My Outlet and a Simile Freebie

A few weeks ago I opened my own brick and mortar "Field of Poppies."
 
Well, sort of!
 
If you remember {this} post, I was debating whether or not to rent a space at one of my favorite shops.
 
About a few weeks ago all the stars lined up in my favor. An affordable booth became available.  The booth comes with a few restrictions like having to have a 3 foot passageway from the storage door per the fire marshall.  Due to my booth being in the corner, it is not a perfect square like the others either.  It has a slanted corner. No biggie.  I'm a teacher. I deal with "thinking outside the box" each day with my students as well as tracking in and out of my classroom opens the door for new furniture arrangements.  So I was up for the challenge. Let the creative juices flow.  In a shop of this sort, presentation is key.  My booth is a work in progress, but I want to share with you my little piece of earth. (I borrowed this phrase from Mary in The Secret Garden.)I'm happy with my decision.  It's my outlet.  This little space allows me to be who I want to be, just like this little blog.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On another note...

 

I have been working with my students on including comparisons in their writing. 

 

We read this book.

 

I created this activity as a follow up to the book.

 

 

 

  Download it {FREE} from my TPT shop.

 

 

What is your outlet?  I'd love to hear about it~

Compound Words and a Cricut Craftivity

Compound Words was the name of the game last week~

My kids loved this video. We played it everyday.

We read these books and listed the compound words onto an anchor chart. The list grew with each book we read.

 

 

 

 

I downloaded this free game from Jen B.'s TPT store.  (She has tons of great products. Check her out.)

 

We played Find a Partner with the cards. To play this game, each student was given a card.  The goal was to find the matching compound word partner.  After each student found their partner, we shared the words orally and listed them onto our growing anchor chart. I've been totally inspired to create additional cards with my Cricut.  (That will be another post.)  This game with become a choice activity for Daily 5.

 

 

I downloaded this blog freebie from Christina at Bunting, Books, and Bainbridge. We also used it to practice fluency all week During Daily 5.



 



 

Our cricut craftivity was inspired by this post by Nancy at First Grade Wow.  Now that our school has a Cricut 2, I was able to cut out the pieces at school. Yay. ( I stayed after school everyday for four days, but it was well worth the time.)

 





 

 

I used the cupcake from Simply Charmed to cut the pieces. 

 





 

 The students assembled the pieces, then glued them in place.  Finally they recorded compound words not found on our anchor chart onto the top of the completed project. 

 

 

 

 

I created a Shaker from Sunny Days in Second Grade for my students to complete during Daily 5.  I tried the pencil pouch  "I Spy" approach. Of course, anything to make noise and shake draws a lot of attention.  I laminated the recording sheet so the kids can record with a dry erase pen.  To check, the students just flip it over where the answer key is attached. You can download the reproducibles {HERE}.

 

 

 

We went on a scavenger hunt through our reading textbook.  We recorded a word that fit into "I am a compound word" and "I am not a compound word."

 

 

 

 

 

Got a great activity for compound words.  Share it here:-)

 





 

 

 

Mother's Day, A Freebie, And Shabby Chic

I'm always a day late and a dollar short, as the saying goes. I know holidays are coming, however by the time I get around to planning and completing a related activity with my students, it's too late. So I file it away until next year.  Sadly, for some activities, next year hasn't come yet.   Trying to find a "just right" place within my lesson plans as well as meet the weekly expectations on the district's pacing guide make it difficult many times to integrate seasonal fun ideas.  (Insert sad face here.)

Friday was an Early Release day for year round schools in our county.  The kids had no specials for the day, like music, art, media, P.E. or technology, so I crossed my fingers hoping I would not see my AP walk in with her laptop to do her final observation of the year. I closed my door and pulled out the construction paper. My kids lit up with excitement. "A Craft project," they yelled.  I led the class in creating a TLC Iris Art Project. (See this link for another TLC project we have done.)  You can't have Mother's Day without flowers, so I thought I could easily fit this into the math curriculum of congruent shapes and figures and combining shapes as well as create a unique flower for our moms.  Well all I can say is ~ they are unique.  Here's a few samples of the finished product.

Our mommies are just going to love them~

As educators, we celebrate the small things.  Many times, if it wasn't for the small things, there would be no big things.  So with that in mind-

 Woo-Hoo! I have reached 25 followers. That deserves a FREEBIE.  

So for ONE WEEK~ 7 DAYS~ Monster Mania will be a FREEBIE.  However, after this time the games  will be $1.00 in my TpT store.  Either way, it's a great deal. This is such a fun math game of creating equations with three numbers.  For younger students, like second graders, I would encourage a calculator but definitely not necessary.  Click below for the download.

Monster Math

A shout out to Casey for walking me through the steps to creating a layered preview screen and for listening to me vent after the Staff Development on Friday. She had interim reports to complete, but she listened to me ramble for at least 20 minutes.  Thanks~

On a simple note, I wanted to share two pics of one of my favorite "shops" in an Antique Marketplace.  In this Marketplace, one can rent a space to sell various items.    I've debated on whether or not to rent a space in this cute Marketplace to sell my wares. However, that decision is still up in the air.  I'll keep you posted, but enjoy  "The Shabby Chic" spot.

  

My First Giveaway

Jen at Hello Mrs. Sykes has reached 100 followers.  

This is cause to C-E-L-E-B-R-A-T-E.

P-A-R-T-Y!

Raise the Roof~

She has invited ME as well as Casey at Second Grade Math Maniac to participate in a giveaway. 

I nervously proudly stepped up to the plate.

I am giving away a Contractions Mini Unit from my newly opened TpT Store.

So...What are you waiting for?  Head on over to Jen's site by clicking below and find out all the details.



Giveaway

My First "Grammy" and a Contractions FREEBIE~

My teammate and fellow blogger, Jennifer, over at Hello Mrs. Sykes has awarded me, Me, ME with my first award. No Kidding!  Not just any award! A Top 10 Award~



Wow!  I am speechless, honored, and SUPER EXCITED.  Blogging is new to me and I absolutely love it.

A component of receiving this award is to nominate 10 others.  Because I am so

 ch-cho-chok-choke-choked-

up tonight, I will list my top 10 on tomorrow's post.

In the meantime, admire my award and download this Contractions Freebie:-)




Contraction Freebie Download

 


Tootles~