Follow Me on Facebook & Let's Shop!

Anyone else have a busy weekend? Mine was go, go, go. Phew. I volunteered and hung out with some good friends at local Derby Day event. It was a cold and very windy day but we had fun anyways.

The event took place at a local stable/horse farm and it was beautiful!

Of course it wouldn't be a Derby event without a Derby hat! 

Today kicked off Teacher Appreciation Week. Some of my kiddos came in with some sweet treats for me. 

One kiddo gave me this huge elephant! How cute is it? It is also SO soft I just wanted to hug it all day. :)

I also got an Appalachian bucket that ended up full of little treats by the end of the day. 

Speaking of Teacher Appreciation, who's ready for a big Teachers Pay Teachers Sale?!!!! 

I am!!! Everything in my tpt store is 28% off when you use the code TAD13 at checkout.

I've also started a Facebook Page. I'm excited to use this as a way to communicate, interact and offer freebies and have giveaways with you all. I've got a Life Cycles Metamorphosis Sort/Freebie up right now, all you have to do is like Second Grade Style on Facebook.

Alright, I'm off to work on my wish list for tomorrow. Happy shopping everyone!

Five for Friday

What - my five for Friday is actually going live on Friday? I know, shocker huh? :)

1. Last week we read a Bad Case of Stripes as our story of the week. I couldn't resist Clutter Free Classroom's Writing Activity that goes with the book. The kiddos striped themselves and wrote about their favorite foods using their senses. They turned out awesome and they were very into it!

I love black olives! 

2. For our word study this week we looked at Shades of Meaning, aka closely related synonyms. We talked about how words can be synonyms but not mean exactly the same thing - some are "weaker" and some are "stronger". I got an awesome pack on TPT - Charades of Meaning by Teaching & Tapas. It had lots of fun games and activities. We also made shades of meaning kites. 

They wrote their names on the kites and then I gave them 4 synonyms that were closely related and they had to put them in order of "strength". 

I love how they turned out and they are really starting to get this objective! (Which is awesome since it was definitely one of those objectives that I had to do research on at the beginning of the year to figure out what it meant!)

3. I don't have a picture but I met my first bloggy/internet friend. Stephanie from First Grade Fabulous Fish and I met up for dinner. We had a blast chatting - our poor waitress felt bad interrupting us to take our orders haha! Stephanie is super sweet, be sure to check her blog out!

4. We've had book fair going on at school. I just LOVE books! I feel like I could never have enough! My mom packs up my books for me every track out and always says I do NOT need anymore haha. I had some sweet kiddos get me some things from my wish list.

I'm working on a reading group guide for this one. Stay tuned!

Can't wait to read this one on Monday to the kiddos! We are BIG Mo Willems fans! 

5. I'm going to give away a copy of my new unit, Ungrouping Unlimited with a little pin it to win it fun. All you have to do is pin one of the images below and then leave a link to your pin in the comments. I'll pick a random winner on Sunday. 

Have a great weekend!

Long Live the Pencil Sharpener!

Pencils. Oh pencils! I often tell my assistant that I think I will be buried in unsharpened pencils. There's nothing like calling on a student in the middle of an awesome lesson and hearing "my pencil broke!".

I have been through the gamete of pencil sharpeners. Last year I even ordered and paid for two new electric ones myself. And every time it's the same thing - they work for a little bit and then stop working.

So when the kind folks at Classroom Friendly Supplies offered to send me a Classroom Friendly Pencil Sharpener to review I was more than excited! Yes, yes and yes!!

I received my sharpener in less than 3 days - I was eagerly tracking the shipment. As soon as I got home yesterday to find it in my mailbox I got it out and gave it a try.

After taking it to school today and showing it to my kids, the verdict is - I LOVE THIS THING!

It clamps nicely to a table.

I love that it holds the pencil - no shoving and breaking the blades. 

It works very well and really gets the pencils sharp. The kids can't over

sharpen pencils either.

Look at all of those sharp pencils ready for a day of learning! :) I'm so excited to have this sharpener!

Go ahead and get yours now - you will not be disappointed!

Classroom Friendly Pencil Sharpener

Five For (Someday)

Yeah, I'm way late but I love Five for Friday so I'm going with the better late than never motto. :)

1. The main reason I had no time to post Friday or yesterday was that I was throwing my bestie's baby shower. We've been friends for a long time now and I was honored to be able to help her celebrate and prepare for the arrival of her soon to arrive son!

All 3 of my best friends are preggo! (I'm on the far right.) 

I spent a lot of time making cute things for the shower. I loved using some cute clipart from Sarah at the Hazel Owl.

2. Last week I introduced contractions and we did contraction surgery using a wonderful pack from First Grade Fever by Christie. The kiddos had so much fun and loved being called Dr. so-and-so. 

3. Last Friday for some fraction fun we made play-doh. It was a blast and really good practice using fractions in real life. I used a recipe I found online for kool-aid play-doh. It smelled amazing! I did have to add way more flour and salt than the original recipe called for. After we made the play-doh the kiddos made shapes and practiced cutting them into halves, thirds and fourths. 

As you can see my table area was a HUGE mess when we finished! 

4. It's no secret that I love elephants. I get elephant pictures, keychains, and stuffed elephants all the time from my sweet kiddos. One darling gave me this sock elephant that she made over break for me. I about cried it was so sweet! I felt so loved!

