She's Here!

Baby Gracen was born on November 3 at 4:51 p.m. She weighed 6 pounds 11 ounces and measured 20 inches long! Mommy and daddy are doing great! We are learning to adjust to life with little sleep! lol

We are so in love! 

I probably won't be blogging much in the coming weeks (not like I blogged much before), but I hope to get back into the swing when she gets a little older and life is a little less chaotic! 

Happy Friday!

Halloween Freebie!

I am soooooo close to being ready to pop out this baby. I'm 12 days away from my due date and I couldn't be more ready for it to happen! I cannot wait to meet her!

I've walked and walked. Spicy food? Check. Pressure points? Yep. Did that too. Annnd some other things...lol 

Alas, she isn't ready to make her way into the world yet. She's too cozy up in there! I've decided to put my energy to work and finish a little freebie I've been working on for about two weeks. 

I thought it would be fun to have the kids read about the History of Halloween since most kids don't realize that it started as a harvest festival. I might have learned a thing or two also!

Included in the pack are two different levels of the same passage and three supplemental activity pages. I hope you can you use them this Halloween.

Just click the image above to head over to my TPT shop and grab your free copy!

Happy Halloween! Good luck to all you teachers this week! It's probably going to be crazy! Especially for me, since I'm 9 months pregnant! HAHA Pray for me!

Story Elements Freebie

We are working on story elements this week and I wanted to share a little freebie I created to help your students map the elements.

It's nothing spectacular, but it works! Just click the image to download.

I will have my students fill this out after reading one of their books. 

I also saw this super cute idea from Cara over at the First Grade Parade! 

She read the book, "Stellaluna," and had the students create these Beginning Middle and End bats! Aren't they adorable? 

I plan on doing these this week as well since it's the perfect time of year!

Anyone else excited about the season premier of Walking Dead tonight!? EEEK!! This girl can't wait!

Visualizing Activities

So, I feel like being at my new school, on top of being pregnant has left me zero time and energy to blog and share fun things that have been going on in my classroom! Meanwhile, I am still so totally in love with my new school and all of my students! 

A few weeks ago we focused on Visualizing to help us when we are reading.

I have been using Nicole Shelby's amazing interactive notebook for reading each week. Every Monday, we glue in our notes for the week and then we focus on that skill all week long! 

Here is what our glue in looked like that week.

If you like this set up, you can purchase Nicole's notebook by clicking the image below! It's worth every penny!!

Then, we did some fabulously fun things from Amanda Madden's Connecting and Visualizing unit! You can head over and check out more from the pack and purchase HERE!

This was my favorite thing we did this week! We read the poem, "My Neighbor's Dog is Purple," by Jack Prelutsky and made a little visualizing craft. This comes from Amanda's Connecting and Visualizing unit above!

Um, how darling are those!? Seriously!

And on a personal note, we took some maternity photos this weekend and I am so in love with how they came out! Here are a few from our fun little session! 

If you know us, you know we are a silly, fun couple and so when I saw this photobomb idea on Pinterest, I knew we had to recreate! It is seriously my favorite one of the whole session! HAHA

5 more weeks ya'll!! I think I can...

Happy Monday teacher friends!

Classroom Reveal 2014-2015

I finally tried to tidy up my room a bit this afternoon so I can have a little photo sesh with my classroom! I went with bold and bright colors as the insipiration for my theme. Looking at several of these pictures, I think it could use even more color! My last classroom had one colored wall which I think really added to the room. This new room still feels a little unfinished because there is so much white. I'm still working on little projects and posters for the walls, but here is my little home away from home that I have been working in for the past three weeks!

 The top panoramic photograph is from the door looking into the room. The one on the bottom is from the back corner where the library is facing the front.

DO NOT BE FOOLED BY THESE PICTURES! THIS ROOM IS ACTUALLY NOT BIG AT ALL. THE PANORAMIC FEATURE ON MY IPHONE JUST MAKES IT SEEM HUGE! I still love the room though despite it's smallness! haha

 This panoramic is from the other corner where the cubbies are facing the front of the room.

 I absolutely love all of the cubby and storage space in this classroom! 

 I have almost one whole wall of my classroom that is covered by a whitebaord. I love having all the space to have posters, charts, and to display my schedule and homework!

 I saw this little idea with the clothespins somewhere and I just had to recreate my own! They turned out super cute!

 You may notice that some of my crate seats got a little fabric makeover to match my new theme. I still have to cover the two under my circle table. I have some beautiful bright yellow chevron fabric that I plan on covering them with, buuuut I just haven't found the time to cover them yet.

My sweet blogger friend Katie King from Queen of the First Grade Jungle used ribbon to decorate her desk caddies and so I stole her cute idea! These caddies came from Walmart!

