Peer Feedback Freebie

In our building over the past few years as part of our school improvement mission we have been encouraged to visit one another's classrooms to gather ideas, provide collegial feedback, etc. As we all know, teaching is all about collaboration and we can improve our practice ten-fold by learning from one another! I have always welcomed others (including my administrators) into my own classroom with open arms, as I was not only excited to share what we were doing with them, but also delighted to have a fresh set of eyes in there to offer suggestions and ideas I may not think of on my own!

That being said, this year I have the opportunity to visit a large variety of different classrooms in my current position. Sometimes I may pop in simply to lend a helping hand and get my "kiddo" fix and others it may be to check out something specific a teacher has requested so that we can collaborate to improve upon it! Furthermore, in the spirit of gleaning ideas from others, I encourage the teachers to check out the rooms and lessons of others too whenever possible!

At the beginning of the year I worked to design a few printables for myself and the staff to utilize if desired when visiting the room of another. Feel free to use them, share them etc., but more importantly I encourage each of you to whenever possible take the time to see what your colleagues are doing- there is a wealth of knowledge within the four walls of your school building that should be shared!

This first one is geared more toward providing peer feedback.

The second is geared more toward jotting ideas down to take back to one's own room!

Click here to get them both!

(Fonts/Graphics: Krista-Wallden, Kimberly Geswein)

Also, on a different note, I wanted to take a moment to share a preview of something special that is in the works for tomorrow...(Use your picture clues ;))

Don't forget to pop in tomorrow for the big reveal! You don't want to miss it!

Holiday Tag Freebies!

Ohh last week before winter break...how incredibly crazy you are! This week I have been working to get together and distribute staff, volunteer, and student gifts. 

I will grace you with some photos of my student gifts once I deliver them to them on Friday...but I thought I would share some of the quick and easy items I have put together for my staff and volunteers now and some freebie tags I stuck on em all!

First, I stuck these cute little puppies in each of my colleagues mailboxes. 

Cheap, easy, and cute, I think! Just a York Peppermint Patty and this happy little tag. I have seen this phrase a variety of places used with mints before, and just added my own little twist specific to teachers. You can grab a copy of these tags by clicking here. 

Font compliments of Hello Literacy.

I also baked up some cookies for my parent volunteers. This is another cheap way for me to provide something yummy and say thank you as my family bakes mountains of cookies each year anyway!

To grab a copy of the "Thank you for helping us to be "smart cookies"!" tag from me (I pulled off my name and Spanish section to make it a little more user friendly for all), go ahead and click here.

Graphics and fonts by Ashley Hughes and dafont.com.

Thanksgiving has come and gone...

...and I am finally posting about it! Gosh I am behind! I swear we actually did these activities before Thanksgiving...I am just finally getting around to sharing them (maybe put them in your save bank for next year! ;))

We started off last week by reading "Turkey Trouble" by Wendy Silvano. Then we created some fab "turkeys in disguise". You can get the template for this activity by clicking here. Thank you for sharing Tori!

I know this is a project that most send home for students to work on with their families. However, as many of my students do not have the resources to complete them at home, I always do them in class. I ask them to bring little items if they can contribute and then I bust out my craft supplies! It is quite hilarious to see what the students come up with on their own anyway! Here are a few samplings:

A "fireman"

A "gift" and a "poodle"

Yea...see those beans along side the poodle...are you thinking the same as I was. The poodle did her business....you would be incorrect. I was informed that they are eggs lol...apparently we need to review the whole mammal thing!

A "rainbow and a "dinosaur"

Also please note the "Nemo" at the bottom of the page. When I asked this student why he was adding a fish he informed me because his face looks frightened and dinosaurs are scary. The things kids think of!

We also did an activity in Spanish last week to reflect on what we are thankful for. I only had time to snag one photo as we were scrambling to get it done at the end of the day....but he is our "Doy gracias..." mobile we created as a decoration for our homes!

If you would like a copy of the template for this (for next year...or if you get in the "thankful" spirit at another point throughout the year) you can grab it by clicking on the templates below. I just precut and hole punched the construction paper for my students to glue their work to in creating the mobile! This saved some serious time!

