Only 171 More Days Until Christmas!

Did you know there's only 171 (or so) more days until Christmas!!??!!  That's less than half a year.

CHRISTMAS FREEBIE FOR 

PRACTICING ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION STRATEGIES

It’s never too late to think about Christmas activities!  Here’s a cute FREE math GAME for the children to play in those hectic weeks before Christmas break.  It's a great review because not only do children have to solve the addition problems, they need to identify the strategy they used to solve the problem.  It makes a great formative assessment to judge children's understanding of addition strategies!

Click here to download Christmas Scoot

While you are visiting my store, be sure to check out my back to school activities.  One of the favorite activities I do with my firsties during the first week of school is my Read All About Me activity.  It's great to display on the walls for open house!  It also gives you the opportunity to learn a little bit about your firsties, and it covers skills in both math and language arts to make integration easy.  Since we always start school on a Wednesday, I pair the activity  with a book I inherited in my classroom called "All About Me," and it makes for a nice, integrated block of math and language arts before we jump into the curriculum during our first full week of school.

                     

Click here to see my Back to school resources

I hope you enjoy the rest of your summer!  May the hot, sunny days go slowly for you!!

Educents Homeschool Resources Sale

Educents, a trusted leader in homeschool resources deals, is having a sale starting June 20 and ending June 24.  If you click on the picture above, you can visit and see all the great resources Educents offers.

While you're there, you can take a look at my store.  I have several free items perfect for the homeschool environment.

Click on the picture above for a free sample to my morning work series.  It is a growing bundle that will include 30 weeks work of first grade geared work.  It's a great way to start off the learning day.  I've used these in my classroom for the past year, and I saw a huge improvement in writing, phonics, and math skills because of the reinforcement of skills these provided.

Here's another free resource in my store.  It's a really cute card and craft to celebrate Grandparents' Day.  The card is actually a book where the children write about their special relationship with their grandparent(s). 

Take a minute to look through my store for the other free samples of my resources.  I think you'll find resources to meet many of your homeschooling and classroom needs!

Super Bowl Non-sale Sale and For-Real Sale

How's that for a title that leaves you scratching your head?

Let's take care of the Non-sale Sale first.  As you know -- or maybe you don't know -- Teachers Pay Teacher is not having a Super Bowl sale this  year.

Don't worry.  Be happy!

But don't worry, be happy!  Some bloggy friends, including myself, have banded together to bring you that Super Bowl sale experience you crave.  Everything in my store will be 20% for tomorrow only (or maybe Monday, too, because I can never get the sale set right to last only one day).  I've got some great new resources in my store that I've really loved using with my kids in both science and language arts, such as: 

If you'd like a sneak peek at the products, you can download my free "Just a Taste" product sampler by clicking the picture below.  It gives a one-page sample of each resource listed.

Now, for the For-Real Sale!  Teacher's Notebook is running a For-Real Super Bowl Sale, where you can get my resources on sale for 25% off, plus Teacher's Notebook will take an additional 10% off applied at the checkout.  I have many, but not all, of the same resources in my Teacher's Notebook store that I have at Teachers Pay Teachers.  You can visit my TN shop by clicking on the picture below.

While you are on Teacher's Notebook, you can enter my giveaway.  I'm giving away two copies of my Valentine Math Resource, Love Me True.  Click the picture below to enter.

If you want to see who else is having a sale on TPT, you can visit Fifth in the Middle's blog and view her linky party.

So that's it for this week.  I hope you have a great weekend, and may the best team win.  I'm pulling for the Steelers to win -- oh, wait, my team isn't in (again) this year.  Sigh.  Well, there's always the commercials and the half-time show.  But since it's always more interesting when you're at least cheering for someone to win, I'm going with Denver.  Who do you want to win?

Meet Terry and Lesley!

I sure hope you've been following The Teaching Tribune's daily giveaways!  Today is the next to last day of the giveaway, and I'm super excited to say it's time to meet Terry and ...

