Theme linky party

I'm still not sure how to set up a linky party, so I'm using TBA as a host at their Ultimate Linky Party. 

 But my party is:

I'm hoping to do some work over the next week or so on my classroom theme for next year and I need HELP!!! I need to be inspired! I got nothin'!!  All your most excellent blogs have the greatest ideas, and I know you can fill me with inspiration like you always do! So thank you in advance and link up- show off your creative classrooms. We all thank you for it!

 

Lazy-girl sale

I'm linking up to the Memorial Day Sale with Kindergarten Lifestyle.

Check out my store!

 



Thanks! Have a great day! 
Sorry about the totally self-promoting blog. I'm trying to get a theme linky party up and running. Maybe tonight or tomorrow. I'm hoping to get inspired on my clssroom theme decorations for next year. But right now I can't get inspired to do anything. Yesterday I stayed in my pj's until 2 in the afternoon. Is anyone else as lazy as me??????

 

Read aloud linky party from Miss Nelson

I'm linking up with Miss Nelson From Run! Miss Nelson's Got the Camera, and Jeannie from Kindergarten Lifestyle and their super cute blogs for a read aloud party. I love Jennifer Ward. She came to our school to visit once and was SO cute and personable. 

 

 I also love all things Kevin Henkes. 

 

Ok, that sounds weird. Books, I meant. I'm not a stalker. 

Also Don and Audrey Wood- love them. "The Napping House" is one of my favorite picture books. And for those of you who categorize your libraries by AR level, Common Core Standards, and everything else...how do you do it???!! 

One of my new favorite books is "Mrs. Spitzer's Garden". Have you seen this book? So cute.

And who can forget Olivia? Ian Falconer must be hilarious in real life. 

Here's a Venn diagram activity I did with Mrs. Spitzer's Garden. It might be hard to see, but the petals on each side of the flower compare me to Mrs. Spitzer, and the ones in the middle are the same about us.

The one that says "has gray hair" should be WAY over on Mrs. Spitzer's side.  (:  But notice the "has old feet".   ????!!!!!   And apparently we both have hair that sticks out. (:

Thanks for reading!

Gardening freebie

Ok, I feel like yesterday's freebie was lame, and it's the Last Day of School today, so here's another freebie! It's my garden unit of 44 pages. Hope you can use it to finish your year (I'm so sorry for you, by the way) or for next year!


Have a great end of the year!!!! We're making pizza today using the garden we made (info in the freebie!)
Thanks for reading!
 
 
[Glitterfy.com - *Glitter Words*]

50 follower freebie

I made it to 50! So here's a little freebie that's

a little late for Mother's Day,  but I thought you could save it for next year, or see if you can edit it for Father's Day this year. And I have more freebies at TPT that maybe some of you haven't seen yet, and this will give you a chance to check them out.

Thank you to all of you for all of your freebies and great ideas. It'sbeen just an awesome help!

Last Day tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  ( I don't count the two hours at the park on Thursday.) :) WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By the way, I know some of you are discussing next year and reading this summer. Here's a great guy to read. I have a few of his books and they are full of useful and easy to use information. His website has free stuff on it, too. And he's super funny. His name is Rick Morris.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Glitterfy.com - *Glitter Words*]

    

Michelle at The 3 AM Teacher is having a give-away! It's about how you will teach your kids over the summer. I plan to give each student a journal (and glue a few pictures of our year inside) so they can write every day! They'll write the date (for number practice) and however they want to fill the pages. Of course we all love to write, and think our kids will too!

...
[Glitterfy.com - *Glitter Words*]

Awards and Try it Tuesday!

Thank you so much to Heidi from My (not so) Elementary life! She gave me a "Lovely Blog Award"! Now I know how all those Oscar winners feel. Seriously, it's like I'm finally a real blog. So now I get the honor of awarding blogs that I love. I've been putting this off because I want to do a good job, and there are SO MANY people who have great blogs.

So have you seen these:

1. Run! Miss Nelson's Got the Camera

2. Hayley at Bishop's Blackboard

3. Dawn at Blooming Kiddos

4. Katie at Dirty Hands and Lesson Plans

5. Chery at Easy Peasy Classroom

6. Teresa P. at Fun in K/1

7. Mr. Brewer at Coffee Talk with Mr. Brewer (Sorry about the girly award, but you still deserve it! You can find a more manly graphic if you want- and does anyone read your blog without thinking of Mike Meyers from his SNL days?) 