You can see the huge transformation the room has undergone. It was a lot of work, but I am happy with the way that it has turned out. 

I am sorry it took me so long to share this with you! 

And this week has been all about rounding! Here are some pictures of my classes playing Rounding Cover Up, which I snagged from a guest blogger on the Teaching In High Heels blog!

Next week, we will be moving on to properties of addition so I'll be back to share more on that later!

Have a great weekend!

Representing Numbers

Last week we began our math unit with a very basic lesson on different ways to represent and show numbers to review second grade skills. I wanted to share a couple of freebies that I made to accompany our lesson!

The first is a math journal printable that you can use to accompany the flipchart lesson I made {which you can download later in the post.} Just click the image below to download your own copy!

Here is the flipchart I used to accompany the lesson! Just click the image to download!

I know this may seem super simple for a third grader, but I think it's important to build and review the basics before diving into the meat of it!

I know I have been saying for two weeks that I would be posting my classroom reveal. I am making it my number 1 goal to get those pictures taken this week so that I can share my room with you all! I've just been so busy I keep forgetting to take pictures of the full room and all of the little things I've done!

I have been thoroughly enjoying my new school and my new students. I have seriously already had some amazing experiences! 

One kid had his grandmother knit my unborn baby this adorable blanket!

Seriously?! Shut the front door. This is the sweetest, most amazing gift I've ever gotten from a student!

And a parent texted me today this sweet message!

WHAT!? How great are these parents and students!? I love my new school and everything about it. I feel excited and rejuventated about teaching after the difficult time I had last year!

In other news, my belly just keeps getting bigger!

I had to sport my Clemson colors Saturday! Even though they lost badly!

The hubs worked on this project for our little girls nursery and I am IN love with how cute it turned out!

He literally spent ALL weekend carving out those wooden boards to make the letters stand out. Then, we spent most of last night painting them. I cannot wait to hang them and get the nursery done so I can stop stressing about it!

That's about all that's been going on with me lately!

Stay tuned for a classroom reveal...but don't hold your breath...lol

First Week Craziness

My classroom is pretty much ready, but I keep forgetting to take pictures of the full room! I promise to be back later this week to share those!

However, I do want to share some things I've been up to this past week!

Our school is doing a camping theme this year and so I made little build your own s'more treats! 

You can download your copy by clicking the image below!

I also did a teacher wishlist with magnets on the white board. I was so excited that almost all of them were taken!

I do this at the beginning of every year and I seriously love the instant, easy feedback! No shuffling through 20 different student surveys! It's all on one nice sheet! I like to leave them hanging up for the first couple of weeks.

This is an adapation of my About Me snapshots that I did last year...

which you can read about HERE. I'll be back to share how I adapted it with pictures of the final product later this week! =)

If you guys haven't purchased Lindsey's Be a Reading Expert, you should! My kids loved it and it was such a great way to introduce reading to my third graders! 

I must say this week was utterly exhausting! I felt like I had no clue what was going on the first day because I was new to the school! The rest of the week went great. I have a fabulous morning class, but my afternoon class needs a lot more structure and work on following expectations. I have no doubt that they will get it together within a couple of weeks! I am excited for the changes this year brings! 

I'll be back soon....hopefully....with my FULL classroom reveal!!

Happy Sunday!

First Day Visual Plans

So....let me just tell you that this past week has been CUH-RAZY! I've been frantically trying to get my new room all set up and ready for the new year. I am still not ready for my full room reveal, and students come tomorrow! YIKES! Don't worry...the room looks presentable, but I just have some little things I still want to get in order first! Call me OCD.

Did you guys know that TPT is hosting another Back to School Sale? That's right! But for ONE day only! Just check out the button below!

I do want to share with you my first ever set of visual plans with you! I only planned one day, but I think they turned out cute! Not everything in the plans is something you can purchase, but I did include links to things such as blog posts and such to further explain.

Click HERE to download my PDF with embedded links!

You won't find a link to the Meet the Teacher flipchart as I just created that about me personally! The Math About Me Snapshot is a twist on the About Me Snapshots I did a couple of years ago. Since I am teaching Math and Reading this year, I thought I would adapt it for a Math About Me Activity. Unfortunately, I can't share that file because I used someone elses template to create the math about me for my own personal needs. I will share more about the Math About Me snapshots in a later post!

My first day is tomorrow and I am super anxious. I feel more unprepared than I ever have for the first day and I know it will be a whirlwind day! Hopefully not chaotic. I anticipate I won't get much sleep tonight! Being 7 months pregnant and having to pee every other hour doesn't help either! 

I will try to report back and update you on my first week with pictures! 

Don't forget about the BOOST sale on Wednesday!