It's almost May - here's a little freebie

It's almost May and I have a few freebies for you. 

Both of them are Calendar numbers for May.

You can choose between two themes.

 

This one is floral.

 

 

Click Here

 to grab this freebie above

 

 

This next one is simpler

 

Click Here

to grab this other freebie above

 

Calendar Numbers - Freebie

I've just completed my first set of Calendar Numbers.  I really wanted a pastel coloured set for April.  And this year Easter Sunday is in April, so why not? 

 

To download my latest freebie please

 

CLICK HERE

 

Check out some of the images below.

 

I have so say, this year I'm a bit frustrated with the holiday situation.  I don't really have any time to start doing any holiday themed work right now as we are about to perform a musical on Wednesday which will kick off our school-wide Project Chef theme - I'll fill you in on all of that in a few weeks.  It's exciting!

 

But this is the last week before Spring Break.  So St. Patrick's Day is during Spring Break, and we come back to school after Easter is done.  So when should we cover these 2 holidays?   I'm at a bit of a loss right now.  So I made these numbers so I can at least have some Easter decor in my room in April.

Oh Yeah Another Freebie and Cute Clip Art

So I've been busy yet again. 

There's been a lot of illness around my house this past week.

I had a lot of time to sit around and play with my computer.

So I've come up with my first set of real Clip Art to match the freebie background papers that I've posted recently.

 

 

There are 9 different types of banners.  They have all the colours from my previous Brights Backgrounds sets.  All 9 banners are in png format so you can layer them over your background papers.  Check out the closeup of one of those banners below.

 

 

CLICK HERE

 

to download this cute little set from my TPT store.

 

And I also finally got organized and put together my Terms of Use (or TOU as some might say).

Don't worry, there's a copy of it in each of my digital clip art files.

 

 

And, like I said, I've been busy.

So here's another FREEBIE for you.

I would really love to get your feedback on this freebie, and also if you purchase my above banner clip art.  I'm dying to know what you all think.

 

 

CLICK HERE

to download this pack of free background papers.

Here's some previews for you.

 

 

And, as always, thanks for stopping by...

A New Freebie!!

Come and check out my latest freebie in my Clip Art Collection.

 

 

This pack has another set of Bright background papers.  This time it's word bubbles and grungy polka dots for the hipster vibe.  Enjoy!!

 

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

 

or click on the photo above.

Valentine's Freebie

Here's a little Valentine's Day freebie that I made last year - enjoy!

 

 

 

This 17 page freebie is available now.

 

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

\ 

A New Freebie

I promise that I will be posting more these days.  I really do.  I have a student teacher for the next few months, so he should free me up for more bloggin' time.  Or at least, for more creating time.

 

Today I am stepping into another area of the crafting world. 

 

Digital Clip Art

 

I really enjoy playing around with this stuff on my computer so I though I'd try out some free background papers for you to try.

 

 

 

 

To download these freebies, just

 

CLICK HERE

 

and you will be taken to my Teachers' Pay Teachers store and get it for free

 

 

I haven't finalized my Terms of Use, but for now, it's both for

PERSONAL AND COMMERCIAL USE. 

 

Have Fun.  I have a lot more from this set to post up in the next few days.  Please leave me feedback and tell me what you think!

 

 

Post Card from Santa Freebie

 I'm super excited to share this new creation of mine with you.  After having so much success with my Falling Leaves little books, I have decided to start a new series called SUCCESS AT THEIR OWN LEVEL.  It's my approach to differentiated learning. 

 

This is a letter to Santa activity which is good for children of many levels of development from K to 2.  I've broken it up into 3 levels.  The beginning level is good for Kindergarten, Level 2 for grade one, and level 3 for grade 2.  But of course we always have those struggling readers who need a bit of extra support and those more advanced readers who could use an extra challenge. This program would allow a primary class to all write a post card to Santa at their own ability level. 

 

If you'd like your own copy, hop on over to my Teachers Pay Teachers store, or click on the link below to get your own copy.  Remember that I love feedback and would love to hear from you.

 

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

 

 

 

 

And after all of that, I have finally found the time to link up with Farley's Currently over at Oh Boy 4th grade.  Click here to check out the other links.  Don't get me started on how C-R-A-Z-Y this week will be for me.  I'll fill you all in later. 

 

Thanks for stopping by.

Fall Leaves Art and Poem and a FREEBIE!

Here's a cute Art / Language Arts project for Fall that we did last week.

 

 

 

I need to apologize again for the terrible photos, please bear with me.

This is how we made the painting.

First we painted the background.  We used pucks of tempra paint.  I showed the children how to mix blue and black to make a stormy sky.

