Christmas in MAY {aka teacher appreciation week}

Hello my friends! It's teacher appreciation week. Of course you already knew that! This is seriously one of my favorite times of the year. Mostly because it means there's a sale on TpT! Here are some pointers as you begin the shopping:

1. Stock up your cart with your wish list. Go on ahead and move it all over! You know you want to.

2. make sure you leave feedback (who doesn't love free money?),

3. Think about what you'll be teaching next year and start preparing now! Never hurts right?

4. And have fun! Remember, you are supporting teachers just like YOU!

Click on the banner to head over to my store! Starting right now through May 8 my entire store will be 20% off. and don't forget the extra 10% off code (TAD13) starting tomorrow through Wednesday.

Keep calm and SHOP on!

Reader's Workshop {and giveaway}!

I have decided to do a post on how I do reader's workshop in my classroom. I hope this helps anyone who is struggling with the "ins and outs" of reader's workshop. Whether you are a new teacher or not! Sometimes you just need a change!

My reader's workshop starts at 9:20. We start with our mini lesson. It normally lasts about 15-20 minutes or alittle more if the kids are really into it! :)

So this week we focused on main idea and did my pocket chart mini lesson to introduce main idea on Monday.

After the mini lesson, the students will have "read to self" time for about 10 minutes. This is when I meet with my lowest group. It's quite and the best time to work with him.

At 10:00am it's time to start centers. I continue working with guided reading groups during that time.

Here is how my students know where to go for centers time. Let me explain. 

Here are how my centers work! Some are self explanatory like read to self and buddy reading, but here are pictures of the rest of them.

 Writing Center- students have tons of choices to do during their writing center. poems, stories, lists, etc.

 Listening center- tons of books to choose from! They have a recording sheet to fill out after listening to the book they choose.

 Computer centers- my students love them some abcYA.com. the best website ever!

 classroom library- where they trade out book to put in their book box for read to self.

word work center- this isn't the best picture, but the word work center is to the right in the book shelf but the chairs. I promise to take a better picture soon! Here they have magnetic letters, playdoh, stamps, magic boards, and white boards to practice their spelling words for the week.

I hope this post is helpful for those who are putting their reader's workshop together! If you have any questions please comment or email me at flyinghighinfirstgrade@gmail.com.

For those who actually read through the whole post, congrats! I would love to give away a copy of my two new units "What's It All About?" and "All About Plants". I will choose 2 winners next Friday.

Leave a comment for each thing that you follow:
1. blog
2. Teachers Pay Teachers
3. instagram
4. facebook

Buttons for all of these are found at the top of my blog.

Enjoy your weekend!

Five for Friday {4 left!}

for the school year that is! Can't wait to do "Five for Friday" for the summer! 

Alright, here are my Five for Friday. Short and sweet today my friends!

 We had Teacher Appreciation week a week early and my parents decorated my door. Isn't it adorable?

 Our district gives out pins for years of service starting at 5 years.  Has it really already been 5 years?

 We studied main idea in reading this week. My kids loved it! Unit posted in TpT.

 We started our Plant Life Cycle unit this week and we also made our terrariums to observe a plants life cycle. So much fun! This unit is also posted in TpT.

My little sister turned 24 today. Happy Birthday Courtney Mae! 

Go link up with "Doodle Bugs" to see everyone's Five for Friday!

Currently- May

I am so excited to do my first "currently" link up with Farley at Oh' Boy 4th grade. I've always read everyone's posts and now I'm finally doing one!

listening- to dogs barking. We have 2 dogs, our sweet Stella and Allie. Every evening Stella goes in the backyard and randomly just lets out a bark. She must be letting the rest of the neighborhood "I am Stella, hear me roar!" or something like that.

loving- friends I haven't talked to in awhile. My husband and I have been going through alot lately and I have had a couple of friends randomly start popping back into my life right when I need them. God is amazing and puts me on their minds for a reason. I have had so many email or text saying "I've just had this feeling that I'm supposed to talk to you". Yes, my friends, my God knows how to comfort me!

thinking- I love changing up my hair. blonde, brown, short, long. Who knows what I'll do with summer right around the corner?

wanting- a baby. Is that too personal? Oh well. I'm putting it out there. My husband and I want a baby, bad. We've gone through alot in the these past few months in regards to infertility. This goes with the "loving" above. I've had alot of friends who have gone through this that I didn't even know went through it, contact me, and say "I feel like I need to share my story with you" and their stories have been so encouraging, especially when all of their stories end in babies :)

needing- I need a back rub. Actually a full body rub. It's that time of year.

summer bucket list- I'm planning on designating one day a week (or more) to work on TpT stuff. I have so many great ideas that I want to actually become something! I have a note on my iphone that I continue to add to. It's time to start markin' things off the list.

I want to get tan. Duh. Who doesn't?

Host a TX blogger meet up. Yep. It's an idea I've had and I can't wait to start getting it in the works. Emails will be going out to TX bloggers very soon! And if you are a blogger that isn't in TX, but wants to join us, leave your email and I will include you in the email. It'll be lots of fun! I promise! Sun, swimming, wine, baseball games, blogger talk, wine, shopping, eating, wine. You catch my drift? Lots of F-U-N!!

Instagram {Teacher Talk Tuesday}

I am so flippin' excited that Rachelle at What the Teacher Wants and Michelle at Apples and ABCs came up with this GENIUS idea! Instagram is a new love in my life and I love any reason to do it!

So here's how it works:
1. Every Tuesday teachers will post a picture of the fun that's going on in their classroom!
2. Make sure to include the hashtag #Teachertalktuesday after your picture.

Flying High in First Grade is on instsgram so don't forget to follow me.

@flyinghighinfirstgrade

You can find my instagram button at the top of the blog. I post school things but also fun things that are going on in my life. I love seeing who all of my blogging buddies are OUTSIDE of school too and getting to know them alittle better. Don't you?!

Here are some of my favorite pictures so far.

at a wedding with the Mr. this weekend!

working on this new unit!

"make a monster" 3 addends activity!

Come join the fun on Tuesday! I can't wait.

Three Addends Freebie

We are working on adding 3 addends in math this week. Since I have been pulled to help adminisiter the STAAR test, I made this fun little activity for my sub to do with my kiddos. Grab your freebie below! Hope your kids enjoy it.

Alliterations and Acrostic Poems

In writing lately we've been working hard on taking a piece of writing through the writing process so I thought it would be fun to take a break from the boring hard stuff and have a little fun this week!

After perusing instagram and my favorite blogs this weekend I decided to do alliterations and acrostic poems. I took the idea from Lindsay over at For The Love of First Grade and ran with it! Turns out she got the idea from Cara Carroll at The First Grade Parade. This is exactly why I love the blogging world! We all can use each others ideas! LOVE IT!

So we are going to spend a few days on both of these topics. We started today with alliterations and just focused on small sentences with 2 words, 1 noun and 1 verb. We used the students names for our nouns. They loved it! Well some of did. Some need some warming up to the idea! Tomorrow we will try doing sentences with 3 words, 1 noun, is, and 1 adjective.

After doing this activity whole group I sent the students off for independent writing time with this sheet for them to record their alliteration. Grab a copy of it below! The document I'm using for acrostic poems on Thursday and Friday is on there too. Enjoy!