How I Spent My Vacation Link Up and FREEBIE

Were you as productive as I was for the past two weeks?! Just kidding...I was soooooo NOT productive. I did however manage to get out of my pj's each day.

I spent the first week in San Diego with my family (I grew up there). Didn't do anything particularly exciting there, besides relax!

This past week I came back to Vegas and have been busy checking things off my to do list. None of which was work related. I'm saving work stuff for Monday since I don't go back until Tuesday. :) I'd love to report that I went hiking or on vacation, but in reality I cleaned, did laundry, paid bills, took my car in for service, cooked (this was actually fun), went shopping (fun too!), redecorated my place, exercised, and a bunch of other boring things. I plan on doing something fun for Spring Break though!!! Especially since I'll be turning 30 (EEEEEEEEEEEKKKKK) that week!

Okay, I guess I did do one teeny tiny work related thing. I created this page for my students to write their new year's resolutions on. It was done SUPER quick so it's nothing special, but it works!

New Year's Goals

Don't forget to link up with how you spent your break!

I'm Still Here! 11 in '11 Link Up

Wow, I can't believe it's been a week since I posted. Time really does fly by! I've been in San Diego for the last week and I just returned yesterday. It's time to get back to reality. My to do list is a mile long!! However, I'm not quite back to work mode YET, so I'm joining in on the 11 in '11 linky party.

11. Favorite movie you watched:

I didn't watch many movies this year. I'll have to catch up on them next year! But the one that comes to mind is Just Go With It.

10. Favorite TV series:

My favorite show is definitely Bones, however a new series I enjoy is New Girl.

9. Favorite restaurant:

This is hard. I am going to go with Claim Jumper for a chain restaurant and Baja California Restaurant for a local place.

8. Favorite new thing you tried:

Blogging! I am so glad I joined this teacher blogging world.

7. Favorite gift you got:

A new robe. It's so warm and cozy! And I didn't have one before. Now I don't know how I lived without one. Haha!

6. Favorite thing you pinned:

Here was my favorite idea:

5. Favorite blog post:

I loved reading about Cara's Christmas ideas in her classroom. I have to remember to do some of them next year.

http://thefirstgradeparade.blogspot.com/2011/12/little-q-christmas-in-my-classroom.html

4. Best accomplishment:

Sticking with blogging for more than a week. Haha! I didn't think I'd like it so much!

And surviving my fourth layoff (yes, 4!!! I keep moving to the wrong districts apparently! I am working in my 4th school district since beginning teaching. My 7th school...) and getting to keep the job I really wanted.

3. Favorite picture:

2. Favorite memory:

Camping and hiking in Utah. It was gorgeous there!!

1. Goal for 2012:

Hmmm, can I have more than one? Continue blogging lots. Go hiking more. Keep my job. Cook more. Make new friends in Vegas. And live life to the fullest of course!

**TpT Sale**

To celebrate the beginning of winter tomorrow, all of my winter products are 20% off on TpT now through Christmas. This includes the products listed below. Click on the product titles to view each product on my TpT site. Enjoy the holidays!

12 Hands-On Literacy Centers
Winter Word Building Center
Winter ABC Order Center
Sequencing Numbers to 1,000 *Winter Version*


Amy

Valentine's Centers! (I know, I'm WAAAAAY early!)

Okay, so Christmas is still on the way and winter hasn't begun, but I just posted my Valentine's Centers to TpT! This is what happens when I have free time on my hands. :) Head over to my TpT store by clicking here. Take a look at the previews below:

I posted 12 literacy centers:

And 6 math centers (this is just a preview...there's more than this):

Sorry, I really don't know how to make the thumbnails not blurry. :(

HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Amy

Currently...

There are 100 things I should be doing, but instead here's what I am doing:

Join in on the fun by checking out Oh' Boy 4th Grade!

Liebster Award and Christmas Fun!

I have been crazy busy this week with conferences! I was at work from 7 to 7 yesterday. I had 3 conferences before school and then 11 after school!! It felt like a day that would not end! But, the good news is now I only have a few conferences left. Today we had no kiddos so that we could do conferences, but since I'm about done, I had a lot of time to work on planning and such. On to the good stuff....