 

 

Next we painted black streaks on brown construction paper.  When the paint dried I gave the children a tracer to trace and cut out the tree shape.

 

Then we also painted with red, yellow and orange on watercolour paper.  When the paper was dry, we punched out the leaves with the Petal Punch from Stampin Up.  Any leaf punch will do.  The small maple leaves were a punch from the dollar bin at Michaels.  We also used some old scrapbook paper in fall colours that I had lying around.

Next we wrote the fall poems using a frame. (Scroll down for a free lesson prinable!!!)  The kids then typed them in the computer as best they could (with a little editing from me) and I printed them out.  I attached them to some purple construction paper and the kids cut them out using fancy scissors.

This was a very simple activity, but the kids got to experiment with colour mixing, watercolouring, composition, and paper collage.   Adding the language art component added the children's understanding of not only Language Arts and Fine Arts but also of Science.

 

Here's my latest FREEBIE over at Teacher's Pay Teachers.

We used this lesson to generate the poems and put a copy in their Songs and Poems books, then the typed version was added to this art project and hung up for display. This FREEBIE includes the blackline master, a coloured version if you want it for display purposes, a step-by-step guide to the lesson and a 'cheat sheet' to help explain the lesson form.

 

 

 

CLICK HERE

to download.

 

Remembrance Day Freebie

 

 

So this week, for vetrans' day and Remembrance Day, I'd like to mention that I have a little freebie over at Teachers' Pay Teachers

 

CLICK HERE to download

 

 

Math on Mondays - Cute Candy Corn 10 frames

10 frames are amazing, aren't they???

I love how much it helps children organize their thoughts.

10 frames help children keep track of counting,  see number relationships, learn addition to 10, and understand place value.  Check out this video below to explain more about the value of 10 Frames.

 

 

I use 10 frames that I have photocopied out of my teacher's blackline masters from a program called Math Makes Sense 2.  I have hundreds of bingo chips from the dollar store that I keep in little plastic containers with a lid (from the dollar store). 

 

 

I also have made a series of these little cards from another blackline master from my teacher's blackline masters.  I mounted them on card stock and laminated them.

 

 

 

To spice things up for my kids, I found these FREE candy corn 10 frames from

Caitlyn Clabby.  Click here to download. 

She also has tons of ideas for using them in her classroom on her blog.

 

I used them to introduce addition in a whole class activity.

I stuck the candy corn up on the board with a magnet.

Then I had the children replicate it with their own 10 frames and bingo chips.

 

 

 

We did this for a while and then I started combining them together as this set of candy corns goes up to 20.

 

 

Once I combined the chips to "make 10"  I pulled out the candy corn that had the answer on it.

 

 

This is another new feature I'd like to add to Math on Mondays

 

TEN MORE:

 

Here are 10 more resources using 10 Frames or Candy Corn (or both)

 

1.   Young and Lively Kindergarten has a great FREE pumpkin roll and cover 10 frame game. 

2.   Rachel Koontz has several FREE resources including worksheets using candy corn.

3.   Kreative in Kinder has FREE pumpkin ten frames.

4.   Illuminations have some great FREE software activities using ten and five frames.

5.   Confessions of a Primary Teacher has some double ten frame worksheets.

6.   Pink Polka Dots has some FREE cute pumpkin ten frames.

7.   Two Fulbright Hugs  has some great FREE10 frame spinners.

8.  Mathematical Thinking has a FREE 10 frame snake which is fun to play.

9.  Marcia Murphy has a numbers 0 - 10 colouring book using 10 frames.

10.  Elena Ortiz has a great free scarecrow 10 frame game.

 

Falling Leaves Freebie Once Again!

Well it's been a cr-aaaa-zy start to the year.

Let's just say that not only do I have a very large class, I also have a very needy group.

Although I teach Grade 2, I've had to think back to when I taught

kindergarten and try and pull out some of my old tricks.

needless to say, this poor little blog has been

sadly neglected.

 

But I digress...

 

So I'm pulling out an oldie, but a goodie.

 

This little puppy has had over 15,000 dowloads so far

so you might already have it,

but if you don't it's FREE

(my favourite four letter word)

FREE

FREE

FREE

 

 

You can click on the photo above to access it,

or click below.

 

Here's what I wrote when I originally posted this puppy!

 

"This little download has 4 mini books about falling leaves and signs of fall. It's perfect for your 4 levels of guided reading in a grade 1 class. The skills and objectives range from fine motor and tracing, to comprehension and higher level thinking skills. I hope you enjoy this little "puppy". Please, please, please leave me a comment and tell me what you think. I've been busy working on a few other units which I hope to post up tomorrow."

