Lovey Dovey Valentine's Day

Hello, hello!  We're back with some fun ideas for this month.  We decided to share some LOVE for Valentine's Day this month for I {heart} January!

Here are a few things I've done for Valentine's Day over the years.  First up, of course we must focus on the academics as we lead up to Valentine's Day.  It can't ALL be candy and games, right?

We do a little How-To writing on How to Make a Valentine and put it together in this fun flip book.

We also do some reading, of course.  Here are some of the cute books that I love to read aloud around Valentine's Day.  

We do a variety of activities with these books, but sometimes we just read for fun.  Imagine that in the common core days.  That's right - I'm a rebel.  Haha!!!  

This is a little writing and craft that goes with The Day it Rained Hearts.  I love tapping into the kids imagination and asking what they would do if things from books happened to them.  It's that great way of modeling for our kids that reading is all about getting lost in a book and becoming part of the story. So we put them into the story as often as we can.  For this quick writing I have the kids think of "the most amazing thing" that could happen after it rains hearts.  They always come up with some fun ideas!

Around Valentine's Day, it's fun for kids to talk and share about all the different things they LOVE.  I mean, really, any time of year 1st graders want to talk about themselves.  Am I right?  So here is a cute heart shaped book that we make and they love sharing with their friends.  The pages have People I love, Things I love, People who love me, and How I show my love.

The next thing we love to do is make valentines and cards for the people we LOVE.  Here is a cute card we have made for parents and other loved ones.  

On Valentine's Day we love to play games at our classroom party.  I compiled a quick little list of some of the simple games we've played.  Maybe you will be able to use a couple of these at your next party. 

Here is a little Valentine Bingo freebie if you'd like to use it.  The kids create their own bingo boards.  Click the picture to grab it.  

Side note: Years ago when I started creating these bingo boards I would have my students generate the words we would use.  One of my favorite little boys wanted to use the words: Lovey Dovey.  The whole class erupted in giggles!  I will never forget it!!  So in honor of him I titled this post Lovey Dovey and of course included it in the bingo board.  :)

I can't forget to mention that throughout the week/weeks before Valentine's Day we also do a variety of themed literacy and math centers and activities.  

All of what I mentioned above and much more is included in my NEWLY UPDATED Valentine's Day pack.  If you already have it, you will want to re-download it - I added over 50 pages!!!  If you don't already have, it's on sale for the weekend so go grab it.  

Here's some more of what's included in the pack.

Thanks for stopping by for this edition of Weekend Warriors.  My friends below have more amazing ideas to share with you so check them out!

Have a great weekend!!! :)

100th Day, Groudhog Day, and Valentine's Day

Although our local weathermen are not predicting March to begin with Lion-like weather, I'm just going to pretend that is what's happening.  That way, March can go out like a Lamb, which is the more important part of this whole process.  How does that sound?  If I just pretend and believe it, maybe it will come true!   So as far as  I'm concerned, March is coming in like a lion and WILL BE GOING OUT LIKE A LAMB!!!  Anyone else on board with me?????

So to make it official I am having an In Like a Lion Sale on TpT and TN.  Check out my store from Friday March 1st - Sunday March 3rd.  

Next up is a new Linky Party!!!!  If you are thinking Spring like I am, then head on over to Second Grade Nest for Jessica's March Link-Up.  You can find products for Dr. Seuss, St. Patrick's Day, Spring, and Easter!  It's like a one-stop shop!!!  

Now for a little recap of what my room looked like in February.  As I explained in my "I'm A Slacker" post, I was a little pooped once February hit because I worked my little tush off all January long.  It was the end of our 2nd marking period so report cards were due, I was creating new units like crazy to get myself all the way up to St. Patrick's Day and then I had to sit back and coast a little.  So long story short, I didn't take a lot of pictures or post much about what we were doing.  So here is a quick (VERY quick) rewind to show you what we've been working on.  I hope you find some new ideas for next year - sorry I'm late :-(

Let's start with Groundhog's Day:

We started off our day by reading the book, Go to Sleep, Groundhog by Judy Cox.  So cute!!!

Then we went into the typical Groundhog Graphing and making predictions about whether the Groundhog will see his shadow.  I used activities from these two items on TpT.  When I got them they were free --- but I'm sorry to say that they are not free anymore.  However, both authors added some adorable activities to them before pricing them and they look super cute!  So click on the picture to check out the updated version!

