Hoppy Spring! and a *freebie*

Hey yall! Happy Sunday!

I tell you what...these weekends just fly by waaaay too fast! I feel like I have accomplished zilch this weekend.

Well, I take that back...I did finish my springtime literacy acitvities. But I had a whole list of stuff to do! As soon as I hit post, I have got to get this house in order.

So, here are my newest literacy centers! This 27 page pack is full of springtime goodness :)

It includes:

*Spring Words ABC Order: 16 word cards, recording sheet, and answer sheet

*Grammar Sort {Nouns, Verbs, and Adjectives}: 24 word cards, 3 header cards, recording sheet, and answer sheet

*Eggciting Contractions {Memory Match}: 16 game cards

*Springtime Compound Words: 16 word cards, recording sheet, and answer sheet

*Spring Rhyming Words: 16 word cards, recording sheet, and answer sheet

I absolutely LOVE these graphics from KPM Doodles! If you guys haven't seen her work, you have got to check her out!

Teacher's Notebook is giving me a fit right now, but you can purchase it from TPT here.

And now for the freebie!

Click on the picture below for the Spring Rhyming Words center! You will need to download the preview from the packet to get this freebie. If you download, please leave me some feedback!

Okay, I am seriously going to go clean my house.....

First 3 to comment get this unit for free!!!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Hey yall! Hope everyone had an awesome week full of St. Patty's Day fun! I know we sure did!

Here are just a few of the fun things we did this week:



We made these super cute rainbows and pots of gold for our first grade bulletin board. Where did this come from? Why, from Teri, of course!

We also made Teri's cute little Leapin' Leprechauns, but I forgot to snap a picture of those. They are definitely super cute, though!

Image from A Cupcake for the Teacher

If I can remember on Monday, I will try and grab a couple of photos of our little leprechauns. They are precious!

We also worked on math centers from my Lots of Luck Math Activities unit.



We even had a visit from our own little leprechaun! He trashed our room, knocking all the chairs over, tossed our backpacks all around, drew on our board, and even ripped down some of our anchor charts! He also left us a little note and a surprise!



Click on the picture below to pick up your copy of the letter from Lucky the leprechaun!



Lucky left us a magical bag of powder and a little cup of milk.



His note said to add the milk and look for his gold nuggest! My littles each added their cup of milk to the power, worked it with their hands, and this is what they found...



They were totally amazed! I gave each child a spoon and they got to taste their little treat!

So, what were in the bags? There was a tablespoon of pistachio instant jello pudding in each bag, and 1/4 cup of milk in each cup. Their warm little hands helped to cook the jello pudding! The gold nuggets are actually little pistachios, so this activity is not good for students with nut allergies.

I definitely cannot take credit for this idea. My teamie found it from Fern Smith's Center Games.

We read lots of St. Patrick's Day books, and I gave each student a gold coin and a themed pencil. We had such a blast! Unfortunately, I caught some little bug yesterday, and spent the whole day trying not to lose my lunch.

But I'm feeling much better today! Not good enough to partake in any festivities tonight, though. My hubby is hoping I feel well enough to clean the house....we'll see about that!

Not sure if I have mentioned this or not, but I started a Facebook page! Click on the picture below to "Like" me.

I am also a guest blogger for Gladys today at Teaching in High Heels. Go check it out!

Alright folks, enjoy your day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!



Heavy Heart

Hey yall! Sorry I have been MIA lately...guess I just needed a little bloggy break.

As I was catching up on my blog stalking tonight, I realized I was reading posts from 2 DAYS AGO!!! Not sure about you guys, but I stress out if something is over a few hours old! This is probably the first sign of addiction....

Anyways, I am writing to you with a very heavy heart tonight. My teamie and BFF lost her mother today. She had been fighting the battle with cancer for about a year and a half now, and the cancer finally won.

I am filled with such sadness for my friend. I cannot even imagine the pain of losing your mother, especially at such a young age. Even though I never had the pleasure of meeting her mother, I know that she was an amazing woman and will be greatly missed. My heart is breaking for my sweet friend, and I hope that she can find some peace during this trying time.

I wanted to fill you guys in on the fun St. Patty's Day stuff we've got going on, but I think I will save that for one big post tomorrow night. We have a couple more things going on, and I want to wow you guys with it all at once...ha!

So, instead I will share some things we are doing in science right now. We kicked off our organisms unit with a trip to the Georgia Aquarium. Click here to see some pictures from our trip.

Yesterday, my littles illustrated a picture of a living thing, and then we compiled a list of living things.



Please don't judge my anchor charts. I do not have the patience, nor the talent, to make amazing charts like Abby.

Notice that some things such as leprechauns and Santa made it on our list. I couldn't very well tell them those things don't exist, now can I? So, like any good elementary teacher, I just added them to our list with a smile :)

Today, we discussed how to be good scientists by using our senses to make observations. First, we made this anchor chart on questions to ask when making observations.



Again, stop judging :)

Then I passed out four different types of seeds to my littles: pea seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and kidney bean seeds. They glued these onto their papers, and then used their senses to describe them. They even got to use some little hand lenses, which they thought was amazing!



I really like this unit, because the littles get to experience some creepy crawlies first hand. But I am not looking forward to storing 4 aquariums and 4 terrariums in my already too-small room. I am also keeping my fingers crossed that we will get a better batch of guppies this year. Last year, they died daily and I had to rush to scoop them out before anyone noticed.

I need to say thank you for those that nominated my little old blog for an award. Angela at The Daily Alphabet, Mary Beth from Run Teacher, Run, and Jada from Daisy Days for Learning all nominated me for a Top Ten Blogger award! Wow! Thanks ladies!