 

So click below for your own FREE copy

 

DOWNLOAD HERE

 

New FREEBIE product on TPT !!!!

I'm totally excited about this new product I just posted on Teachers Pay Teachers. 

And the best part????

It's FREE!!!!!

This is a SCIENCE unit great for any animal study/ biology unit for primary

AND

It's a great unit for teaching beginning Critical Thinking Skills.

Here's a few sneak peeks at the pages.

There are labelling ideas.



Some Language Arts ideas...

Some Art ideas...

And scope and sequence and making decisions ideas.

Please download this FREE product and please let me know what you think about it.

I have plans to make many more units on this theme and I'd love to hear your feeback.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

FOR FREE!!!!!

Freebie Friday

Scroll down for the freebie, but if you're interested, here's a little update on our trip to California.

We're back from our vacation.  I was a crazy lady and decided to travel to California with my 2 kids WITHOUT my hubby.  My parents are down in Palm Springs for the winter, and usually we fly down to be with them.  But due to our house flood and Brad's job of refinishing the basement, we decided that he needed to stay home and work on finishing up the suite.  (which he did and it looks fabulous!)

I bought the tickets at the last moment - (2 weeks before the trip, and the day before we were told we would be losing 3 days pay due to the strike)  I got a great deal on the tickets.  3 of us, flying to California for $550 TOTAL.  fantastic right?  BUT the flight left from Seattle.  So crazy little me decided to drive down to Seattle with the kids for the flight.  I needed to park the car down there for a week, but luckily there are tons of hotels around the airport that will give you a week of free parking if you stay one night at the hotel.  Our flight left at 7 am, so we stayed a night at the hotel before we left.  Super cheap - but a total dump of a hotel.

Anyway, so last Monday we pile in the car to go to Seattle.  As we live in Canada, first we had to drive 1 hour to get to the border crossing.  30 minutes in line, to talk to the customs officials and then off to Seattle right???

NOPE
- Mommy I need to pee!!!
Bathroom break #1. 

Hop back in the car and drive for 15 minutes
- I'm hungry Mommy.
No Snacks in the car - I forgot - drat!

Stop at first fast food place I find - Burger King to the rescue.
Two Child's meals and a sandwich for Mommy later, and we're back on the road.  Bathroom break #2 part of this stop.

Hop back in the car and start driving. 
Torrential rain storm begins.  The water is literally bouncing a foot or two off the ground after it lands.  There is so much water flying off the wheels of other cars and trucks that it's like driving in the fog.

And the whining begins...

Out come the games they got in the child's meal from Burger King.
- Give it BACK!!!!  Connor stole my game!!!!!!!!!  STOP it Connor!!!!!!
Strange crazy animal sounds coming out of my son's voice a la typical 5 year old boy 'aaaarrrrrgggghhhhhhrhhrhrhrh'
'Connor - STOP that'
Evil smile from 5 year old boy.
More strange crazy animal sounds.
I turn up the stereo and continue to drive.

Evil smile on my son's face
- This is MY game
- No it's MINE!  Connor give it BACK!
Driving and trying not to run over little white bumpy things on Interstate which mean I've drifted over the line.  BBBRRUUUMMP!
Get car back in between the lines.
Turn down the stereo.

- Connor, where is Teagan's game???
- I dunno.
- Connor, where is Teagan's game????
- I dunno.
- Connor, WHERE is Teagan's game????
- I DON'T KNOW!!
Let's try a different tactic here, I'm thinking, and BBBRRUUUMMMMPPP - driving over white bumpy things.  Straighten out car between lines, someone's driving on my tail, can't pull over due to large semi trailer truck beside me which is causing me to squint to see through the haze of water coming off it's tires.

- Connor, where is your game???
- Ummmm,  I dunno.
- Connor, whose game are you holding???
-  I dunno.
- Connor, do I need to pull over and get out of the car?  You know if I do that I will be pretty upset.  do you want that??
- Ummm  No!
Deep Breath Mommy
- So WHOSE game are you holding.
- silence
- CONNOR
- um, Teagan's??
- WHAT!!!

Keep car on road Sandra (I'm thinking)  Finally past the semi-trailer, time to change lanes and let the idiot on my bumper pass by.  BBBRRUUUMMMPPPP - whew made it.

Deep breath Mommy
- Give the game back to Teagan.
- but...
-NOW!
Evil smile, and he throws the game at his sister.  Game hits her in the face and falls on the floor where she can't reach it.
- OOOOWWW!  Co-nnerrrrrrrrr!
and the crying starts.

