly." (One little girl decided this because the footprints were only on our tables...)

Lucky needed our help to find his hat. More clues came throughout the day but I forgot to take pictures of those!

Of course we had to have a craft...


And a snack. (This was actually a thank you from Lucky for helping him find his hats. The hats were from Dollar Tree and the kids loved that they got to wear them home!)



 
How do you celebrate St. Patrick's Day in your classroom?

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Cow Craft Freebie

I have so many fun things to share...I've gotten a bit behind on sharing lately.

Today, I'm sharing a freebie craft with you. You'll find a link to the cow pattern and the writing paper at the end of this blog post. It's nothing fancy, but my kids definitely enjoyed it today.


We have been studying the "ow" team this past week. I thought I would add to our word study lesson today with a craft. I created the craft yesterday after school and was quite happy with it:


I wasn't quite sure what we were going to do with the cow but I knew it would have something to do with the "ow" team. I debated between listing words, writing a poem (we're working on poetry in writing right now), and writing sentences. I was leaning towards writing sentences when it came to me! We should write a story using the "ow" words!  We've been doing a lot with beginning, middle, and end lately so this seemed perfect.

 
We started by listing "ow" words on the board. My students gave me so many words! Ones that I hadn't even thought of. After we listed the words, I told them that we were going to write a story about a brown cow using these words. We talked about some story ideas using the words. Then, I sent them back to their seats to write a rough copy in their word study journal.
 
 
 
When they finished, they brought their journal to me and we made corrections to capitals, spelling, and punctuation together. Then, they returned to their seat to write the final copy. I introduced the craft AFTER almost everyone was done writing their final copies. (I still had a few students working on final copies because their stories were really long or because they were out of the room for part of the time.) They were given about 20 minutes to get the craft made. I gave them the template for the head and body and showed them my cow. From there, they created their own cows. Some followed my pattern closer than others.
 
 
 
I was beyond amazed with some of the stories they came up with. We had cows going into town, cows getting super powers, and even a couple of secret agent cows saving the day. This was definitely an enjoyable activity today. I was amazed at how long some of their stories were! Take a look at one star story below!

 
If you'd like the template for the cow and the writing paper, you can get it by clicking here. Enjoy! I'll be back with more activities in the near future. I've got a couple other writing activities that we've done recently to share as well!

 

 

 

Sunday, March 2, 2014

March Currently

I'm linking up with Farley for her March currently.  You should check out her new blog design - it's so cute!


Listening
I just woke up. Actually, I was woken up by the dog, so there's not really any sound going yet besides the computer. And it's actually stopped making noise now that it's awake.

Loving
I'm loving the new layout I made for my personal blog. It's simple with anchors and glitter and fits my personality so well! Click the picture below to see it. :)

http://stolenmomentsbypam.blogspot.com

Thinking
I have so much to do today. I want to get my apartment back in some sort of decent appearance. I'm in the middle of a massive organization spree - that means I've torn apart different areas and will put it all back together neatly. I'm also getting rid of my massive desk so I'm having to figure out how to better organize my office supplies without a desk. Any thoughts or ideas?

Wanting
This connects with my thinking. I really want a more organized apartment. I should be moving later this year and I think it'll be easier and less stressful with things organized. I figure that if I start now, I'll have it under control by the time a move comes into the picture.

Needing
In order to accomplish all the crazy things I come up with, I would love more time. It seems like there's never enough time in the weekend (or the day) to get everything accomplished that I'd like to.

?????????
I didn't know what to put here, so I felt !!!!!!!!!! was fitting.


Happy March everyone!