I was awarded the Liebster Award twice! Once from Erika over at The Honey Bunch and also from Tammy over at the Klinger Cafe. Thank you ladies! AND, and BIG thank you to Erika for giving my TpT store a shout out too. :) I'm passing it along to:

Amanda at First Grade Garden
Randi at Teach it With Class
Kristy at Teachin' First
Traci at Dragonflies in First

Now for some Christmas fun!! I just love this time of year! My kiddos are so excited about Christmas and Santa (and to be honest, I am too). Here are some of the writings we're doing this week:

We decorated snowmen and then wrote descriptions of them!

Then we decorated Christmas trees one step at a time and wrote instructions for decorating one! I don't remember where I got this paper from! If you know, please let me know so I can give them credit!

And I'm all set for our Polar Express party on Friday! We are going to watch the movie, enjoy some hot cocoa and cookies, and wear our pj's. Afterwards, Santa will bring them their very own bell. :) And for all you that are also having a Polar Express party, don't forget that the book is being read aloud by Chris Van Allsburg on Barnes and Noble's site. Check it out here!

Enjoy the rest of this CRAZY week!

2 More Hands-On Winter Center Activities

I just posted two more winter center activities to TpT. They are both just $1.50. Check them out here and here. And here's a preview:

Amy

Informational Paragraphs (Sounds boring...but they turned out sooo well!)

After studying health and making our ABC Books, we wrote informational paragraphs about it. We used hamburger frames to help us organize our writing. However, this didn't leave us ANY room to write, so I made larger versions for my kiddos to use.

Here are my kiddos at work:

We moved our seats around so the paper would fit on the desk without having to bend it! Hehe...there's my perfectionism at work. But, of course, the kids loved it!

After they finished the paragraph, they got to use "teacher pens" to trace over their words. They went NUTS for these. All day long, all I heard was, "When do we get to use the teacher pens?" SOOOO CUTE! And we colored the hamburger too!

Our final step was to rewrite our sentences in an actual paragraph on the bottom of the page.

Here are some up close pics! Some of the students weren't quite done yet, but you can still see their writing.

Help! Where Do You Get Your Borders/Frames?

Okaaay, I searched the Internet, Word, and every resource I can find, but I can't seem to figure out WHERE you all get those cutesy borders. Am I completely missing something?? Is there a website (that I can't seem to find) devoted to them?! Is it because I'm being cheap and only have Word Starter and not the full Word program?! PLEASE HELP! Where do you get them??? Thank you! :)

ABC Books About Health

One of the new common core standards asks first graders to research a topic and write about it. Soooo, we made an ABC book about health. What a looooooong process this was, but so worth it! We have been learning about health anyway, so to continue talking about it during writing was easy! I checked out a bunch of books from the library and we got started!

The first step was to brainstorm words about health from what we already learned. We created a web with this information.

Then, we broke up into our reading levels and looked for new health information we didn't already have on our poster. The students came up and wrote the new words as they found them.

From there, I wrote down the alphabet and we brainstormed words that would work for each letter. This took AWHILE and we had to be creative with some of them. :)

When we finally finished, each student picked a letter that they would like to create a page for. Then they got to work researching that topic using the books we had.

Once they had good information about it, they began their rough draft of their ABC page.

Students who finished their rough draft early were able to pick a second letter to make a page for.

After all letters were accounted for, we began our final drafts! I got this template from Denise over at Sunny Days in Second Grade. This is not a direct link to the ABC template...I couldn't find it in her posts again, but if you're determined to, I'm sure you can. Sorry!

Then, we decorated our cover. Tadahh! We are done! Now all I need to do is bind the book. (By the way, I JUST noticed that my student spelled "Health" wrong on the cover. Haha! Opps!)

Now we are writing informative paragraphs with the information we learned about health! Stay tuned for that post in a couple days... They are turning out SOOOOOOOOOO well. My kiddos continue to impress me!