Need something fun for the last week?

I can't believe it...4 days!  Are you kidding me?!?!  First of all, SO jealous of those who are already out.  Have I already said that at some point?  Oh well...I'm still jealous.  :P  But for those of us lucky enough (trying to stay positive...) to still be in school, I have something that might be fun for the last week!

I was trying to think of something fun and engaging for my math kids during our final days together.  My creation is "Fun with Food" math centers!  Which I found out that when I tried to upload it, there's already something with that title on TpT...oops!  It's now called "Fun with Food Math Activities" on the site.

Here's the deal...since I want you to have this in your hands NOW, I'm deciding to skip doing a giveaway...kind of.  There's no time to wait!  So I'm giving this goody away for FREE to the first 4 people (since there's 4 days of school left!) who comment below.  Simply follow my blog and leave your e-mail address!  I'm getting ready to call it quits for tonight, so you'll either get it in your inbox tonight (depending on how quickly you respond and how late I actually stay up) or tomorrow.

Have a great end-of-the-year!

Here's the description:

A fun, edible, and healthy option to have a little bit of fun with numbers! This pack comes with 10 different math activities. Only 3 out of the 10 involve candy. The rest involve fruits, pretzels, crackers, etc. Use this as an beginning-of-the-year activity, end-of-the-year wrap up, review for tests, or fun ways to introduce and reinforce math concepts! Your students will love using food as manipulatives!

The following centers/activities are included:

- Base Ten Munch
- Ants on a Log Count
- Skittle Survey
- M&M Fraction Find
- Grape Giveaway
- Apple Addition
- Orange Operations
- Peppermint Place Value
- Parts-and-Total Popcorn
- Cheerio Change


***This activity pack is appropriate for grades K-2.  Basic addition and subtraction are used, as well as place value, fractions, graphing, etc.

CLICK HERE TO GRAB IT FOR ONLY $3!!!!

Ah, Pinterest...you inspire me!

It's never too soon to get ready for the new school year, right?  Some say I'm crazy.  Ok, a LOT say I'm crazy.  Honest moment here?

For next year I have already:

-torn out and sorted math homework
-printed and laminated my new number line
-printed and laminated Tic Tac Toe boards for all my firsties
-created their spelling homework
-rearranged my room so that I can leave a note for our awesome custodians on how to arrange it after they clean this summer!  :P
-and I'm ALMOST done with creating their math review sheets (btw, if you use 1st grade Everyday Math, be on the lookout for a new packet in my TpT store...it has an in-class review sheet and homework for the end of each unit...it'll be up by Saturday at the latest!)

Crazy?  I think so.  However, my thinking is that I can honestly walk away from school this summer for as long as possible.  Not that I don't want to spend every waking moment there (because I honestly could), but I'm trying to get this whole motherhood/teacher balance thing goin' on.  It's HARD!  One step at a time...

So I pinned on Pinterest a while back a SWEET way to spruce up those plastic drawers that so many of us use for storage.  In case you haven't noticed yet, I'm TOTALLY Type A.  It's ridiculous.  My need for perfectionism is NOT a good thing.  But part of me enjoys it and finds relief in it!  Maybe you can relate.  But I can't STAND to see clutter.  AT. ALL.  I mean, is it just me or do all those things shoved in these plastic drawers drive you crazy when you look at it?!?!  I decided to take the Pinterest-inspired idea one step further, mainly for visitors and subs for my room.  I feel like the queen of labels.  You too?  Then you'll love this idea!  I used scrapbook paper, printed some labels, and taped them right inside!

Enjoy and be INSPIRED!  :)

Ahhh...so much more pleasing to the eye!  :)

Wrapping Up the World's Fair

The World's Fair is officially over!  We ended by taking a trip to Australia last Friday.

My class's study of Africa/Egypt went really well!  I was SO proud of them and it was a blast!  I told the other classes as they came that they would have the "TRUE" African experience because it was 85 degrees that day and our air conditioning was NOT working!  Oh my...it was SWELTERING!