ME!

Not only is it time to meet us, but it's time to enter the rafflecopter for today's awesome prize!  I wonder what it will be?  Be sure to head over to The Teaching Tribune, read all about us, and enter for your chance to win the today's fabulous prize!

To celebrate the launch of this awesome collaborative blog, I am taking part in the fabulous Chalk One Up for the Teacher's End of the Month Round-Up.  

All my newer products that I've created this summer will be on sale for two days only, July 31 and August 1, for 50% percent off and the rest will be on sale for 15% off.  Be sure to click on the picture above, head over, and grab your favorite new resource!

And finally, if you follow my Facebook page, you  know I promised you a little freebie to celebrate the beginning of Steeler Training Camp in Latrobe, a huge deal in my neck of the woods.  

So Are You Ready for Some Football fun in your classroom?  Are you ready to bring the excitement of football season into your classroom?  If you are, be sure to download this (temporary - two day only) freebie!  I've included some cards, but you can use it for any subject with any questions!  Click the picture below to get your freebie.

Have a great day!

Schedule Disruption Survival Plan

Before I begin this post, I must make a disclaimer:  I really do love the holiday season.  I love the traditions that surround Christmas, the concerts, the crafts, the Santa's Shops.  I really do.  BUT. . .

Oh my, how they disrupt a daily schedule, and if you teach young children, you know...know...KNOW what a disrupted schedule means...hyper-vigilence on your part and ENGAGING and EXCITING activites to keep them focused.

This week we have -- Monday, dress rehersal for Christmas play.  Monday night, Christmas play, Tuesday afternoon  (all afternoon) Santa's Helper's Craft  Day,  Wednesday morning, mass, Wednesday afternoon, Santa's Secret Shop, and Friday, regulary scheduled superstar student guest reader.  That's a lot of schedule disruption.

So what's a teacher to do?  Pull out the big guns!  Pull out those extra special fun learning games to keep everyone involved.  I've got two I've been saving... one I created just yesterday, and one I created about a month ago.  In math, we've been learning addition strategies, so I created this game.

I'm using one paper dice with numbers on it and one dotted dice.  The idea is the children will practice counting on from the numbered die  instead of counting each dot on both dice.  Most of my kids are getting this concept, but I still notice some putting up fingers for both numbers when adding.  Hopefully, playing this game will help that concept sink in for a few more.  Ive also differentiated the resource by including number dice from 1-6 and 7-12.  This will give you sums to 12 or sums to 18, depending on which die you use with your dotted dice.  This resource can also be used to reinforce subtracting from the bigger number.  Don't you just love a versatile resource?

You can claim this FREEBIE from my TPT store by clicking on the picture above.  For our public school friends who may not be able to race to Bethlehem, I created an alternate version:

 

Same concept as above, but you're racing to the North Pole.  Click on the picture above to grab this FREEBIE from my TPT store.

The other game I've been saving for math class is Elf Toss.

This is a fun and fast-paced game that is similar to bump, but I've added my own unique twist to it.  It also includes worksheets that I can use as homework this work.  So math is taken care of for this week!

In language arts, I will be ditching the reading series for this week -- but not the reading series skills!  This is the week I will pull out my stories of celebrating the holidays around the world.  I have a wonderful SMARTBoard presentation that I found on SMART Exchange.  If you've never looked there, you should check it out.  I use various literature resources and crafts and interactive learning activities to illustrate how Christmas is celebrated in other countries.

In addition, I will be using my Bearly Orderly resource with the whole group and with small groups.  In addition to alphabetical order, we will be practicing phonics and writing skills.

Because of our crazy schedule this week, we probably won't have time to do more than focus on math and Language Arts until at least Thursday.  I think I've got the first three days of the week covered pretty well with my "Schedule Disruption Surivival Plan."  How do you get through weeks like this?