Five for Friday

 Out of boredom and actual interest I wanted to practice Spanish again. I took it for quite a few years in school and some in college. I miss speaking it. I was by no means fluent but I could communicate but I never get the opportunity to anymore. Also, my grammar is now awful!

There's an app called Duolingo that is free and you can practice several languages. You choose a language and take a placement test and can go through levels. It's not super gamey in that it's not necessarily directed at the kiddos with cartoons and games. I do think that you could have kids do this though. I thought about loading it to an iPad in the fall and maybe letting it be an enrichment activity.

This was one of the sentences I had to translate. When will I need to say this?! lol

I have a homework club in my room. I needed new number pieces for it...and I like going to Michael's. 

clear glass mosaic pieces, acrylic paint, magnets

I wrote the numbers of my kiddos on the mosaic pieces (backwards--eek!), painted them, then glued magnets

This is my current board (below) and I really like it but my numbers don't all fit and one of them got lost last year. Unfortunately the recycle bin was located right below. Oops.

current board 

Ummm...a bit too early for fall there buddy!!! (@Walgreens) #TooSoon

I live in Indiana and for the first time ever I went downtown for fireworks. I've been recreationally taking pictures and was jazzed to get to do some firework shots. They are NOT as easy as anticipated. Here is my favorite picture. 

I am slowly working on some new things for the upcoming year. I genuinely think I'm in denial for Back to School. Denial or not..it's quickly approaching. I'm switching up my classroom management system and I'm going to give Class Dojo a try! Do you Dojo? I'm working on incentive rewards. How many points do your kiddos usually earn? I don't want to make the levels too hard reach but I don't want to be giving out prizes left and right like crazy. 

Here are some recording sheets I'm working on

End of the Year Craftivity

I know some of you might be out of school already (a teeny tiny bit jealous) but many of us have a few more weeks left. 8 school days for me but who's counting, right?

I'm looking for one final bulletin board craftivity to do with the kiddos. I absolutely love those old suitcases with the stickers of places traveled all over them. That inspired my writing craftivity.

My stickers aren't that great but you get the idea. You can resize them to make them bigger or smaller on your school copier so you can have just a few or TONS. Click on the image to check it out on TpT.

No more wire hangers! (actually lots of wire hangers)

Easter is at the end of my spring break this year so I'm going to pick and choose from my normal easter fun. 

Here is the craft I usually do

I have the template but I got it from a coworker at a school I worked at at the beginning of my teaching career. It is probably from one of those monthly craft books you get from Mailbox or something so I probably couldn't share it anyway. 

I will say that I used one large sheet of tissue paper and a wire hanger for the head. The rest would be pretty easy to draw. The original bunnies my coworkers made had round faces. It was hard to bend all those circles and I thought this guy looked cute with cheekbones. :) And we put the bow in different spots. Usually in the middle or one of the ears for a girl bunny and at the bottom of the chin for a boy bunny. I change the color of the bows each year, too. 


This is a packet with 8 stations for Easter and/or Spring activities. 
You can do them all in one day and have the students rotate stations or spread them out leading up to Easter. 
I know that all schools may not be allowed to do Easter-specific themes so many of these may be adaptable to Spring and there is a separate cover sheet. 

-Egg Decorating Planning 
-Weight and Balance
-Addition facts (doubles and mixed)
-Reading comprehension
-Graphing (Bar Graph)
-Sorting (you choose how to sort)
-Cards (easy to color and add own text)


It is one of the first packets I ever made. 

Source: teacherspayteachers.com via bcosby on Pinterest

Source: teacherspayteachers.com via bcosby on Pinterest

Source: teacherspayteachers.com via bcosby on Pinterest

Source: teacherspayteachers.com via bcosby on Pinterest

New Craft & Reading Series Adoption ?s

First of all, I came up with a new creativity for my kiddos! I still plan on doing my Twitter-inspired craft but I'll do that next week. We were talking about friendships this week and how first grader celebrate Valentine's Day. (See also: We are too young for boyfriends and girlfriends!)

I decided to create this cutie:

I asked them "What if we could sprinkle magic sprinkles and could sprinkle them on our class?"

Here are a few of their writings. Most of them were soooo creative!

You'll get the template, a few writing prompts, a friendship map (can have are) and a sign for your bulletin board.  (*Sprinkles not included:) )

I used scrapbook paper for the cupcake holder, it is not included. You'll get a blank template to use/color/or trace. 

