Wrapping Up the World's Fair

The World's Fair is officially over!  We ended by taking a trip to Australia last Friday.

My class's study of Africa/Egypt went really well!  I was SO proud of them and it was a blast!  I told the other classes as they came that they would have the "TRUE" African experience because it was 85 degrees that day and our air conditioning was NOT working!  Oh my...it was SWELTERING!

The kids came up with their own products to sell to the other students.  Some even dressed the part!

Welcome to Africa!

The students had to go through Customs before they could enter the new continent!

After going through Customs, the classes were greeted by some of my "Africans", who put a sticker in their passport.  Then they heard some amazing African facts from our 2 tour guides before entering!

The first shop was an African Necklace Shop!  These girls cut, glued, and decorated 100 necklaces to sell!

This group of boys made 100 Egyptian Hieroglyphic Bookmarks!

These girls made "Egyptian Cotton Bracelets" to sell.

I bought one and still have it on my ankle...I intend to wear it all summer...

Here are the girls who made 100 paper pyramids!

These little safari explorers sold "Egyptian Petroglyphs" (ancient rock carvings).

And then there's our "Get Wrapped Like A Mummy Shop!"  Omg...MILLIONS of rolls of toilet paper later, my room (and the entire 2nd grade hallway) was a DISASTER.  But oh my, did they have fun!  They LOVED it!!!!  It was quite the hit!

Here are a couple of the shops with my our crazy attempt at creating Victoria Falls behind them...HA!

And finally, here is a shot of our "Pyramid Shop" and "Egyptian Bread Shop."

Needless to say, I slept REALLY well that night!  What an EXHAUSTING week, but it was a blast and the kids absolutely loved it!

I'm adding my "Africa" mini-lesson to TpT in the near future, so check it out!  :)

Happy Weekend!

Mother's Day

Don't forget Mother's Day is Sunday!  I seem to always forget about this holiday until the last second.  Then I'm scrambling to find something to do with my students.  Maybe because I'm actually a mother for the first time this year, but I actually remembered ahead of time and we're done with our projects now!  :P

The kids did SUPER well with our project and they turned out really cute!  I call them "Complimentary Flowers".  They cut out all the pieces and wrote a compliment about their mother on the middle of each flower.  They LOVED it!  I let them just have a plain white piece of paper for their "bouquet holder" and the decorated it on their own and then rolled it up.  I told them not to draw a really detailed picture because it wouldn't show up when they rolled it.  I emphasized the need to draw a design or pattern.  Take a look how cute these turned out!

If you HAVEN'T come up with anything yet for Mother's Day, I have this craftivity packet in my TPT store!  Check it out!  :)

Teacher Appreciate Sale and a New Blog Title!

I don't know about you, but to me this such an exciting time for teachers!  Our PTO does all sorts of giveaways and luncheons and little treats for us during Teacher Appreciation Week!  We are truly blessed to have the jobs we do to be able to serve our wonderful communities.  Speaking of which, many of you are already aware, but Teachers Pay Teachers is having a HUGE sale today, tomorrow, and Tuesday!  I'm offering 20% off all of my products, and TpT is offering another 10% off as well!  It's a SPECIAL treat!  I'm excited to download some things I've had my eyes on for a while.  :)

Thanks to Erica for creating this awesome banner for the sale!

CLICK HERE TO GET TO MY STORE!

Now I'm going to unveil something I've been working on, and I finally finished it this morning at 3 a.m.  Ah, the life of a teacher. :P  I know that is NOT normal, but sometimes I just get the energy to get stuff done!  I've started a Word Work section for my store.  With moving down to 1st grade next year, I'm ALREADY thinking about how I want to do things next year.  And being a new mommy, I want to keep things simple and easy!  So in honor of this huge project, I have listed my FIRST Word Work packet for FREE on TpT!  That's right, folks.  Short a Word Work.  It's 47-pages of 10 activities for a short a study.  The activities will stay the same each week, fostering independence and confidence so that YOU as a teacher can worry about other things (working with small groups, individuals, teaching lessons, assessing, whatever it is you need to do!).  I've already uploaded the Short i Word Work and will keep on adding others throughout the next several months.  Here's a preview!

One more thought for the night...since I'm moving to first grade next year, I have decided to go with a new name for my blog.  You may have noticed the address is different.  So that I don't jinx myself again, I'm changing it to "Permanently Primary"!!!! :D  Because even if I get moved again (which I'm hoping, praying, and crossing my fingers and toes that I don't!), I will only be teaching a primary grade because of my certification.  I figure I can't go wrong!  ;)  So the title of my blog and everything will be updated soon.  Don't freak out, it's still me!  :)

Have a great week and I hope you're all able to stock up on some fun stuff! :)

I will be back with pictures from our World's Fair and some decorating projects I've been working on for my classroom!  I didn't want to make this post really long and random, so I will post again in a few days!  :)

World's Fair

This week is the World's Fair in 2nd grade!  Wow, talk about fun.  Talk about chaos.  Organized chaos.  Yep, that's it.  ;)

Each 2nd grade classroom studies and features a specific continent.  We have one classroom doing Asia (focus on Japan), one doing Europe (focus on Great Britain), one doing South America (she featured a little bit of everything), one doing Australia, and I'm doing Africa!  We're honing in on Egypt a little more.  Everyone completely transforms their room for the week.

Here's the entrance to my room...

Prior to the actual fair, we studied goods and services.  The students pair up and come up with something authentic from the continent we are studying to sell during the fair.

Here are some of my students cutting out money for the other kids in the other classes to spend at our market.

Some students are making braided bracelets in honor of African textiles.

I found this awesome pattern online for the large Egyptian collar necklaces!  The students colored them and glued beads to them.  They are fab!  

