Baby B is TWO!

Yesterday, my little Brooklynn turned two!!!

I threw her a "Where the Wild Things Are" party. Click {HERE} to check out the post on it!

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January activities - centers, penguins, and freebies!!

Happy late Christmas!!

We had a nice, casual Christmas. We just had my grandparents come up for dinner, and they got to play with their Great-grandchildren! I love watching my girls play with the great grandparents!

In the morning, we went to the beach and had our annual sandman building on Christmas Day. I love it! It was a little windy this year, but my Autumn still went swimming in the water...ha!

It may not be snow, but it's still a white Christmas!!

My friend posted this on her FB, and I LOVE it! It's so me!

Today, we've been playing with one of Autumn's stocking stuffers: Insta-snow!

She loved it! She's my little inquisitive, wants to try all kinds of new things, so I knew she would love it!

This is what I get for my girls....

And this is what I get for my classroom - I do this when I do my January themed centers and my penguin unit. A lot of my students have never seen snow, so they love it!

Speaking of winter - I FINALLY finished my January center packs! If you've been following my Facebook page, you know I've been asking for a lot of thoughts and suggestions and help editing these packs...  

In both the literacy and the math, I have aligned them to the common core standards for 2nd grade. These are meant to be review centers; skills that they've already been taught so that you can pull for small groups without worrying about "teaching" the skills in the centers!

The Literacy Centers include:

This packet contains 15 Common Core Aligned literacy centers
Included in this 168 packet is:
Color menu that has all the common core standards on each center.
Three different center menus for students.

Centers include:
Word Work:
Winter Contractions
Plural Nouns
Making Words

Grammar:
Winter Adjectives
Past Tense Verb Concentration
Was or Were?

Reading:
Fact or Opinion?
Winter Poem
Sight Words

Writing:
January Sentence Scramble
Types of Sentences
Paragraph Sorting

Phonics:
Spin-a-Word - Silent e
A Blizzard of Blends
Word Families -ink and -ing

This packet contains 16 Common Core Aligned math centers!

Included in this 132 packet is:
Color menu that has all the common core standards on each center.
Three different center menus for students.

Centers include:
OA:
Roll and Add With Even and Odd
Fact Families with Missing Answers
Snowflake Arrays (repeated addition)
Word Problems

NBT:
Winter Mix-Up Place Value (3-digit numbers)
Missing Addends (spin a sum)
Addition and Subtraction with Regrouping
Comparing Numbers (3-digit numbers)

MD:
Snowball Throw Measurements
Time to Play in the Snow (hour, ½ hour and ¼ hour)
Money (counting coins)
Graphing

G:
Winter Scene (using 2-d shapes)
Polygon Sorting
Shape Clues
Snowflake Fractions

Check out the packs in my stores!

TpT

TN

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Also! I updated the bookmarks too - I added in January. Make sure you go back and download the freebie to get the January ones that I added in.

AND, I updated my Penguin pack! Check out the post on that {HERE}

AND if you haven't already, then make sure you go to Facebook Fan Freebie tab and download January's Calendar cards! I have one more month to add (and I'm almost finished with February). They won't bee there TOO much longer as freebies, so make sure you snag them now!

Ok, I THINK I've caught you up on everything!

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Updated Penguin Pack!

I just updated my Penguin Pack! 

This is one of my most favorite studies that we do! I always save it for January, and we usually take the whole month. We usually take about two weeks for the reading skills, both fiction and nonfiction, and the rest of month we are finishing our book writing. 

So here's how I updated the pack....

I added more pages to give more choices for Tacky books. Now, instead of just summarizing, there are choices for character analysis, story structure, problem and solution, evaluation, text connection, compare and contrast with Tacky Books, and comparing fiction and nonfiction books. There are even some rubrics for their writing.

Here are the books for Tacky the Penguin that you could have in your library for the kids to read.

Here are some other penguin books that you could add in to your penguin library!  I also added more pages for learning with non-fiction books! I also added in vocabulary cards and my student vocabulary book. 

For the Non-Fiction part of the pack, I added in vocabulary cards and a student vocabulary booklet. There are also pages to summarize non-fiction books.

