and the winner is......

Chris Roesler You are the winner of the Easy Daysies giveaway!!

Fall Fun, Candy Corn, Monster Problem Freebie!!!

Fall is my absolute Favorite season.  I love the cool crisp air, the crunchy leaves and warm vibrant colors.  Living in South Florida makes me miss these aspects of my favorite season sooo much. It also saddens me a little that my children will not get to truly experience this type of Fall. 
So I created a few fall units to help me scratch my fall itch.
The last couple weeks my class worked on some Fall Fundamentals.
 I made a simple unit with a handwriting book and math fall word problem book revolving around fall. It also includes a few word work activities and art projects with leaves. ( I am waiting until I visit Pennsylvania at the end of the month to do the leaf rubbings. I am planning on bringing back real Fall Leaves to my class)



One of my favorite fall activites is my October Mystery Word. I tried to include, Fire Safety, Christopher Columbus, Halloween and other Fall themed words in this set!

Students can make words with as many or as little letters that they can. This is a great activity to challenge as well as to boost the confidence of students who are still learning to decode.

We have not started these Monster Problems yet, but I plan on breaking these out over the next few weeks!
Try out the freebie to see if you will like the unit!

2nd Grade

1st Grade

 Finally, this might be my favorite writing unit that I have made. (it's really hard to choose) I just love to Fall into Writing! I love writing about each of the different fall topics. The students will brainstorm in the circle maps, organize their sentences in the tree maps and write on the writing pages. I have created different covers and pages for writing, for you to choose which you would like best.

I have a new craftivity inspired my my amazingly talented sister. She made me some graphics to try out in my units. She also has this graphic for sale in my store and on ETSY-Studio KWN  She wasn't sure if she was ready to dive head on into TPT quite yet as she is going to be moving back to Florida from Hawaii. But I would love if you would check out her Graphics and let us know what you think.

Candy Corn in Disguise Craftivity and Writing Activity I just think it so cute and something new! Find the graphics for personal use in your classroom, or for use on TPT products Candy Corn in Disguise Graphics 
Don't forget to head on over to my  Easy Daysies Giveaway
If you are a working mom and need something to help schedule your kids at home with chores and routines--You will love these!
Check out this video of my kids opening up the Easy Daysies for the first Time!

Freebie and a Giveaway reminder

This is just a Quick Sunday Freebie for ya'll. (sorry it's weird for me to type that ya'll as I'm a New Yorker, but I just had to try it out hehe!)  Anyway, on Friday we are taking our 1st field trip to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. My team and I brainstormed some literacy ideas and writing activities to do this week with our class. I created a few of them here. Sorry about the 1st page being blank--There are 6 pages of Freebies. 1. A Story Map 2. A Creative Writing Page 3. A Weather Forecast for ChewandSwallow 4. A Menu (tri-fold -brochure to run front to back) 5. A double-bubble to compare the book to the movie when we return from our trip.

Don't forget to enter my Easy Daysies Giveaway with Creative Teaching Press HERE
Cloudy With a Chance Freebie

Apple Love, Easy Daysies--5 for Friday

I'm so excited to Link Up for 5 For Friday!! I can't remember if I've ever linked up before. You can link up with Doodle Bugs HERE.. So here goes....

We started off our week reading this great new book on Apples. I love that it incorporates the alphabet, a fact, a story and illustrations all in 1 book.  Although some of the words and content were higher than my first graders could read independently--As a read aloud it was perfect and we learned A LOT About apples.

                            

Here, we labeled the parts after cutting the apples to really see the cross section of an actual apple.

We ate red, yellow and green apples and apple pie on Tuesday. On Wednesday we drank apple juice and ate Apple Jacks. On Thursday we ate unsweetened applesauce and crispy apple chips. I love experiencing a topic and then writing about it. Keep reading to see what else we wrote about.

That afternoon we created the apple core craft. I really can't say where I got this. I found it a few years ago, before I knew of TpT and teaching blogs. I used lined writing paper and cut it on the sides to make it look as if it were bitten. I then wrote sentence frames on the board.   My Favorite Apple is ___________.It tastes__________. The apple feels ________. It looks_________. The apple smells___________________.                                      It sounds ______________ crunchy when I bite it.                Apples are my favorite fruit!

                                

This Apple template is from Kathryn Robinson "Just Write All Year Long" for 1st grade. I have used this Apple book for 7 years!!!!  I absolutely love how she writes her lesson plans and has templates for everything!!!

