Sunday, May 19, 2013

Informational Writing With Animals!

Have I mentioned how much I love teaching writing?!  It's pretty much awesome.  I've used my How-to and All About  pack for many years and it's great!  This year, I wanted to introduce more to my kids and what better way to do that than with animals?!  Ocean animals?  Check.  Zoo animals?  Check.  Farm animals? Check.  We visited a dairy farm two weeks ago, so we began with cows and in case you missed it, you can read about it here.  These writing packs are so much fun for the end of the year and go nicely with your themes! Each pack includes the same format with different animals, so your students can choose which animal they'd like to write about.

This past week students got to choose a different farm animal to research!  I made groups of four for each animal.  Check out our pictures below.




Click on each cover to see all the components and animals included.  Get all 3 and save money with the bundle!







xo
Megan 

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Monthly Reading Logs

Good morning from a very sick girl!  Let me sum up my week: Last Saturday we went to my hometown to help the family florist business as well as celebrate Mother's Day.  I felt bad but wanted to go help out.  As the week progressed, I felt worse...but being the crazy maniac that I am, I continued to do my normal weekly routines...gym, cook, tpt/blog, schoolwork, etc...by Thursday I was a hot mess.  Had a personal day but didn't get to enjoy it b/c I was sick.  Finally I decided to take my temp and I was at 101!  I went straight to bed Thursday and haven't really been out of bed since then other than going to the doctor yesterday.  I feel a bit better today but have no voice {probably from all the hacking I've been doing}.  I am READY FOR SUMMER!  I need out of my sick classroom.  Anyhow, since I was up at 5:40 coughing this morning, I decided to update my Monthly Reading Logs.

These reading logs are a fabulous way to encourage at-home reading throughout the year.  I copy the year's worth in May {I actually just finished copying mine this week!} and store them for the following school year.  Each month I send home the new log.  I use the 10-lined logs with my first graders {this pack includes 10-lined and 20-lined logs}.  Every time they complete the log, I give them a reward {food coupon, treasure chest, tickets for our school store, etc...}.  At the end of the year, I give those students that have completed all logs a pizza party and a special reading certificate.  Click the cover to take a look! Oh...and these are included in my student data binder and take home binder pack, so you may want to check that out first.


You choose which version is most appropriate for your students: 10-lined

or 20-lined

Celebrate reading with this award!


xo
Megan 

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Mother's Day

Last week we spent some time doing Mother's Day activities! We read lots of books and reviewed adjectives with Lori's Mother's Day adjective freebie!  First we sketched, then traced, and finally painted.  At first, I wasn't so sure about the paintings...I was afraid to send them home.  But they ended up turning out real cute!


On Friday our countdown chain surprise was "a special guest will come to our classroom" aka "chew gum in class but Mrs. Wheeler forgot to buy it so she made something up on the fly."  Guess who it was!?   My kids guesses were as follows {and this is after seeing the mystery guest}: A juggler {huh?!}, an artist {???}, a football player {ok I can maybe see this one...}, and a clown {what the......??}.  None of the above!  It was Mr. Wheeler.  Mr. Wheeler is a financial advisor and is very busy so he doesn't get to come to school much.  This year was no exception.  This past Friday was the FIRST time Mr. Wheeler has been in to see my class this year!! Ahh!!!  He didn't know what I was about to have him do!  Make sugar scrub {thanks, Reagan!} with 23 firsties!  He did such a great job!  He was so organized and well-spoken with the directions!  I am so lucky to be married to a wonderful man and my best friend.  The kids just loved him and couldn't believe how tall he was!  *He is 6'7".  The kids were so excited to take their scrub home for their moms and grandmas!  I even got an email from a lucky mom who thanked me for doing this project with the kids.  

Containers from Dollar Tree

And last I leave you with a picture of my wonderful mom and I on Mother's Day!  She's the best!  I was sick so don't judge this picture! 


