Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Freebies!

So our first story with our new pacing guide is Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. I have been working on a few things for it. First off I have a class book

Click on the book to get the entire pack which includes book page, cover, and letter home explaining the project.

Then I have a PowerPoint I created to go with it

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Scribd changed some of my fonts and moved some things around, which make it look really funny, but you get the idea. If you want a copy leave me your email in a comment and I will send it to you. You will need LD Elementary Font which is offered by several free font sites.

Now for one last freebie. (I am in a giving mood today!) I also made a game that will can be used in small group and then moved to a word work or ABC center. It is an upper case/lower case matching game.

Hope you enjoy these Chicka Chicka Boom Boom activities! Next up on my to do list is Chrysanthemum!

One last thing. All my graphics that didn't come from Microsoft are from these two wonderful people who offer so many freebies! You should check them out!




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Big Goals

This summer is full of big goals I have for myself!! I am such an awful housekeeper during the school year, then the summer comes and I am a neat freak. The problem is the time between getting out of school and getting the whole house cleaned. My nerves are an absolute wreck just looking around thinking how did I let it get this bad! So there is goal number 1, get my house cleaned.
Also have you all seen what Laura over at KinderKraziness is doing? She has picked all new stories for her reading. She is following the basic line of the SF series but changing the books they will read. I fell in love with this idea and took it to my team. We agreed that a lot of the stories were horrible awful not good, and we needed new ones, but we liked at lot of the stories too. The problem with the ones we liked were they didn't match the letter of the week or really make sense with the time of year we were teaching it. I mean really lets talk about butterflies in the middle of winter, that makes perfect sense to a five year old! So we took Laura's wonderful new pacing guide and our list of current stories, sat down together, and made a new pacing guide. It was great, but it gets even better. While trying to decided where to get our books the librarian walked by. So we pitched our idea and he said have $$$ to buy your books!!! WHOOHOOO!!! So that brings me to goal number 2, working on this new pacing guide and getting everything together. With our old stories someone in our county had created PowerPoints to go with them, so I promised if they would change things up a bit I would create any new PowerPoints.I have the general outline of our pacing guide done and the first PowerPoint ready to go. I still have so much more to do, plus I had planned on making intervention packs this summer for each story, so maybe I will just conquer the first 9 weeks of stories!! I will post anything I do here, and Laura is posting a bunch of great stuff over on her blog to so check that out!!


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Here is my first freebie with all of this. It is our pacing guide. I didn't include math because our county hasn't decided our pacing for Scantron testing yet. As soon as I get that I will update this for you.

We still have some holes to fill in the Science/Social Studies area. We don't really teach Science and Social Studies in K-2. So we have no real curriculum for it, which leaves it up to us pretty much. The problem with that is there is no real time allotted for it. I get very envious when I see everyone in blogland doing their fun theme units. I am hoping that changing the stories will give us a little more freedom in what we are doing!

Goal number 3 will come later in the summer. I just completed that Debbie Diller book study and in July I am going to a three day conference, two days of which will be with Debbie Diller. One day she will talk about reading and one day on math. After that three days I plan on redoing my math instruction!!!

I also have a bunch of other stuff I want to get done for school, such as crate seats and creating a reading focus wall.

Stay tuned to see how well I do at completing my goals

I made this checklist to help me (and you) keep up!

 I got the frame from:

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Summer Linky Party

There is a linky party going on! I love a good linky party! This one is even better because it is all about summer, which is only 7 student days away for me!!! YAY!
Check it out here

Now the point of this linky is to share what is on your summer bucket list, so courtesy of Pinterest here you go:

Source: theboutons.blogspot.com via Markeeta on Pinterest

Create these with black crates and red fabric for my new kidney shaped table we got this year!

Source: jerome.northbranfordschools.org via Markeeta on Pinterest

Get really familiar with the Common Core and begin making items to use in my classroom!

Source: mrswilliamsonskinders.blogspot.com via Markeeta on Pinterest

Create some new centers for our reading block!