Click here to check it out

Okay...cuteness aside.

We are adopting a new reading series. I'm jazzed. I started in my district the first year they had the last one but I didn't do anything concerning the adoption of the series. I'm also so ready to get some new stories. I truly cannot read some of them again! (AHHH!)

I was wanting your opinions (if you use any of these series). Here are the main contenders:

 

Journeys by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Thoughts?

Currently for February

I love these!!!

Listening-Shaggy...yes that Shaggy...lol
I just found a program (for Macs) to get music from old ipods...I thought 200+ songs were stuck on my old Nano!!

Loving--My New Macbook!!
I made the plunge last Saturday. Best Buy was having a sale and I've been saving...and I needed one. It took me mere minutes to create my Currently this time and in the past I'd probably still be waiting to load something. Traditionally I was a PC person so I'm experiencing a learning curve but so far so good.

Thinking--Brrr!
I'm in Indiana. We had a 2hr delay today. You're probably thinking "Oh they must've gotten snow." Nope...this is our second 2hr delay for low temps. Oh my goodness! I also live in an apt and walked to the leasing office this afternoon. Bad idea. I thought my legs were going to snap off. I actually thought to myself "If I were Rose (from Titanic) I would've bogarted the floating furniture, too."

Wanting--To be Beachfront
Enough said.

Needing--I have been so bad at keeping on top of my Math Journals. I'm way ahead in our actual math text than I am on creating these. So, if I get it finished before Sunday I'm going to do something special *Stay Tuned!*

Pet Peeves--Lying
This really encompasses a lot for me. (In the classroom and life)
Don't lie to me...especially over stupid things. When I find out things will be far worse off.
Don't cheat. I saw you looking at their paper and you're telling me you didn't copy?! Cheating is dishonesty. (I have a few "Cheater Pants" this year...can you tell?)


Here are a few February things I do have finished:

• A Tweet Valentine's Craftivity

• Free Number Bonds (for math centers, extra addition, subtraction, missing addend practice)

• Tooth Fairy Unit (this is pre-blogging! I'll have to find a preview, lol

Source: teacherspayteachers.com via bcosby on Pinterest

Linking up with Farley for the monthy Currently

A Tweet Valentine's Craftivity

I've been tweeting for years now and a few months ago I came up with a Twitter account for my blog. You can find me @MissCosbyIn106. If you're on Twitter and follow my blog leave a comment with your name so I can follow you!

Well, that got me thinking about how cute that little bird is and how fun the word 'tweet' is. Here's what I've come up with for Valentine's Day for my kiddos to make.

after the @ symbol have the students write their names

 You'll get

• 3 pages of student Valentines
• 3 pages of teacher Valentines
• Template to create tweet bird

When you download the sample you'll not only get a picture of the finished product but 1 sample student & teacher Valentine.

Click here to check it out on TpT

Salt Dough Snowmen

This is such a weird week. Our schedule is all out of whack. I need routine just as much as the kids...but on the other hand I like making stuff just as much as the kids!

I saw salt dough ornaments on Pinterest a while back and thought it was a neat idea. Since Michael's didn't have the supplies to make what I had planned I thought this would be a great opportunity to try something new.

I found the recipe on All Recipes . I read the comments and only put them in for 40 minutes. Mine varied in thickness but they're about 3"-4" tall. I made 18 of them.




Sorry no pictures of the dough...my hands were kinda doughy or covered in flour the whole time.



I added 2 coats of this for the shine.

November Writing & December Preview

I'm loving my November centers. The kiddos are liking them, too. Which is always a plus.

Here are two writing samples from my November Writing & Reading packet.

Yes, the secret ingredient is LOVE. lol

With some tweaks (definitely the time and temp) this could be good. Right?

And a preview of some Christmas crafts I've done (and will do again!) Click the picture to make it larger.

Hint...I kinda love gingerbread men....

This was my favorite bulletin board I've ever made!

The kiddos were so creative. I do show them an example and send a note home to talk about the different unique types of materials they can use. When they bring it back on Monday they do a quick show-and-tell and get a candy cane.

These smell cinnamony for years to come. Here is a link of one of the recipes I've used. It's trial and error sometimes. 

The type of paint I use for the ornaments.

Permission to Pin!
I have a few my craftivities from last year that I'll be sharing between now and December. (Teachers have to plan in advance!!)