Next a group of students made their own petroglyphs (rock wall carvings).  They simply used white crayon to draw pictures and then painted over it with watercolors.

Another 2nd grade teacher had gone to the museum in Chicago a few years back and brought back a hieroglyphics stamp set!  So I had another group of boys make hieroglyphic bookmarks!  They stamped out different words onto card stock and then tied some yarn to the top.

And of course we decorated our outside bulletin board with a collage of African animals...I just love children's art!  TOO FUNNY!  :P

I'll be back this week with more photos and updates!  Our class goes on Wednesday.  I can't wait to share more and let you take a peek at our room transformation!

Happy Monday and have a great week!  I don't know about where you teach, but we are down to 23 more days!!!!!  Yippeeeee!!!! :D  

Explanation, Winner, and Voting!

Ladies,

I apologize for being absent.  Really, I do.  Let me do a quick, brief recap of what's been going on, just to tell you I really do have a reason...

My son (10 months old) got really sick.  I mean, REALLY sick.  There's this nasty bug going around apparently.  He got it, then I got it.  I only went to school on MONDAY last week.  :(  I'm overwhelmed about what awaits me tomorrow morning!  We ended up in the ER and almost took him down to Nationwide Children's Hospital.  It was that bad.  I hated seeing my poor baby hooked up to IVs and monitors.  He's MUCH better now.  I'm STILL not 100% (uggg!!!!), but well enough to where I've GOT to move on and start getting back to normal.

Also, my aunt (age 49) had a heart attack around a week ago.  It was very touch and go and they brought in a  special surgeon to do robotics surgery.  She had to wait a WEEK before they could perform the surgery.  So we left Friday (with me still being sick...hubby and baby stayed home) to travel up to Michigan to be with her during her surgery and see her.

I apologize for getting personal on my "teaching" blog, but hey, teachers go through real-life stuff!  :P

So.  Here we are.  At least it's before Mother's Day, right????

Our winner is...

That means Amanda Cypher is our winner!!!!  Congrats!  :)  I will e-mail you the file shortly.  :)

Also, Teachers Pay Teachers is doing a fun contest!  They are asking people to redesign their "It's About Time" banner!  I've created a few...if you like them, please head to their Facebook page, look on the right side under "Recent Posts by Others", find mine, and click "Like"!  Here's a peek of what they look like...

Click HERE to vote!

Happy Easter + A Giveaway!

Happy Easter, bloggy friends!  I hope you had as blessed of a day as I did.  Church, family, food...it doesn't get much better.  Today is my last day of Spring Break, so I'm kinda sad.  But there's only 8 more weeks until SUMMER!  This week has made me so anxious for it...

I was inspired by a student when she gave me this:

I thought it was SO sweet and creative.  Mother's Day will be here before we all know it.  I got this idea to turn this into a fabulous Mother's Day Craftivity!  I give you..."COMPLIMENTARY" FLOWERS!

They were SUPER easy to make!  If you find the container has a hard time folding and staying put, then you could just use a whole entire sheet of paper.  I used scrapbook paper for my bouquet holder, but you can use any type of paper (it might be fun to copy it onto plain white and have them color and decorate it).  The cost is only $3 at my TpT store!  You can grab it here.

OR...I will give this item away to one lucky winner this coming Friday (April 13th).  This Friday will be lucky for someone...there's hope!  :P

Just follow my blog and leave a comment below WITH YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS.  I will randomly pick a winner sometime Friday evening!

Have a great week!  We're on the home stretch, y'all!  ;)

Daily 5?!?!?!?!

Hola my bloggy friends!  I'm officially on SPRING BREAK and I am SOOOOO pumped.  We aren't going anywhere...just staying here and trying to sell our house!  We put an offer on one we want and they countered, and I think we're going to accept!  Now we just have to sell our house...*FINGERS CROSSED*.

So as I think about teaching 1st grade next year, I'm thinking of incorporating the Daily 5.  This is where YOU come in!  I read the book in 2 days and am really excited.  However, I have lots of questions!  I started to write out my 1st grade schedule for next year and quickly realized it is going to be a MAJOR challenge to get 4 sessions in!  Those of you who do it, how on earth?!?!?!  My problem is that our day is broken up.  There is no way I can fit in 30-minute blocks for Daily 5.  I took it down to 25 minutes, but I'm still only able to fit in 3 sessions.  Here's a look at what my schedule will be next year (to the best of my knowledge):

9:00-9:10 Morning Work/Daily Number

9:10-9:25 Calendar

9:30-10:45 OPEN (Was thinking Math 9:25-10:05, Mini Lesson 10:05-10:15, 25-minute Daily 5 session)

10:45-11:15 Reading Intervention (which I teach...we take the bottom 12 or so kids in the grade and do an intervention class with them...my kids will get split between the other 1st grade teachers)

11:15-11:35 Lunch

11:35-12:05 Recess

12:05-12:15 Restroom Break

12:15-1:50 OPEN (Was thinking Mini Lesson 12:15-12:25, 25-minute Daily 5 session 12:25-12:50, Mini Lesson 12:50-1:00, 25-minute Daily 5 session 1:00- 1:25, Mini Lesson 1:25-1:35...but then that gives me 15 minutes....)

1:50-2:30 Specials (Art, Music, Library, Computer, Gym)

2:30-3:15 Recess/Wrap Up/Pack Up

Ahhhh....I'm so stuck!  Any guidance on this crazy schedule?  I'm looking for ideas!

ALSO, when you work with small groups during Daily 5, do they just miss a Daily 5 session?  I'm just trying to wrap my brain around how all this works!

I'm looking forward to hearing how you do this!  And for future reference, I'm going to work on a Daily 5 packet for next year, so be on the lookout!  I'll give one away when I get it done!  :)