March Currently, Pics, and a Freebie

It's finally March!  Woohoo!  

We are in for another major snowstorm this weekend, but I am definitely happy it's March so hopefully this snow won't last long.  I am SOOOOO tired of snow days.  

My hubby told me last night I'm going to have a "Spring Day" instead of a "Spring Break" this year and that just makes me sad...especially if the weather is nice that week.  

To celebrate March, I am joining Farley's March Currently party!  

I have the tv on, but I'm not paying much attention.  I'm more focused on going back and forth between blogging and Pinteresting!  

I love that it's March, but not looking forward to the snow this weekend as I mentioned above.  

I need to get ready for my observation in a couple weeks.  I have a student teacher right now, so I'm not completely sure how this will all work.  But I want to be prepared and ready to go early!

I sooo want a vacation.  I'm going out of town for the weekend in a couple weeks and I'm looking forward to that, but I want a real vacation.  That may have to wait till summer though...

I wear out my shoes so fast at school.  I'm on my feet all day so I feel like I am always in need of a good pair of shoes.  Good thing I'm going shopping this afternoon!  :)

Can you guess my question????  The answer is organize, clean out my closet, and laminate!  

Make sure you grab my *FREE* Night Before Saint Patrick's Day Pack for this month!  

I want to share a couple more pictures with you from our science fun this week!  We ended our learning about the states of matter yesterday and my kiddos had so much fun with it!  

These experiments are found in this wonderful States of Matter Pack.  Just click the picture to go purchase it on TpT!  

This is our liquid rainbow.  We only had 3 colors instead of 4, but my kiddos loved it!  They were so impressed that I could mix up the jar and the colors would still separate.  First graders are so easy to impress!!  :)

Yesterday we made purple fizzy cows which my kids were thrilled about.  They contained all 3 states of matter: ice cream as a solid, grape pop as a liquid, and bubbles as a gas.  Great way to end states of matter!  

Well, I am off of here!  I need to go shopping and get out of the house before another big snow storm comes through and pummels us with snow again!  

Have a great weekend!  

States of Matter and TpT Sale!

We had such a great day today! We celebrated a birthday and my birthday kiddo brought ice cream!  Yum!  Then we also did a science experiment and ate popsicles.  Yum! Yum! 

We have been learning about the States of Matter in Science over the last couple of weeks.  Today we made popsicles and discussed solids versus liquids.  

I bought this great States of Matter pack awhile ago on TpT and was so happy to finally use it!

Click *here* or the picture to go purchase it!

This morning I poured some punch in the cups and my kiddos put a popsicle stick in each cup.  Then I carried the cups to the freezer in our lunch room.  This afternoon I went to get them and carried them back in a box.  My kiddos were so excited to see if the liquid froze!  

Here are some pictures of our popsicles:

Here are the frozen popsicles in the box. 

They were so excited when they realized they could pull the frozen popsicle out of the cup!  

This kiddo was a little surprised that it worked and came out in one piece!  

We made a hypothesis of what would happen, but my kiddos are pretty smart and figured it out!  :)

There is an experiment form to fill out with all the experiments in this pack.  My kiddos recorded what materials we used, the process of our experiment, their hypothesis, and their conclusion.  Tomorrow we're making a liquid rainbow...just in time before Saint Patrick's Day!  

Before I go, I want to remind you that tomorrow and Friday Teachers Pay Teachers is having a HUGE sale.  You can get 28% off for 2 days so stock up for the end of the year!  

You can click *here* or the picture below to head to my store!  

Enjoy the sale!  I will be doing a lot of shopping!  :)

I'm Back...with Pictures! :)

Oh my goodness....it has been over 3 weeks since I last blogged!  Busy, busy, busy is all I can say!  

Hubby and I are moving this weekend and we are sooo *excited* but have been so busy cleaning, organizing, packing, and soon to be remodeling!  

I wanted to post some pictures of our weather experiment at the end of our weather unit.  We actually did this a couple weeks ago, but I'm just now getting to posting them....oops!  

