Boho Birds courtesy of Carson Dellosa!

The lovely folks over at Carson Dellosa saw a comment I posted at Teeny Tiny's blog and were nice enough to send me over some of my very own Boho Birds decor to display in my classroom!

I couldn't believe it, and when my package arrived, it felt like Christmas!

Here are some pics of the first project I made with them (just ignore all the junk on top of my cabinets--what's a girl to do?!)...

I really think the birds' bright colors complement my poms!

(Click the pics to see larger images.)

 

The branches are really intended to go sideways with the birds 

perching on them, but I improvised to make a tree instead. 

Click HERE...

(This pic is from their website, so you can see how the branches are intended to be used (I tried to embed the pic, but it wouldn't work, sorry!).

 

Still deciding what to do with all the leftover birds & leaves!  

I actually saw some GREAT inspiration of how other teachers have used the Boho Birds set in their classrooms on Carson Dellosa's Facebook page.  

Here's the link to check it out:  

Sunny Days in 2nd Grade: Boho Birds!

I absolutely LOVE how she used glue dots, push pins, & the boho bird cut-outs to display student work.  I am SO ON this for our student work displays in the hallway.  They are pretty darn boring with just large black sheets of construction paper (laminated) with nametags and paper clips that hold the work.  Her idea is SO MUCH CUTER.  And of course, if it's not cute, why bother??  Am I right???

Well, I hope this inspires you to check out the Boho Birds or some of Carson Dellosa's other new spring-y collections--they have tons of cute ones, and I won't lie--they've always been my favorite supplier for classroom cuteness.  And I'm not just saying that!  :)  Another one of my favorites is the Calypso Set--I LOVES me some bright colors, as you know.

Another big THANK YOU to Carson Dellosa--if I wasn't already a loyal customer, I would be now!  :D

On another note, my little boy will be turning TWO in less than a month!  Where has the time gone???  Also--must switch into party-planning mode like, NOW.  :)

Hope all you teachers out there are enjoying your weekend.  Our weather here in the Dallas area has been GORGEOUS today.  :)

Alert! Amazing Target Find!

ALERT. I found an amazing little book at the Target Dollar Spot. You may want to grab your keys and read the rest of this post as you walk to your car. Yeah, it's pretty good.

Since I'm posting from my iPhone, all the pics will show up at the end, FYI.

It's called Brilliant Reader: a Book Log for Kids and Parents.

It's a whole book full of book log pages! See below for pics, but I think it would be perfect for Daily 5, allowing the kids to chart each book they read and get a little comprehension practice, not to mention reinforcing their writing skills.

The very last page is just a NOTES page, which I think would be a great place for them to jot down book titles they see a friend reading or that they want to check out from the library next time.

Another possibility is to send this home with them for a Happy Summer, Don't Forget to Read gift. :)

I haven't decided yet, but you can bet your sweet bootay that I bought 22 copies! :)

Run, don't walk, to your nearest Target! :)

Five for Friday! April 12, 2013

I'm linking up!  On Friday!  It's officially Friday for another hour and 19 minutes!  Hallelu!  Click on the image above to visit Doodle Bugs Teaching and check out all the other links and her awesome blog!

Here are 5 random things from my week:

#1:

This is me posing with my just acquired (today!) Boho Birds Bulletin Board Set from Carson Dellosa!  They sent this pack to me for free after I commented over at Teeny Tiny's blog about how I wanted it!!  How awesome is that?!  I felt like I won a contest!  So anyway, all 88 gajillion pieces have to be laminated, and then I can't WAIT to find the perfect spots for these cuties in my room!  (More details and pics to come after they're up and gleaming in their cuteness.)  In the meantime, hop over to Teeny Tiny's blog post to see how SHE used the set in her room.  Plus, if you don't follow her blog, you are SO missing out.  LOVE.  HER.  (In a non-stalkerish way, of course.)  

P.S.  Click HERE to check out ALL of Carson Dellosa's Boho Birds stuff!

OK.  Moving on.  But seriously, I was SO.  EXCITED.  Thank you, Carson Dellosa!!

 

 

 

#2:

Did you see my post earlier this week about these cutie-patootie writing lap desks I just made?!  

AGH!  I really am not a very crafty person, but having my Silhouette Cameo (thank you, amazing 2A class!) has got my creative juices flowing a little bit.  And the kids are LOVING using these.

Check out my post HERE to see pics of the others with their fun phrases!

 #3:

HAPPY HOUR.

Twice this week.  Yep.  It's been one of those weeks.

Heck, it's been one of those years.  ;)

But can I just tell ya how much I love the ladies I work with???  They are fabulous human beings, I won't lie to ya.  Everyone should be so lucky to work with people who can make even the worst situation seem funny, LOL!

 #4:

SUBWAY.

I ate it for dinner last night and for lunch today.

It's ok.  I got different chips.  ;)  This, paired with my going to the gym last night for the HIP HOP CARDIO DANCE PARTY class (oh yes, you read that right), is surely going to cause those 10 pounds of tummy flab to fall right off.  Right???

#5:

COUNTDOWN TO SUMMER.

38 SCHOOL DAYS (but who's counting?)

Happy Weekend!!!

 

New Writing Lap Desks!

Stopped by Michael's yesterday, and their plastic lap desks were on sale for $4 each. Seeing as how they had my classroom colors (teal and lime) with GLITTER, there was pretty much no way I was leaving without some. Hence, our new lap desks for Work on Writing in Daily 5!!!

I whipped up some fun phrases, cut them on vinyl with my Silhouette Cameo (squee!), slapped those puppies on, and coated with Matte Mod Podge.

LOVE!!!

What Do You Think of My New Blog Header???

