Yay for new bloggers!

I am so excited!  Jen over at Kindersmarten has awarded me the Liebster Blog Award!  I am a little behind in the blog posting arena, but I hope to get caught up as tomorrow begins my winter break!  Woo hoo!!  I hope I can give back half as much as I have taken I mean borrowed from all of you!  :o)

Here are the five blogs that I am awarding the Liebster Award:

First Grade: Afterhours

Blooming Into First Grade

Forever in First

Learning in First

Teaching with Love..in Heels

This award is for "new" bloggers, and its goal is to spotlight up-and-coming blogs with less than 200 followers.  If awarded, you must:

Copy and paste the award on your blog

Thank the giver and link back to them

Reveal YOUR top five picks and leave a comment letting them know

Hope your followers will share the love with them :) {I just know you will!}

Sad but relieved...

So I just found out this morning (was it this morning..haha...it feels like so long ago!) I found out that I missed National Board Certification by 2 stinkin points!!!!  Has anyone out there gone through the process? I actually only need to redo 1 AC, but am going to do 2 maybe 3 just to be sure :)  Let me know if you have any advice!  I am just so glad that I don't have to redo an entry!

L is for Labels!!!

I did this today with my class and we love, love, LOVED it!!!!!!  Thank you so much for sharing Mrs. Lee!!  and Abby over at The Inspired Apple .  Teaching inventive spelling is always such a challenge, in my experience my little guys have such a hard time understanding this concept.  In my 5 years of teaching, I have never found a lesson to be more effective than this one!!  It was super fun and the kids did a great job. First, we talked about what labels are, then I cleaned out our snack cupboard to show them actual labels.  We then labeled our classroom friend "Teddy" the teddy bear.  I wrote the labels on post its using the "kids spelling" suggested by the class.  THEN, then I let the kids label ME!  They LOVED this!  They were having so much fun and doing such a great time I let them label each other in groups of two.  So. Much. Fun.

Labeling Teddy with my direction (I used our science wall to "find" the word nose :o)

                           

Word Work AMAZING idea

Is it really November already?!  I can't believe it!  Any day now I am HOPING to find out my results for National Board Candidacy, I am so scared!!!!!!  Please let me know if you have gone through this process....So rewarding, yet so stressful...isn't it?! With all of my blog stalking I have had a hard time finding time to post!  I am LOVING all of the great ideas I am finding in blogland....especially since this is my first year implementing the Daily 5, I don't know what I would do without all of you guys!  ANYWAYS, in addition to stalking blogs, I am also highly addicted to pinterest.  Here is a great pinterest find that I am getting ready to use next week, we are in the practicing stages of Word Work.  My little guys will use the individual letters to build words!  I am going to have one of my classroom moms cut the letters out tomorrow :)  With my awesome student teacher I was able to get a good start!  I found this great idea at Play, Talk, Learn.

Skeleton Fun

We had so much fun learning about the human skeleton this week!  My little guys loved putting together this skeleton puzzle from Spell Outloud Homeschool

Love this little guy!

Whoops!!!  Misplaced finger....haha Thanks to a helpful mom for cutting the q-tips!

Apples, Apples, Apples!

We did our best to celebrate fall in the hot, hot desert!  My little guys LOVED learning about apples :o)

I LOVED this idea...I found this cute number over at: Under the Big Top

Throughout our apple unit students created murals to represent the apple tree throughout each season...so much fun! I can't remember who's amazing blog this great idea came from, if it is you, thank you!!

Great Marshalls Find!

I was so excited to come across this great find at Marshalls!  I love to use these DVDs on Fridays for our "Fun Friday" Reward.  Each DVD contains 3 or 4 stories with the words at the bottom as the story is told...LOVE that!!   

Oh FaLL....

So, I am on "Fall Break" here in AZ, it is actually starting to feel a little bit like fall....starting.  It is so hard to get use to fall in the desert, even though I have been living here for a little over five years...ANYWAYS...since I am on fall break I am trying to get this blog going!  I am so inspired by all of the amazing teachers in the blog world, I feel as though by blog stalking addiction has made me a better teacher and I can only hope to give back!  

Letter A Song: My kids LOVE these Youtube Have Fun with Teaching videos!

Hi Everyone!!!

Ok, everyone I had to do it.  I am completely obsessed with all things teacher blog and pinterest related so I HAD to join the blogging community.  I have gotten SO many fabulous ideas from all of the AMAZING teachers in the blog world, I feel that I just needed to join the club!  Goodbye free time as I know it, hello blogging world!!  haha