Silence for Sandy Hook

Weekend Work and a Plus 10 Freebie

My last couple of posts have been about finding balance between work and home.  This weekend so far has been pretty successful day in that respect!  Friday evening my daughter and I went to a trunk show for a friend's online boutique.  Although I'm a little too old (and large!) for most of her things, I got a big chunk of my Christmas shopping done for my girls.  Saturday morning I was at Walmart before 9 o'clock.  (What a great time to go- it was so peaceful!) After a quick trip to Target with my daughter, I pulled out some of my Christmas boxes so I could get started decorating.
Then I worked on some school stuff.  I laminated (I LOVE my Scotch laminator!!!!) and cut out these fabulous gingerbread activities from Made for 1st Grade.

TPT

In math this month we are working on composing and decomposing numbers to 100 and doing a lot of work with hundreds charts. This is a great book  for hundreds chart activities:
                                  :
  Our fact fluency emphasis is adding/subtracting 10 so I made these little game boards to practice the +10 facts.  I modeled them after some Plus One games I found on Oceans of First Grade Fun.

Download games from Google Docs

Now it's time for holiday decorating!  First up, arrange the Santas on the mantel.  Next to the Christmas tree, these are my favorite holiday decorations!

Balance

I'm back after taking a break from blogging for a awhile.  I started blogging in the summer because I was spending so much time reading other teachers' blogs and working on school projects that I thought "Why not?"  And I really enjoyed it- I love sharing with others and writing has always helped me clarify my thoughts so blogging was really helping me become a better teacher.  But...I was becoming obsessed!  Right before Halloween I looked around my house and realized that I still had spring/summer type decorations up, there were trails of laminating film everywhere, and I hadn't touched a sewing machine, crochet hook or needle in months.  Stacks of professional books were everywhere.  It was time to step back and focus on home and family for awhile.  So my teaching/planning time has just involved making sure I am meeting the needs of my students- we really didn't need another "craftivity" involving turkeys!  Sure, I kept up with my favorite blogs and I made a few new teaching tools, but for the most part I just "taught."  And guess what?  The kids are fine and they are still learning!

In the meantime, I tried to spend some time doing the other things I enjoy.  I actually created some of the projects I've pinned on Pinterest, cleaned my craft room and made a dent in the rest of the house cleaning.  Now that I've had a little "me" time, I feel refreshed and ready to try out some new teaching ideas.  In fact, I've spent part of the morning cutting out some holiday centers for December.  But my new goal is to have balance- I'm trying to not let any one thing whether it is school, Pinterest, whatever take over my life.  Now I am off to Walmart to buy laminating sheets! (And for balance, maybe the ingredients for the latest recipe I pinned!)

Not quite finished, but I love it so far!

Life Outside of School...And a 50th day Freebie!

Although this has been a wonderful school year so far- great kids, supportive parents and an awesome team-  it has also been exhausting!  Trying to get used to my district's word study program, new grading requirements and helping my team beef up our math instruction has worn me out.  So I am taking a personal day on Monday in honor of my birthday today!  I decided I would do as little school work as possible this weekend and do some crafting.  But first I had to organize my sewing/craft/office room!  Here is the box of school stuff I collected just to get it out of the way for a few days!

Then I went to Hobby Lobby and bought more stuff.

Going to Hobby Lobby reminded me of unfinished/unstarted projects at home so I dug a few of those out:

Then I had to pack up the Watermelon picnic quilt that never got finished this summer:

Now I might be ready to actually MAKE something!  My problem is craft and hobby ADD.  I get all excited about a new craft or project, buy all the stuff, get started and then get caught up in real life and don't finish.  Then I see something new that I have to try or make, buy that stuff... you get the picture!  Hobbies/crafts I have supplies and equipment for:  sewing, quilting and machine embroidery (3 sewing/embroidery machines and a serger currently live in my craft room!), smocking, cross-stitch, crochet and loom knitting (and way too much yarn!), needle felting, needle punch embroidery, bow making, dolls and making doll clothes, scrapbooking and  paper crafting (led to purchase of a Cricut and a Cuttlebug for embossing), and a lot of general crafting type supplies.
I'm like this with teaching, too!  Right now my current obsession is teaching math.  In the last few months I've bought at least 5 math professional books, a hundreds pocket chart, tons of stuff on TPT and  lots of "junk" to use as manipulatives.  Not to mention the hours I've spent on blogs reading about math and downloading great activities!  But I have to say it has really paid off- my little first graders are becoming incredible mathematicians!

These are Exemplar examples- both students are ESOL !

I'm off now to get a new project started.  Here's a little freebie I made for our 50th day of school on Tuesday.  Enjoy!

Click here to download

Fall Fun!

Yes, I know it isn't Friday anymore, but I'm linking up with Fun Friday anyways!

The First Grade Parade, Pinterest, Subtraction games

I saw this linky on  Fourth Grade Flipper, and I couldn't resist!  If you would like to join in, head over to Teaching Fourth and link up.
I am very excited this morning- Donna at the Math Coach's Corner mentioned one of my posts in her Bagels and Blogs post this morning!  Head over to The Math Coach's Corner and check out her amazing blog!
Have a wonderful Sunday!
Carol

October Fun

I love October!  Even though we really don't have a "real" fall here in southeast Texas, I still get excited when the calendar turns to October.  I grew up in Pennsylvania so at least I have my memories of autumn leaves and crisp, cool days and nights!  But Halloween is still Halloween, and it is one of my favorite times of year!  For the next few weeks we'll use pumpkins, bats, spiders and all kinds of spooky things to help motivate our little ones to learn and have fun at the same time.
Last year I made these math games to add to my stations.

Click here to download the games.

My class last year loved learning about bats. Cara Carroll at The First Grade Parade has some of the best bat ideas.  I can't wait to do this Venn Diagram and bat fact activity.


Gail Gibbons has some great non-fiction books for this time of year.



Happy fall, y'all!  There's a bag of candy corn around here with my name on it so I am off to indulge!
Carol

Obsessed!

I think I have become obsessed with problem solving!  My class this year seems to really enjoy being challenged, and they do a fantastic job so it just makes it fun to teach!
I was searching for some strategy charts to display, and although I found some great ones, nothing seemed just right.  So I created some!  I chose the strategies that our curriculum teaches to start with, but I may add others later.
Here they are if you would like to use them.  I made 2 versions because I am very indecisive this morning!

Download here.  Note:  Google docs does not show the chevron background but it's there when printed.

Download here.

Clip art is mostly from Scrappin Doodles and Thistle Girl Designs.

Hope you can use these!

Carol