Mother’s Day Ideas

 

Mother’s Day is coming up soon. And honestly.. I don’t have one single clue what this year’s plan is going to be!

But, last year we made little mini- magnets …

I painted the letters MOM {bought at Hobby Lobby} and then  added a little sparkle! Of course!

I took a picture of each child with the letters.

 

I bought small square ceramic tiles at Lowes. They were cheap- like 20 for $3.00 or so..

I printed the pictures small and we modpodged them on.

Let them dry.. and I hot glued a little round magnet on the back of each one.

Wrapped them up and made a little tag… easy & cheap.

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The year before last.. we made these little mini flower pots. {not so cheap.. but REALLY cute!} The pots came from Oriental Trading.

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I usually always do a fill in the blank questionnaire. Here is a free download for the one I will be using this year.

Here is a link to my Mother’s Day pinterest board if you are interested in following it.

Five for Friday {Linky Party.. April 25th}

Five for Friday is a weekly teacher linky party where you post five random things from today or this past week and on your blog. Then, you come back and link your blog post up at the bottom of this post in the linky tool.Grab the button above and link back to this post on your blog.

I had a great Easter weekend and truly enjoyed a little extra down time. The "big kids" in our family also get Easter baskets.. and we enjoy buying and stuffing each other's baskets each year. And, the only plus to having me in the family is you get free stationery in your Easter basket! At least.. MOST of the time you get the new designs! These lined flat notes & personalized notebook were for my sister. The design is coming soon to the Doodle Bugs Paper website!

Speaking of my stationery business... I dropped into a local gift store this week and saw this display of my Doodle Bugs Paper items. 

Let's move on to a little school happenings... 

This week has been all about The Tortoise and the Hare. I love this story and we read three different versions this week. We had a good time predicting and then comparing how they were alike and different.

We are patiently waiting on 4 butterflies.. we still have one caterpillar who is not showing any signs of making a chrysalis and is still crawling around in the bottom of the caterpillar cup. {caterpillar, runt?? maybe!!}I rigged up some tissue at the top of the cup since I took the paper disc out to put in the butterfly garden with the others. I have NO idea if he is EVER going to go to the top and start trying to make chrysalis.. I told my kids today that we might have to let him go outside!! I really hope we don't have butterflies over the weekend!  

I sorta do our math notebooks in shifts. Some weeks we don't touch them at all and other weeks we use them daily. This week we have used them each afternoon.. and they are a great review and effective time filler. I am working on a math notebook unit. .. but I know it will not be finished until this summer. I am looking forward to having the resource myself next year.

Enjoy your weekend.. I am excited to have a whole weekend with no plans. This hasn't happened in weeks! I hope to get a few projects finished and maybe nap a little. Time is winding down. We have 2 1/2 weeks of school left! {What?!?} And, they are jammed packed with end of the year happenings!  Let the craziness BEGIN!

I would love for you to link up below!

Five for Friday {Linky Party... April 18}

Five for Friday is a weekly teacher linky party where you post five random things from today or this past week and on your blog. Then, you come back and link your blog post up at the bottom of this post in the linky tool.Grab the button above and link back to this post on your blog.

We made these fun Easter Rabbits this week. This is a free download in my TpT store..you can grab the patterns HERE!

We have been practicing for our spring program for weeks and we had our big night on Tuesday. It was a success and my little ladybugs did great! {My boys were backup singers!}

Our math centers this week were all from my Easter Math Centers Unit. 

Our caterpillars have been eating and getting fatter.. and fatter... and we had one chrysalis yesterday afternoon.. I am really scared we are going to miss a lot of the magic while we are out for Easter Break. They will probably be ready to transfer to the butterfly garden this weekend. One of mine was so excited .. " We finally got a class pet!" Sorry sister.. I don't think these count as a pet! 

 Our Easter Egg Hunt & Party was a success. And a four day weekend was the perfect prize to surviving!

Happy Easter! Link up below friends!

Five for Friday {Linky Party.. April 11th}

Five for Friday is a weekly teacher linky party where you post five random things from today or this past week and on your blog. Then, you come back and link your blog post up at the bottom of this post in the linky tool.Grab the button above and link back to this post on your blog.

We'll ... this week made a little turn off the path. A meeting with our accountant on Monday {gotta love taxes.. Boo!}, a death in my husband's family Tuesday & Wednesday.. and BAM.. woke up with the WORST case of PINK EYE you can imagine on Thursday. 
And, a nice sinus infection too! 

Needless to say.. there are NO pictures for me to post for this week. I am currently hanging out at home using high priced eye drops every 2 hours and blowing my nose. Fun stuff..

But.. I still would love for you to link up below!

Dinosaur Love

A few years ago I decided to teach a unit on dinosaurs. I had never taught dinos before and had NOTHING.

I started from scratch and taught myself basic facts about dinosaurs to share with my first graders. I made a unit to use and it has been one of my best sellers for the last few years.

This year, I decided to go bigger and I added a few new activities and went from 1 week to 2 weeks of Dino Fun in my room. {It actually kinda spilled over into 2 1/2 weeks} .Kids love to learn about dinosaurs and we had a good time. It was a win-win situation!

My dinos unit went from 37 pages to a whopping 81 pages. And sadly.. I had to take out one activity just to reduce the size of the file to get it upload on the Teachers Pay Teachers site.

You can click the picture above to see it. If you have purchased the unit before.. you get all the revisions for FREE! Just re-download. {You lucky duck!}

Here are a few picture of the things included..

Dictionary practice.. find the words on the dino sheet and record the page number.

We made these precious dinosaurs for the hall bulletin board. LOVE THEM! The patterns are included in the unit.

The bucket of plastic dinosaurs have provided tons of entertainment and fun for my first graders. They will not be happy tomorrow morning when they realize I packed them up. All of my plastic dinosaurs came from the Dollar Tree.

We did a little number word stamping! There is an easier version of this stamping activity included if this one is too hard for your students.

And ABC order practice…

Counted tally marks during center time.

We also practiced counting different money amounts with these “money mats”.

We also did a directed drawing activity too. The steps are included in the unit.

I also have a Dinosaur Pinterest Board if you are interested in following it. If you have a dinosaur pinterest board.. PLEASE share it with me!

 

Here is a quick link to my unit again if you are interested…

Doodle Bugs Teaching: Dino Unit