Carolina Blogger Meet Up

We had the BEST time Saturday at the Carolina Blogger meet up in Columbia! We met up at California Dreaming and chatted it up for a few hours! It was so great to finally put blog names with faces! HAHA I was like, "Oh, that's Elizabeth from Fun in Room 4B!" These girls were so awesome! I am sad we couldn't spend more time together, but I did stay the night with a few of the girls and it was well worth the trip!

Prepare for blogger meet up picture OVERLOAD!

It was so much fun ya'll!!

Please go check out all of these awesome ladies and their blogs!
 Autumn, Ashley, and Tammy from Fanatical in First Grade
Kim will have a blog coming soon!
Elizabeth from Fun in 4B
Gretchen from Always a Lesson
Hope from 2nd Grade Shenanigans
Dana from 3rd Grade Gridiron
Shasta from The Loop
Heather and Juli from Simple In Second
Amanda from Teaching Maddeness
Amber from Adventures of a Third Grade Teacher
Rachel from The Tattooed Teacher
Elisabeth from Twins, Teaching and Tacos
Rebecca from Landing in K
Natalie from Teachery Tidbits
Lacie from Polka Dots & Pencils

Anyway, I have had kind of rough week in my personal life, so I haven't had the time to devote to my post blog this week, but I am so excited to share my new landform flipbook tomorrow! I forgot to take a picture of it before I left school since I was there until 6:45!!! WHAT!? I know...

Substitute Writing Idea and a Math Game

So, we have to turn in three days of sub plans each year and I have been working on gathering my lessons for my this because it's due Friday! I recalled a blog post I saw earlier this year about where your missing teacher has gone and I was inspired to make my own to cater to upper grades too!

I snagged the idea from Cara Carroll at "First Grade Parade." Click HERE to see her adorable post about her writing activity! I asked if she would mind if I did my own little spin on it and of course she said, yes! But,  she said she saw the idea somewhere on Pinterest! If this was your original idea, please let me know and I will add you to this post!

Anyway, here is my version with both primary and upper grades writing pages! In the first one, students write a few sentences about why they think their teacher is out and draw a picture to go with it!

 Then, I came up with this one all on my own! I was creating the first one and I was inspired to turn it into a newspaper article! Anytime the students can pretend to be someone else, I think it really gets them thinking and their ideas flowing!

Click HERE to download your free copy!

Here are some other great substitute resources!

Rachelle, from What the Teacher Wants has a great download called the Substitute Teacher Survival Kit, which I proudly own! Just click the picture below to go grab yourself a copy!

And I also have this awesome collection of printables from Clutter-Free Classroom! You can get it by clicking on the picture!

Oh, and here is a fun video from class today! We were playing Place Value War! I just love the excitement in the room! Be warned...It's loud!

I hope to post the games from this new unit soon! When I have time to finish them...HAHA!

Classroom Helpers and More Classroom Happenings

It has finally happened. I have caught  the dreaded cold and it only took two weeks of school! I had to miss our tubing trip with friends today because I felt like walking death. The only good thing to come of this is that I was restricted to my couch and computer and forced to do "schoolish" things. 

I finished my classroom ihelpers project that I have been working on for about a month, even though it's only like four pages long! HAHA I made it editable so you all could take it an use it in your classrooms. 

Just visit my either of my shops below to download.

Here is what else has been going on around my room this week!

Download the Boat Afloat and River Map printables by clicking each picture below!

And, I have a few new fonts in my side bar for you to download!

Gingersnap Thick Hand and Gingersnap Print. I also fixed the Gingersnap Handwriting font to make the punctuation flow better with the text. =)

Happy weekend!! I'll just be nursing my cold and willing it to go away by Monday! Ya right...lol

Free Fonts, Egg-speriments, and Shake Breaks!

This chick has been a BUSY BUSY bee!! I have been trying to post for like a week, but just can't seem to find the time!! I have been up to a lot and want to share a few things!

First up, OUR WHOLE SCHOOL (teachers that is) GOT iPADS!! How cool is that!??!! I have been dying to get one and now I don't have to! Each teacher only got one, so I have to get creative with how to use it in the classroom. =) 

I have also been waiting to get one so that I could download the app, iFontmaker, and create my own fonts! Sooo, that's pretty much the first thing I did when I got it...I might have been doing that during one of my planning period at school! SHHHH! Don't tell!!

Anyway, they are all free and can be downloaded right from my sidebar underneath where it says fonts. Here is what they look like!

I have actually added two more since creating the picture above and they are also in my side bar for your downloading pleasure! =)

Click the button below to view my terms of use!

I also used my iPad this week to video our Egg Float Egg-speriment! The kids absolutely loved it! I could only upload 15 minutes of the video so you won't get to see the very end -- it's only 16 minutes so you don't miss much, but this lesson is a great way to introduce the Scientific Method! Check it out below! I know it's kind of long, but it's so neat to see the progression of the lesson from the outside! I might also develop a slight stutter during one part, so please forgive me!! HAHA

UGH!! My arms look so fat in that video! Eek!! lol

And finally, I finished my SHAKE Break file! Remember I told you about this guy??

Well, instead of having a regular ole dance party shake break, I thought it would be TOTALLY awesome to have a Disco Party and turn on the colored disco ball for two minutes while they break it down!! Hopefully, I don't get in trouble for this one...lol

Anyway, here is the complete file! There are 42 Shake Breaks included with directions for each one! P.S. Shake Breaks are just my version of Brain Breaks. 

 I cannot wait to print these bad boys off tomorrow and start using them! I plan on incorporating them with my WBT scoreboard! I will still use the brain breaks as necessary in class, but I have a feeling the students will be begging for more so I think if I link it to the scoreboard, they will totally work their little butts off to earn one! They will try to earn a Shake Break instead of 1 minute of extra recess for the scoreboard game.

You can get this file for $3.50 at either one of shops by clicking below!

And don't forget about the Carolina Blogger Meet Up! Please go visit Hope's FB event to RSVP so we can get an accurate head count! Just click the picture below to head over.

First Week of School Activities

We had our first day of school with students Wednesday and I forgot how utterly exhausting and mind blowing that first day is! We did lots of rules, routines, and procedures but also made time for some fun first week things. 

Here is what we have been up to!

 You can purchase these Scholastic Order Form activities from Clutter Free Classroom HERE!

I also introduced the students to the Activ Expressions! They were literally asking me about them ALL week long and so Friday, we took a Multiple Intelligence Survey using the device! I adapted this activity from Laura Candler's printable survey which you can download free HERE! You can download the flipchart by clicking the image below.

Important Note: You must have Promethean Activ Inspire software installed on your computer to OPEN and use this file! Please do not download otherwise!

I also made some labels to go on my Activ Expression bins. You can download those by clicking the button below!

I have also decided to implement brain breaks into my classroom this year! We needed a little wake me up on Friday morning so we watched this HILARIOUS parody of I'm Sexy and I Know It, called I'm Elmo and I Know It! I am definitely adding this to my brain break file!

I plan on making some brain breaks sometime this week. Stay tuned to find out how I plan on incorporating this bad boy into my brain breaks!

I absolutely can't wait for it to get here!!