Discovery Day

Fridays are for Discovery!
One of the greatest hidden treasures of my new school is Discovery Day.
Every Friday, each teacher offers a Discovery Day class for 45 min. Kinder and first grade are together then 2nd & 3rd and then 4th & 5th. Our special teachers and others join in the fun as well. So every Friday here are some of the choices that my firsties have....

• playdoh
• housekeeping/blocks
• dot painting
• melty beads
  
• science experiment
• pattern blocks
• Kahoot
• chess
• STEM
• legos
• PE 
• bird feeder
• puzzles and games
• music (often special program/guest 

Other grades have done Frisbee golf, tech/ipad, robotics, make your puzzles, origami, drawing, and other seasonal activities.

It sounds so crazy and complicated but it is a super simple set up. Each teacher creates popsicles sticks with their name and activity and delivers to teacher's boxes by Friday am. For ex. my class did dot painting. I only wanted 14 kids so I delivered 2 sticks to the 7 K/1 classrooms. On Friday morning, my students pick where they want to go. We usually have about 24 choices for the 20 students. The students then travel with their stick as their ticket in and have a fabulous time! It's a creative way to help students engage on Fridays. The school has seen a significant increase in attendance on Fridays this year. Let me know if you have any questions!

 

Winter Wonderland So Cal Blog Hop

Happy Winter! I am so excited to be teaming up with very talented bloggers and TPT Authors for a blog hop-my very first one! I've been watching all the pictures and videos of #blizzard2016 affecting the mid west and east coast and am astonished at all the snow (and praying for their safety)! While we don't have snow, we do have some other fun and entertaining places, we thought we would share with you. So if your one of those stuck in the snow, I hope these pics will bring you a little winter joy, or maybe help you plan your next family vacay!
Some of my favorite things in So Cal...

The Water.  I love being out in the water, by the water, near the water. It's one of my favorite things about Southern California. In October, we went on a friends boat out of Newport, along the coast to Emerald Cove where my girls paddleboarded (I love to as well!) and we all hung out on the boat.

Laguna Beach. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this little city. We love to wander the shops, eat at funky little places and explore the area. My oldest found this "little hike" at Thousand Steps Beach. Not goin lie-barely made it back up those 230 steep steps #needtogetinshape.

Irvine Spectrum. We are a family of three girls so of course shopping would be one of our favorite things to do and places to go. In winter, they have an outdoor ice rink. And how can you pass up Barnes and Noble, cheesecake and LOFT. Read, Eat, Shop=life!

It never seems as if you have enough time to do all things you need or want to do. I have really tried to make a conscientious effort to add some fun into our lives. My oldest is a senior and I feel like our time is so precious before she's off to college. Trying not to waste the time so we try to have little dinner dates, go on hikes, find quirky things to do and just spend time together.
Speaking of time...
I created this great unit on Time
and you can get a freebie by clicking here...

Head over the Shawna, The Picture Book Teacher to keep the Winter Fun going...

and don't forget to join the Rafflecopter giveaway! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Ants Go Marching...

"The ants go marching one by one, Hurrah, Hurrah!"
It's about this time of year that I hope all my little ants are indeed marching to the beat of the classroom. They know where to put their papers as well as are well-versed in all our classroom rules. And if they perhaps, miss a beat they are confident enough to figure it out. It's also this time of year that I am reminded that I teach first grade and Lord, love my little guys, I always have one or two little ants who not only can't find the beat, they can't find their glue stick. "What page are we on? I don't have that page in my book? It's not there!" Invariably, the page, glue stick, pencil or book is indeed right there. My goal is to help my little ants find their way, to be problem solvers and solution seekers. You can often hear me saying, "Well, it didn't walk out the door so what can you do next to solve the problem?" (Of course, it would be my luck if ants truly did carry it out the door!)  Life will be full of twists and turns and I want my firsties to be confident in their ability to try and keep trying without giving up. So I created a little card that goes on the desk as a reminder to keep going. Hope you might be able to use it, too.

Head to my TPT store to download all 4 cards...TPT...they're free!!
Happy Sunday,

Tech Talk: January Link Up

Blog Link

Ahoy!
I am joining Great Minds Teach Alike for a tech link up. Recently, I went to an iPad training and was introduced to some great apps to use in the classroom. The one I am super excited to share with you is called "My Story-Book Maker for Kids" by HiDef Web Solutions. It is $3.99. This last week we finished our Frog and Toad Literature Unit. My firsties wrote a little story with a problem and solution and drew 2 pictures to go with their story. This next week, we will be putting it into the app for each student to have their own story. Some great features of this app...

• Super easy to use
• Students can draw a picture in the app or you can insert a photo of their hand drawn picture. 
• Stickers and text can be added to any page.  
• Voice button.  My students are going to read their story on top of each page. 
• BEST FEATURES....unlimited pages, unlimited books and you can publish your book and send to Google drive, Facebook, email, twitter, iBook etc. 

 Here is a sample page of a book I made about my daughter and her BFF.

 Thanks for reading and let me know if and how you use this app in your classroom. I would love to know. Happy Sunday.

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The Sunday Scoop

Joining up with Teaching Trio for the Sunday Scoop. A fun, little Sunday adventure.
Happy Fall.

Here's the link back...

Teaching Trio

A Quick Freebie!

Partners?!?! At the beginning of the year, asking students to pick a partner involves a certain amount of cringing on my part. A few years ago, I decided to combine our numbers to 10 facts and pairing up. I made a quick freebie to go along with it.  I have a set of ten frames and I pass out ten frame to each student. The students find their partners…the number, added to theirs that equals 10. Voila…math practice and a partner! 

Click here to download freebie