Looking for Texas Unit

Do any of you Texas girls have a Texas unit you can share or that is on TpT? We're doing one the last week of school and I'm looking to spice mine up. If not, maybe I've found myself a summer project!

And of course, I have to remind you, make sure you enter my giveaway by midnight CST on Sunday!

UPDATE: If you're looking for Texas things, you can find my activities here.

What We Love Wednesday - Wrapping Up Our Year!

Hey y'all! I'm not a superstitious girl, but I gotta say, when I saw that I now have 113 followers, I decided that had to be good luck. After all, 1/13 is my birthday! So, here we are on Wednesday night and my internet is down. I'm posting from my iPhone and it's less than ideal! So, this will be short and sweet - a difficult task for me!

First, I got Jodi's End of Year Activity packet and can't wait to do the hermit crab activities next week, but what I REALLY want to tell you about is the adorable activity we're doing this week. Our theme this week is "Bugs, Bugs, Bugs!", so when I saw her writing prompt "I loved first grade bug cause" I had to go ahead and use it. I'm using it as one of our writing stations this week and it is precious. I had my kids glue the writing activity to manila paper when they finished, and then use scraps of scrapbook paper and construction paper to create their own insects. I love them! I will definitely have to come back and add pictures!

Second, make sure you enter my giveaway! It's open until Sunday night at midnight. Sweet Papery is oh-so-adorable and someone is gonna be a very lucky lady!

Can you believe that for me, that was a short post?

10 more days! Have a great night friends!

Only 12 days left...

Yep, you read that right! 12 days of school left for me! I'm taking a personal day this Friday, so really I guess I just have 11 days left with my first grade sweeties! It amazes me how fast the year goes by. I feel like they go faster every year! My other exciting news... as of this evening, I have 100 followers! I am so excited and feeling very humbled. I just can't believe there are that many people who want to know what's going on in Room B103! I posted my giveaway yesterday, so make sure you check out my post to find out how you can enter to win a stamp from the ADORABLE Sweet Papery!

Here's a random weather share - I know most of you are finished with weather units, but my kids did this a few weeks ago and thought it was really fun. They wanted to know if we could have it as a science center again this week. After reading all of their weather reports, I totally get why they liked it. According to my class, we were going to have a very drastic weather week in North Texas, chock full of every natural disaster imaginable. It looks like I have a room full of future meteorologists and storm chasers!

Sweet Papery Giveaway!

My giveaway is finally here! Ok, so I’m not quite to 100 followers, but 94 is pretty darn close and I was just too excited to wait any longer! If you saw my favorite things post, you know that stamps and Sweet Papery are two of my favorite things. The amazing and VERY generous Farrah over at Sweet Papery is donating a stamp for me to giveaway to one of you lucky readers! SO, here’s what you need to do to enter:

1. Be a follower! then, head over to Sweet Papery and check out the adorable stamps. Come back here and leave me a comment letting me know that you are a follower AND which stamp you'd choose if you won. Piece of cake, right? That will get you one entry.
2. For a second entry, head over to facebook and like sweet papery. Again, leave me a comment letting me know.
3. And if you REALLY want to win, here's how you can get a third entry: blog about my giveaway! Make sure you leave me a comment with the link so I can check it out!

Good luck! You have until Sunday, May 22nd at midnight CST to enter. The winner will be announced on Monday, May 23rd. Happy stamping!

Mother's Day Idea

My kids did a quick and easy Mother's Day project today that they really enjoyed and {I think} their mothers will love. The kids brainstormed words that describe their mothers and my heart melted at their sweet words - caring, loving, hardworking, beautiful... the adjectives just flowed! Each sweetie made a list and off we went to the computer lab. The kids went to http://www.wordle.net/ and made wordles for their mamas using all of their adjectives. They turned out precious and the kids all added what they call their moms to the word cloud. Tomorrow we're going to mount them on construction paper, et voila! I actually think I'm going to do the same thing for each one of my kiddos as the end of the year.
PS: Summer countdown = 19 days!

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!

I hope you are all feeling as incredibly loved and appreciated as I am today! I can't believe I only have 21 more days with my sweethearts! I brought lots of treats home with me this afternoon - they're keeping me motivated as I grade papers!

PS - Can you even believe the incredible sale over at TpT today? So many great bloggers are throwing a 20% off sale PLUS use the code TAD11 for an additional 20% off! Ummm... how many units can I buy in one sitting?

Another Insect Idea!

Everyone has been sharing their insect ideas and activities, so here I am inspired to share as well. We haven't done a full insect unit, but we've been working on a ladybug unit during science for a couple of weeks. I have one of those thematic unit books on ladybugs by Teacher Created Resources and it really has some great activities in it, so a lot of my craftivities and cross-curricular connections are ideas I've taken and built on from that book. This activity though is something I came up with while we were studying ladybug spots and their symmetry. First of all, did you know that ladybugs can be green, yellow, orange and even black? The kids LOVE that little piece of information. Side note: I found a 30 pack of giant ladybug diecuts at a local teacher store for $5.99, and decided that was money well spent. I am perfectly happy to pay $5.99 to avoid tracing and cutting 22 ladybugs out! My little scientists chose a color for their ladybugs and drew as many dots as their little hearts desired - fine by me as long as they showed symmetry. They looked adorable, but I thought they were missing a little something. So, being the technology magnet and always looking for a way to tie in technology, the students typed what symmetry means and glued it on. They all typed it themselves, and I was very pleased with how many used our science word wall to spell symmetry correctly! They voted on a pair of "crazy" scissors and voila! An authentic product tying together math (symmetry), science AND technology! I did cut the typed text out for them since Miss Griffin's crazy scissors are a little dull these days.

And I had to throw in this picture of us at the bug ball this year! This is my fabulous team: Mrs. Claborn, Mrs. Fulbright, Ms. Hemmingsen and Me!

 Happy May, y'all! We only have 22 days of school left here!