Volcanoes and a Giveaway

We wrapped up our unit on landforms today by making baking soda and vinegar volcanoes.  This is one of the kiddos favorite science activities each year and most take their volcanoes home and repeat the experiment at home.  A great project for a Friday!

Congratulations to Kelly for reaching 100 followers!  That is my dream!  She is having a celebratory giveaway of a $20 Target gift card.  Who doesn't LOVE Target!  Head on over.

Landforms Part 2 and A Linky Giveaway

We painted our landforms today.  This year we used watercolors which worked great!  Last year we used tempera paint and the watercolors look much better and were alot less messy and easier for the kids.  I love these landforms!  Tomorrow we will label them with toothpicks w/ labels attached.

I'm joining up with the fun "Looky in my Lunchbox" Linky.  Tara at 4th Grade Frolics is having a fun linky with a new lunch bag giveaway. 

Now, I'm one of those teacher who eats with her kids!  We have lunch from 11:45 - 12:00, during which teachers teach a nutrition lesson and then the kids go to recess from 12:00 - 12:30 and the teachers rotate through recess duty.  Teaching nutrition is a little tricky in first grade with all of the containers to open and straws to stick in juice boxes and napkins to hand out, so kids don't put their food directly on their desks.  We usually just do a discussion about the topic of the day.  The kids are so smart - most of them have good info. to share with their fellow kiddos.  So, on recess duty days I take something outside to eat while I watch the playground. 

I'm embarrased to even show the photo of my lunchbox as it has become so tattered!  So, I'll just show what in in my lunchbox today. 

Today I have an extra special lunch - very different from my usual blah options.  I have SUSHI!  Yes, SUSHI!  And, $9.00 a roll sushi.  I went to Fry's to shop for a few basics and lo and behold they had remodeled the whole store and put in a sushi bar at the entrance.  There was an sushi chef there serving samples of - TEMPTATION SUSHI ROLL!!  I think sushi is okay, not great, okay.  But.. the Temptation Roll is out of this world! 

However, I did feel it was way too expensive for a "teacher lunch" so, I split it with my teacher hubby.  I felt much less guilty taking a $4.50 sushi roll for lunch.  So there you have it - sushi, a banana, rice cakes and an ICE.

4 Giveaways!

3AM Teacher is having a giveaway....

Head on over to 3AM Teacher and check out her giveaway.  It has lots of great stuff!  There are TpT products, a gift card and jewelry (everyone loves jewelry!)

Then go over to http://onceuponafirstgradeadventure.blogspot.com/ and enter her 100 follower giveaway.  She is giving away an item from her TpT store.

But don't stop there!  Pop over to Fun in Room 4B for her 200 follower multi-bloggy friend giveaway.



Finally...go over to Twins, Teaching and Tacos and enter her 100 follower giveaway.



And if you stopped by here...please help me reach 100 followers!  I'm dying to do a giveaway when I reach 100!!!

Foldable Silent "e" Flash Cards and Writing Story Boards

I was really excited to hear about Laura Candler's foldable freebies link up because I just LOVE foldables.  I use them for just about everything.  We make flip book poems (my St. Patrick's Day freebie), lift-the-flap books (my Arizona Symbols freebie) and for flash cards and writing story boards.

Click HERE for a FREEBIE from my I Love Cupcakes Silent E Word Work Unit.  Copy the cards double-sided on card stock,  cut, and fold.

Here is an example of a foldable page for writing and illustrating Beginning, Middle, End of a story.  I use these for writing about a story we have read and also for their own original stories.  Take a 12 x 18 sheet of paper and fold into six sections.  I like to glue lined paper on the bottom half to write on and have them illustrate the top section.  You can use both sides for First, Next, Then, Last or to add Problem/Solution on the back.

 For older kids, 2nd or 3rd grade, I glue 3x5 note cards to each of the six sections for a more developed story board.  This can be for a draft or final copy.

Hope these ideas add to your own foldables collection of ideas.  Happy folding!

Landforms and an Easter Blog Hunt Giveaway!

Today we started our landform models by making the salt dough molds.  On Thursday we will paint them and label them!  I love this project!  It is hard to really convey the different landforms in 2D so I love this 3D project.  The kids were super excited and already calling out the different landforms on their models today.

And...there is a great giveaway from a group of 5 bloggers who have created an Easter Blog Hunt!  Click on the picture below to go to one of the blog hop sites and you can get the instructions for the giveaway.

And lastly... Sparky's first bath!

Baseball and Puppies

Spring training baseball is in full swing in Arizona and we went to a ball game last weekend between the Kansas City Royals and the Chicago White Sox.  During the 8th inning my son got this foul ball!