Here are some books that you can use for your non-fiction book study!

This was one of my favorite units that I did last year. The students loved it! My favorite part is how they dd their own research to plan for their books that they wrote!

I like to do the insta-snow in January too. A lot of my students have never seen snow, so they love it!

 

 We also did the blubber activity where we put our hands in ice water and then again, but using a blubber glove. They REALLY liked this activity.

Check out my penguin pack in my stores

TpT

TN

Shop on the Blog

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13 in 13 linky!!

I'm linking up with some of my favorite people (seriously...these 3 people are SO sweet and awesome - I love them!) to do the 13 in 13 linky!!

I'm currently sitting here watching my 2nd all-time favorite movie because my number 1 is nowhere to be found - boo!

That would have to be my Lauren Conrad Jean. seriously. They fit like a GLOVE. I have a "tire" around my waist and I don't like low rise jeans that acentuate that, and these go high enough over my tire and I LOVE them!! I got them from Kohls...

(note -that is NOT my toushy...lol)

well, if you know me IRL, you know that we don't have any family here, so going out without the kids is a RARE occasion, since I have to pay an arm AND a leg to the babysitter since we have 2 kids. lol. BUT, we did manage to go see a few movies...one of which was the hunger games, but the other one was Frozen (with the kids...lol)....can I tell you, I LOVE Frozen??

oooh... I have so many favorites...none that I REALLY watch though...lol. 

I really can't decide....

Revenge?

Law & Order SVU? (I met the original cast in real life up in NYC before!!)

Major Crimes?? only because I LOVED The Closer

I DON'T KNOW!!  Do you see a trend? They're all mysteries! lol

Hmmm....well, once again, hubs and I rarely get to go out, but I really think my little local place on the beach is one of my favorites!

It's a little hole in the wall, but I LOVE it! It's pretty busy most days. 

I could eat a burrito EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

hmmmm....what have I tied that was new???

OH! We got a new VAN!!! well, new to us, anyway. I said goodbye to my 10 year relationship with Vickie the Vue (which was bittersweet) and got ourselves a van.

(photo taken by my 4 year old...lol)

Oh geez....well, it MIGHT be the gift I'm getting tomorrow.

Seriously ya'll, I am THE worse when it comes to gifts. I will hunt, sniff out, sneak, whatever I have to do. I can't STAND not knowing....I've even perfected the art of unwrapping so you can't tell I haven't unwrapped it...lol NO, it hasn't gotten any better since I'm an adult. My parents used to actually TAPE my bedroom door shut on Christmas Eve...lol but, shhhhh...don't tell my husband. 

hmmmm.... let me go check...

OH!! This one is...

This one one of my FAVORITE sayings, but more importantly, this is MY beach!! I love it!! And thank you to the talented Lyndsey for adding your talent!

Oh gosh....

I have NO idea.

Um...

maybe THIS one???

that's a hard one! lol

wow. from past years, my accomplishments this year kind of pale in comparison. But I will go with my accomplishments are that I have found friends that are truer than true...that make me (and my family) feel like part of their family. While I have a lot of friends, finding THOSE friends that will last a life time are hard. So I'm thankful for finding those this year!

SO MANY!!! but these 2 that were taken in the last week, MIGHT just be my favorite!

These are my girls...and the beautiful Florida scenery!

Me and my best. Happy that it's winter break!

'

And this is a close 2nd!  Our first day of summer break - at the beach with drinks in our hands1

My favorite memory??? Any time one of my girls laughs and giggles!! Seriously. It just makes my heart melt to hear them laugh. BEST sound in the world!

To be the person I want to be. There are a few people in my life that I just watch and say "I wish I were more like him/her." for various reasons...not jealousy, not envy, but just because of how they act. It's like that saying....It's not your beliefs that make you a better person, it's your actions. 

BREATHE.  This was my word last year. and I STILL need to remember this - especially with two little tornados running around...creating havoc everywhere.

Merry Christmas EVE everyone!!!

We'll be heading to the beach tomorrow to build our traditional sandmen ....since we don't have snow to make snowmen. 

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