8. Sara at Sara at School

They are only some of the blogs I think are great and deserve a

If you are on this list, the rules are:

1. Follow me

2.Link back to me and my little blog

3. Pass on the award to 15 of your favorite new blogs

Now, for my weekly "Special day" this week: Try it Tuesday

On Try it Tuesday, everyone brings in their favorite food (or favorite food that's easy to bring) and we all try it. The object of this activity is to of course eat, (my favorite hobby) try new things, and learn to be gracious when offered food we don't particularly like. (What? What is that? That's an oxymoron.) Anyway, it's super fun, and the kids love it, even when they don't like the food. They were very polite about it, and even learned to try some new things like arugula, garlic pickles, venison, and seaweed (not very popular). Then we wrote a two paragraph expository activity about it. Next year I'll turn it into a craftivity. The rules are:

1. You have to take at least 1 bite.

2. You have to say thank you.

3. If you don't like it, you have to say something positive about it.

Next year I'm also going to use this day to practice adjectives. This is only my second year back in 1st grade, so I'm still on a learning curve.

Thanks for reading!

 
[Glitterfy.com - *Glitter Words*]

A unit freebie for 5

Wow. What a day. 2 kids left early, kids in tears over it, yadda yadda. All's well that ends well, I guess. And it did, for the most part.

I have a favor/freebie to ask/give 5 of you. I would like some advice about my products on TPT. Honestly, I don't sell much and I'm not sure why. The stuff I make is first and foremost for me to use, (as I know all your stuff is, too) so that should be enough. But for the part of me that wants to make a little money on the side (braces and a "new" vehicle are calling, and a house with carpet that is SERIOUSLY  20 years old) I get disappointed when it doesn't sell. Does anyone else feel that way?

So for the first 5 people who comment on this post, I will give you a copy of  this unit to have. I will email it to you directly, as an attachment, if you don't mind me having your email address. Trust me, I won't stalk your address. I have enough emails to keep track of. But in return, I would like some honest feedback to see what you think of it, and what you would use/wouldn't use. My husband at this point is NOT a huge help in this area. (:

I really appreciate your help. I think the unit is about 65 pages, so there should be something someone could use somewhere in the mix! And if anyone wants to join me in this, I'll start a linky party. Last time I'm pretty sure I did it wrong, so I'll try to find the right way this time. (:

Thanks for reading.
 

Got a good book?

Ok, I'm joining another linky party. Sorry, but they are kinda fun! It's about books to read, and I love to read. As I head to Hawaii,  and am TERRIFIED of that flight over the ocean, I'll need some books to read. If I'm sober enough to read, that is. Just kidding. Kind of.

                                   

                                      
                   So here's the link. Let us know what you're reading so we can enjoy it, too!

Here are some of my favorites:
"The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society "(So good- my favorite book!!!)
by Mary Ann Shaffer
"These is my Words"by Nancy Turner

"The Red Tent" by Anita Diamant
"The Girl in the Green Sweater"by Krystyna Chiger
anything by Jane Austen
anything by Fannie Farmer (not deep reading)

I can't wait to see your ideas! Thanks for this great idea! I'm always looking for a good book!
Thanks for reading!
ann

A Mother's Day freebie!

Happy Mother's Day! In honor of these people:

and all of you mothers out there, I am giving away my Puddles of Fun unit for free today! It's like 48 pages, so go get it! And Happy Mother's Day!
Thanks for reading!
ann

Summer bucket list linky party

Hey! I'm joining the Summer Bucket List Linky Party!
This summer I will:
1. Paint my family room door.
2. Paint my daughter's bedroom (do you see a pattern here?)
3. GO TO HAWAII!!!!!!!!!  WOOHOO   (my brother just moved there, so that's why we're actually going, but my brother is AWESOME, so it's a win-win!)
4. Too many school things to mention.

So here's the link to join up:

<center><a href="http://acupcakefortheteacher.blogspot.com/2012/05/summer-bucket-list-linky-wont-you-join.html"><img border="0" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v447/darlingstar/bucketlistlinky-1.jpg"/></a></center>

Thanks for reading!
ann

Book activity freebie, and Mother's Day!

Is anyone having a hard time getting stuff uploaded to TPT? I am.  I have another freebie, and I can't get mine for today or yesterday. So I'll try again! Here's a link to my Kinder book activity. We make a book at the end of the year for the Kinders coming into my first grade room. It's hilarious.

