With all the things going on this year, I wanted to find a precious, but very simple ornament to make with my students. This ribbon ornament hit the spot! No paint, glue, the need to share supplies, etc. To make them, I bought small clear plastic ornament balls, ribbon, holiday confetti, and pipe cleaners to attach the tags. The ornament balls are from The Dollar Tree (2 for a buck), the ribbon was from Walmart, and the snowflake confetti was from Hobby Lobby. It cost me less than a dollar to make each one.  To put together, just print these free tags on colored paper. Then, call stude ..read more

The weeks leading up to Thanksgiving break in my classroom are what I call TURKEY TIME! I wanted to share with you several fun (and free) turkey ideas and activities that are super easy to use. One of my favorite activities is a fun family project where my kiddos disguise a turkey. I found this activity a several years ago on an amazing website-Mrs.Nelson's Class. She has the turkey printable I used (printed them on cardstock), as well as a parent letter to send home to explain the project for FREE!! That's right, FREE!!! Thank you, Mrs. Nelson!!!  Here are some pictures of ..read more

Only a teacher would be inspired by the stacked pumpkins on her porch to make a place value activity. What can I say? My class has been working so hard on place value. Before pumpkin season is officially over, I thought I squeeze in one more little pumpkin activity to review it. All I had to do was print out the free template here on colored paper. Then, the kids picked a number to represent using base ten blocks and expanded form on their stacked pumpkins. They turned out super cute! It also made the easiest fall display in our hallway! Now to add some turkeys before it's time to deck t ..read more

I just love when it's time to bring on the pumpkins. One of my favorite books to read to my students in October is The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin. It delivers an important message of kindness and acceptance of others in a fun way for children.  To go along with this book, I created a few activities to use with my first graders. They are a free download that I hope you can use, too!  Spookley the Square Pumpkin Fun  Spookley Graphic Organizer and Spookley Adjectives  Spookley Writing Craft and Prompt I loved seeing the creative, unique pumpkins my kids cr ..read more

I’m not sure about you all, but the end of last school year made my head spin. Frantically, we were pushed into distance learning. This summer, I’ve spent some time analyzing what worked and what I can improve on.  It seems like distance learning might be around for a while, so it was important for me to think about what I want my classroom procedures to look like regardless of the model of instruction.  Quickly into distance learning, I realized, I had so many resources that were already able to easily be converted into our new normal. We always started our math block with numb ..read more

Let’s face it: math fact fluency for our students is necessary, but the typical fact repetition isn’t always the most engaging form of practice. I am always searching for fun AND exciting ways to help build fact fluency in my classroom. Having proficiency in math facts helps lay the foundation for future mathematicians, but I know it needs to be switched up from time to time. Here are a few fresh ideas that I have found for my classroom and I hope you can incorporate them into your classroom routine as well! 1. Focus on Mental Math StrategiesIn order for students to become fluent with ma ..read more

Number sense is such an important skill for our students to have. This can be something that we can forget to incorporate into our lessons, but it’s something that should not be overlooked. There are many ways you can easily incorporate this into your math routine plus, building number sense and teaching number relationships does not have to take up a ton of time. I want to share some of my number sense routines and activities that I have used over the years that have been so effective in building number sense with my students. Number Talks What is a number talk?A number talk is a short d ..read more

Number sense is such an important skill for our students to have. This can be something that we can forget to incorporate into our lessons, but it’s something that should not be overlooked. There are many ways you can easily incorporate this into your math routine plus, building number sense and teaching number relationships does not have to take up a ton of time. I want to share some of my number sense routines and activities that I have used over the years that have been so effective in building number sense with my students. Number Talks What is a number talk?A number talk is a short d ..read more

I can't think of a better way to start out the new year in my classroom than reinforcing the importance of kindness! Our world sure does need more of it right now. Having conversations and brainstorming how we can show kindness encourages our kids to go out and practice it. I created a simple, just print activity where your students can do just that- 20 Ways to Show Kindness in 2020. Download it for free here. Happy New Year ..read more

It's that time of year!! Last Monday, I met all 23 of my precious students and their families at Meet the Teacher. Several of you have also already had Meet the Teacher and many of you are probably getting ready for it!  Meet the Teacher is one of my favorite days. I love meeting my new students and their families. Our kids come to school with bags of supplies to find out who their teacher will be (they have NO idea who they have until they walk through the doors and look at their grade level list), who's in their class, what their classroom looks like, and where they will sit. It's a day pa ..read more