Happy Earth Day!

Happy Earth Day everyone (and Happy Birthday to my dad =)!!!!

Today we started out with a quick, but important morning message.

We read this adorable new book in the Pinkalicious series by Victoria Kann.  My daughter loves these books (and so do I).  This one is about how Pinkalicious and her brother go to their favorite park and it is covered in garbage.  With a little magic from a very special flower turned wand, they are able to clean up the park and make it beautiful again.  

 Next, we did a little recycling sort and graph while discussing the importance of recycling.

Click here to get it - it's free! --->

I picked up a couple more freebies to use as well--------

This emergent reader by Angela Griffith:

And these adorable crafts from Grade School Giggles that I shared in my Five for Friday.  I changed it a little because I loved this idea I had seen with the arms and legs.  Super cute!!!   

When you lift up the Earth, there is a short writing about how we can help the Earth.

 We ended the day by planting marigolds that will eventually go home to our Mom's for Mother's Day.  

It was a great day at school.......

but I have to share a funny story that happened when I got home with my 4 year old.  

First of all, the other day we found this little big guy in our backyard.  It's a snapping turtle - YIKES!  My husband scooped him into our recycling bin with a shovel and drove him to an open swampy land to let him go ---- safe and sound, but not near us!

So here's the funny part - 

Today, my daughter Lauren asked me what I did with my students today.  Well I told her about the things mentioned and about how important it is to recycle.  She thinks for a second and asks, "Did we recycle the turtle the other day?"  

So stinkin' cute!!!!  I guess in a way we did recycle him =)

Two little updates before I'm done for today. . . . . .

My End of the Year pack, Farewell Firsties, is on sale TOMORROW ONLY for 40% as one of the Daily Deals on Teacher's Notebook.  Click on the picture to get it!

Don't forget to check out our Product Swap and enter the GIVEAWAY!!!!!

Have a great week!!!

Product Swap and GIVEAWAY!!!

I have joined in for my second product swap through Jessica Stanford's blog.  I was lucky enough to be paired with Ellen Closs, otherwise known as Beach Teacher.  Not only am I lucky to have been matched with such a kind and creative teacher, but she also let me review TWO of her products!!!!  See what I mean????  She ROCKS!!!

Click below if you'd like to just hop right over and pay her a visit on her blog or at her store.  She has TONS of fun games and activities for both Math and ELA.

     

I had the privilege of using and reviewing Ellen's Weather Unit and Football Math.   

My students had lots of fun working through the Weather Unit.  Right now my students are working on their posters.  They really enjoyed the variety of activities that were included in this unit.   I wanted you all to see the great activities too, so I tried to mix some of my student's work along with snapshots of the activities in this unit so you could see for yourself.  

Next up was Ellen's Football Math games.  This game is so fun and can be used and reused with different concepts.  As you'll see below, she has included playing cards for Addition, Subtraction, 3 Addend Addition, Fractions, 2-D and 3-D Shapes, and Telling Time.  We used the 3 Addend Addition first and I plan on using the Telling Time cards next.  I also can't wait to break these games out next year around Super Bowl season!  Take a peek below to see the game in action.

Be sure to head on over to Ellen (aka Beach Teacher's) blog and TpT Store to pick up a copy of these awesome products.  You can also enter below to see if you can be lucky enough to win all 3 products in the swap.  You should also head over to Ellen's blog so you can read her review.  She is reviewing my Common Core Math Centers - Set 2.  Click on the picture to check it out.  

And of course, don't forget to enter the giveaway so you can win ALL of these products!!!  

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Farewell Firsties Giveaway

I'm super excited to post my end of the year pack that I just finished!!!

So I think it's time for a giveaway...

Here is a snapshot of what it looks like:

In order to enter this mini-giveaway you have to do the following things:

1. Follow my blog if you haven't already (and don't forget my store and Facebook page you don't miss out on any new ideas and freebies)

2.  PIN this pack either from this post or from my store.

3.  Leave a comment below with the Pinterest URL and your email.  

I will pick a winner on Friday, April 19th.  

You can enter more than once by pinning it more than one time.  

Happy Pinning!!!

The Incredibly Shrinking Document!!!

This is a quick post, but I had to share what I discovered today.  This is most likely something that most people have discovered, but if you haven't yet --- maybe I can be the person to help with that.

I finally was ready to use my Measuring with Peeps center today.  Click HERE to go to the post and get it yourself - it's FREE.  Yes, I know that Easter is over, but we just didn't get to it before Spring Break.  So as my students were working on it I noticed that the lines didn't line up the way they were supposed to.  I made sure to create the images and the measuring "tool" so they would match up correctly while measuring, but that wasn't happening.  

These are the two measuring "tools' and a couple of the pictures from this document.  Maybe you can tell from the picture that they DO line up in the document.  So to try to figure out what went wrong when I printed, I first tried printing from the original document.  I created it in Pages.  It printed out the correct size.  Then I tried to print the PDF using Adobe Reader and that was when it shrunk.  

So normally, this wouldn't be a huge deal and obviously I've never noticed it before.  But for a measuring activity - it is a big deal.  So I did some Googling and found the solution.  Here is how you fix it: 

So if you downloaded this freebie, OR if you have ever had this problem where images shrink when printing ---- then double check your printing options.  

I hope this helped you as much as it did me =)

Whyyyyyyyyyyy????????

Yes I am screaming that outside my front door right now as I look at.....

THIS!!!!!

AND THIS out my back door!!!!!

I wish I had taken a picture over the weekend when it was sunny, blue skies, around 50 degrees, and you saw GREEN when you looked out my doors instead of WHITE!!!  

NO MORE WHITE!!!

In two days the weather forecast shows sun and 50 degrees again, so I'm hoping this is just nature's April Fool's trick and we can finally move onto spring!

I know this was not at all educational, but I had to share :)