Peek at My Week: Week 2 2016

Good Morning!

This morning I am joining Mrs. Wills Kindergarten for her Peek at My Week Linky.

This week our theme is snowmen so our math centers and several projects will be snowman themed. I actually started on Friday of last week with my math classes because I couldn't resist the adorable snowman glyph and the graphing activities that went along with it. My firsties loved it and love that they are now hanging from the ceiling of our classroom.You can find the link to the glyph at the end of this post.

Later in the week we will partner with our third grade classes to make a snowman and watch The Legend of Frosty. The kids will be so excited when they find out they get to end their day with the third graders doing a craft and watching a movie.

Throughout the week we will be working on more on Matter and beginning matter experiments and projects. Our first experiment is oobleck. We will read Bartholomew and the Oobleck and then make oobleck to experiment with. I have an observations sheet that they will fill out for this.

On Friday we end the week with our first Martin Luther King Jr. project. We will bring both first grade classes together for this project. The projects are adorable and also have a great writing component that goes with it. It will look awesome in our hallways too!

My plans for the week are below and links to any products we are using can be found below that.

Snowman Glyph
Thankful Thoughts
MLK Jr. Craft
Make A Snowman Template
Snowmen Math
Snowmen Place Value Puzzles


Have a wonderful week!

Ashley

Peek at My Week - Week 1 2016

Good Evening!

Tonight I am sad and excited. I am sad because vacation is over and I no longer get to spend all day with my sweet girl but I am also excited to return to the classroom. As exhausting, crazy, frustrating, and overwhelming teaching can be, I truly love it and have missed my firsties.

To start the week off I am linking up with Mrs. Wills Kindergarten for her Peek at My Week linky. Check it out and link up if you can. I have come across some great ideas and products from this linky.

 This week we are easing back into things as I am sure their attention spans will be pretty short. We have a New Year's Resolution craftivity that we will be making tomorrow afternoon. I love talking to my firsties about what they want their goals to be for the year. Some of them come up with some pretty good ones and some come up with some unique ones which makes it very entertaining.

My teaching partner will be doing a book study with our firsties on The Hat by Jan Brett so we will be doing a Hedgie Webquest to learn more about hedgehogs. It is such a cute and informative activity. They love it every year.

We will also be starting our unit on Matter this week. I am hoping to find something to spice up this unit a little bit and make it more exciting for the kids. For this week though we are going to cover the reading and do a few simple activities.

So all in all there isn't too much going on this week but it will be a great first week back. A link to any products I am using can be found below my plans. 

Happy New Year (Math and Literacy Activities) by Cara Carroll - freebie on her blog
My New Year's Resolution
Science Key Words
Thankful Thoughts
Second Step - First Grade
Snowman Glyph
The Hat

Have a wonderful week!

Ashley

Together We Are Better

Good Morning!

So on this beautiful January 2 I am trying to keep my goal about being better about blogging by linking up with Schroeder Shenanigans in Second and Lucky Little Learners for their Together We are Better linky. This month is all about plans and goals. Come and join us if you can!

My biggest plan for 2016 is to be more organized. Last year was a little crazy being and new mom and trying to teach so I let a lot of my organization practices go. This year I am putting all my old organization habits back in play and I am bring organization to my blogging and TpT world. I am hoping that by organizing my thoughts and ideas for my blog and TpT products that it will help me stay focused and help me grow my little blog and TpT store.

To help me with this I found this adorable binder that actually has similar colors to my blog and button. In this I have printed a a large collection of papers from Schroeder Shenanigans in Seconds amazing Blog Organization Packet. I have printed enough pages in each category to keep me accountable for all of 2016. I have pages for the blog posts I will write each week, TpT sales tracker pages for each month, product idea pages, product profile pages, and stat trackers. The pages from this packet are amazing and work perfectly for what I wanted. Hopefully this will help me stay organized and focused on growing my blog and store this year.

Thanks for letting me share! Come and link up for this awesome linky and see some amazing ideas from teacher bloggers all over.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Ashley

Currently - January

Good Evening!

Tonight I am linking up with Farley over at Oh Boy Fourth Grade for her Currently Linky.

Tonight I am enjoying my first night of free time in a month. My hubby is playing his new PS4 and my sweet baby girl is sound asleep. This means that I have free time to do as I please. So I am loving my free time and using it to catch up on season 4 of Hart of Dixie. I absolutely love this series and I am so excited to finally have the chance to binge watch and catch up.

Unfortunately I am also having thoughts sneak in about how much work I should be working on instead of binge watching a tv show. If only I had a few more days of vacation. But that's what I always say. I will get around to finishing the work and the report cards that won't finish themselves. I will just get to it tomorrow.

All in all I can sum life up into one word: happy. My life is busy, crazy, messy, overwhelming and so much more but I wouldn't change any of it. This messy life makes me happy and all the family and friends that I have been blessed with make my life happy each and every day.

Have a wonderful night!

Ashley

Reflections on 2015

Good Morning!