The kids came up with their own products to sell to the other students.  Some even dressed the part!

Welcome to Africa!

The students had to go through Customs before they could enter the new continent!

After going through Customs, the classes were greeted by some of my "Africans", who put a sticker in their passport.  Then they heard some amazing African facts from our 2 tour guides before entering!

The first shop was an African Necklace Shop!  These girls cut, glued, and decorated 100 necklaces to sell!

This group of boys made 100 Egyptian Hieroglyphic Bookmarks!

These girls made "Egyptian Cotton Bracelets" to sell.

I bought one and still have it on my ankle...I intend to wear it all summer...

Here are the girls who made 100 paper pyramids!

These little safari explorers sold "Egyptian Petroglyphs" (ancient rock carvings).

And then there's our "Get Wrapped Like A Mummy Shop!"  Omg...MILLIONS of rolls of toilet paper later, my room (and the entire 2nd grade hallway) was a DISASTER.  But oh my, did they have fun!  They LOVED it!!!!  It was quite the hit!

Here are a couple of the shops with my our crazy attempt at creating Victoria Falls behind them...HA!

And finally, here is a shot of our "Pyramid Shop" and "Egyptian Bread Shop."

Needless to say, I slept REALLY well that night!  What an EXHAUSTING week, but it was a blast and the kids absolutely loved it!

I'm adding my "Africa" mini-lesson to TpT in the near future, so check it out!  :)

Happy Weekend!

Mother's Day

Don't forget Mother's Day is Sunday!  I seem to always forget about this holiday until the last second.  Then I'm scrambling to find something to do with my students.  Maybe because I'm actually a mother for the first time this year, but I actually remembered ahead of time and we're done with our projects now!  :P

The kids did SUPER well with our project and they turned out really cute!  I call them "Complimentary Flowers".  They cut out all the pieces and wrote a compliment about their mother on the middle of each flower.  They LOVED it!  I let them just have a plain white piece of paper for their "bouquet holder" and the decorated it on their own and then rolled it up.  I told them not to draw a really detailed picture because it wouldn't show up when they rolled it.  I emphasized the need to draw a design or pattern.  Take a look how cute these turned out!

If you HAVEN'T come up with anything yet for Mother's Day, I have this craftivity packet in my TPT store!  Check it out!  :)

Teacher Appreciate Sale and a New Blog Title!

I don't know about you, but to me this such an exciting time for teachers!  Our PTO does all sorts of giveaways and luncheons and little treats for us during Teacher Appreciation Week!  We are truly blessed to have the jobs we do to be able to serve our wonderful communities.  Speaking of which, many of you are already aware, but Teachers Pay Teachers is having a HUGE sale today, tomorrow, and Tuesday!  I'm offering 20% off all of my products, and TpT is offering another 10% off as well!  It's a SPECIAL treat!  I'm excited to download some things I've had my eyes on for a while.  :)

Thanks to Erica for creating this awesome banner for the sale!

CLICK HERE TO GET TO MY STORE!

Now I'm going to unveil something I've been working on, and I finally finished it this morning at 3 a.m.  Ah, the life of a teacher. :P  I know that is NOT normal, but sometimes I just get the energy to get stuff done!  I've started a Word Work section for my store.  With moving down to 1st grade next year, I'm ALREADY thinking about how I want to do things next year.  And being a new mommy, I want to keep things simple and easy!  So in honor of this huge project, I have listed my FIRST Word Work packet for FREE on TpT!  That's right, folks.  Short a Word Work.  It's 47-pages of 10 activities for a short a study.  The activities will stay the same each week, fostering independence and confidence so that YOU as a teacher can worry about other things (working with small groups, individuals, teaching lessons, assessing, whatever it is you need to do!).  I've already uploaded the Short i Word Work and will keep on adding others throughout the next several months.  Here's a preview!

