Any teacher in every classroom from all schools knows one thing...Sub plans suck can be a challenge! Whether you need a sub for one week, one day, or even one hour, planning for a substitute teacher can take hours upon hours. For years we've wished we could just take a sub day and walk away! After years of convincing ourselves we weren't as sick as we felt and heading on in, or traipsing into class in the wee hours of the morning when it was still dark because being sick was in for the win, we ... VIEW POST
Sub Plans Made Easy
Top 10 Tips For Your Best Year Ever!
Each new school year brings with it a flood of emotions as teachers. We're excited. We're nervous. We're bummed (Summer, don't ditch us!!). We're exhausted. We're optimistic. Flying into our 15th year teaching first grade together, we've learned a few things about making the best of each new school year. Just like the catchphrases, "Happy Wife, Happy Life." and "If Mama's not Happy, Nobody's Happy." pop into our minds, so does "Keep your Dear Teacher Happy.". But that my friends, will not be ... VIEW POST
100th Day of School
Hip, Hip, Hooray...It's FINALLY the 100th Day of School! Which we all know is "teacher code" for "More than halfway to summer!" Here are a few of our favorite first grade ways to celebrate the 100th day. Everyone needs a party hat, so we created these 100th Day of School crowns for our class kings and queens. We leave one of our Hip Hip Hooray, It's the 100th Day desk mats at each of their places to greet them at the start of our 100th day. They love coloring them to kick off the 100th day of ... VIEW POST
Sentence Chefs Sentence Writing Activities
Sentence building and writing are main ingredients in every primary classroom. Given the right recipe, our developing writers are cooking up a sentence feast! But, it's not always easy...So, by adding a dash or two of fun, our Sentence Chefs beg for the secret sentence recipe time and again in our classroom. Meet the Sentence Chefs! These cooking themed, differentiated sentence building activities include everything to teach, reinforce, and enrich sentence writing in our classroom. We ... VIEW POST
Habitats of the World Lesson Plans
Several years ago, we received the news that habitats had been added to our science curriculum. We loved the idea of taking our students around the world to learn about plant and animal life around the globe! What we didn't expect was that it would take our science curriculum to a whole new level that our students would love. We've received a lot of questions on how we use our Habitats of the World Bundle throughout the year...So climb aboard our plan book...Buckle your belts and let's take a ... VIEW POST
Editable Student Spelling Dictionaries
One of our favorite classroom tools is our Student Spelling Dictionaries! They build responsibility in our students' writing all year long. Here's a Throwback Thursday post from last school year all about them. Our kids learn quickly that we have a class "My Writing Words Rule" that never bends... If you don't see a word, you can ask the teacher, parent volunteer, aide (or whichever other adult is armed and ready with mad spelling skills and a pencil) to write the word in your dictionary ONE ... VIEW POST
