50's Day... a little late.

We had so much fun celebrating 50's day in November at school. All of the kids dressed up like they were from the 50's (this required lots of discussion and explaining) and we did 50's activities all day.

These turned out just adorable:

We also did the root beer float sequencing activity, as inspired by Cara Carroll at The First Grade Parade. Sorry, no pictures for that one. 

Do you celebrate 50's day at your school?

Mrs. Dunn

WAY TOO LONG! Happy Advent

WOW, I have not blogged in a VERY very long time. Life just gets in the way I suppose! I hope to be better now that report cards and parent teacher interviews have wrapped up. We have so much going on again this month.
Quick shout out to my American friends, Happy Thanksgiving! and..........

Happy Advent! To get prepared for Advent, my class started their lap books last week, so they will be ready to go for Monday. They are SO excited about this project. We completed the outside cover page, and the title and middle picture to start our countdown.

To see what the rest of this project will look like, check out my TPT product Advent Lap Book.

I am so looking forward to the month of December!

Mrs. Dunn

Practicing printing in the first grade classroom

I always like to practice letter formation at the beginning of the year, and find there are a wide variety of abilities when looking at printing skills. I'm always looking for innovative ways to practice letter formation, and I love to use centers! (of course)

I know I blogged about this a couple of years ago, but I just had to revisit my revamped printing centers. I have four or five centers, depending on the size of my class. They spend about 5-10 minutes at each center during a Language Arts period. I focus on one letter each day, and we practice the sound, letter formation, and read stories.
I think it is so important to sit with small groups of students and watch how they are forming letters. When it is done as a whole class, I find it difficult to watch each student and make necessary corrections. I use this booklet to practice letter formation as well as beginning sounds.

Find the booklet by clicking on the picture below.

Printing centers are never complete unless you have a play doh center! I show the students how to make long snakes to make little and big lines, as well as curved lines.

My students LOVE getting to write on the SMARTboard. I found a tracing page off the internet and put it at the bottom of the board. Students each get to do one letter, and wait in line for their turn.

We also practice on the whiteboards. I love my whiteboards, they have a red line at the bottom and are interlined.

I also have paint bags the students write their letters on, sorry no picture!

My students love doing these centers, and it's great practice for them.

Mrs. Dunn

SaveSave

Classroom Reveal and the First Day!!

Phew, what a big day!! School kiddos first day today, and baby is going to day home. Where does the time go? It was exhausting, as they say, there is no tired like teacher tired the first week back to school.
My kids seem super sweet, I think it will be a wonderful year!

So here it is my classroom for the 2014-2015 school year:

Just loving those ikea mats and how well they go with my classroom decor!

All of my stories organized by theme.

Teacher area 

So there you have it! So excited for the school year.
Mrs. Dunn

The ebooks are here, the ebooks are here!!

I'm so excited! The back to school ebook is up on TPT for the 2014-2015 school year. There are so many tips, tricks, freebies and amazing resources in it. Thanks to the amazing Deanna Jump for creating the K-2 one, I can only imagine how many hours she spent on it. My little page just happens to be on p. 53 of the book. So stinkin' excited!!

Back to School ebook

There are also ebooks for the upper grades as well as middle school and high school!

Science Grade 6-12

Math and Science Grade 3-5

LA Grade 3-5

Social Grade 6-12

LA Grade 6-12

Check them out!

Mrs. Dunn

Classroom Carpet and Product "Show and Tell"

At my new school I found out that they don't provide us with a classroom carpet. GASP. The horror. I've never not had a carpet. EVER. And I know there are all sorts of cool things out there to use instead (those dots that stick on the ground) but I found something new and I THINK I'm in love. It's from IKEA, and it's not exactly a carpet, but a floor mat, like you find in the gym, but it's in my classroom colour, green. SWOOON. It can be washed down for when those oopsiedaisies happen. You know what I'm talking about firstie teachers. I'm SO EXCITED.

Ikea Gym Mat

While we are at it, I also got this rug for my reading corner. 

Ikea Mat

As you can see, I MAY have a bit of an obsession with having things on the floor in my class, but c'mon y'all those little firstie bums need to be comfy, I'm telling yah.

I can't get into my classroom until the 21st of August, (I KNOW I NEED IN NOW ;) So I will post pictures once I have everything in place.

Today is the LAST DAY of the TPT sale so you can save %28 on all items. I have posted a bunch of new products.

FREEBIE

This Back to School Listening Center booklet is perfect for the beginning of the year. Students will need an iPad or iPhone to scan the QR code, and then instructions are read to them or they see a picture to help them with the activity. I also have more of these QR activities on sale right now in my store.

Back to School Freebie

I also just finished a couple of new clipart packages, and I'm so excited about this one. Check out my Halloween costumes, so adorable, and just in time to start creating those Halloween resources.

Halloween Costume Clipart

Ok I'm off to shop!!

Mrs. Dunn

New school year, New Blog, and SALE!

It is hard to believe that summer is half over and we will be back at school before you know it. I am going back in the fall to a new school and it will be so close to home and my littles day home, which is such great news and makes going back a ... LITTLE ... easier.
I've updated my blog so it's a little prettier and MUCH more user friendly. Now you can access all of my social media links in one easy spot; the banner! Click on the icons to follow me. If you are like me and HATE looking at blog coding (it is such a foreign language to me) check out this GREAT tutorial video on how to make your banner with links, without the fuss of trying to do the code on your own. SO amazing!

Since it is getting close to back to school, there is a site wide sale going on at Teachers Pay Teachers! All you need is the Back to School code and you can save up to 28%. Thanks to Camping Teacher for the cute button.

Mrs. Dunn