We made it rain and my kiddos thought it was the coolest thing ever!  Thank you to Pinterest for the idea!  

Once our experiment was over we had some extra shaving cream so I did what any good teacher would do.  I put some shaving cream on everyone's desk so we could play in it practice spelling our Fundations words!  

After we practiced a few words we started practicing some other important first grade words like....(sorry they're all sorts of crooked)

Mrs. Seymour - Mrs. really is a Fundations words so this was good practice!  :)

Rock Star- that's our class theme

First grade is awesome - now that's just true!  

So this was the end of our weather unit.  My kiddos loved it.  We'll be bringing back the shaving cream again for sure.  It makes the room smell great and helps clean their desks...that's a double win!  

We've started using my May Activity Pack and End of Year Countdown to Summer this week.  We're counting down the days to summer with some fun activities each day to encourage good behavior!  

I'll be back to blog more about this with pictures this week.  At least I'm really going to try...if I can find my laptop in all the boxes!  

I *Heart* Pinterest Videos and Freebies

I want to share some wonderful things I have found on Pinterest lately!  

I really *heart* Pinterest and it has saved me sooo many times!  :)

This is what we will be doing next week in science for our weather unit.  My kiddos will LOVE it!  :)

Look how adorable this bulletin board is?!?!  We will be recreating this too!  

I have already started using this app for my classroom library.  I have some helpers that visit each week that have enjoyed using my iPhone for this.  It will make looking for books in my classroom library so much easier!  

This has saved me this year.  I have an Autistic kiddo that needed a safe space in our room so now we have 'Alaska'.  It's a place where he can 'hide', play with sensory toys, and chill out for a few minutes.  It has worked wonderfully.  

This video was our introduction to pronouns this past week and now my kiddos ask for it every day....even one of my boys who really struggles with paying attention asks for it and told me he has taught it to his dad!  How cool is that?!  

We sang this to help us with our doubles.  We then extended our doubles facts up to 10...and of course we created motions to go with it.  

You can find any of these wonderful Pinterest finds on my boards.  I hope you can use something here!  

Now I'm off to enjoy this sunny day!  Woohoo for spring!  :)

Prayers and a Science Experiment

I don't usually share too much about my personal life on here, but today I'm making an exception.  My dad has been having trouble with his left eye and we found out 2 weeks ago he had a detached retina and macula.  A detached retina can usually be repaired with very little loss of sight, but a detached macula usually means major loss of sight.  

He had surgery yesterday and we are hoping and praying for a complete healing.  We won't know for about 4 weeks how much sight he will get back.  

I know his health problem is not life threatening and could be so much worse, but my dad is struggling.  My dad is always on the go.  He's not the type to just sit still for long.  He loves to travel and when we go anywhere we are up early and gone all day seeing new things.  He has always taken videos of our trips so that he can sit back and watch them when he retires.  It breaks my heart to think that he might not be able to do that.  

If you believe in the power of prayer, I would appreciate a prayer or two for my dad.  I have absolutely no doubt that God can heal my dad's eye and let his vision return to normal, but I also know that that might not happen.  We are praying for my dad to be at peace and accept whatever does happen.  It's been hard watching him over the last couple weeks and I can't imagine what life will be like if things don't improve...but we have a lot of prayer warriors praying for him.   

Now on to happier things.....

We have ended our unit on penguins and my kiddos had soooo much fun.  They were sad to take home their penguin folders because they thought we were just going to keep learning new things.  They felt a little better when I told them they could go home and tell their families that they are now penguin experts.  

One little boy shouted that he was going to teach his mom!  

To end our penguin fun we did a science experiment.  We wanted to investigate just how blubber keeps penguins warm.  

This is everything you will need.  

This was our 'blubber'.  

We needed two bowls of cold water from Antarctica!  :)

The kiddos put their hands in the bag so they wouldn't get wet... genius for faster cleanup! 

