Resolutions, Winter Literacy Centers, a Giveaway, and a FREEBIE

Oh my goodness, it's January!!  I guess it's time for a New Years' resolution...well, actually, I'm not sure I'm going to do one this year.  I think we all try to set these resolutions, try to stick to them, and just end up NOT sticking to them!

I'm just going to try to do my best at everything like I always do, and when something doesn't go right...I'll just keep trying harder.  Right?  Then it won't seem like I'm failing at something.  Weird?  Oh well!

So...I just realized that I forgot to tell you about my winter literacy centers!  Gasp!!  Oh no!!  Well HERE they are in Snowman Magic.  I chose to use the same literacy centers all year round so my kids would actually KNOW what to do each day without questioning it.  So each month, you will find the same 10 literacy centers but the theme will change.  Consistency is KEY, right?!  My kids love knowing what the centers are going to be each week!

A Giveaway
You can actually enter a giveaway at Teaching is Colorful where Sarah is celebrating 200 followers!  You can win these literacy center for FREE...just leave her a nice little comment.  Heck, if you go and follow her...just let ME know in a comment!  I'll do a giveaway and YOU will have another chance to win Snowman Magic!   Cool deal?  I think so!

I don't know if it's the coffee that I've been drinking lately since we got a Keurig for Christmas or if I'm just ready for the weekend...and I only worked 2 days this week.  My little Landen was sick again so I had to use a sick day today.  We spent TWO hours...yes, I said TWO...at the doctor's office.  I am grateful that they were able to get us in before the weekend because we found out that he has strep...AGAIN...and this time it's with an ear infection!!  Jeeze!!  Both of my boys just had strep right before Christmas!  I'm so ready for spring to be here.  I guess I should just be happy to be back in Charlotte where there's no snow.  We went home to Pennsylvania for Christmas and let me just tell you that I'm not a fan of the snow anymore.  It's really pretty to look at from inside but it's way too cold and wet.  While we were home, we went to have some Christmas pictures taken.  Here's one of our little family...me, the hubby, Gavin, and Landen.

Hopefully our professional ones will be coming in very soon.  The boys just loved getting their pictures taken!

A Freebie
While I was home today, I spent a little time working on a cute little poster for adding 3 numbers.  You can get it HERE for FREE!

Well I hope you all have a restful weekend.  Gavin has a basketball game in the morning...such fun!!  Enjoy yours!

 

New Winter Product, a FREEBIE, and The Year End BLOW OUT Sale

I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday and got to spend some much needed time with your family.  I have had a wonderful week visiting my family in Pennsylvania.  My boys enjoyed preparing for Santa's arrival and I loved their reaction on Christmas morning when they saw that Santa left them presents.  Anyway, I've been working on my new winter math product that features snowmen, polar bears, and oh-so-cute winter kids.  The focus in the entire packet is on the Operations and Algebraic Thinking strand of the Common Core State Standards.  

Winter Wonderland has 12 fun, winter themed games ranging from simple addition/subtraction, doubles/doubles +1, missing addends/subtrahends, and word problems.  You can view the rest of the 12 activities HERE at my TPT store.  

You can also download "Fun with Frosty" for FREE by clicking HERE!!

Enjoy the last few days of 2012 with 20% off all products in my TPT store including my new winter product, Winter Wonderland.  Click HERE to view all of my products.  For an even better deal, my Teacher's Notebook store has all products marked at 40% off until December 31, 2012.  Click HERE to go to my Teacher's Notebook store.

Have a wonderful and safe New Year!

Turkey Trouble: Literacy Centers

Anyone ready to go back to school tomorrow?  OHmyGosh!!  I could definitely  use another day!  Between working extra on Saturday, running errands, and an eye appointment today (getting color contacts - yippee), I feel like I was constantly away from my computer.  Okay, I sound like I'm addicted to this thing!  LOL!   I cannot wait until Thanksgiving break so I can get caught up on all my products and school work.  Okay, I really think I may need some therapy!  LOL!!  It's not a bad thing to want to work, right? We have 6 more school days until break, which means that my firsties will be working on my new Thanksgiving literacy centers: Turkey Trouble.  The centers have elements from the story "Turkey Trouble" but does not require you to read the story in order for students to understand the centers.  You can simply use these centers as a fun Thanksgiving/Turkey filled week.  Click on any of the pictures below to download these fun turkey centers. 