Where can I pull over???  Road signs are hard to read in the haze.
Whoah - am I really driving 120 km/ hour.  These MPH signs are hard to interpret with my Canadian kilomtres spedometer.  Slow down.  No - wait, I think I'm allowed to drive 70mph, which is 120 kmph...60 is 100 right???    BBBRRRRUUUUUMMMMPPPP!
Get car back between the lines.

Crying in back seat is now wailing...
Pass tissue back to crying child.  Trying to stay in straight line on highway, slowing down to 50mph, BBBRRUUUMMPPP - oh, phew, back between the lines.  Child in back seat has tissue, Wait - I think I see a pull out for a gas station coming up...Ow, the headlights of the car behind me are really close, back up buddy, oh, I'm going 50kmph, not 50 mph.  Speed up a bit.

DRAT - missed the exit.

and on it went...

Ever have a day like that??? How about a week??

The swimming pool was the godsend.  The kids swam every day, several times a day.  They had fun, they got more confident in the water,  they got tired.  Seeing that excitement on their faces every day, made the craziness of getting down here worth it

Kinda worth it, I mean.  I got home and slept in 3 days in a row - Brad can get up early now that we're back.

So that's the start of our trip, and the end of my story for now. 

Now on to the FREEBIE!

Sunny Days in Second Grade has posted this adorable Easter Math game for free.  I can't wait to take it back to work and set it up as a Math Centre next week.  It's sooooo cute!

To check out her blog click here.

To go directly to the Freebie link click here.

Wow - am I behind or what???

Wow, I need to get back into regular posting.  I have so many ideas and photos from the past few months that I really want to share with you.  Sometimes life can be really crazy though.

warning - scroll down if you want to avoid the complaining and get to the teaching stuff  :)

I think I posted pictures of our house flood a few months ago.  Well, putting the basement back together has been another story in itself.  Let's just say that it's causing a lot of stress.  Part of the problem is that we hired my BIL to work on part of it, and his marriage (to my SIL) is crumbling and unfortunately he cannot separate us as his family, from us as his clients.  So let's just say we finally had to fire him and hire someone else.  Needless to say, Brad is busy trying to do a lot of the work himself.  Last weekend he tiled the basement and then I helped him grout it the next day.  We have flipped 3 other houses, but this was supposed to be our final move, and this house was not supposed to need work right away - but sometimes fate just takes these decisions right out of your hands.

The biggest stress in our house right now is financial, as I'm sure many of you have experienced lately.  Starting on Monday, the Teachers Union in British Columbia is going on strike.  My hubby is a teacher too, so it's a big financial hit.  And although we have house insurance, the flood uncovered some other major repairs that were not covered.

And to top it all off, our cat nearly died.  He ate a bird and it somehow made him very sick.  He may look like a cat, but he's actually a dog in a cat's body.  How many cats do you know that come when you whistle?  He's a really important part of our family and he's only 9 years old.  But it looks like he's pulling through so that's a relief.

OK - now it's safe - back to the teaching stuff!!

Firstly, I wanted to post up some photos of how I put together the heart pop-up card that was included in my free Valentine's Unit. 

Click Here for a free copy of the Valentine's Unit. 

Oh, BTW, apparently I cannot spell Valentine's properly and I've fixed up a few spelling mistakes, so now you can get the updated version. I know Valentine's Day has passed, but if you are a super organzied person, you just might want it for next year.

Now on to the pop-up card.  I apologize in advance if you find it confusing.  I took photos of several different cards so they are all different colours.

Here are the two pages from the Pop-up card  One is the blackline master (below) and the other is the instruction sheet. (on the left)

First I copied the  blackline master onto coloured paper.  The children coloured the heart as brightly as they could with a red crayon.  Then they cut it out.

Then I helped them fold the card as in the instruction sheet above.  To the right is a photo of the yellow card folded closed.  The missing corner is where the heart folds in.

Then I attached the colured paper card to a white cover.  You need to fold the larger white cover in half and then line up the folds (as with the pink card below).  I glued down one side at a time.

So when the card opens, the heart pops up!  Below you will find a few more photos to show you exactly what I mean.

 

You can decorate the cover any way you want.

I apologize for the photo below, but for some reason, Blogger keeps on turning this one sideways when I load it.  So if you lean to the right it's easier to see.  This is how my class decorated the cover.  We punched hearts out of tissue paper with a heart punch (which was an event in itself) and then made a colourful heart collage.  I precut the rectangle fo them to glue to, and then they trimmed off the extras when it was dry before they glued it down to the cover.  The red heart image and sentiment is a Stampin' Up! stamp.  I stamped it onto paper for each child and they cut them out and glued them on top of the collage themselves.  This way every child got a colour copy of the sentiment.

I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial.  Please leave a comment as I love to hear what you think!