Source: 27.media.tumblr.com via Markeeta on Pinterest

Continue to progress with my running! I have run/walked 1 5K and have another one tomorrow! I really want to keep working at this and be able to just run a full 5K!

Source: Uploaded by user via Markeeta on Pinterest

And my biggest thing of all is spending 1 month in a rental house with my sister and her kids in Florida at Venice Beach!

Common Core

So TN is one of the states adopting the Common Core. In TN counties are choosing whether or not to go ahead and adopt them before the official state adoption. My county has decided to begin the adoption K-2. We have been exploring them this year. This summer the county is forming a team to implement and train others for the Common Core switch. I have applied for that team, hopefully we will find out soon who is on it!  I was sent yesterday to a focus group for East TN teachers using Common Core. We  got to discuss our success and difficulties. We made suggestions for things the state could do to help us and train us. I am really trying to explore the Common Core and find some useful resources as we continue through this process. A great website that was given yesterday was from North Carolina. I look forward to using it. Check it out:

NC Public Schools-Common Core Tools

Anybody else have a great Common Core resource they want to share, comment on this post!

Teacher Appreciation Sale!

In honor of all the great teachers out there who encourage and inspire me! Thanks Erica from Erica Bohrer's First Grade for the adorable graphic!

Field Trip...

to Home Depot!

 If you have never done it, you need to. This was my second year doing it and it is so much fun. Home Depot nationwide offers the program, but I think they all do it a little differently. Last year when I planned our trip our local store hadn't done a large  group before (they had done very small groups and we brought close to 90!). So the manager and I worked out what things we would like to do. This year they had tweeked it just a little and it went great. They had 4 stations plus a snack, so each of our 4 classes were doing something, no one was just sitting waiting. My class started with the aprons. Every child gets to decorate an apron like the ones employees wear. I had one cutie draw tools all over his!

Then we moved on to the craft. Last year we built a planter. This year they didn't have enough wood projects leftover from their Saturday workshop so  they had materials for us to make crowns from paper plates. The kids thought it was great. We took our Webkinz class pet with us (he goes everywhere with us!) and they made him a crown also!

After we had our crowns and aprons the store manager took us on a tour of the store. We saw the greenhouse and talked about all different kinds of plants and things you need to make plants grown. Then we went through the lights and ceiling fans (which fascinated the kids) to the carpet. They got to see how the store stores and cuts those big rolls of carpet. We headed up to the front of the store where we saw the seasonal stuff and the kids talked about mowing. We visited customer service and talked about their job. They taught us about a cashier and the lights above the station and what it means for it to be on, flashing, or off. We watched them mix some paint to make a color, and we watched them cut some wood.

They are so kid friendly. They taught them a Home Depot cheer and encouraged them to scream! They even provided us with a snack and bottle of water before we left. They take a picture of all 69 of us from above and the kids loved that, but the especially loved when he wanted them to do a silly face for it! They loved it and had a great time. Home Depot makes it so easy for us as teachers and it is a very family friendly field trip, as they encourage as many parents as possible to come in order to help with the crafts. Did I mention the best part, this field trip was FREE! All we had to pay for was the school bus to get there!

This was so much fun. So what is your favorite field trip?!

New Math Games

This weekend I worked on a few math games. They are practicing time and numbers on a clock. I made them for this year, even though next year when we switch to common core time is no longer a kindergarten standard. Neither is money. I know we have decided to still include time and money in our morning calendar time so the kids are still exposed to it. What about you? Will you continue to teach time and money in some way? Do you think they need to be exposed to it before they get to first grade?
Anyway if you plan on still teaching it in kindergarten then you might like these games, but it meets the common core standard 1.MD.3 for 1st grade. Go check them out at my TpT store. The clip art game from Graphics from the Pond (one of my favorites!!!!)

I have to say I was a little disappointed this morning when we didn't have a snow day or a delay. Yes you heard me right I said snow day. It was suppose to snow here last night. I really hoped our county would give us the day. We have 5 built in days left! Anybody else have built in days left? If so what is your county doing with them? Just wondering what is happening everywhere else!!!

Have a great week!!!!!