May Currently

It has been awhile since I've linked up with Farley's Currently. Actually, it's been awhile since I've blogged at all! And for that I apologize! But here's a little peak and what's been going on in my life recently!

Listening: just sitting in silence while eating my breakfast and it is GLORIOUS!

Loving: I'm so happy that it's starting to warm up, BUT I feel like Texas just skipped over Spring. The high on Wednesday was in the 60's and the high on Sunday is in the 90's?! what the heck!

Thinking: our little bundle of joy, Reagan Phair, will be here in 11 weeks! Wow! Am I ready for this?

Wanting: I'm trying my hardest to get some units done! My top priority is my Language Arts Assessment packet that's just like my math one. I'm hoping to have it done this weekend!

Needing: The last currently I did was in February, and I needed a hair cut then. Ironically, I still haven't gotten that hair cut, so I just left it! Need a hair cut bad!

Surprise: I want to tell you about this adorable Mother's Day gift idea from Lindsay over at For the Love of First Grade. We did these last year and the kids LOVED it! I'm sure you remember putting carnations in colored water and watching them turn that color over the next couple of days. So we did that experiment and then attached these adorable tags to the flower and the kids took the flower home to mom!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Colorful-Carnations-for-Magnificent-Mothers-678635

I hope everyone is doing well and you are gearing up for the last few weeks of school! Can't believe it's almost over!

Spring Cleaning

I don't know about you, but cleaning is just not my most favorite thing to do, UNLESS you mean cleaning out my TpT wish list! I mean, who doesn't love doing that?

A bunch and I mean a BUNCH of my blogger friends and I are throwing a "Spring Cleaning Sale". It's time to go and leave back feedback for all of your past purchases to earn credits to put towards items on your wish list. EASY as that! And to make it even more fun to buy those items on your wishlist, we are putting our stores on sale! My store will be 20% Saturday through Monday.

Here are some of the fun units that I use in my classroom for the end of the year. Click on the picture to be taken to my TpT store.

Check out all the other teachers who are also doing alittle "spring cleaning"!

An InLinkz Link-up

Finishing Up Money {freebie} and TpT Sale

We have been working on money in my intervention groups the past 3 weeks and we wrapped up the week with our "Time To Go Shopping" Activity from my Cha Ching unit that I blogged about last week. We also did a quick assessment to see what they retained from our 3 weeks of reviewing money.

The kids had a blast coloring and cutting out the pictures. After cutting and gluing, they had to choose a price for each picture then draw it with money. Their most favorite part was getting to trace with a sharpie! What is it with sharpies? The smell? The fact that they don't get to use them? Who knows!

Since I only see my groups for 30 minutes at a time, we did this activity on Tuesday and Wednesday and then today, I assessed their knowledge of identifying coins and counting coins. Now in Texas we use the TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills), 1st grade has to be able to count groups of LIKE coins, and in 2nd they have to be able to count groups of MIXED coins up to a $1.00.

Since my intervention group is 2nd, we have be working on mixed coins. Here are the assessments I used.

The identifying coins page is from my "Look What I Can Do" 1st grade assessment packet. The mixed coins is not included in that packet since 1st only assessments counting LIKE coins. Since most of my followers teach 1st grade, the MIXED coins page may not be useful to you, so I am including a freebie below that includes counting LIKE coins! Click the picture below to get the identifying coins, counting like coins, and counting mixed coins assessment pages. Enjoy! If you like this, I promise you'll LOVE the rest of my assessment packet!

Also, don't forget the HUGE 3 million strong SALE that is going on on TpT right now! I know I'm stocking up my cart and pray to God my husband doesn't see the bill ;) Click the picture below to go straight to my store!

Hairy Money {and a freebie}

This week my intervention groups have been reviewing money. If you don't know, this year, I am the Title 1 tutor for 2nd grade and pull groups to work on reading and math. I do miss being in the classroom, but I also am enjoying the change!

This week we are visiting money and my student are just loving my "Cha Ching" money unit!

We started off the week with working on identifying coins and how much they are worth. We worked on this fun little worksheet to show what we knew about coins.

Now counting groups of like coins is easy. Just counting by 1's, 5's, and 10's for pennies, nickels, and dimes, but for quarters and mixed groups of coins, it can get hard. So I teach my students a fun little trick called "Hairy Money". Believe me, it's a life saver when those babies struggle with mixed coins and having to switch between counting by 1's, 5's, and 10's.