We also took the opportunity to make some comparisons between past and present last week. Here is a quick venn diagram we created as a class after reading the book "If You Lived in Colonial Times..." While reading, I gave the kiddos post-its, one labeled S for Same and one D for Different and as I read I asked them to jot down anything they heard in the text that was the similar or different to our present day lives. Here are some of the things they came up with:

We are finishing up past and present this week before embarking on our "Celebrations Around the World" unit the first week of December!

Happy Halloween!

So I have been boo-ed by Lita Lita @ Learning in Spain and Miss. Nelson @ Run! Miss Nelson's Got the Camera. While I know, I know....I am getting to this a little late...at least it's still October! And I had to make sure to give both of these lovely ladies the credit they deserved in "boo-ing" me ;). Be sure to check out their blogs as well. 

So here goes...some of the highlights of our Halloween festivities and activities that maybe you could use if you are continuing your celebration tomorrow...and/or keep in your activity banks for next year!

First, here are two of my favorite Halloween themed stories that we read today in class.

I tied "The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin" by Joe Troiano into math by doing a review of shapes and their characteristics. 

"Boo!" by Robert Munsch also comes in Spanish. For some reason, I could not locate a cover of the Spanish version, but we read this one and did a retell with it this morning in Spanish. It's a cute story about a boy whose makeup is so scary for Halloween that he ends up getting mountains of candy as everyone who sees him passes out in fright! Just a fun, quick one to celebrate the day!

During math today we also did this cute activity from Jen @ The Teachers' Cauldron to practice our addition and number grid skills. This was a perfect one for practicing counting down on the number grid to add by 10's!

The kids first fill out the "Mystery Picture" addition sheet by solving all of the addition problems. They then used the key at the bottom of the page to color and decipher their "Mystery Picture" on the number grid page. We had a lot of fun with it! Did you figure out what it is?

 

Grab your free copy from Jen by clicking here.

Finally, during our Fall Party today, I busted out a quick game of "Four Corners"- Halloween Style! For those of you that have not heard of this ever-so-simple game, here is how it works: First, grab your favorite Halloween cd, and play music for the students to walk around the room to. Whenever you feel appropriate, stop the music. The students must then head to the nearest of the four corners of the classroom. In each corner, I placed a Halloween themed poster with a different title. I also placed the same themed posters on my board with a magnetic spinner in the center. Here is what that looked like:

(I know they aren't pretty colors. We do not have access to color printing in our building...and I am going to be honest and let ya'll know I created these quickly during my planning period today!).

Anywho....after I spun the spinner, wherever it stopped, the students that were in the corner with the correponding poster had to return to their seats. We kept playing until there was only one student left in a corner that had not been called, and this student was deemed out winner! With 27 kiddos it still took less than 10 minutes, and it is such a simple game to explain!

If you would like a copy of the posters I created for free in English or Spanish, click on the image below. Maybe you can use them next year :)! Fonts & Graphics: Kevin & Amanda, Google Images, Creative Clips, and Shery K. Designs.

Happy Halloween everyone!

PS....Considering tomorrow is Nov. 1....I will let any of you who I may have potentially "Boo-ed" off the hook this time ;)! 

Short Vowel Word Families

During our intervention block, I am working with a group of my students on reinforcing short vowels. This afternoon, I threw together this fun little short vowel word families mini-book to create with them during our time together that I thought could serve as a great resource for them in reading/writing words with these short vowel patterns throughout the year. 

For each short vowel, I created a page of the mini-book with a graphic organizer to assist them in indentifying the most frequently used short vowel word families and examples of each. Here is an example of the "Short A" word family page of our book we completed today in class.

Of course there is a page for each of the other four vowels as well...we will be working on those in the days to come! Also, feel free to print multiple pages of each vowel if you would like to incorporate more word families with your students that just the four allotted. Use it as your wish!

Click on the image if you would like your own copy of this word family mini book!

Themed Journal Cover Freebie

We have been working tirelessly to get our Daily 5 routines in place! That being said, I created these fun, themed journal covers for our "Work on Writing" center. My students can select any of the journals and must write a story with beginning, middle, and end related to the cover topic. I also asked them to write their name and date on the top of each page written, so that I can scan through and check out their work for the week. 