I put blubber in one bag and then put another bag inside of it so the kiddos wouldn't get their hands messy.  They were still a little hesitant to put their hands near all that goop!  

Some of my kiddos were shocked that they couldn't feel the cold water through the blubber.  As they put their hands in the bags I asked them if their hands felt different.  Some were so excited and shouted one hand was cold and one hand was warm!  

After all the kiddos tried it, they wanted my aide and I to do it too.  They didn't believe me that I had already done it.  I thought it was sweet they wanted us to participate too!  

I used Erica Bohrer's Penguin Pack to direct our learning and I highly recommend it.  This pack is full of wonderful activities.  Click on the picture to go purchase it! 

My first graders definitely approved this fun learning pack!  :)

Welcome Note Freebie and Froggy Update

We're using my  Countdown to Summer Book with end of the day activities which means that the kiddos that haven't had to move their clip get to do whatever activity we turn over.  These star activities have given me such power.  I kid you not!!  All I have to do is threaten to move a clip and the kids straighten up....it really is amazing.  


Today, the activity was to create a welcome note for my kiddos next year.  The first thing my kiddos did was complain that they didn't get a welcome note at the beginning of this year.  I told them everyone has to start sometime!  What stinkers!!  


The note itself isn't anything fancy, but it was so cute what they wrote.  I had to show some pictures:

I love her picture of the snowball fight we had last week. 

Holding two fingers up is our sign to be quiet.  I'm glad she is passing on that bit of information.  I think some kiddos need constant reminders.  

I have moved this boy's clip one time and he will never forget it!!  His advice was to have a limit of silence and fun!  I thought that was so funny.  He must actually hear me when I say there is a time to be silly and a time to be good workers.  

Sweet picture!

She likes my classroom dollars and be sure to stay on green she says!

I'm also giving this welcome note away for free since I'm sooooooooo excited that I have reached 200 followers!!  Yay!!  :)

Make sure you come back this weekend because I'm going to be having a HUGE giveaway!!  You really need to come back for this one.  I PROMISE it will be loaded with goodies that you will not want to miss out on from some of your favorite bloggers!! 

And, since I'm sure you're all just dying to know about our class pets I won't keep you in suspense any longer....we now have 4 frog legs!!  Click here to read my post about our class pets.  "Froggy" had 2 legs last week and now has 4 legs.  His tail is very short now too.  See him there in the corner??

Tadpoles are not easy to photograph so this was the best picture I could get.  I have about 40 pictures of these tadpoles and Froggy between my camera and my phone.  I thought my phone would get a better picture, but no such luck.  This was the best I could do, but at least you can see his legs!!


Have a happy Friday!  It's our last one!  :)

We Have a Hundred Class Pets...and a Freebie I Found!

A hundred class pets....really!?!?  


Yep, well kinda.  See......

I'm pretty sure there's a hundred in there.  Feel free to count them though if you don't believe me!  :)

One of my kiddos and her family found these tadpoles and offered to bring them in so of course I said yes!!  My entire class has been so excited over these guys and gals.  The best part is that one of them has already started growing his/her back legs.  They're getting the chance to see the frog life cycle happening live in our classroom.  

We had these guys yesterday and today.  The mom took them home today to get some clean water.  Amazing how small they are yet how dirty they can make that water.  

With so many classroom 'pets' around I had to do what any good, decent, self-respecting, blog stalking, TpT obsessed teacher would do find a cute activity to learn about the frog life cycle and so I found this great little FREEBIE on TpT!  

Check it out:

It was a very cute and easy book for my kiddos to make.  We discussed the frog life cycle and then cut out the pages, filled in the missing information, stapled them, and of course colored the pictures.  

Hopefully next week we'll get to see more frog legs! :)

Tomorrow we're having a *SNOW DAY* in MAY!!!  Yep, for real!  Check out my Snow Day in May Pack at my TpT store.  I'll post pics later.  We're going to be making snow cones and maybe having a snowball fight, but you didn't hear that from me!  :)

Happy almost Friday!  Not too many of those left!