Hello from the Newest Blog Hopper!

I am so thrilled to be the newest member of the Blog Hoppin' crew! For my first post here, I thought I'd just take a moment to introduce myself. I'm Denise and I've been blogging over at Sunny Days in Second Grade for the last four years or so.

This is my 21st year in the classroom and I still love it. There are definitely moments when I love it more than others, but that's totally normal. On my blog I share mostly classroom related ideas, giveaway announcements, product reviews, and my TpT work. I've been a TpT seller for about as long as I've been blogging. You can find my store here. 

On a personal note, I just celebrated my 16th anniversary. My husband is also a teacher so he totally "gets it".  He knows how passionate I am about my classroom and my TpT work, my blogging, my internet friends... he is super supportive and I am beyond grateful for that. We don't have any babies or furbabies for that matter, so a huge chunk of our time is spent working on and talking about school stuff. He has a background in ESE, but is currently teaching in the computer lab as well as being the school IT guy and he designed and maintains the school website and all of their social media. So he's a pretty busy guy too! 

There we are on our wedding day. Awww... that's a picture I posted recently to my Instagram account. You can follow me here.  You guys - I am ALL about Instagram. I post a mixture of classroom happenings, my personal life, and random things I find funny or interesting. I'm also on Facebook and Twitter. I have to admit, Facebook annoys me more than anything with the way it seems to limit what my followers actually see and I don't Tweet nearly as much as I Instagram. But I DO love Pinterest.  My recent obsession is to clean up my Pinterest feed and pin on a more regular basis. I pin from all over, not just my own blog and store. My boards are mainly educational, but I do have a couple for yummy stuff and fun household finds.

So, that's a bit about me! I'll be back at the end of this month with some resources that will help you as we enter spring and near the homestretch to the end of the year! Can you even believe it?

St. Patrick's Day Freebies

Happy, Sunday!

If you are like me, tomorrow will be the first day back after spring break.

I'm a little sad to see it go, but also excited to get the 

count down going for summer break!

But let's be honest......spring break to summer feels like forever!

Stopping by real quick to share a few things to help you get by this week.

Fruit loop rainbows was a last minute idea a few years ago....

but a big hit!

You can read about it here and here.

Need a few writing printables for the week?  Grab them here!

Head  to my facebook to grab these fan freebie pendants! 

 

This craft by The Teacher Wife is adorable and one of my favorites to do each year!

A little Spring Break and a Whole Lot of Writing

I love Spring Break. It is such a needed break but like you can imagine....it goes by so quickly! The spring really does pick up after Spring Break with testing season upon us and it is an opportunity to take one big breath before jumping into the last bit of the year!

One of my favorite activities to do with my kiddos is write about all the fun that they have over their spring break. I created this resource for them as we learned the writing process. It was just perfect for my little ones.

Now that I am in fourth grade, my students write their personal narratives with a zoom lens on one event. Students use this one event to develop their use of figurative language, transition, organization and flow in their writing. The power of the small moment defines their writing.

We will be focusing on all of our skills as we take a trip to Camp Write Along in just a couple of weeks! I love transforming my classroom in to a forest campsite with tents, sleeping bags and even a campfire! It is so much fun and exciting way to practice and prepare before our state testing at the end of the month.

The plans are in the works...and I am so excited to share all the fun with you! You don't want to miss it so make sure to come by Curls and a Smile to see all the excitement of our big camping trip!

Writing Center Ideas!

I totally revamped my writing center before the year started.  It was in need of a major overhaul.  My writing center has always suffered a little because honestly I didn't have what I needed or wanted to keep my students engaged and busy the whole time.  I'm embarrassed to say that they usually ended up just doodling or coloring and not actually practicing writing.  Sad, but true.

The writing center quickly became one of my student's favorite center areas this year. I know I can always improve it, but for now it works, it's fun, it's challenging and engaging.  :)

I knew some things that I wanted my students to be doing there, but just didn't have to materials to get it going.  So, I created my Write your Heart Out monthly units.  

Here's the jewelry holder writing rings holder that hangs in my writing center.  TJ Maxx Score!

Each  month I switch out the rings to go with each activity.  The only rings that stay are the basics which are alphabets, colors, shapes, etc.  Each ring is organized thematically.