Click on the image to take you to my TpT store to download these free covers in English and Spanish. 

If you use them, I would appreciate your feedback!

I also had some of you request a copy of my PBIS expectation posters from my expectations post here.

I have uploaded them to Google Docs for you in English/Spanish! Click on the image to grab a free copy of these as well if you were one of the interested parties!

Linking these little diddy's up with Classroom Freebies as well! Click on the image to check out other weekly freebies!

Super Expectations

Wow...what a week it has been. Between starting school and trying to finish up the last few weeks of my Master's, I am just working to stay afloat- so forgive me for not posting too much lately!

One of my favorite ladies, Candis, over at I Teach Dual Language is hosting a beginning of the school year, classroom expectations linky. So I thought I'd take a quick moment to join in the fun.

Here is our expectation board we have been working on all week:

In our building this year, we started "CBIS", which is our school (Canterbury) version of PBIS. With CBIS we have 4 main expectations for students throughout all areas of the school: "Be a Model", "Be Responsible", "Be Respectful", and "Effort". I of course, deemed them "Super Expectations" for our classroom's purpose and created this board to go along with them. Each larger poster represents one of these expecations.

On the first day, we discussed what these expecations look like in our classroom. I had the students create illustrations to go along with the ideas. For instance, in the picture above for "Be Respectful", the students drew pictures to represent how to do this- using kind words and actions, caring for materials, using quiet voices, raising hands, etc.

Finally, thoughout the rest of the week, we discussed what these expecations look like throughout the rest of the school. I got the idea of creating these posters for relaying these expectations in the rest of the building from Amy Lemons. Here are a copy of hers in English. 

Click on any of the image below to snag a copy of the ones I created for my kiddos in Spanish for the hallway, bathroom, cafeteria, and recess. (Please note, you do need to add a tilde to the "n" in baño", as the font I chose wouldn't let me do it! I just quickly added it with a Sharpie!).

Enjoy!

Posters created with images from Dreamlike Magic and Print Candee, and fonts from Kevin and Amanda.

Cool Dude, Clock Labels

Got a quick freebie for you all today, then I gotta run! I am moving today! (Great timing right...the week before school starts! Thing's are a  little nutty to say the least ;)!)

Anywho...I was sick of the boring ole' clock labels that were left in my classroom when I arrived. While they served their purpose, I decided I needed something to spice up my clock a lil bit. Enter my "Cool Dude, Clock Labels"!

Here is my newly done and much cooler, labeled clock:

If you would like your clock to look super "cool" too, feel free to download my clock labels by clicking on the image below. Did I mention they are free :)? Enjoy! And have a great weekend!

Monday Made It! Project Productivity!

Time continues to fly by....

And I continue to find more and more projects that I need  think I need to get done!

Linking up with:

and

Here are my latest "made its", a freebie, and a new product.

This framed little ditty will get hung on one of my cabinet doors along with another in Spanish! We talk about this promise in our classroom within the first few days of school and it stays up all year!

I finally got around to making these adorable little seats (thanks to the bf who did most of the work and had wood lying around at work!). See the tutorial I used by clicking here.

Made some numbered sticks to use with my kiddos! (I still need to decorate a container to put them in...but you get the drift!). Head over to my TpT store to snag this "Student Number Label" freebie!

I also spent all day (that is why I am a little later in getting this post up today) created new calendar labels in Spanish to correspond with my color scheme! 

You can snag them too at my TpT store! They are normally $3.00, but if you hurry you can get 28% off today only by using the code BTS12! Click on the image below to check them out (...and maybe get a steal of a deal ;)).

If you guys do download either product, I would really appreciate your feedback! (Thanks in advance!)

Happy Monday (especially to those of you who were back in the swing of things today)...2 more weeks!

Free Super Themed Table Signs/Wanted: Guest Bloggers!

My creation of the day...Super Themed Table/Group Signs for the beginning of the year! 

Snag a copy for free for your classroom, by clicking on the image.