And...the latest places I found our 9 week old puppy this week!

Rainforest Learning Adventure and three Awesome Giveaways!

During my Spring Break, I have created a 96-page Rainforest Learning Adventure Unit! It is great to use with your animal characteristics, habitat, and environment lessons. It is on SALE for the next 4 days on both my TpT and TN stores.  AND I would love feedback on this unit so I am giving this unit free to the first person who blogs about this unit in a blog post on your blog and leaves me a comment about it.  (Please leave your email address in the comment and the blog post link.)  If you preview the unit and like it, please come back and leave a comment on my blog to share with others (and follow my TpT store!).

Here is what it includes:
* 10 graphic organizers with teacher resources to teach the 4 layers of the rainforest, animals and plants of the rainforest, gifts from the rainforest and the future of the rainforests
* 9-page emergent reader with half-size student copy to illustrate or write
* 6 venn diagrams comparing rainforest animals 
* animal investigation organizer to use as a stand alone project or to organize information on an animal for a non-fiction animal report 
* 42-word word wall writing resource
* rainforest-themed stationary for writing prompts, creative writing and/or non-fiction reports
*rainforest folded book example and instructions
* 4 animal art projects - toucan, pirahna, red-eyed tree frog, and sloth (projects are made with simple geometric shapes and coordinate well with math units on fractions and shapes)
* poem for poetry binder and version to illustrate
* 8 animal diagrams to label
* 2 rainforest-themed math centers - fact family board game and spin, graph, tally, and interpret rainforest animal data

Let the adventure begin! 

Pocket Full of Kinders is having a Mega Giveaway (this is huge!) to celebrate 400 followers!  She has linked up with 13 other teachers to put some fantastic prizes together.  Check it out here and please comment here on my blog if you are entering the giveaway.



Marie at The Hands-On Teacher is having a Giveaway that ends Sunday night, the 25th!  She is giving away a $10 gift card to TpT and is partnering with Lacey at Wild About Teaching who is giving away two of her spring units.  Click below to go to Marie's blog post.

Arizona Symbols FREEBIES

I have been on Spring Break this week!  For my last hoorah I am going to see Hunger Games with my daughter and teacher friends tomorrow.  Before going on Spring Break we learned about our Arizona state symbols.  We made the state flag and a simple two-sided flip book of some of the state's symbols.  


I spent today taking an all-day class on the Arizona Constitution so I was inspired to make this post tonight.  


Here is some fun flag trivia:


*the 13 stripes on the Arizona flag stand for the 13 colonies BUT their colors (the gold and red) represent the colors carried by the first Spanish explorers
*the rays represent our colorful sunsets
*the blue is "liberty" blue, the same as on the American flag
*the copper star represents the state's most historically important industry - copper mining.  Did you know that Arizona is still the largest producer of copper nationwide and the largest copper mining company worldwide is headquartered in Arizona?
*the first flag was sewn by Nancy Hayden, the wife of our first Senator Carl Hayden (kind of our personal Betsy Ross!) 



To download the text for the flip book click HERE.  To download the symbol pictures click HERE.  I also have a fun poem for the state symbols.  You can download that HERE.

 Other fun Arizona trivia:


*Several Civil War battles were fought in Arizona and Tucson was the Confederate seat.
*Arizona applied for statehood 3 times before finally being accepted into the Union the 4th time.
*Arizona was rejected the first 3 times because of our legislative bill processes of initiative, referendum, and repeal.  The 4th time, Arizona took these three out of their constitution and were accepted into the Union.   After acceptance they put them right back into the Arizona Constitution!  Only 13 states have these three ways a bill can become a law in their constitution.
*The average elevation in Arizona is 4,000 feet.
*Orabi, on the Hopi mesas, is reputed to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in America.
*Land ownership in Arizona is 17.5% private; 26.7% Indian; 12.2% state and the rest is federal land.

Leprechauns and Rainbows

We made leprechauns and rainbows for our St. Patrick's Day bulletin board.  I love the rainbow writing.  We brainstormed things that were the different colors of the rainbow and did a mini-lesson on describing words to make our writing more "colorful".  They did a great job!  When we made the leprechauns, I had a couple of very helpful girls offer to run the glitter station.  They just LOVE to glitter everything!  It was going pretty well so I took my eye off of and let them run with it.  Well...I kinda forgot that they are 6 years old and let's just say that in the end I have enough mixed gold and green glitter to ship nationwide to anyone who needs some!  They were also very creative in their use of glitter on the leprechauns as you can see.