Each week my students have the option of making an alphabet letter book.

I have all kinds of letter stickers that they can choose from to put on the cover.

The kids like it because it's quick and easy and fun!  Then, they can do more!

Sometimes my units have thematic puzzles of some sort and this one is in January.  They loved this one!

 January rings...

And, this is a labeling sheet that is in each month to match each theme.

The kids simply find the ring of words, and label the pictures.

Do you want to build a snowman labeling...Um, this may or may not have prompted a Frozen sing along competition.

 I honestly think this is one of their favorite writing center activities!  

I run out of copies of these flip books every week!

These began in October and they fell in love.  They are super fun to make and write in!

 There is a Make a List option too for each theme.  

 This little craft is in the November pack along with these little I am thankful cards.

The kids enjoyed these because they could pick and choose and make them personal.

And, another craft from October.  This was S is for...and they had to pick and choose "S" words.

 Here's another puzzle activity.  :)  Always need to practice CVC.

 Something else my kids like are these Sound Superhero cards.  They have to use beginning sounds to figure out how to spell each word for the picture.  It's interesting.

If you have my Brown Bear activity you have some color word versions of this same activity...so I thought "Why not bring it back!"  Oldies are goodies right?!?!

 Counting and writing!

 Here's another activity.  Notice how pretty much every activity is based around the writing rings.  

So many options!

As the year progresses,  love to see my kids write like this!  It's just the best.

This is part of February Write Your Heart Out...non-fiction writing.

You can find August/September Here.

October

November

December

January

February

Please visit me at my blog Mrs. Lee's Kinderkids for more fun ideas and at my Facebook page.

For the Love of Dice

Hi blog hoppers! I hope you are having a wonderful weekend. On my blog last week, I talked about my love for magnetic letters. My other true classroom love, is dice. My husband has learnt over the years, to ignore my habit of picking up multiple packets of dice at the shops whenever I see them. I think I must have some sort of subconscious fear of being trapped in a classroom with no dice. Who knows? I see them for $1 or so a packet, and in the basket they go. 

I love storing my dice - as all my other 'little bits' - in small take-away containers. 

I love that these containers:

- are cheap (and therefore easily replaced)

- stack easily

- are easily added to my grocery cart each week

- always available 

- are not too fancy, so I don't feel guilty of quickly labelling them with a black sharpie rather than spending 4 hours printing out pretty labels

- easily transported

When I left my full-time classroom for maternity leave it was very easy to empty the classroom cupboard of all my personal possessions - stacked in these containers - pack them in the car and then re-stack them into cupboards in my garage at home - ready and waiting for when I return to a full-time classroom. 

 

For easy-to-prep dice activities in class, I like to utilise sorting trays. These trays are actually $2 snack trays from the dollar store. I put the tokens/chips in the middle and the various equipment needed around the edge. 

Another great addition to your classroom is 'quiet dice' shakers. I used dressing/sauce tubs (a brand called Decor). They nicely fit a dice or two and can be shaken without too much noise. I have made a class set and store them in a math equipment trolley. 

 

Another idea is to have baggies of around 20 chips/counters and a dice sorted and ready-to-go. The baggies are easily stored in a small, compact space and you can quickly pass them out to students for a game or activity. 

I am currently working on a resource of all my easy-to-prep dice activities. Here are 3 ideas that you can easily implement in your classroom, using just dice and counters. 

One and Six

Play with three dice. Students take turns to roll all three. They only score points if they roll a ‘one’ or ‘six’. Points can be counters or tokens. Students collect one token for each ‘one’ rolled and six tokens for each ‘six’ rolled. The player with the most tokens at the end of play may be declared the winner!

Five to Double

Students play in pairs. They take turns to roll 3 dice. The aim is to roll a double of any number. A student can have five attempts to try for a double. For each double, the student may take a scoring token or chip. The student with the most tokens at the end of play may be declared the winner.

Roll & Order

Students play in pairs. Each student has at least six dice. Students roll all six dice at once and race to put them in order. A student must order the six numbers rolled in order from least to greatest. Whoever sorts them in correct sequence first, scores one point (a chip). 

I love that dice can easily turn into a fun and meaningful classroom lesson in minutes - with minimal complicated prep. 

Thank you so much for stopping by our blog today. Have a great week!

- Mel x