Also, I am on the search for guest bloggers for the week of June 25th-July 1st. I would like to dedicate this week to posts related to best practices and strategies for teaching language learners. If you are a dual language, bilingual, ELL or even classroom teacher that has experience or knowledge that you would like to impart, please leave a comment with your email below, as I would love to have you! I am looking forward to a week of sharing that we can all benefit from to improve our classroom instruction! Thanks!

Cinco de Mayo Freebie and Linky!

There she is- my latest freebie. Just in time for Cinco de Mayo! The packet includes a Cinco de Mayo themed graphic organizer, writing paper, and templates and corresponding instructions to create a "Sombrero Craftivity". Click on the image above to go ahead and download a copy for yourself!

Now I have seen that some of the rest of you have been posting some of your great Cinco de Mayo ideas as well, and I am sure there are many others that will pop up this week that I have not even seen yet! Let's get them all in one place friends- so that we have a wealth of sombrero and piñata filled ideas for years to come! 

Go ahead- grab this button and post it along with your Cinco de Mayo celebration ideas so that others can link up and check out the linky "fiesta" as well!

Looking forward to seeing all of your ideas!

¡Gracias!

A Trip Around the Word & a Freebie!

My classroom is all a buzz -packin, gettin our passports ready, etc.----WHY?, you ask. Because we are taking a trip around the world! 

Here is our suitcase.

We had to pack of course. Click on the picture to enlarge the image- pretty humorous- let's do a little "I Spy". Do you spy a cell phone? A DSI? A fruit roll up? A hair dryer? Bulls gear? They are too funny!

Then of course we had to get our passports. It's not the greatest picture ever, but on the right you can see there is a space for a stamp from each continent (it continues on the next page). I stamp my students passports after they complete all of the activities required in the continent and they are getting ready to "leave".

This is our "Continent Data" chart. Before we enter each continent, I read to my students a little brief intro. of the continent we are traveling too and we fill our this sheet to keep our facts straight! They keep this with them in their luggage as it is important to be informed about where you are traveling! We just entered our first continent of SA today- so no worries---I will share more along the way!

Also, I will be including some of these activities in my upcoming "Continents" unit I am in the works of finishing up- so keep your eye out for it!

Leaving you with a quick freebie today. We are working on plural suffixes in Spanish currently. I will then be bridging these suffixes into English with my kiddos next week. I am OBSESSED with sorts in my room, thus here are the word sorts we will be working with to practice these word endings!

Hope they are helpful! 

New Unit Sneak Peek

Just wanted to give you guys a sneak peek of the new units I have been working on! I will unveil more about them tomorrow for our 100 follower giveaway commencement!- But I thought you would enjoy a little teaser today....and I may even throw in a freebie :)

"It's Good to be Green" is a combined unit I used to supplement our science/social studies curriculum. It focuses on the concepts of goods, resources, and how they are moved, as well as the science tie-in with how we can be "green" citizens and work to conserve and protect our natural resources. 

"A Little Dirt Never Hurt" is a supplemental unit I am finishing up to teach my kids all about plants and how they grow!

All activities within both units will come in English and Spanish as always!

Here is a freebie I am using as a pre-assessment tool for the plant unit just for you my "super" followers - of course it is in Spanish too! Just click on the image to snag yourself a copy!

Don't forget to check back tomorrow to enter in the "100 Follower Giveaway" Casey from Second Grade Math Maniac and I will be hosting to kick off our new units and show our appreciation for all of you!

Spring Freebie and Linky Party!

The first day of spring is tomorrow! To celebrate, I have created a quick memory game freebie for you, that I will also be using tomorrow as a vocabulary review with my students!

I only created this one in Spanish this time, but if anyone would like it in English and think it could be useful for you, please let me know, and I would be more than happy to whip it up!

Also, I thought in honor of this auspicious occasion (as spring means we are a step closer to summer!), that we could celebrate with a little linky party! I would love to see some of your "spring time" activities in English or Spanish, as I am sure would many others- thus, why not get them all together in one place! Make sure to directly link us to your post so that we can easily find your activity, and provide a little description of your activity too! Join in as we go "Splashin into Spring"!