Ringing in the New Year with a Sale!

Hello!
I hope you all had a great Christmas.  I spent it at home with my family.  This was the first year where I was in charge of the cooking.  I'm sure most of you are all OK with this but not me, see don't tell anybody but I am not a fan of cooking.   So I was a little stressed.  OK I was majorly stressed!  My husband worked all day that day so I had to watch the boys plus do the cooking.  So needless to say I was not feeding my Pinterest addiction that day.
My husband is Hawaiian so I decided to try to impress the family by making Kalua Turkey. Let me tell you it was one of the moistest and yummiest turkey I have ever had.  Everything turned out great and everyone was impressed.  Only problem is that I have now been designated the official Turkey cooker in the family.  What the heck!!!!  I didn't sign up for this.  Next time I am burning the turkey so I can go back to bringing paper goods and side dishes.  Ha!!!!  Just Kidding (maybe)

Well Anyways!  Just wanted to let everyone know that we are trying to start this year off right by having a sale.  Just click on the pic below

I also wanted to show you our new clip art set.  Just click on the pic to head on over to our store.   

Hope you all have a Happy New Year.  Talk to you guys in 2013!

Cindy

Thank you so much and a freebie!

I just want to say thank you to all of you!  Thank you for taking the time to check out our little blog and our store.  You are all amazing!
I hope you are all surviving these last few weeks before Christmas break!  Exactly 12 days for us (but who is counting. LOL)

Just popping in for a quick freebie.  Here are some Christmas tree clipart that I hope you can use.  Just click on the picture to head on over to our TPT store and download them.  Just remember to give our little store credit and leave comments.

Ok I am off to enjoy the rest of this beautiful day in Las Vegas!

Cindy

Long weekends Rock!

Hey everyone! I don't know about you but nothing beats a really long weekend. I wouldn't mind working longer days to get a three or four day weekend. LOL! Two days is just never enough to feel relaxed and get all the errands run.

 Well I hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving. I certainly did. My husband switched his schedule so we were on opposite schedules since school started. He took the whole week off for Thanksgiving and it was amazing! We were able to do things again because he took the 4yr old while I took the baby. Its great having an extra pair of hands and of course Mommy can never wrestle like Daddy does. I don't know if any of you out there are single mothers but let me tell you, my hats are off to you! You are all amazing because I have been doing weekends by myself since school started and let me tell you it is hard.

 Well anyways went off on a little tangent there. My Thanksgiving was great filled with family and a lot of food. I have also been very busy finishing up our new December Math Journals. Check them out here:
                                                                   December Math Journals
                                                          

I have also been finishing up my first ever clipart unit.  I really enjoy drawing.  It kind relaxes me so I figured why not make clipart since I am doodling anyways.  So with a little push from Angie here it is:

This is a little preview of all the images in the file.  They are all png format with a transparent background.  Hope you can use in your holiday units.  Just click on the pic to head on over to out store.

Dont forget about the big sale on Monday and Tuesday!  All our units will be on sale so don't miss out.  I know me and Angie cannot wait.  

Hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend.  I am going on a date night with the hubby.  I love my kiddos but I am so excited to have time alone.  LOL!

Cindy  

Are you Ready For Some Shopping???

                                   

Its almost here! Its almost here! I am so excited that TPT is having their annual sale.  My wishlist is stocked and ready to do some damage.  Hope you can come on over and check out our little store.  We will be having everything on sale.

Have a great Thanksgiving and hope to see you on Monday!

Cindy

Reading Chunk Posters and new clip art!!

Hi pals!

Angie, here! I'm such a "drive-by" poster but that's because I am super busy coming up with new ideas and things to share on here. {Note: I am COMING UP with new ideas....it's the EXECUTION part of those ideas that slips away from me sometimes!} Here is my latest and greatest creation:

I don't know about your kiddos, but mine sure do struggle with identifying and pronouncing word chunks and digraphs. This is where my inspiration came for this new unit! I cannot even tell you how many times a day I hear "It's the NAUGHTY BROTHERS ::when they're talking about [th]" It's so exciting when those little lightbulb moments go off, so if you're looking for something to spark that, check this unit out by clicking here!

I have to brag on this unit a little more though and point out the AMAZING, ADORABLE, and PRECIOUS graphics created by..... CINDY, herself! Seriously, I am obsessed with them (and it's not just because she is my partner in crime, or best friend!) Take a look yourself.....

LOVE this cutie pie!  

Could you seriously not just eat this precious little one up?!

ADORABLE!!!