5. In TPT news I finally finished my Ungrouping Unlimited unit. It's all about teaching students how to subtract using place value only, NOT borrowing! I can't wait to share some pictures of my kiddos work this week.

It includes:

- A parent letter explaining why ungrouping is so important

- A strategy poster

- A strategy example

- Put Borrow to Bed Activity & Poem

- Pre-Test

- Place Value Mats

-Subtraction Sort

- QR Crack the Code

- I SPY Subtract & Match

- Spinning Subtraction

Head on over to my TPT store to check it out. I hope it helps your students really understand subtraction of larger numbers!

Let's Get Acquainted {Linky}

Yay, another linky! I'm linking up with Flying into First Grade.

This week is all about Favorites.

Favorite Place to Shop - You mean I have to pick just one!!! :)

Target. As in if it's at Target I might need to GET it. I LOVE this store! It's so bad for my wallet to go in Target. 

Michaels is another favorite store of mine. I love to craft - I have a whole room in my house dedicated to it. Just walking through Michaels is like a treat to me. I get so inspired!

Favorite TV Show - Hands down, Parks and Recreation. It's so funny! I want to be Leslie Knope when I grow up!

Favorite Sweet Treat - Frozen Yogurt! There are tons of froyo places around me. I'm not a big topping person. My favorite place is Yogurt Mountain. Especially the watermelon sorbet.

Favorite Food - I like a lot of foods. I'm not a super picky eater. I'll go with seafood for this one. Shrimp, scallops, crab cakes. Mmmmmm Mmmmmm!!

Favorite Restaurant - So many choices! A local favorite is Salsa Fresh, a mexican place. I also really like sushi. When I visited my friend Amber in Belize a few years ago we went to an amazing restaurant called Cactus Plaza. I made here take me back, it was so good! Fresh mexican food served by the sweetest people while you sit outside not far from the bay drinking a pineapple Fanta. I wish it wasn't so far away!!

Head on over and link up too! I'd love to hear some of your favorites!http://flyingintofirst.blogspot.com/2013/03/lets-get-acquainted-linky-time-link-up.html

Currently: April

I'm linking up with Farley for April's Currently.

Source

Listening - I am so obsessed with the movie Pitch Perfect! I absolutely love it! I've watched it at least 5 times in the past 2 months. This weekend I found it at Target for $10 and immediately bought it. I also have the soundtrack and I listen to it over and over! 

Loving - I loved the long holiday weekend. I already had my track out a few weeks back so I'm not on Spring Break but a 3 day weekend was great! I got a lot of things done around the house, worked on some tpt projects, relaxed and celebrated Easter with my family and friends. I had 2 Easter meals yesterday and I thought I would never eat again I was so stuffed! (Wish the me from yesterday could convince the me of today of that!)

Thinking - It is definitely busy season! At school I'm trying to get my kiddos ready for some testing that's coming up, plan a field trip, get ready for our class play, and you know do the regular teaching, grading, planning, and more. I've also got a lot of events coming up, including throwing my best friend's baby shower in a few weeks. I'm so excited for it but I'm such a perfectionist with wanting everything to be super cute! 

Wanting - I didn't go anywhere during track out or the long weekend and I just really want to get away! I wish I could go somewhere tropical! I am going to the mountains in June so I'm excited for that but I still am thinking I need to plan a big vacay for sometime next year!

Needing - I was sick when we first tracked in with a nasty cold/infection/virus. I'm feeling much better but I'm still coughing and completely exhausted by the end of the day. And I haven't been able to go back to working out since I get out of breath so quickly - I miss my Zumba time!

Advice - I haven't been around blogging or tpt for very long but I can say that the teaching blog community is wonderful. I have truly loved meeting new people that are so kind and helpful. I also have learned that it's important to be a people person and interact with others. 

Five For Friday (Linky)

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five For Friday.

1. I was sick last week as I tracked in. Cough, sore throat, congestion and fever. Yuck, it was no fun! I was also in my dear friend Sarah's wedding on Saturday and I hated that I didn't feel good but I pulled through anyways. When I got home I found this on my bed from my roommate. I love elephants!

2. As we reviewed behavior and expectations as a class the kids voted on their scoreboard prize. I use the scoreboard technique from Whole Brain Teaching. To up the ante, I decided to have them choose a special prize to work towards. Every day that they win the scoreboard I mark a "win point" at the bottom of the scoreboard. When they get to 15 they will now get free time on the ipads (we have a school ipad cart that we can check out). (Please excuse the blurry picture!)

3. This week we read The True Story Of The 3 Little Pigs. What a fun book!

We also read an original version of the 3 little pigs and compared and contrasted the 2 stories. I had the kids use stickies to make a large venn diagram type chart. 

4. Every day we look at a word of the day (from our story of the week). This year I have used Kristen from Ladybug Teacher's Files' word rock organizer. Until now we even sang "Word Rock" - I just changed the lyrics of party rock to be more about words. Right before track out I decided that we needed a new song, we were all kind of tired of word rock. So now we are singing "Word on Fire" set to the tune of Alicia Keys' "Girl on Fire". For the chorus we all get out our air guitars and jam! It is the cutest and most hilarious thing ever!

5. I made some Spring Calendar Task Cards just in time for April. I put mine behind the date numbers in my calendar pocket chart and then the leader of the day takes the card out during morning meeting and answers the question or leads the class in the activity. They are a quick way to review previously taught concepts. Head on over to my TPT store to get yours for FREE. Happy Spring!

I hope everyone enjoys their long Easter weekend/spring break!