One more thought for the night...since I'm moving to first grade next year, I have decided to go with a new name for my blog.  You may have noticed the address is different.  So that I don't jinx myself again, I'm changing it to "Permanently Primary"!!!! :D  Because even if I get moved again (which I'm hoping, praying, and crossing my fingers and toes that I don't!), I will only be teaching a primary grade because of my certification.  I figure I can't go wrong!  ;)  So the title of my blog and everything will be updated soon.  Don't freak out, it's still me!  :)

Have a great week and I hope you're all able to stock up on some fun stuff! :)

I will be back with pictures from our World's Fair and some decorating projects I've been working on for my classroom!  I didn't want to make this post really long and random, so I will post again in a few days!  :)

World's Fair

This week is the World's Fair in 2nd grade!  Wow, talk about fun.  Talk about chaos.  Organized chaos.  Yep, that's it.  ;)

Each 2nd grade classroom studies and features a specific continent.  We have one classroom doing Asia (focus on Japan), one doing Europe (focus on Great Britain), one doing South America (she featured a little bit of everything), one doing Australia, and I'm doing Africa!  We're honing in on Egypt a little more.  Everyone completely transforms their room for the week.

Here's the entrance to my room...

Prior to the actual fair, we studied goods and services.  The students pair up and come up with something authentic from the continent we are studying to sell during the fair.

Here are some of my students cutting out money for the other kids in the other classes to spend at our market.

Some students are making braided bracelets in honor of African textiles.

I found this awesome pattern online for the large Egyptian collar necklaces!  The students colored them and glued beads to them.  They are fab!  

Next a group of students made their own petroglyphs (rock wall carvings).  They simply used white crayon to draw pictures and then painted over it with watercolors.

Another 2nd grade teacher had gone to the museum in Chicago a few years back and brought back a hieroglyphics stamp set!  So I had another group of boys make hieroglyphic bookmarks!  They stamped out different words onto card stock and then tied some yarn to the top.

And of course we decorated our outside bulletin board with a collage of African animals...I just love children's art!  TOO FUNNY!  :P

I'll be back this week with more photos and updates!  Our class goes on Wednesday.  I can't wait to share more and let you take a peek at our room transformation!

Happy Monday and have a great week!  I don't know about where you teach, but we are down to 23 more days!!!!!  Yippeeeee!!!! :D  

Explanation, Winner, and Voting!

Ladies,

I apologize for being absent.  Really, I do.  Let me do a quick, brief recap of what's been going on, just to tell you I really do have a reason...

My son (10 months old) got really sick.  I mean, REALLY sick.  There's this nasty bug going around apparently.  He got it, then I got it.  I only went to school on MONDAY last week.  :(  I'm overwhelmed about what awaits me tomorrow morning!  We ended up in the ER and almost took him down to Nationwide Children's Hospital.  It was that bad.  I hated seeing my poor baby hooked up to IVs and monitors.  He's MUCH better now.  I'm STILL not 100% (uggg!!!!), but well enough to where I've GOT to move on and start getting back to normal.

Also, my aunt (age 49) had a heart attack around a week ago.  It was very touch and go and they brought in a  special surgeon to do robotics surgery.  She had to wait a WEEK before they could perform the surgery.  So we left Friday (with me still being sick...hubby and baby stayed home) to travel up to Michigan to be with her during her surgery and see her.

I apologize for getting personal on my "teaching" blog, but hey, teachers go through real-life stuff!  :P

So.  Here we are.  At least it's before Mother's Day, right????

Our winner is...

That means Amanda Cypher is our winner!!!!  Congrats!  :)  I will e-mail you the file shortly.  :)

Also, Teachers Pay Teachers is doing a fun contest!  They are asking people to redesign their "It's About Time" banner!  I've created a few...if you like them, please head to their Facebook page, look on the right side under "Recent Posts by Others", find mine, and click "Like"!  Here's a peek of what they look like...

Click HERE to vote!