Before I say goodnight, I was wanting to put out another call out for guest bloggers. I have had a few interested (thanks!!!), but would really like a couple more for when I will be enjoying the beaches of Japan :) So, please shoot me an email if you are interested.

nlemacks@gmail.com



Missed Work

Hey yall! Whew, we made it! I always feel like I should get some kind of award for getting through a Monday, don't you?

So, here is our award for today...

Yum.

Anyways, I only had 17 sweet students today...17! That means that I had 5 kids out sick! And all of them had high fevers...uh-oh! I'm hoping I didn't share some fun germs with my littles. Although, they share their germs with me all the time, so I guess it's completely polite of me to share them back, right?

So, as I am gathering all the work together for my students that missed, I started wondering if my system is alike any of yours. I thought I would share with you how I handle missed work.

The first thing I do is collect all the sheets that the student is missing that day. Then I fill out this little sheet.

No, it's not cutesy, but it gets the job done. I made this many years ago, so this was before I had discovered adorable fonts and clipart. I guess I can go back now and make it a little more cutesy...

Anyways, I just simply write down what the child missed in each subject...

Paper clip all the work to the paper...

And then put it in an orange or red Absent Folder.

I leave the folder on the student's desk, and when they return, they put it directly in their backpack to go home. If they will need any books or materials to go with the work, I will stack it up underneath the folder.

So that's it! Simple, right? This method is very effective for me and my students. It helps me to know that the student will get everything they missed, and parents LOVE it! It really helps them to understand the amount of work we do everyday, and they appreciate that all the work is neat and ready to go!

So, how do yall organize work for absent students? If you would like a copy of my simple sheet, just click here or on the picture below. I left this in Word format, so that you can change your subjects or cutesify it :)

That's all for me tonight! I have GOT to get this house in order....

Big Announcement and Guest Bloggers?

Hey yall! Happy Sunday!

You would think that after being cooped up in the house for 3 days while sick, I would be DYING to get out and about today, right?

Not the case.

I have spent all day grading papers and blog stalking :)

Well, I did stop for some waffles and coffee this morning!

I have also been working on my resume, job applications, and my application for graduate school.

Now, not sure if you noticed, but that one sentence should leave you loaded with questions, like...

Why are you filling out job applications?

Why are you updating your resume?

What school are you going to?

What degree are you working on now?

So, let me respond to all these questions...

My hubby and I are moving this summer!!!! This is huge for us, as we have only been living here around Atlanta for the past 2 years. We moved here because I had received a job offer (the job that I have currently). But when I accepted the job and we decided to move, we knew there was an expiration date on our time here.

And we have reached that expiration date!

We are super excited to move back near our families and friends, but are definitely sad to leave the area. And of course, I am super nervous to be back on the job market! Even though I was unable to secure a job a couple of years ago, I am hoping that things have gotten better and I am more desirable with my couple years of experience now.

So, Augusta, look out! We are headed back your way!

Anyone out there from Augusta? Or near it?

I am also planning on going back to graduate school starting in June to pursue my Specialist degree. This is making me sweat bullets, as I have been out of school for a couple of years now, and I am nervous about getting back into the swing of things.

But I figure that I should start in the summer while I'm not working, so that I can dedicate my all to school. Then when I have a job in the fall {hopefully} I will already be used to the workload.

That's my goal, anyways.

I wish I had more to share with you today. I purchased some cute new clipart with the intentions of whipping up some new units and freebies for you guys, but I just honestly haven't had it in me. Anybody notice that it takes a couple of days to recuperate after being sick? I mean, I am still exhausted, even though I have spent the last 4 days doing absolutely nothing.

I was awarded another awesome blog award, but I will be back later this week to accept.

And I *promise* to take some pics of all the fun St. Patrick's Day things we have in store this week!

Also, I am possibly looking for some guest bloggers while I am in Japan. Anybody interested? I will be gone for 12 whole days, and would like to have a guest atleast every other day. Unless, of course, so many of you are just dying to guest blog that I have enough for all 12 days....am I dreaming?

Shoot me an email if you are interested!

nlemacks@gmail.com 

She's alive.....but just barely

Hey yall! Is it seriously Friday? My concept of time is completely screwed right now, considering I've been super feverish for the last 4 days!!!

I mean, really? I have never had a fever this long! It is just never ending! It goes up and down, up and down. I haven't even taught since Tuesday afternoon! I feel like it's been forever. I did manage to make it to our field trip on Wednesday, but paid for it later that night with a fever of 103! Yikes!

I don't have much to say today, since I'm still a little loopy, but let me leave you with some pictures of our field trip. We went to the Georgia Aquarium and had so much fun!

And last, my most favorite picture....

We were a little bummed, because the penguin exhibit was under construction :(

But we did get to see the awesome Dolphin Tales show! Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to use photography during the show, so I don't have any pictures of that.

Also, if you downloaded my There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Clover Literacy Activities unit, please go and re-download. I made the Sentence Scramblers quite a bit larger {thanks for the feedback, Hadar!}

Alright, I'm thinking I should probably try to force some food, and maybe take another nap. The only part of me that actually enjoys being this sick is my waistline...

Rule Breaker!

I know, I know. It's against the rules to post twice in one day. Blame it on the medication, I don't know what's going on.....

Did you buy it? No? Well, a girl can try, right?

Real quick...I just wanted to let you know that I added a new unit to both my TPT and TN stores. It's the rest of my There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Clover Literacy Activities.

This 19 page unit includes:

*Story Sequencing cards and recording sheet

*Story Retelling/Syllable Sort cards and recording sheet

*Rhyme Match cards and recording sheet

*Sentence Scramblers cards and recording sheet

So go pick up your copy now, folks! Hurry, before St. Patrick's Day gets here!!!

First 2 to follow both my shops and comment get it free! Don't forget to leave your email address!