Oh, and one more thing...I'm not a mother but I am a mother to 22 wonderful first graders and I work day and night on school things!! I decided I deserved some presents, too so I treated myself to a few goodies from Ulta {I heart that place!}!


Click the pic to check out my countdown chain!  9 days, people!  9 days! 




Friday, May 10, 2013

Summer & a Freebie!

We've been diving head first into my "Summer Shenanigans" Summer Pack!  Below are some of the fun activities students have been working on.

First up is the "Sporty Sight Words" activity.  This really showed me who still does not know the correct spelling of their sight words...arrgggggg!  Next is "Sight Word Salad" word scramble!  This proved to be a bit challenging for some!



The compound word building was a big hit!  I didn't really explain the recording sheet so I kind of liked how some kids wrote the compound word and some kids drew it!  Either way, it showed me if they understood!


Click here to snag the compound word freebie!  If you'd like to check out all of the centers, click the "Summer Shenanigans" photo below!  This is on sale for you through the weekend! :)





xo
Megan 

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Down on the Farm!

Whew! What a whirlwind week it's been!  I was out for curriculum mapping Tuesday, had a field trip Wednesday, and had a bazillion things going on today!  Lots of fun events happening at school right now.  We are down to.......14 days I believe!  We've been counting them down with my countdown chain!  The kids are loving the activities so far!  Today was "have a treat from your teacher" aka "your teacher brought you pretzels, organic raisins, and light apple juice as a snack before the field trip and was going to anyways but you didn't know that" day.

So onto farm festivities!  We began our study of farms {specifically cows b/c we went to a dairy farm today} on Monday.  We are using my Farm Animals: Informational Writing Pack all week long and then into next week.  Click the picture below to check it out!


Who doesn't love a good 'ole K-W-L?   Us old teachers still use them!  At least this one does!   Let's just ignore the "Where do baby calves come from?" question, shall we?


Next, it was time to browse some non-fiction books!  It was perfect timing b/c we had just finished up working on our non-fiction notebooks.  I was sure to pull lots of Gail Gibbons' farm-ish books as well as lots of other goodies.  The kids were loving the fact that they could answer some of their questions already by reading the books!


Diagram day was a fun one!  The kids loved drawing and labeling the parts of the cow!  Of course, they had the worst sketcher on the planet most fabulous artist to copy off of! Hey! I "just try my best" when it comes to drawing in front of the kids! Seriously it's such a train wreck.  #howdidigotoanartsmagnetschoolandstillcan'tdraw?


Onto the facts!  The kids had some great facts!  They were so proud to recall all they've learned this week!  Several were obsessed with writing all about the cows' udders!


Tomorrow, we will be making cows from Reagan's free farm animal craft pack!  We'll also do more in our cow books!  Remember to check out the book at the top of this post.  Each farm animal has 10 pages to coincide with it.  Great non-fiction study!  I'll be back next week with another post to show more about our farm fun!

The first person to leave a comment below telling me their favorite farm animal wins this pack for free! Leave your email! 

Monday, May 6, 2013

BIG NEWS!!!!!!!!!!

Hi everyone! It's almost time for the big Teachers Pay Teachers Teacher Appreciation Sale!  I am looking forward to it as much as the next person.  My wishlist is overflowing!  I wanted to highlight a few products of mine that you may not know about, as I have gained a lot of new followers since I started selling.  I am also going to show some of the fantastic feedback that has been left by some wonderful buyers, while at the same time linking up with Christina at Bunting, Books, and Bainbridge.  She's having a Fabulous Feedback linky party!

Because it's the end of the year, I am going to showcase a few things that you might like for fall/back to school... particularly those that I feel are most valuable to keep my classroom running smoothly all year long.  I am OCD about getting tons of things prepped before school lets out.  I like to come back in August knowing that all I really need to worry about is decorating my classroom.  Do you do this too?  When you go to my store, notice the custom categories that I have added to the left.  They will make browsing easier.  I believe everything in my store is now categorized for easy searching!

