Snow Day Overload

If you live in Tennessee then you have seen all of the crazy weather we have had the past two weeks! We have (almost) had 2 full weeks off because of ice and snow. We have definitely gone a little stir crazy at my house, but we are so thankful for the time off to get some other things done. I have missed my kiddos and look forward to getting back to them next week! 

These are just a few pictures of the beautiful snow we got. The ice underneath was not so fun, but we enjoyed sledding and being snowed in for a few days!

Being stuck at home gave me LOTS of time to create/finish things I had been working on. I successfully finished 3 units in 2 weeks. That's huge for a newbie like me! I am totally looking forward to using all three of these once we FINALLY get back into the normal swing of things! 

The first unit I worked on is my Rockin' Around the Clock. This was so fun to create. I had been anxiously waiting to use the adorable clip art from Krista Wallden (the creator behind Creative Clips). I finally decided to use it with my time unit and went to town! This packet includes lots of fun practice for time (centers and printables).

The second unit I got to create was this cute Springy Centers packet. It includes math and ELA centers for all of us teachers wishing for warmer weather. This is being printed immediately when I get back to school. I love some good centers for our rotations. (And my kiddos love anything bright and colorful!)

Last, but not least, is my Shamrock Writing Shindig. This has 10 creative writing prompts. I am always looking for a fun way to get my kids to write. (And who doesn't love to write about Leprechauns?!)

I hope all of you guys have had a great past two weeks! I am anxious to get back in the classroom and put to use some of the awesome goodies I bought from the TpT Teachers are Heroes sale. What goodies did you get??

Happy Friday!! :)

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Valentine's Day!

We have had so much fun preparing for Valentine's Day this week. We have read some super cute Valentine's Day books and make several craftivities! My kiddo's could hardly wait until our "party" on Friday, but they made it and we had a GREAT day! 

We started our Valentine activities with a writing activity from the fabulous Cara Carroll. This goes along with the book Will You Be My Valenswine.. it is so cute! I had never read it before, but my kids loved it. This is actually a freebie on her TpT site! How could you pass that up! 

I thought this one was adorable. This little guy wrote that he wanted How to Train Your Dragon 2 to be his valentine because it was the most awesomest movie in the universe! :)

This is sure to make a cute bulletin board! Loved doing it. 

Our next Valentine's craft was an idea from my mom (she is a fabulous Kindergarten teacher.. truly one of my biggest inspirations for becoming a teacher!). She had done these with her kiddos and was kind enough to pass along the idea. She found these on Pinterest and we adapted it a little. They turned out so cute! 

SIDE NOTE: If you don't explain to your kids that the monsters need to be facing the top of the bag then they might come out doing headstands! Still cute!

After we got done making these we passed out all of our Valentine's and put them in each others bags.

These are the Valentine's I made for my kiddo's this year. They came with bubble, Crabby Patty candy and some Laffy Taffy. They seemed to be a hit. :) 

Of course you can NOT celebrate Valentine's day without some conversational hearts. We had fun reading these to each other!! 

Naturally, you can't be a teacher and not own colorful clothes for the holidays. I do love these BRIGHT pink pants!

My sweet husband also surprised me with these chocolate covered strawberries being delivered to school. I was so surprise and they were so yummy! He is the best! 

We has such a great Valentine's Day in Mrs. Boles' class. How were your Valentine festivities??

Happy long weekend friends!! 

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Money, Money, Money! $$

We were busy last week y'all! We have been working on counting coins and money for the past 2 weeks in math. I was super proud of my kiddos for really digging into the coin counting head on. They were really good at it! I had some come in and tell me they had gotten change from their parents and practiced counting at home. (All you teachers out there know how excited that makes you!)

There are so many incredible resources out there to help you teach money. TpT has some seriously talented people who make it so easy to find good, reliable teaching resources. I'm extremely thankful to be apart of such a great family of teachers!

Here are some of the fun things we've been doing in class this week:

We have tirelessly been using our fake money! The kids love it and it such a good tool to help them really grasp the size of coins and how to use them in real life.

We also were given the awesome idea (thanks Mrs. Hall!!) to use coin stamps for a fun small group during money. Basically, Mrs. Hall made some index cards with coin amounts on them and the kids stamped them out onto notebook paper. They seriously loved it! It's the little things y'all! I found a set of money coin stamps on Amazon for about $10-12. It is definitely worth investing in - I will be for sure. Here is a link to the money stamps - http://tinyurl.com/coinstamps

Of course we had to throw in some awesome money apps. Amy Lemons from Step Into Second Grade wrote a blog post for Blog Hoppin' last week that had some awesome apps for all you tech junkies out there. I have downloaded them all - and yes, they are all awesome! Here is a link to that blog post - every iPad teacher user should read this! Blog Hoppin' iPad Apps. The app that we were using was something I found free in the App Store. It is called Counting Money.

As always there are some resources that I have used over and over. There are so many on TpT but these are a few I've used and loved (as well as my kiddos!).

The first resource is one from Amy Lemons from Step Into Second Grade. This resource It's All About the Money, has sooooo many awesome things. We could have probably used this during math for a week straight and not run out of stuff to do! 

There are coin books, posters, money to print out and so much more! Go buy it! You will not regret it!

Another awesome resource I found was from Cara Carrol. My kids seriously loved doing these and would beg me to do them everyday. It's called Money Mystery Picture and lives up to it's name. It also made for an awesome sub plan while I was at a training on Friday! 

Another great resource from Cara Carrol is called The Great Coin Collection. This one has lots of activities to do along with teaching money. 

Lastly, we have been using up some awesome Interactive games on my Promethean board. If you don't have one of these (or any kind of interactive board) in your classroom, I'm so sorry! We use our board all the time for all kinds of different things.. I'm not sure what I would do without it! Here is a picture of ONE of the LakeShore Learning games I have for our Promethean board. 

It is so much fun and the kids really think of this as a reward (which is great because they are actually learning so much!). There is another LakeShore game I have called Money Ski Ball (also interactive) which my kids love too. LakeShore has tons of different interactive games so if you have an interactive board you should definitely check them out! 

Well, that sums up our math for the past few weeks. Money is fun to teach and even better when you have all of these great resources. I hope all of you have a fantastic Monday and a great week! 

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Study the States

So, I got the idea to do a "study the states" resource about a month and a half ago. I have worked tirelessly for a month or so trying to pull it together. In Tennessee, we are supposed to study the United States as part of our 2nd grade Social Studies standards. I thought it would be a great idea to make this and knew I could really utilize it in my own classroom.

Here are some pictures from actually using it in my own classroom!

This page is the information page. I let my kids get into groups and

read this with their partner. Once they are finished, they do their own state

book. As you can see this little guy did lots of underlining to find the

correct info! Loved it!

As you can tell, we have had a lot of fun working with this state packet! It has been great for my kids to help remember close reading skills and digging into the text. I have loved it!

This is a glimpse into some of the goodies you can get with this packet!

This is for sale on my TpT store until tomorrow! Go grab yourself one! I hope you guys will enjoy it as much as we have! 

Here is my store link: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Brogan-Boles

And here is the direct link to the Study the States Packet: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Study-the-States-Social-Studies-Unit-for-the-50-States-1690853

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