Stay tuned for some clip art packs Cindy has been creating. Seriously, I am obsessed with them! 

Happy Thanksgiving! I know I speak for Cindy and I when I say we are thankful for each and every one of the amazing teachers out there that help support our store and use our ideas. We are all in this together, so thank you! 

Gobble till you wobble! 

xoxo,

Angie 

Writing Journal Prompts!

Hi Everyone!

It's been a looooong while since I've been to our poor little blog! I would LOVE to know where the heck the time seems to go!

My kiddos come in in the morning and start writing in their journals. I found myself thinking up journal prompts on the fly and scribbling them onto the board (I'm a lefty and I HATE, HATE, HATE the way my handwriting looks on the board!!). I hate not being prepared and trying to remember what I've already had them write about so I searched for something that would work for me. This seems to happen to me everytime because I found a little bit of this and a little bit of that which didn't all work for me. I ended up with tons of wasted paper and a failed system! This is where I decided to take matters into my own hands and made my own monthly journal prompts! It's working beautifully for me now and I am so eager to share them with you!

I've completed prompts for August, September, October, November, and December and am in the process of working on the rest of the school year. I've listed them in our TPT store, so be sure to check them out! It contains EVERYTHING you need (minus pencils and creative little kiddos!) to implement journal writing in your classroom. I included a main calendar for the month, a large journal prompt to display on your SmartBoard, a sheet of individual prompts for your young kiddos who just need to cut/paste them into their journal, a cover for your journals (one in color and one in black and white), and several types of writing paper to choose from!

You can view them here in our TPT store!

We have pictures to upload from our Halloween festivities last week, but I'll have to do that this weekend when my eyelids aren't shutting! :-)

Happy November!
xoxo,
Angie

Pumpkins, Fall, and a picture explosion!

Hello everyone!

Hope everyone is doing good.  We just had Open House at our school last week.  It was such a success.  The whole thing was student directed and everyone loved it.  The kids guided the parents through a scavenger hunt throughout the room and then showed them our fabulous hallway.  Our amazing first grade team and the kids did the story book pumpkins again this year and the whole school was in awe of the pumpkins.  Enough talking here are some pics for you to look at.  Hope you enjoy!

This is the first grade hallway.   Our first grade team consists of 6 teachers.  Two classes buddied up and studied something different for fall.  Angie and I did scarecrows, another class did owls and squirrels, and the other team did bats.  Our amazing classroom parents worked very hard to put our fall harvest hallway together.  Sorry for the quality of the pictures but I took them on my phone.  

First Grade is Unbe'leaf'able (All the kids in first grade got a leaf to decorate as they wanted)

                                    
                                     
                                        

These are all our different bulletin boards.  Im sure you will recognize some of the craftivities from the blogging world.  

The kids wrote riddle of themselves and parents had to guess who they were.  Their pictures were underneath.

Now drumroll please...  Here are our amazing pumpkins.

 

                          Cinderella                                                    Clifford

                                               
                                                      The Cat in the Hat and Spiderman

                                                               Go Dog Go, Pout Pout Fish  

                                          
                                                                Tangled and Pokemon
                                           
                                                             No David and Fly Guy

       

The witch from The Night Before Halloween

  

 

 Ferninand the Bull

 

 Pinnochio (The head is a pumpkin, the feet, and even the fish.  It was amazing!)

  

Snoopy

The Very Busy Spider

The Octopus from Commotion in the Ocean

Five Spooky Ghosts Playing Tricks at School

Parts, Lego City, and I am not sure about the little one I know its a bat though.  

There were tons more pumpkins but I couldn't take a picture of all of them.  Literally our whole hallway was lined with pumpkins!  We had a great turn out this year.  Seems like every year we are getting better.  

Thank you for sticking through my long post and I hope you enjoyed.

Cindy

Its My Birthday!!!!!

Hey everyone!
Cindy here we have been super busy in school.  Not only did we switch to Common Core but we are also switching to a Standard Based Report Card.  This is  alot of changes in so little time.  Just when you think you got the hang of something.  BAMMM!  They change it.  I guess they want to keep you on your toes.  Well needless to say we are all pretty much learning all over again what to teach and what to grade.  Fun times indeed!

Well anyways today I am not doing anything!!  I am not worrying about school or finishing school work all I am doing is enjoying MY day because it is my BIRTHDAY!!!!  I decided to blog because I am super excited and wanted to let you know that we are having a sale on out TPT in honor of my BIRTHDAY!!!

