And the winner is...

I had my wife randomly choose a number, and the winner is Tonya Shore! Check your email :-)

Thanks for playing, everyone!

Happy Easter!!

Five For Friday

Hi blog friends! Hopefully you're all at home enjoying a nice day away from school. I'm currently crammed into a conversion van with my in-laws on the way to Virginia to meet up with some more family to take some family pictures. We've been driving for 5 hours already, so I decided it was time to dive into blog land. *sidenote* It is VERY difficult and time-consuming to update your blog on your phone. I'm going to regret this soon.

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for another Five For Friday! (Also, my picture choice is slightly limited in the car.)

First random thing from my week... My wife is TERRIFIED of our class guinea pig, Jelly Bean. I brought him home for Easter, and knew that her holding him would be the perfect photo opportunity. I was right.

Oh my goodness. I could literally eat sushi every day. Now, when I say "sushi," I mean that Americanized version of sushi. No raw fish for me. Not that I wouldn't eat real sushi, just haven't.

We were learning to tell time these past few weeks. Our math series, EnVision, merely grazed over telling time. Most of my kids got it, but some were screaming HELP! Saw this idea on Pinterest and my kids loved it. Dollar hula hoops from the dollar tree, and you've got Race Around The Clock!

Our dog can't stand when something is going on and he's stuck in another room. He's pretty much the cutest thing. Anyone else have a dog that pops its back legs out like this when it lays down!?

I'm running the Hershey 10K in a few weeks and I'm way more terrified than I should be. I ran a half-marathon in October, so I know I can do it. I haven't really run since then. Which is why I'm terrified. We'll see how it goes...

Have a happy holiday weekend!

April Morning Work

Are you tired of having morning work that only covers one skill at a time? I decided that my firsts needed a little bit more. I designed April Morning Work to keep their brains charged and running.

This packet has 25 pages... more than enough to keep your students busy during April! It touches on the following topics, aligned to the Common Core...

Even and Odd Numbers, Telling time to the hour and the half hour, Skip Counting by 2, 5, & 10, Number Order, Fact Families, Writing and solving story problems, Adding and subtracting by tens, Patterns, Greater than, less than & equal to, Finding missing addends/numbers, Days of the week, Expanded form, Tally marks, Graphing, Doubles , Making 10, 10 more & 10 less, 1 more & 1 less, Identifying shapes, Mental math, Adding 3 numbers, Hundreds charts.

Want a free copy???

All you have to do is head on over to my Facebook Page, hit LIKE, then leave a comment here to tell me!  If you already LIKE my page, just leave a comment here.  I'll randomly pick a winner Easter morning!  Good luck!

Telling Time Freebie!

Hello all! Even though I had very little downtime today (indoor recess, AND the computer aide was out today,) I was super productive! I made this little freebie to help my firsts with telling time to the hour and the half hour. I had lots of fun making this one with my new clock clipart from Little Red's Schoolhouse. Click the pictures to head on over to TpT and snatch it up!

Enjoy!

Do You Dojo?

Last week I discovered an awesome resource... Class Dojo!

Class Dojo is a resource that you can use to track your students' behaviors in real time. You have the ability to input your entire class (and multiple classes if you have the need.) It can be accessed online, and on your smart phone. I downloaded the app to my iPhone, and take it with me throughout the building. LOVE that I'm able to give my kids immediate feedback, even on the go!

You have the ability to customize the behaviors that you'll be tracking. I let my class help me determine what positive behaviors they should get points for, and what negative behaviors should cause them to lose points. Here's what they came up with, and I think they're pretty good!

One of MY favorite features of Dojo is the report. You can open up individual and whole class reports. It's broken down into how positive their feedback was, AND the percentage of each individual behavior. I think that's pretty incredible, especially for a FREE resource! You can even give parents login information, and they can choose to have reports automatically sent to them every Friday. Pretty awesome.

So... Do you Dojo?! If you use it, please share! I haven't opened it up to parents yet, but I'm hoping to soon!

I just started working on a new TpT product... I'm making a series of math morning work, starting with April. I'm lining it up to the first grade common core standards. Is there something that your firsts struggle with that you'd like them to have a little more practice with?

Five For Friday

First of all, I feel like I'm the only one who's been teaching all week and has to teach all next week, too! Everyone else is posting about their "Spring Break." We get the Thursday and Friday before Easter. That's it. Am I the only one without a true Spring break?!

Anywho, I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for this 5 for Friday post. Here's 5 random things from my day. Don't get too excited.

Trying To Get Organized
A few weeks ago, I found this 3-drawer organizer at Staples. I needed something to help get that endless pile off my desk. It worked, except now the drawers are overflowing because I'm still neglecting the papers. But at least they're off my desk, right?!

KERMIT!
My friend Paula, from Miss Paula Knits, made me this AWESOME Kermit for my classroom. He sits on my windowsill, and makes me smile.

Potty Monster?
The bathroom right across the hall from my room (which is super convenient, because the kids know they have to be back in a flash) has this guy inside the door on your way out. I'm not sure whether or not I should be scared of him. I'm convinced some little first grader has had nightmares about the germs on their hands coming to life... But at least they're washing their hands, right?

