Sunday, September 30, 2012

Fall Math Freebie

I have been terrible about posting lately!  I feel like all that I do is work, work, work and I haven't had any time to do fun things like blog! Now don't get me wrong, I still spend a fair amount of time blog stalking but haven't had time to share anything I'm doing!!! 

I am new to many things this year, and Investigations is one of them!  Our district has mapped out how to use the program and part of that includes pulling parts from other grade levels.  So, we've been playing Capture 5 from the third grade level.  Most of my kids really enjoy playing, and others are still a bit lost - and therefore not really interested!  Sooo, I made a fall version of the game. to make it a little bit more of a draw to those kiddos  This is played exactly the same way as Capture 5, so you can use the number cards (+10, -10, +3, -1, etc.) from the program.  I just made a fun game board and instead of using chips as markers, you use pumpkin markers :-)  I printed the game board on green construction paper and the pumpkin markers on orange.  Click on picture below for game board and here for pumpkin markers.  Enjoy :-)

 
 

Monday, September 17, 2012

Freebies!

The beginning of the year has been a crazy blur of events!  I haven't had time to blog or really do much of anything other than try to make sure I have lesson plans done, copies made... basically, just trying to survive!

Here are a couple of freebies for you.  I like to have everything "cutified" so these are just some things I made for binders :-) Click on picture to download from my Teachers Notebook shop!



 
 
I hope to get things under control in my classroom and have more time to blog soon!
 
 



Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Bucket Filling Freebie, Art Gallery, Made it Thursday?, and more!

I'm so sorry I haven't posted in a while!  Whew, can I just say that I am completely exhausted?  I love being a classroom teacher and I am sooo enjoying all the lesson planning and fun activities that I can incorporate... but wow is it a LOT of work!!!

Here are a few things that have kept me away from blogging! 

I changed one of my bulletin board and made it a bucket filling board.  I have a class bucket and some compliment starters.  We will read out of the bucket each Friday!  I'm worried that some students won't have something about them, so I'm going to fill out one for each student!


I also put a reminder sign on our door!

 
I just love the font I found to make the signs, it's matches the Bucket TM sign!  The i's are dotted with hearts :-)
 
 Here are links to download the word signs and the TM'd Bucket, I got the image on line and just made it bigger!
 
 
 
 
I finally got my art wall started.  I am working at an arts magnet school, so I wanted to create a space to exhibit student art work.  It was really hard for me to veer away from my bright greens and blues, but I wanted to have more neutral colors so that the focus was on the student's art work and not the sign. I have a few projects with no names that will need to be claimed tomorrow before Back-to-School Night!
 
 
 
These apples came out so cute!  They are pointilism apples inspired by the work of Georges Seurat.  We studies a bit about Seurat and looked at some large prints of his work.  The students used Q-tips and water colors to create a pointilism apple.  They LOVED this project!!!  I wish I could take credit for it, but another 2nd grade teacher on my team got me started with it.  Thank you Catherine!  Below is a closer look at one of the apples.
 
 
 
I used black card stock and glued small clothes pins on it to hang their art work on.  I printed their names on small mailing labels to show who the pieces belong to.  I stole that idea from the third grade hall!!!
 
 
I also got all of my owls hung up under my sign that reads "Mrs. Zuniga's Wise Owls."  I got the sweet little polka dot owls from Schoolgirl StyleI absolutely LOVE her stuff!  That is where I got the polka dot lanterns that I made my owls out of - can't remember if a credited her on that one (if not, I should have!)   I haven't figured out how to add text onto the owls - I think I need to upgrade my Adobe- so I printed student names on small mailing labels and put them on each owl.  This is a terrible picture... I will take another one tomorrow!
 
 
 
If I had been anywhere close to functioning well on Monday, I would have posted this on Made it Monday (I did make it Monday!)  This was just a quick project I did so that I had a place to hang the hall pass clips we are all using at our school this year.  I used a cookie sheet from the dollar store, left over stickers from my attendance board, and glued ribbon to the back (it's a very light cookie sheet) to attach it to the wall.  I put an owl cut out to hide the old call button on the wall!

 
 




 
Click here for tutorial on how to make the number magnets.  The sign is a little cramped, but it works!!!
 
I have more super fun art projects to share.  I'm still finishing some up and hope to have them ready to hang for Back-to-School night tomorrow!  One of these days I may go to sleep before midnight... I'm just not sure when!!!
 
 
 


Sunday, September 2, 2012

First week of school - Complete!!!

First week of school is done!  I made it to the light pedicure at the end of the tunnel week!  All of that preparation and worry about my move to second grade  was wiped out after Day 1... and replaced by fear that my feet wouldn't make it to their appointment on Saturday!  Luckily, it all worked out and I have pampered tootsies :-)




I promised myself that I would only work on Saturday and take the next two days off.  Yeah, that hasn't happened.  I am enjoying planning though - it's so much more fun than planning for small group, direct instruction!  Thank goodness for TPT and an amazingly supportive team member (who is a fellow blog stalker and is willing to share her fab finds!) 

I have done some fun activities over the last week and have some fun things to share... well, ummm, when I have art projects cut out and mounted, and pictures taken. Hmmm, still lots to do!  I hope to post pics this week though!

Back-to-School night is Thursday and I need to find all the fun things I found on Pinterest and decide what I'm going to do! Have you had yours yet?  What did you do (or are planning to do?)