We're gearing up for our second year with Common Core and needed a quick and easy place to reference the standards and track student progress. Carson-Dellosa sent us this gem and it's going to be a great tool to keep us and our students on track! The Common Core Assessment Record Book has all of the standards at our fingertips in an easy to follow format that helps us reference and record quickly as our class works through the standards all school year long. It also includes a ... VIEW POST
Common Core Assessment Record Book
Ocean Themed Classroom & First Day of School Freebie
We posted this picture of our fish themed first day of school activity on our Instagram page the other day and had a lot of requests to share! One of our favorite first day of school activities to welcome our new school of fish into our ocean themed classroom is to create these O-FISH-Al Welcome Back Bands. It gives our first graders a little down time during their long first day back to school, and it gives us a quick first day assessment to see how their coloring and cutting skills are from ... VIEW POST
Fabulous Finds for the New Year Linky
By now, we're thinking 2013 is here to stay...Twenty days into the Big 1-3 and we've finally turned the page on 2012, had to void a few checks that our pencils just refused to write the new number on, and we're cruising towards 2014 for one reason and one reason only...13 is an unlucky number! But, we're bound and determined to turn that little superstition around this year because we cannot go around throwing salt over our shoulders for 365 days we're just "glass half full" kinda ... VIEW POST
Teacher Created Resources ~ Classroom Pick Me Up and Step Into Spring Giveaway!
Decorating our classroom is a passion of ours. We spend an awful lot of time there, so we should love it! Naturally we were delighted when Teacher Created Resources contacted us to offer a few of their new classroom decor items. Here's what arrived at our door! A box full of chevron and polka dots...which we adore! We've had our eyes on two areas of our classroom that needed some serious TLC. Our Guided Reading Area Before... Our Calendar Board Before... These ... VIEW POST
Our Lucky Rainbows March Writing and St. Patrick’s Day Activities
We are lucky! We don't mean "Take me to Vegas" lucky...That will be in July! In March, we write reasons why we are lucky. We made Bubble Maps on our whiteboards with the labels, I know... I have... I am... I can... Our lucky little leprechauns realize there are so many reasons they are lucky! So after a quick check of their whiteboards from us larger leprechauns, they are given their pot of gold and rainbow to quickly disappear into deep thought as they write and color their own reasons on ... VIEW POST
Bright Ideas Blog Hop
Fishies Can't Write ~ Writing with Class Mascots Teaching our students to master writing mechanics has always been a big challenge for both of us. Most of them come to us barely able to compose a complete sentence. Most of them need to leave writing a complete paragraph. We work hard all year to move mountains build their writing confidence, but sometimes it takes a little help from our friends...Our fishy friends. We've always maintained a class aquarium for our students. Last week, our ... VIEW POST