As I sit and think about what to write for this post, I can't help but be a little shocked at all the things that I have done this year...in a good way of course. I am a very shy person outside of my little bubble of friends and family. Last year I was a new mom to my beautiful baby girl trying to figure out how to be a mom, wife, teacher, friend, person, etc. It was overwhelming and then on top of all that I decided to step way outside of my little bubble which is what is so shocking to me.

One year ago a good friend encouraged and helped me get this blog up and running. It was so far out of my element I didn't think it would last, but as you can see so far so good. Then a few months later she invited me, the rookie blogger, to be a part of the amazing Hello Sunshine Blog. For some reason unknown to me I said yes. Why not throw another blog in the mix. As it turns out that was a smart decision, those ladies are amazing and have been so welcoming and encouraging over this last year. Even when I miss a post or freak out because I feel like I have nothing to say, they are still there to pick me up and keep me going.

Around the time that I joined Hello Sunshine, I also got an instagram account to go along with my personal blog. Now lets keep in mind that at this point I still barely know how to blog and still don't understand all the parts of Facebook but I signed up anyway. Oh my goodness I had no idea the world that would open up for me. I have gotten so many great ideas and come across so many amazing teachers on instagram that its mind boggling. From there I was introduced to Periscope. That is even more amazing. I love watching teachers share ideas and tips on there. My personal favorite is Ashley from Schroeder Shenanigans in Second. She has some great tips and tricks. I still have yet to do a Periscope myself but who knows what 2016 will bring.

All of these things are amazing to me. I have never put myself out there like I have with the blogging and instagram. I am so grateful for Mrs 3rd Grade for encouraging and helping me along this journey and for the ladies of Hello Sunshine. I am achieving things that I never dreamed were possible thanks to the journey that are helping me walk along. Thank you to all the other teachers out there who have shared ideas, triumphs, and failures with all of us. It is more encouraging and uplifting than you could possibly know.

My final thoughts are of my goals for this next year. My goals are to become more consistent in my blogging for both my personal and Hello Sunshine. My other goal would be to attempt a Periscope. I would love to find the courage to let you all see me as I share something fun that I do with my kiddos. We will see how long it takes to find the courage.

Thanks for reading my ramblings. Have a wonderful New Year's Eve and a beautiful beginning to 2016!

Ashley

Peek at my Week: Christmas Week 1

Hello Again!

I can not believe that we just finished celebrating Thanksgiving or that I only have 14 and a half teaching days until Christmas break!! That seems crazy to me!

I do love this time of year though no matter how quickly it seems to come or how crazy it can get. There are just so many fun things to do in the classroom and I absolutely love Christmas and celebrating with Christmas activities. Thankfully may teaching partner and our third grade teacher friends love it just as much as I do because we have teamed up on some awesome activities for this month. To show you what we will be doing I usually link up with Mrs. Wills Kindergarten for her peek at my week linky but it is not happening this week. I am still going to share my plans and some of the fun we are having just because I am so excited.

We begin our festivities tomorrow with Elf on the Shelf. Our Elf Cocoa (we named our elves to save a little sanity this season) will make his appearance somewhere in the room introducing himself with a special note. We will be writing letters to our elves that we will leave out for our elves to take tomorrow night. The kids will have to write the top three things that they want and then the three reasons why they feel they deserve those presents. We will then team up with our third grade friends to make an elf and watch the Elf on the Shelf movie.

On Wednesday we team up with our third grade friends again to begin Christmas Around the World. We will visit 6 countries over the next three week. We have a book, passports, luggage, etc. to make it all as fun and interesting as possible for the kids.

On Thursday we will be reading Mooseltoe and finishing up our Mooseltoe themed math centers. We will also partner with our third grade friends to make Mooseltoe and watch a Christmas classic: Rudolph.

As you can see we have some exciting activities planned and this is only the beginning of the fun that will be coming. My lesson plans are below and any packets that I am using will have links underneath my plans.

Mooseltoe Math and Literacy Activities
The Nativity
Second Step
Christmas Around the World

Have a great week!

Ashley

Currently: November

Hi!

I can not believe it is already November 1st! Where did October go? I love this time of year but it definitely goes by quickly.

This afternoon I am linking up with Farly over at Oh Boy Fourth Grade for her Currently linky.

I love that the Hallmark channel begins playing Christmas movies on November 1st and plays them all day and night until Christmas. Its my favorite time of year!

I am also so very excited that cooler weather is finally making its way to Arizona. It is now finally starting to feel like fall here. I'm hoping that the temp will drop even lower so I can pull out my sweaters and boots.

My want and need are the same today. I want another day to rest and relax to get over this bug. Both my daughter and I have it. I'm hoping I feel better tomorrow when I head back to the classroom. If not it will be a very long day.

I have not really eaten a whole lot this weekend but I love all the yummy pumpkin treats that come out during this time of year. I am a big pumpkin fan!

Have a wonderful week!

Ashley