Student Data Binders 
This system serves as a take-home binder that doubles as a student data binder for the entire year.  It's great because it lets parents see exactly how their children are progressing throughout the year.  This system teaches young children responsibility and accountability for their things.  I've been using this data binder in my classroom for 8 years now and it's been great!  Over the years, I believe I've only had one child mis-place their binder.  Amazing, right?! The kids take ownership of this important belonging.  I already have everything copied and am just waiting for my binder order to come in so I can assemble these!


Vickie Plant (TpT Seller) said:

Classroom Library Organization Labels
I just love an organized library!  The kids eat it up!  What 6 year old wouldn't love a plethora of beautiful books to look at day in and day out?!  I like to organize my library with my library labels system.  This is another system that I have sworn by for 8 years.  My students do a wonderful job putting the books back into the correct bucket, thanks to the coordinating sticker labels inside of each book.  My library label set is available in the three color schemes shown below.   If you have a certain color scheme that you need that isn't shown below, email me at meganwheeler44@yahoo.com.  

Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, and Blue 



christylin said:


croney said:


Lime, Orange, Red, and Turquoise



Black and White 



Writing Workshop Curriculum Pack 
By now, it's now secret that I truly enjoy teaching writing workshop.  I have my Master's in Literacy and even did my thesis on writing workshop in the elementary grades.  I just love to see the growth that children make during the year in writing! My first products on TpT were my writing units.  Since I posted my first unit, I have added more and even made the earlier ones better by revising them.  I decided that it would be handy for teachers if I compiled all of my units into one bundle so everything is in one place.  Plus, it saves money and who doesn't love a good deal?!  I have a lot of blog posts showcasing the things in my writing bundle, so be sure to look at my blog under "Writing Workshop" if you'd like to see the products in action.  And if you can't spend this chunk of change at once, everything is of course available for individual purchase.  Oh, and for all you Common Core people out there, this does meet many of the CCSS requirements for writing! 


kikelly says...

Daily Sentence Editing
My sentence edits are a fairly new creation that I began in the late fall/winter.  I have fallen in love with them so I wanted to showcase them for you.  Each day, all year long, my students edit a sentence.  Things they are correcting include: misspelled sight words, improper capital letters, and missing punctuation.  Each month has sentences that coincide with the important days/holidays occurring.  This daily practice has been phenomenal   The students are carrying over the skills the practice during our sentence editing time into all areas of the day...I love it that they are remembering their punctuation in centers!  And in writing workshop!  Never in my 10 years of teaching have I seen these tricky skills mastered.  Truly awesome.  I have the bundle available at a discounted rate in my store, but I also have each individual month if you prefer to go that route.  


nfaye611 said:


sbbowen said:

Reading Foundational Skills Pack
I am showcasing this product because I feel it is a very useful tool to have on hand all year for reading groups, RTI, and centers.  This pack includes 12 different activities to meet the CCSS requirements for Reading Foundational Skills.  The foundation skills are the building blocks for student success in reading.  I have pulled many of these activities out multiple times throughout the year.  In fact, several games are in my centers for the upcoming week as a review.  


BJOHNSON17 said:


lcoflan said:

I hope you saw something that you might like for your classroom.  Take a minute to check out all the products in my store.  Remember to enter code "TAD13" when you checkout for an additional 10% off your purchase!  I do a lot of printing, laminating, and organizing during the summer months so I'll be hitting up the sale as well! Shhhh...don't tell my husband! Ha ha ha! 



Oh! And one more thing...I have a Donor's Choose project going and am only $218 away from funding it.  This week ONLY, Donors Choose will match any donation!  Would you mind taking a look?  I'm hoping to get some new dry erase slates for my classroom.  Mine are 10 years old and in awful shape.  If you'd like to donate, please enter code "TREAT" at checkout for them to match your donation.  Thank you! 
FULLY FUNDED! YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME!!!! THANK YOU!




xo
Megan