The World's Cutest Puppy in the World

Our dog is so stinking adorable I can't even handle it. My wife and I don't have any kids yet, so this little sucker is our baby. We are that obnoxious couple that posts too many pictures of their dog and I'm totally fine with that. But seriously. How am I supposed to get any work done with this guy?

Spring Has Sprung

Oh my garsh. There's plants growing in the flower beds. Nature says it's time for Spring, so it must be, right? I hope so. It snowed again the other day... Ugh. This guy is ready for some warmer weather...

Have a nice weekend!

The Lady in the Moon

Hello! We use Reading Street at my school, and are reading Lady in the Moon this week. Don't get me wrong, I really do like our reading series, but every once in a while a really boring not as fun story pops up. For me, this is one of them. There were some fun bits that we enjoyed reading, but other than that, my kiddos were a little restless in reading groups. SO, I decided to spruce things up in our room with these Chinese lanterns. We really enjoyed reading about the Lanterns, so I KNEW my firsts would absolutely love this little craftivity. Very easy, and definitely a fun one!

Here's whatcha do. Find some Chinese clipart to spruce up the page (I like to use an oaktag because it holds up a little longer). The most important part is the row of dots at the bottom of the page. About an inch from the bottom, and about an inch apart. These will be very important later, so tell the students NOT to color over them with a dark color. Let the students color the page until their little hearts are content.

When they're all done coloring, have them fold the page in half, hot-dog style. Then, starting on the side with the fold, cut straight up to each dot. TO MAKE THINGS EASIER, I folded the pages and made the first cut for my kiddos, just to make sure they didn't chop it in half! Once it's all sliced up, open it up and staple the top and bottom to form the lantern!

Super easy. Super fun. Kiddos will love it! Happy almost-weekend!

Let's Get Acquainted Link-up

I feel like it's been forever since I posted, and here I am posting twice in a night. Look at how productive I am. (Just ignore the math tests on the coffee table that aren't grading themselves). I'm linking up with Latoya Reed from Flying Into First Grade for this getting acquainted linky party. Feel free to link-up, too!

My initials are JAV. Here's some things I like/like to do...

J is for JAVA.
I can't live without my coffee. It's really quite sad. There's a Starbucks on my way to school and it's really become quite a problem. I'm currently living in this delusional wonderful little world where I'm still paying for my Starbucks with Christmas/birthday gift cards. I don't know what I'm going to do when that piggy bank runs dry. I like it all, too. I have my "go-to" drinks, but I've honestly never had something I didn't like. If it has coffee in it, I'll take it.

A is for animated.
I'm a very loud person. I find myself closing my classroom door, not because the people in the hall are to loud, but so people don't think I'm strange. Really loud. Over the top animated. My kids think I'm crazy. They're right.

V is for violin.
Along with singing and playing the piano, I have played the violin since 4th grade. Never stopped. Tried to sell my violin once to go to Spain, but my parents said no. I was angry at the time, but I'm glad they didn't let me. I play with a local symphony, and I also play in the orchestra pit for our high school's musical every year. Playing for the musical is my favorite part... I work at the district I graduated from, and was always IN the musicals when I was in high school. It's really neat to still be involved, but on the other side of things. We did Beauty and the Beast this year, and it was some of the coolest music I've ever played. Lots of fun. I also LOVED seeing my little firsts come to the show! Two of my girls brought me a rose at the end of the show, dressed up in their princess dresses, and it pretty much made my life.

There ya have it. A little more about little old me.

Techy Tuesday

Happy Tuesday, friends! I don't know about you, but coming back on a dreary Monday after daylight savings was rough. Add a rainy Tuesday, and my kids were struggling. We plowed through it, and I'm crossing my fingers for a little sunshine tomorrow!

Anywho, I've got a few fun things to share... We love love LOVE our iPad Minis from Donors Choose. Here's 2 apps that we're hooked on. First off, I'm loving the Dr. Seuss digital bookshelf. It's free, and it's basically an easy way to organize your Dr. Seuss e-books. If you haven't played around with the Seuss books for iPad, you're missing out! They are absolutely incredible. There's 3 options for each book. Read To Me, Read It Myself & Auto Play. Right now my kiddos are listening to Cat in the Hat as their listening center, and it's pretty cool! The bookshelf also allows you to lock the app, preventing students from purchasing more books, which is super helpful! 

Also hooked on the Magnetic Alphabet app. It sounds silly, but we use it literally all the time. Mostly, I use it to introduce new phonics skills, rather than using those letter tiles that I hate sorting and putting away. It allows the students to drag letters and plop them on the board, then they can drag them back or erase the whole thing. The free version gives you one background and limited magnets. Love it.

Hope you can use these in your room!

Luck of the Irish!

My St. Patrick's Day Centers are finally finished and up for grabs on TpT!  Check them out by clicking on the picture below:

This unit has ELEVEN math and literacy activities... First to comment with an email address will get a free copy!

Happy Tuesday!