 Don't forget that all products on my Teacher's Notebook store are 30% off.  Take advantage of those wonderful prices now.    Click on the pictures above to access both stores.  Have a fun turkey filled week!!

"WINNERS!!" and "Math and Reading Unit Plans"

It's Sunday night and my "Characters in Action Giveaway" has come to a close.  Congratulations to our winners Lori and Rachel.

As stated in a post over the summer, I was part of a unit design team that helped create our county's first math unit: "Number Sense and Place Value".  We recently concluded the unit and the foundation in numbers that we created over the past 8-9 weeks is absolutely amazing! We have noticed that our first graders are so much more prepared for addition since they know numbers inside and out.  

Since then, my first grade team has worked diligently in completing the next math unit ("Addition, Subtraction, and Word Problems").  We have also completed the "Characters" and "Nonfiction" units for reading.  Click on the links below to access each of the units that we created for FREE.  

MATH PLANS/RESOURCES

Unit 1: Numbers and Place Value - UbD Plans

Unit 1: Numbers and Place Value - TEST

Unit 2: Addition, Subtraction, and Word Problems - UbD Plans

Unit 2: Addition, Subtraction, and Word Problems - TEST

READING PLANS/RESOURCES

Unit 3: Characters: Paying Close Attention to Actions - UbD Plans

Unit 4: Information Text Features and Strategies (Nonfiction) - UbD Plans

If you have any questions about any of the units or resources above, please ask.  I enjoy creating these  documents and it has been very helpful when lesson planning each week.

Have a great week everyone!!

NEW!! Characters in Action GIVEAWAY!!

Hello everyone!!  I've been working hard on this 105 page "Characters in Action" unit and have finally posted it!  It is jam packed with full page color printables, anchor charts, and character printables for any character book you may be using.  Click on the picture to preview all 105 pages!!  :-) 

Here is what this unit includes:

~Character Essential Questions: 12 Essential Questions with Full Sheets of Question strips for Reading Journals

~“Characters” Anchor Chart: What Are Characters? - 5 statements about characters on word cards for use on a pocket chart.

~Character Stories: 6 character stories about a fictional character. Contains a recording sheet to tell about the character.

~Character Labeling: 6 character pictures to label with describing words about what the characters are like based on the character story.

~Character Compare/Contrast: Open ended character Venn diagram

~Build a Character Game: FUN Character Game where students move around the game board picking up character trait cards to build their own character. Students will also be challenged throughout the game with character inferencing cards. The recording sheet lets them draw a picture of their character using the cards they collected during the game and write a story about their new character.

~Character Photograph: Students will draw a picture of a character from their story and write describing words in the box that tells about the character.

~Character Traits Poster: Students will use the character traits poster in an open ended activity. They can write a story, play bingo, or even find characters with those character traits.

~Character Map: Students will draw a picture of a character in the middle, write the characters inside/outside traits, and tell what the character says and does.

~Character Thinking Stems: Use these Inferencing and Character Thinking Stems with your students during read alouds to guide student thinking. This also comes with a sticky note template to print the thinking stems onto sticky notes for students to use independently or with a partner.

~Prove it!: Use these Prove It! thinking stems with your students to guide them to find the text evidence that tells them about the characters. Text evidence magnifying glasses are also included.

~Characters Mini Book: Students will draw pictures of the characters they read about and write complete sentence about what the character say, what they do, and how they feel.

~Connections to Characters: Students will think of a time that they felt like the characters in the stories they read. They will make a connection to the character, draw a picture of themselves, and write about it.

Characters in Action Giveaway!!!

I will be giving away 

2  FREE "CHARACTERS IN ACTION"

 units to 2 different winners

in this weekends drawing!

The drawing will be held on Sunday, November 11, 2012.

You can enter 5 times for doing each of 5 things: 

1.)  Follow my blog

2.) Follow me on  Facebook

3.) Follow me on TeachersPayTeachers

4.)  Follow me on Teacher's Notebook (everything is always 30% off there) 

5.)Post about this giveaway on your blog 

GOOD LUCK!!  I HOPE YOU WIN!!  Be sure to leave your email address in each of your posts!