                        

Last but certainly not least are the Easy Daysies Magnetic classroom schedule cards. Creative Teaching Press is known for amazing products. These are no different. They were created by a mom and teacher. Here is something you can use in the classroom and they have Easy Daysies for Moms too!  They also sent me a starter kit to use with my own children. It's funny--I can schedule my class of 18 and keep up with a routine, but at home with only 2 it just not the same as my classroom. My children can read, but the magnetic schedule cards all have pictures as well. The kinesthetic aspect was no accident. My kids have to physically move the card over to the Done side once an activity is complete.
Learn more about them on my post and giveaway Click HERE and Enter the Easy Daysies Giveaway!! You could win a starter kit for home and an Add-on for school!!

Easy Daysies Giveaway

I have been teaching for 16 years. I got my first teaching job straight out of college and never looked back. I got married and started a family--and still kept right on teaching. Thankfully, my mom could watch my babies while I was working, but we were always on a schedule and always had a routine.  When I was pregnant I read every baby book I could get my hands on; as I'm sure most of you did too. One particular book I read, "Baby Wise" spoke to creating independent babies that felt safe, by teaching them a routine from infancy. My Cousin had used it with her boys and raved about it. Their routine was Eat, Play, Sleep.  I followed this routine to a T. And let me tell you, knowing that my daughter was sleeping through the night when I had to go back to work was an enormous blessing. I used it again with my son when he was a baby and he too, slept through the night--which meant I could too.

Well, the baby years are long gone and my children are now 7 and 9.  I haven't found too many books that talk about scheduling kids at this age. So I've come up with some of my own ways of doing things. I've tried many different chore charts and schedules with my kids. We are always on a schedule and have a morning and afternoon routine that we follow. But after a while they kind of lose interest. I recently started giving "commission" for chores that they are responsible for around the house--cuz mama can't do it all!!
Here's what we used to use:

The left hand column has the name of each chore and then my kids have to check it off with a dry erase marker the day the do the chore.  Well, this worked for a little while, but like I said they didn't do a great job of checking things off.  They did however like to erase one another's check as a little joke--haha!  not Funny!

Suffice it to say when Heather from Creative Teaching Press contacted me about testing out a Chore Chart/Scheduling system I jumped at the opportunity! The Easy Daysies starter kit and Add-on kits arrived last Week!

Easy Daysies was created by a Mom and Teacher. She really thought of everything!!

We received 2 Starter kits. 1 for each child. At first, my kids thought there was only 1 and arguing ensued--thankfully I had one for each of them. The Kits come with a Magnetic board that is double-sided (1 with an apple tree--the other side with a flower) . Each of my kids chose the apple tree. It also has a string if you would like to hang it from a door or in your bathroom on a hook. It really depends on what you will use it for. My kitchen Is Grand Central Station, so we use the Fridge for everything! The kit also comes with a small dry erase marker that is also magnetic. 1 of the 2 dry erase markers keeps falling of the fridge--the magnet did not want to stick to the marker. However, my 9 year old just taped it and voila!  It's Fixed!!

                                                                         

I really wish I would of had this when my kids were little. This would have been great, when I was trying to rush out of the house to get them to my mom's and get myself to school. 

This Add-on is my personal favorite. It helps me and my kids keep track of their chores and routines at home. They love checking off the little boxes when they have done their job. Also included are little clocks they can write the times of different activities on. Since they are dry-erase, they can be changed daily, quickly and easily.

My kids really enjoy adding on the "extras" like Movie night--Family Night, Soccer and dance!

I have this up in my classroom now. The fact that it is magnetic makes it easy to change out our specials or add-on special guests.

I took a video of my kids when they first got a chance to look at the magnets and schedule pieces. They were so excited about them. If you watch it through, I have to kind of curb them back a little, because they wanted to use them all!! LOL!  The chores Add-on has a Clean Bathroom Chore!! I can't wait to use that one!  
Click Here for the video
 

Creative Teaching Press is going to give one winner  the starter kit and 1 add-on pack for their classroom (grade level). If you click each of the pics above it will take you to the CTP website and you can read more about them. Are you a working mom like me? Do you need a little something to make your mornings and evenings easier? Well then head on down to the rafflecoptor below and Enter to win. The giveaway will end in 1 Week.
Good Luck and happy Scheduling!!



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