But seriously.  Is it too busy with the background?  It was driving me crazy that I didn't have a header, just a title, and I can't afford to pay a blog designer right now, though I'd love to hire Barbara at Ruby Slippers Blog Design!  Maybe one day...

But even if it's a little busy, I am proud of myself for figuring out how to put a header together all by myself!  I am NOT a scrapbooker OR digital scrapbooker, so go me.

Seriously, though--what do you think?  Is it cute?  Would less be more?

Happy 22 months to my sweet baby boy tomorrow!  (Sounds a lot better than saying "tomorrow's Monday," doesn't it?)

:D

Fractured Fairy Tales--LOVE.

OK, guys, this may just be my favorite unit I've ever taught.

We talked about what we were going to do for Open House this year and decided to ixnay the Texas Unit, as it is really not in our TEKS (state standards), and 1st grade already does a lot of the same things for their Texas-themed Open House.  So back to the drawing board it was.

Part of our Texas Unit had included Texas Fairy Tales, so we finally came up with the idea to get going on one of our genre studies that are part of our new TEKS.  Hence, a FUN unit was born!

I plan Language Arts for our team, so I was the lucky winner to put all this together.

We started off by brainstorming what we already know about fairy tales/what things we often read about in the stories, etc. and ended the unit with the students following the writing process to develop their very own FRACTURED fairy tale based on a traditional one.  IT.  WAS.  AWESOME.  At least the kids thought so.  LOL.

Here are some of my favorite fractured fairy tales that we read and discussed the story elements of:

 

Three Cool Kids

by Rebecca Emberley

First, we read a traditional version of The Three Billy Goats Gruff and discussed the story elements, and then, before reading this fractured tale, I asked, "What if we rewrote the story but made the characters different?  What could they be instead of goats?"  We brainstormed, and we decided that our new story would have 3 dogs--a chihuahua, a beagle, and a bulldog.  Too funny!  They were super into rewriting the story (this was all done out loud, not written down).  The next day we read this book, which takes place in the big city, and it is too cute!  I loved that the main characters were still goats, but they were "citified" and each was interested in different things, style-wise, and had different talents.  Super cute story.

Wolf! Wolf!

by John Rocco

This is a fractured version of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, which I purposely chose to use for a group lesson because I have some wolf-criers in my class who are just SO SICK at least 3 times a week.  One of whom finally actually DID throw up one day, and of course, no one believed that he was actually sick!  I'm somehow doubtful that the lesson from this story stuck, but you know.  A girl's gotta try.  This was a great book to discuss with the kids, because the author changed the point of view!  The illustrations are beautiful, too.  This may be my favorite "new" book I've read this year.

Kate and the Beanstalk

by Mary Pope Osbourne

Illustrated by Giselle Potter

I'm pretty sure my kids told me that Mary Pope Osbourne writes Magic Tree House.  Is that right?  Her name is definitely familiar.  But anyway, great book!  The kids were ALL about predicting the ending on this one! 

(Not including the credit since the words are so big!)

But dude.  If you haven't read this book, you MUST.  Seriously.  Buy it immediately or check your library.  You won't be sorry.  The kids will LOVE it.  But be forewarned--there will be LOTS of hysterical laughing.  Little hyenas.  You've been warned.  But I absolutely love this book.

 

 Goldilocks Returns

by Lisa Campbell Ernst

Have you ever read her books?  They're all good.  Just sayin.  But this one is SO CUTE!

Goldilocks comes back to the bears' house many years later!

I could go on and on and list tons more, but I really enjoyed these during our new unit this year and wanted to share!

I don't know that I've ever seen my kiddos so excited about a reading/writing lesson each day!  I wish I had taken pictures of everything and pictures of the kids engaged in their writing!  It was awesome.  But if you ever visited my classroom (this year, not every year), you'd see that there is scarcely time for me to snap photos when I spend most of my "free time" putting out fires and diffusing volatile situations.  Sad to say.  I guess I need to at least snap some of their final stories and artwork hanging in the hallway!

So anyway, since I'd already made most of the handouts for our students, I decided to put it all together with lesson plans, trade book recommendations, and all that jazz and post it on Teachers Pay Teachers.  Click any of the pics to check it out in my TPT store. 

Here it is in all its glory...

 

The unit is actually 30 pages long, so this is just a small sampling of what it includes.

The next 2 pages give more details about the contents.

 

I hope you got some good book recommendations you didn't know about!  What are your favorite fractured fairy tales to read/teach with??  I'd love to hear!

Growing Firsties' 500 Follower Giveaway!

Wow.  First of all, if you don't already follow Lisa Mattes at Growing Firsties, head over there now!

Secondly, you MUST check out her 500 Follower Giveaway!

 

Lisa has some amazing prizes to give away, so be sure to head over and enter to win!

What a compliment to have 500+ fellow teachers be interested in your work and your contributions to education.  I think it's amazing all the teacher bloggers out there who put (no doubt) tons of work into their daily lives in the classroom but then spend all this EXTRA time working on their own lessons and activities and then share them with us.  I'm new to doing this, but some of these bloggers are seriously AMAZING at it, and I truly am baffled at how and when they get all this amazingness done!  Congrats, Lisa, and thanks for the giveaway!  :)

On a side note, I stayed up WAY TOO LATE last night finishing up my Fractured Fairy Tales Unit (which we finished up before Spring Break, but putting it together to sell is quite another thing!).  I was SO SAD, as you can imagine, when I finally finished the darn unit and it wouldn't upload to TPT!  Tho thad.  Theriously.  So yeah.  I've tried probably 20 times since last night, and I'm still not able to upload it.  I contacted Support.  

Well, here's a sneak preview so that you can be waiting with bated breath.  HA!  :D

I'm sad to report that my Spring Break is officially OVER tomorrow!  :(  *tear*  *lots of tears*

Happy Spring!