Here's our book float for the parade. It was really fun. It's a little tought to see the sign and some of the details, but you get the "Charlotte's Web" gist, I think.

.  Here's our Mother's day gift. We did a spin on the "If You Give a Mom a Muffin". We wrote our own story as a class. The kids did a great job. The Mom was late for work because they went to Starbucks, and yadda yadda It ended with the Mom coming to pick up the kids at school and getting a Mother's Day gift, which was a muffin. Which is why we made actual muffins for them. It was really good and they had very little help from me. Then we made the real muffins and a notebook with muffin scrapbooking paper.
 Happy Mother's Day to all you Moms!
Thanks for reading
ann

Charlotte's Web Week

Thank you to everyone who joined our blog hop! I'm working to respond to all of you and join all your stores and blogs, so be patient with me and I'll make sure I get to them all.

We have national book week this week. Our book is "Charlotte's Web" and we spent the week doing activities revolving around Charlotte's Web. Here's our Pronoun Place and Breakfast By the Barn.

The kids wrote pronouns on the animals and glued them onto the barn. Not brilliant, I know, but I like to practice cutting and gluing, even though they are pretty much second graders.

This is out breakfast by the barn. We celebrated book week by eating, obviously. One of our breakfast items was cinnamon rolls, and tomorrow we will do our synonym activities! We were supposed to do them today, but ran out of time as we got ready for tomorrow's parade.
In the background is our float that you can't really see. (:  You can see the webs on the barn that we later put "terrific", "some pig", and "radiant" onto. The barn that the girls are holding with the words we later turned around for the Pronoun Place barn. We really had fun with that breakfast!

Tomorrow is the book float parade, and ours is pretty cute. I'm trying to download a pronoun game freebie, but I'm having problems, so tomorrow I'll show you our float and give you the freebie. Check back tomorrow!
Thanks for reading!
ann

Blog Hoppin Party for newbies like me!

Hi everyone!
Ok, I'm starting a linky party. But I just can't bring myself to call it a "linky party".  How about a blog hopping party? I'm creative-thinkinged out right now. It's May 8th, and my creativity is spent. So "Blog Hopping Party" it is.  I'm inviting anyone with less than 100 followers either on your blog (if you have one) or TPT (if you don't have a blog) to join up with us and get your blog hoppin'  on.

I'm new to this, so I think to join you just become a follower, leave a comment, and leave your blog button (I personally still haven't figured out how to make one. ):  ) or a link to your blog or store.  I know there are etiquette rules in the  blogging world, and if this breaks any of them, we can just say we're newbies and didn't know any better. It wouldn't be lying. At least for me. Then all of us who join the party will check out the other blogs and become members. Does that sound right? I just realized this sounds a little bit "if-you-send-me-a-recipe/children's book/whatever- I'll send-one-to-the-top-address", but I hope you realize it's not that. It's just those of us who don't have followers trying to meet the others that are in the same boat. And we want to find your stuff on TPT if you have it! We love the pros! We love "The First Grade Parade" and Babbling Abby! We love Amy Lemons! They're awesome! But we want to meet other teachers who are new to this whole experience, and are equally awesome.

So join us! I can't wait to meet you!
ann

Backwards day and a pig freebie

Ok, what is it, 15 days? 14 and 1/2, but who's counting? Wow. This week has been long. I remember a college professor of mine telling my friend (his daughter) that I was squirrely in class. What comes around goes around. It's my time to pay the Piper for that. Shazam!are these kids squirrely.

How do you spell squirrely?

But today was our "special day" of the week. Each week we have one special day to make these weeks more palatable. Today was backwards day. We did everything backwards. The kids even went in the bathroom and turned their shirts around. It was fun, but not as much fun as bag day. That's pretty cool. Check out my bag day post for that idea.

So we read "Poppleton Everyday" last week and did some pig activities. I have a new unit coming out to tpt soon, but here is some of it for free. It's 8 pages of a poem and some prediction activities. I also have some grammar classifying in the larger version of the unit, and some spelling/vocab activities. I want to do some time activities this weekend and post it by Sunday in time for the sale.

Yes, my store will all be an additional 20% off over and above their 20% off.

I've needed some time lately to be a better Mom. Do you have those periods of time? My kids are at school a LOT, and we all have needed less of that. More time at home to play Farkle. And go to the library. It's been good for all of us. But I have to admit, I think it's adding to my own squirrelyness and wanting to be done. I love my job, but it's time. For summer, I mean.
Thanks for reading. Have a great Friday. One day closer.
ann