Feelin' The Love

Happy Valentine's Day! We know, we are a day late and a dollar short. But we think you'll be okay with it once you click here. It's our Valentine's Day Graphing Activities free! They are for purchase at our TpT store but we love our readers and want you to have them. So print them off and stash them in your file for next year.

Love <3
-Amy, Tina, and Lindsay

Let's Give Em' Something to Talk About

Okay everyone.  My name is Tina and I am terrible blogger.

Ahhh, now that we have that out in the open, I feel like maybe I can do this.  Believe it or not, I went through high school and college as the one who COULD write....and write...and write.  Fast forward to today. Am I busy at school everyday?  Yes.  Am I doing things I would love to share?  Yes.  Am  I finding time to do that?  No.  I blame the clock.  LOL... I'm a terrible "sister."  Thank goodness for Amy- Sister 3- who keeps our little blog going!   Here I am with time today so I have lots to share!

Let's rewind to July.  (Yes y'all it has been THAT long since I have blogged!!)  The absolute most stressful wonderful time of my life!  I married my best friend.  Yesterday was our 7 month anniversary.  It feels like forever ago but I still remember every moment of that day.  I had such nervous butterflies.  Fear, excitement, nerves....I had it all!  But everything turned out amazing and our first newlywed year of marriage is FLYING by.  I remember as a kid, my parents telling me not to rush time because it goes so quickly.  I totally get it now.  Here are two photos (out of 670) of our big day. 

 Pretty amazing day!  We can't wait to celebrate our first married Valentine's Day.....building a closet organizer in our new room.  Oh yeah....on my little "hiatus" from our blog, we also built a house and moved in.  The pages I could write on THAT topic are intense so I will simply say it was supposed to be done in July and we move in November 1st.  Yes...exactly.  Make your own assumptions.  However I LOVE our new house and we are slowly filling every room and making it a home.  Here is a picture of it before we moved in.  It looks the same on the outside minus the piles of snow all around it. :)

See I have been busy?!?

At school things have been pretty busy as well/.  We started a new math series. It has pros and cons.  We are supplementing it with our own units to make sure we meet all of our standards.  Have any of you started a new series you didn't love?  How did you help yourself to adapt?  We love new and inventive ways to teach things and hate the "same old" but this has some very "different" ways of teaching things.

I currently have a student teacher.  She is only here for about 2 more weeks.  My students love her and she is really getting into the groove.  Her being almost done makes me happy (I miss teaching my students) and sad ( I will miss being able to get things done while she teaches).  I guess all good things must come to an end.

We have been studying informational text A LOT over the last few weeks.  We have used informational guided reading books, taught strategies with informational text, and been working hard on text features.  We've done lots of great things with this but I thought I would share the group posters my class made.  After they leaned about all of the informational text features, they got in small groups to make posters for each one.  These are hanging on a wall by our reading area so students remember these in the future through pictures and words.

This week we are quickly approaching the sugariest most lovable party of the year, our Valentine's Day parties.  They are tomorrow and to use the kids excitement in a positive way, we have been doing many Valentine's Day based activities.  Here's a look at a few.....

I am not sure who to give credit to for the above adorable craftivities but we made these to go with the book Love, Splat.  It is a great story for lower elementary.  These crafts included students writing about ways to show love.  They came up with some cute, creative ways.  Think "buy them a fish" and "hand them a Kleenex."  Out of the mouths of babes!! 

Here we also were making a cute little Valentine craft that went with writing.  Our students have been working on "How-to" writing using order words and organizers.  Today we did our final copy of "How to make a Valentine" and made these heart people to go with it.  Everything is better with a craft right?!?  Especially if you are a second grader.  This how-to writing and craft along with many more are included in our new unit found here.  This unit includes "how-to" writing activities that will last you ALL year!

Well I think I have taken enough of your time caught you up on enough for now.

Have a great day!
~Tina

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is quickly approaching.  Our Valentine activities have been underway for the last week and will be in full force this up coming week.  One of our favorite character's is that sassy Junie B. The kids can't get enough of her.  We just finished reading Junie B. Jones and the Mushy Gushy Valentime!   We completed a literature study on the book last week (really quick read).  Check out the pages below.

 

Our Junie B. Jones pack also includes a Solve It! game.  

 And... a Noun, Verb, or Adjective? sort. 

Sister 2 created this cute contractions match up.  You can find it here! 

On Monday we are going to introduce contractions.  Later in the week we are going to group kids up to play this lovely matching game! 

This upcoming week we are going to be doing the activities from our Very Valentine Pack. We are really looking forward to the Candy Heart Math! 

1 more day!?!?

Happy New Year everyone!  I feel like I have been away from the "school world" for so long yet thinking I only have one more day is making me feel a little anxious.  Now don't get me wrong....I am sure you all feel this way.  NO one feels sorry for us for having to go back to work...and trust me I am NOT complaining about the length of time off.  Just seems like I always have lots of plans and before  I know it, it's time to return.  I've used the last few days to do laundry, returns, take down most of the decorations (no not the tree...yet) and work on some new things for TPT that we will be using soon.  Yes, it's been a BUSY few days.  My boyfriend wonders where I went! :)  I do miss my class and my "sister time" so going back isn't all bad.  To be honest with you, I will mostly just miss sleeping in!  Lol.

I share in Sister 2 and Sister 3's sentiments about our blog and TPT store!  I feel very blessed and excited to see that so many of you have enjoyed the ideas we are sharing and that you are bringing them into your classrooms.  Our first quarter surpassed what all three of us could have imagined.  So thank you, thank you, thank you!  When we return, we will be easing our kiddos back in by working on activities from our New Year's pack as well as our winter pack!  If you have the week or two back covered, you can look ahead as I did over break and start prepping for Valentine's Day!  Yes I said it....but people, February will be here before we know it!  We have created a Valentine unit that is packed with a variety of both ELA and math activities!  You can check it out here.  My class loves data collecting, analyzing, and graphing this year so we've included 3 different activities for this in this pack.  I get so excited making these activities, I forget we like to stay ahead of the game and we have about a month until we can use this!  We also are starting to prepare a few small activities for when we start teaching time and money.  Sister 3 blogged the other day about our telling time scavenger hunt and we've also made a fun money activity where students have to match money amounts, with the correct dollars/cents, with the correct money words.  If you are working on money with your kiddos, or planning ahead as we are, check out our money snowmen here. 

Also some news about when we return, I will be having a student teacher!  This is my third experience having one.  The first two went well and I am anticipating this one to be great also.   I am looking forward to "paying it forward" once again and sharing my knowledge with someone new.  Let's face it, another set of hands is always welcome and I know together, she and I will be able to do so many things with "our" class!  

Well the tree isn't taking itself down now is it?  So I'm off to complete that one last thing around here.  Tomorrow I will help my boyfriend take down the tree we put up at his house  and then it's time to settle in for a few last relaxing hours of vacation.  I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas and New Years!  I hope that we can continue to share great new ideas with you.  If there is anything you would like to see, please feel free to let us know.  We love hearing from you and never stop learning from all of you amazing teachers as well!  

-Sister 1