After learning about "Hairy Money" we did a little practice with counting mixed coins. As you can see, Hairy Money is in full practice!

We will continue working on identifying and counting coins using my "Counting Coins" book. It's always a hit with my kids!

Once I feel that my kiddos have a good grasp on identifying coins and counting them, we will move onto word problems that deal with money. We will work through our "Super Hero Word Problems" book.

You may notice that the word problems don't go in order. I did that on purpose so the students have to pay attention as they go :) I know, I know. Sneaky sneaky!

Then my favorite activity is "Time to Go Shopping!" My students will take these pictures and decide how much each item will cost. Then they will cut it out and glue it on a piece of construction paper and draw one way to make that amount with coins. I promise to post pictures once we do this project! It's always a blast! 

Click on the picture to get your own copy of "Time to Go Shopping!" to use with your kids!

Hope you are having a good week and to make things fun, the first person to comment with their email will get this unit for FREE! :)

February Currently

I just can't not participate in Farley's Currently! Even if I am 4 days late :)

Listening: My every Monday ritual is a Starbucks run where I can just sit for about an hour and just enjoy my alone time!

Loving: I just can't help but love this baby growin' in my belly! He/she is getting so big!

Thinking: I can't believe we are already in February! I'm so ready for spring to be here!

Wanting: Sheesh. Being pregnant makes me eat everything and anything and I literally have no self control. I really wish I did!

Needing: It's time for an updated look for this momma!

2 truths and a fib: My 2 truths are.....
I have been in the Miss Texas USA pageant. Yep! I was Miss College Station :)

And I've been to 4 continents. (North America, South America, Asia, and Africa)

My fib is I drink coffee everyday. I don't particularly like coffee. I'm a Dr. Pepper/Coke kinda gal.

Hope you can go link up with Farley! I know you won't regret it!

Chinese New Year

This is one of my favorite units to teach for Social Studies! The students don't get a chance to learn about this very often so they are always so engaged!

I always check out some books from the library and do daily read alouds or we will watch a clip from either Discovery Education or Brain Pop Jr. Both of these sights my district has subscriptions too and they are a great way to incorporate technology into the classroom!

One of my students' favorite activities are poems! So I of course had to do a poem for Chinese New Year! We read the poem and look for words we know, words we don't know, and words that rhyme. Then the students get a chance to draw a picture of what the poem makes them think of. Great visualizing activity!

A great way to get some comparing and contrasting practice is to read a book and then talk about how the Chinese New Year and our new year are the same and different. This activity can be done as a whole group or individually depending on your students ability.

I also love to teach about the "Year of the _______" The kids find it so interesting that their calendar year is different than ours!

We of course have to cover where China is on the map and where it is in relation to the USA. They can't believe how far away it is from us.

All of these fun activities you can find in my "Chinese New Year" mini unit. I promise your students will love the fun activities and will be talking about them for weeks!

January Currently

I was enjoying my break so much that I FORGOT about my currently post! GASP! How could it be?! But it's ok, I remembered now :)

Listening: Today in Texas the high is 46. BRR! So I am spending the day taking down Christmas (sad!) and sitting by the fire doing some blogging!

Loving: My husband went back to work today. I am SO glad that I have until next Tuesday :)

Thinking: Can you believe it's 2014? Half the school year is almost over! And I hope the 2nd half goes as quickly because that will put us closer to meeting our bundle of joy!

Wanting: If you didn't already know, we are expecting our first baby in July. Read more about it on my personal blog. And I can't WAIT to find out what we are having! I love throwing parties and a gender reveal party is definitely on the books!

Needing: This girl is needing some stretchy pants. Not only was it just Christmas and Thanksgiving where I pretty much gain 5 pounds every year, I have a baby growing inside of me that is starting to push out my waist line. I can't wait for it to look like a baby bump and not that I just ate my weight in turkey and crumb pie.

Memory: This year's memory is fun for us because we got to publicly announce our sweet bundle of joy :) Our road to parenthood has been a hard one, and finally getting to share was such a joyous time, not only for us, but for everyone who had been praying along aside us for this baby.

I hope you have a few more days to enjoy your break!