From Sharing Kindergarten I got this adorable poem that the kids cut up and put in order.  I wanted to make it a little cuter so I drew..... that's right, for those of you who know me, you can pick your jaw up off the floor.....I did draw this little guy!  I've figured out that I am capable of drawing but ONLY when I'm looking at a picture.  Trying to create something from scratch is not my thing.  I give SO much credit to all you wonderful Clip Art Artists out there!!!!!  

I don't have this drawing scanned in, but if I get to it I will upload it on here if anyone wants it :)

(I like the kiddo who added a little COLOR to the groundhog --- brown does get boring :-)

100th Day:

We had a little snack to celebrate 100!  I thought this was my original idea since I was standing in the supermarket wondering what to get and this came to mind.  Now I'm wondering if there may have been some "Pinspiration" that I saw somewhere but I never pinned it.  So I'm not sure if this was mine or not!

Read a couple books...

 Made this cute little gumball machine.  The idea came from Little Miss Glamour Goes to Kindergarten.  We used bingo dobbers and it was SUPER easy.    

Click below to get the label for the gumball machine.  

One more thing we did was this writing activity.  I completely forgot to get pictures of these, and they came out SO cute too!  We made a class book out of them.  Click on the picture to get your FREE copy too.  

Valentine's Day:

I used a lot of activities from Erica Bohrer's Valentine's Day Pack.  She has since added more to this pack, but I won it in a giveaway so I don't have the updated version.  You can click on the picture to go to her store and check it out.  I especially loved her "Some Bunny Loves You" card using a handprint.  They came out so cute - sorry no pics again :(

We also worked with the centers and activities in my Valentine's Day pack.

 At our Valentine's Day party we played Bingo.  You can get your FREE copy of these sheets by clicking on them.  I used a 4x4 so the games went faster and we had more winners.  The kids chose which words and where to put them on the board.  A little cut and paste and you're ready for bingo.  Of course, we used conversation hearts as markers.  

President's Day:

Finally, we ended the month with President's Day.  

After reading and learning about both of these presidents, the kids had the chance to "Show What You Know" in these two projects from my Happy Birthday, Mr. President Pack.  

I'm sorry that was a VERY BRIEF recap of our month.  I'll try to be better in March with taking pictures and sharing more often.  I hope you are able to grab the freebies to use next year!

Don't forget to enter these two amazing giveaways........only a few days left!

Happy ALMOST Friday!!!!

Valentine's Day Fun for Sale

Apparently I just can't get enough of snowmen......and penguins!!!  These adorable Penguins from Scrappin' Doodles inspired me to make some cute math and literacy centers.  I tried to pick skills that my little ones need more practice with, so hopefully other people will also find these useful.  Here is a quick sneak peek into what is included in this pack.  

If you can't really tell from the pictures, here is the table of contents:

My lower readers are really struggling with getting past CVC words, so I made a Make-a-Word center using digraphs onsets.  I also made a Rhyming Go Fish center that includes CVC words and words with blends and digraphs.  I'm hoping these will help them continue to work on stretching out these sounds.  Although we continue to work on complete sentences, this is a great area to review and an easy center to implement.  I chose to do this with the Mixed-Up Valentines scrambled sentences.  Finally, I added just a couple generic pages for a free writing center because my kiddies love this!

For math I knew I needed to do some more work with ten frames and addition so I included two centers  - Combinations of 10 and Sweet Sums using a twenty frame.  They always need help with ordering numbers so I put one of those in there.  And last but not least, I made some number puzzles where they will need to find one less, one more, ten less, and ten more of certain numbers.  This one will be TRICKY, but it's SOOOO common core!  It's definitely a tough thing for them to do this early in the year, but by the end of the year they need to master it, so why not get started.  

I decided to place this unit on sale for the first 3 days (until Friday 1/25).  Just click on the picture below.  I'm hoping others will find it useful at this point in the year as well.  

If you're reading this, I'd love to know what skills your kids are working on and/or struggling with at this point in the year?  Compared to the other first grades at my school, my kids are a little lower, but I wasn't sure where other kids are at.  Leave me a comment.  After the sale is over I will pick one lucky comment to get this unit for free.  

Thanks for stopping by!  :-)