Getting Ready for April!

I'm sitting in my living room with books all around me...books that I own, and books that I'm borrowed from the library. I usually empty out the public library's shelves...lol. I do this as "research" to see if I really want to buy the books, or if the books are too expensive for me to buy. ha! But I decided that I should start showing y'all some of the books that I like to use during each month. This is also for a few reasons....one, so I can remember year to year which books I used and borrowed from the library to get again (lol), but also because I'm sure there are other people out there like me that LOVE to showcase books in their room for each theme that they do. AND because I'm always looking for more books to add to my collection, I'm going to make them linkies! So PLEASE, link up and aid in my (and others') book addiction!

Bees are one of my favorite subjects...They are so amazing too me!

I have a fun idea I hope to do with ants this month, so I've been collecting some ant books!


Here are some of the Earth Day books I'm going to be using...

There are literally TONS of books about Spring, but here are a few for you to check out...

I'll be back later this week to show you some of the fun activities I have planned.  Go ahead and link up your blogposts! I can't wait to see all the new books I need to get!

An InLinkz Link-up

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Printables Freebie!

Happy Thursday!!  Just dropping by to tell you that I'm over at our 2nd/3rd grade collaborative blog, 

Owl-Way be Inspired, for Day 4 of our Spring Fling Freebies!

I posted a freebie from my April Literacy Common Core Center menu pack.

Click the button to head on over there!

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Tasty Tuesday with Shamrock Shakes!

So, one of my new monthly traditions is going to be Tasty Tuesday! I posted about how I was going to try it for the first time this month in my post last weekend. I got the idea from Denise, at Sunny Days. Well, I already knew I was going to do Shamrock Shakes (I got THAT idea a few years ago from Castles and Crayons, and now it's an every year thing)

On Monday, the kids wrote out the recipe and the directions. Then on Tuesday we made it! Before they could eat it, I had to take their picture with it.  We also wrote our review on it. 

I decided to make a little book on it, gluing the recipe on the inside left and their review on the inside right. On the bottom of the page, their picture was glued. (Mine just has a picture of the shake)

Here is a student example....

Then they did the craft from Castles and Crayons 

(I added the title card - my only contribution to the project - ha!) 

 I stole a picture from her blog so you can see some of what I'll be using this week...even though it's not the recipe, you'll get the idea. But check out her posts on it {HERE}. I can't wait for next month's Tasty Tuesday! I'm excited to do it every month next year!

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April Common Core Bundle!

It's done! It's uploaded! I'm finished! 

Whew! I finally finished that math pack... AND uploaded it....AND did the bundle...

Are you impressed!?  I am...with one week to spare before April! haha!

Each pack comes with different menus to use with your students, or just for you to plan! Since my centers need to be standard-aligned, when it comes time to write in my planbook, easy peasy!

 Here's what's included in the Literacy pack...

Word Work:
Compound Words
Proper Nouns
Making Words

Grammar:
Adjectives/Adverbs
Prepositions
Past Tense Verbs

Reading:
Paragraph Sorting - Main Idea and Details
April Poem
Sight Words

Writing:
Sentence Scramble
Quotation Marks
Be an Author

Phonics:
Spin-a-Word - Blends/Digraphs with Long Vowel/Silent E
R-Controlled
Word Families -ook and -ool

ADD-INS!
Story Structure
Summarzing (SWBSF)
Summarizing with writing it out
Thematic Writing Paper
Problem and Solution
Evaluate the Story

And here's what's included for the Math centers.

OA:
Roll-a-Problem: Addition 2- and 3-digit Problems
Fact Families
Balancing Act: Addition and Subtraction
Word Problems


NBT:
Place Value Bundles
Spin-a-Number: Adding 10s and 100s
Comparing 3-digit Numbers
Base Ten Numbers up to the Hundreds

MD:
Measurements - deciding which tool to use
Time (to 5 minutes and A.M./P.M.)
Money: adding and comparing
Graphing/Data collecting

G:
Fraction Task Cards
Create a Picture: 2D shapes
Compare/Contrast Shapes
Fraction Grab Bag

Go take a look at my TpT store- they're on sale with all of my other Spring Packs for just a little while longer!

Want to see how I manage my centers?? Read about my literacy centers HERE and my Math centers HERE (although the way I do my math centers has changed just a little bit, but it still similar!)

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Freebie Bookmarks AND a Giveaway!

Happy Saturday!!

I'm officially on Spring Break!!Although I have an alarm clock that still gets me up at 5:30....it's a good things she's so darn cute! ha!  That's ok, because I have a SUPER busy spring break...and I'm starting it off by going for a run with my friend and ending up at the beach! Not a bad start to my spring break...doing what I love, with the people I love, WHERE I love to be!

Anywho...just wanted to stop by and let you know that I added bookmarks for April! Head over to TpT to download this FREEBIE file (again, if you've been downloading them!) to get the April bookmarks I added.

Also, I am celebrating the fact that I'm on Spring break with 20% off of my SPRING packs!

Just finished my April Common Core Math and BUNDLE! They're on sale too!

Hey...let's do a giveaway!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Tasty Facts Celebration - Subtraction!

Last week, we had our celebration for our Subtraction Quizzes!!

Back in December, we celebrated with our Addition facts, check out that post {HERE}

It comes from my pack, Tasty Facts. These students have been working so hard and have passed their subtraction quizzes all the way through their 12s!  (Here are some previews I showed on THIS post. You can check out the post to learn more about how I do them!)

So we had our celebration day this week. We made nachos, turned on some KidzBop on Pandora (I have to use my phone and plug it into the sound system), and had some fun! It was so great seeing these kids be KIDS...and celebrate their success.

(The Gangum song came on and they all totally busted out the dance...it was SO cute!)

I'm kind of bummed that a few of the kids who had earned it weren't here this day. 

This day was also our Field Day, so we were all mostly wearing red, so I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to take a fun class picture! This is such a good group of kids!

To find out more about my Tasty Facts, I explain a WHOLE bunch on THIS post!

Click any of the links below to purchase these packs - separately or as a combo!

TpT

TN

Shop on the Blog

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10 Frames Math Games

I wanted to show you one of my new favorite little centers to use. It's the Ten Frame Match Games from EAI Education. I got these match games because I thought they would be a great review for my lower kids...but they are so much more!

There are 8 different levels.  

• How Many?
• What is Ten More?
• What is Ten Less?
• Ten Less / Ten More Review
• Plus 8 / Minus 8
• Plus 9 / Minus 9
• Plus 8 / Minus 8, Plus 9 / Minus 9 Review
• Ten Frame Review

We started out with just matching numbers to 10 frames.

Then moved to 10 more...

and 10 less...

Then there was one that was a combination of 10 more, 10 less.

Then there were games to add and subtract 8 and 9, which I thought would be easy...but I really had to teach my kids to visualizing subtracting 10 and then adding 2 or 1. It was a real eye opener!

I am so excited that I have these to start the school year off with next year...that way we can start it off right away using 10 Frames! I really think that when kids can visualize math problems with the 10 frames, it really does help with their number sense!

I also have this book that I love using...

It has a lot of great activities to use with teaching 10 frames! 

The best part? If you order $30 or more, you can use this code below to get FREE SHIPPING!!

TATBFS2014

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