                                         Just click on my pic to get 20% off in our TPT shop.

I hope you have a great day!!!
Cindy

Don't Forget Hispanic Heritage

I posted this last year and just wanted to remind you about our Hispanic Heritage Unit because well it is September now.  So if you are trying to figure out what to do, check out our unit.  My students love this unit because a lot of them have not been exposed to so many different cultures.  They look forward to doing it on Fridays.  

Hispanic Heritage Teachers Notebook

Hispanic Heritage TPT

Hello!

OK so I know that September is almost over but if you are like me you are wondering where it went. Didn't it fly by so fast!!!! Well September is Hispanic Heritage Month and along with learning about apples, Johnny Appleseed, and testing I always try to fit it in.

I usually reserve Fridays in the month of September and highlight a different country. I have the students fill out their passports and I even stamp them. Then we buckle up and get ready for our travels.  Sometimes if I have enough donations we even have an in flight snack while we go on a tour of the country courtesy of my smart board. After we have toured the country we talk about the language and some of the music. I always try to download some traditional music on my ipod so that we can listen to it while we color in our flag and find our capital on our map. After we have done that we either have a craft or enjoy some traditional games. I love to show the students some pictures of the children in the different cultures so that they know that they are not much different than them. As September comes to an end we have to finish up our Hispanic Heritage Month and I usually finish it off by eating some traditional foods. I usually have parents donate money so that I can cook some things up. Now that Rio is out on dvd we will enjoy the movie while finishing off our fiesta.

I have uploaded my mini unit on TeachersNotebook and TPT if you are interested. My students really enjoy this unit so I hope you will too. Just click on the link and it will take to our store.

Now I am off to enjoy the last few hours before my weekend ends.

Cindy

First Week and Class Pics

Hello Everyone!

This week was our first week of school and let me tell you it was exhausting!!!  This is my third year teaching first grade and every year I forget that at the beginning first graders are not independent at all.  My son is still not sleeping through the night so let me tell you being exhausted from that and being at school all week, it was no surprise why I crashed on the couch on Friday.  Ha!


Before school starts I still get so excited.  I am the type that lays out her clothes the night before and I can't sleep because I am too worked for the beginning of the year.  Angie and I were so excited Monday morning that we decided to take a pic to show you guys.  This is in Angie's room in front of her Boggle board.

Well the kiddos are coming along and getting use to being in school the whole day instead of just half day.  In Las Vegas Kindergarten is not mandatory( I know its a big shocker to me still) so most of the kiddos I got were half day.  Procedures are starting to get established but let me tell you I wish we could skip this part sometimes.  I know how important it is to establish your procedures, rules, and expectations at the beginning but I am craving a routine already.

Well enough on this and let me show you my classroom.  I am kind of in love with it.  LOL!  Sorry for the quality of the pics but they were taken on my Iphone.

This is the view from my door.  My table signs are the different streets in Hollywood.  So I have a Rodeo group, Sunset group, Vine Group, and Hollywood Group.  Yes it does look like a lot of desks.  I have 23 students this year and 14 of them are boys!  

This is the front of my room.  The papers under my boards are for my student work.  My frame for the 1st day of First Grade is ready on my board.  The other side is where I have my schedule cards and my calendar.  It seems a little bare but we do calendar on the smartboad so no need for the clutter.  I know they are hard to see but I made those hollywood schedule cards if you are interested click here.

This is the Celebrity Of The Week board.  On the Walk of Fame side I will have the students sign a star after their week has ended.  I took this idea from Cara Carroll but she had the kiddos paint their hands on a star which I loved but I didn't have as much wall space so we are consolidating her idea.  

This is my Birthday Board.  It says A Celebrity is Born and it has all the months.  It is empty right now because I am taking the students pics to go on their month.  This is part of my calendar kit and if you are interested just click on the pic.  

                        

As I mentioned above I ran out of wall space.  So to compensate for that I use the front of my wardrobes.  The one on the left displays my clip chart which I got as a freebie from Cara Carroll.  If you are interested click here.  The other door displays my rules which I made with a little Hollywood flare.  The right wardrobe will display our Parent Praises.  This is a different shaped cut out that the parents write to their students.

This is my small group reading area.  Those are my Hollywood Beanie Babies that I made.  If you are interested click on the pic.  I wish my table could stay that clean the whole year. 

Well that was my room.  I hope you enjoyed my little tour.  I will leave you with a little Pinterest project I made.  

I am kind of obsessed with zebra stripes.  

Have a great three day weekend!

Cindy