Bosom Friend Give Away!

See if you can follow this train of thought...
Today in church we sang "Children of the Heavenly Father." I have always loved this song, but now it holds a special place in my heart because it makes me think of the student I lost this summer because of a brain aneurysm. Malauri's favorite song for chapel? Children of the Heavenly Father. Now I know she is with our Heavenly Father and Heaven seems more like home because she is there. However, the reason this song was her favorite is because it contained one of her favorite words...bosom. Yep! I said it, "bosom."  My children and I now sing the word "bosom" so loud, in memory of Malauri, that people sitting in front of us turn around and look at us. We try to look very innocent and look at the people behind us.

I started thinking about the word bosom and that made me think of my friend Laurie. She is my bosom friend. Her blog posts are some of my favorites to read and re-read. We share so many likes and had a similar upbringing. Even though we are separated by years and miles I still feel like she is one of my besties! My family thinks I'm nuts because I talk about her as if she lives across the street instead of across the country! Life is really more fun as a nut anyway. Watch the video above to see more about bosom friends from a favorite show of mine...and Laurie's! If you have never seen this mini-series add it to your list of must sees! (Go say "hi" to Laurie HERE!)

Are you still with me? Thinking of Anne Shirley and bosom friends made me think of bosoms. It is time for me to make an appointment to get my mammogram and maybe even save my life. I have friends and family members who have struggled with breast cancer. My mother and one of my sisters have had to deal with it. Two of my friends are finishing up chemo and reconstructive surgery. I have a friend whose husband had breast cancer and survived. Because of our awareness and our ability to talk openly about breast cancer more and more people's lives are being saved. On going research and awareness has helped us battle not only breast cancer but other kinds of cancer as well. 

Carson Dellosa wants you to know that this year alone 226,000 new cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed. They are donating $1 from every online purchase to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation®, up to a maximum of $10,000. This includes your purchases from carsondellosa.com and the Learning Spot™ Library. I want to help them reach their goal!

Click on the above link and go check out what they have to offer. If you've been teaching as long as I have you know that they create products that make our jobs easier and more fun! I'd like to get something for one of my followers to help Carson-Dellosa help fight bosom's enemy.

If you followed that train this far...WOW!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Currently: No Freebie and No Giveaway!

I did my first "Currently" last month...It was so much fun that I think I'm going to have to do it EVERY month. Thank you Farley for hosting such great fun!!  Farley is also sharing templates for all of our kiddos to do their own currentlies or currentlys . . .Grammar police help me out on this one! What a great idea for sending home as a family activity monthly, or to put in your writing centers.
So here's mine...

It is so cold that we have to run the furnace. At the football game last night we froze. Winter coats, blankets and hats were musts unless you are my 13 year old daughter and wearing a coat, even if it's below zero is fashion no-no. Blue lips must be the fashion with that age group!

I wish I had no place to go all day, but I will be going to a walk that honors the little girl my daughter was friends with and I had the honor of teaching who died of a brain aneurysm this summer. It has been a difficult time for our school, but we have gotten to the place where we can talk about her and laugh over fun times we had with her. I was blessed to know Malauri and my life is richer for knowing her.

Do you insist on your children using pencils? I've noticed that when I let them use markers they write more. They enjoy writing more. I rarely use a pencil anymore for writing. I do most of it on a computer. Why not give them a choice as to what to write with? I'm excited to try this out next week. Maybe you all already do that and I'm just figuring it out, but I'm pretty excited over this idea!

I think that these books by National Geographic are AMAZING! I would like them all. If you work for the company that makes these awesome books...I am accepting donations! I want all of them. I bought this apple book and used it during our apple unit. These non-fiction texts would be a great addition to any k-3 classroom or library. I'll leave you with one of my favorite pictures in the book...

I found the mistake on my "Currently" did you? It's too late to do anything about it now!! 

Giveaways and a Gold Day!

I love Barbara's blog...Grade ONEderful! I'm not the only one. 500 other people love her, too! Now I have another reason to love it...She is having an amazing Giveaway and you don't want to miss out on it. Head over there now or read on...

Dana is a ball of fun, too! We once had a Giveaway together when we both hit 80, but now she's celebrating 500 with an amazing giveaway, so go enter...

I have to say one more thing...It has been an amazing week in first grade! I love my students. They are the sweetest kids in the world. I don't know why I always get such smart, funny and amazing students. Yesterday I was showing them how to do something with beads and all of a sudden I felt little hands behind me giving me a massage! It was so sweet. The  masseuse told me he wanted to stay in first grade forever. I told him that I did too! I'll share more about our appleventures later this weekend.

On Wednesday this week, we all made it to GOLD! Wow!

Join the Party...Have a Cookie!

I'm so excited that October is here! I LOVE fall and October has so much going for it! Who doesn't love Book Fairs, birthdays, crunching leaves, cool nights, Halloween and pumpkin cookies? I'm baking these delicous little morsels right now. I'm trying to become more well rounded, so I ate a whole sheet fresh from the oven with two glasses of milk to rinse them down!

Click the picture if you want the recipe! There won't be any left at my house by the time you read this post!

I found a fun Linky tonight and thought I would join the party. I'll even bring some of my cookies along! This Flashback Linky gives you a chance to look back over some of your favorite FREEBIES and share them again. I ran into an old FREEBIE of mine while wandering through the halls at TPT. I had made these Monster games this summer, but have never used them! In fact, I'd forgotten all about them! I'm using them tomorrow in my math work stations. I hope they work! 

Part of my FREEBIE is an I Have Who Has game. When playing with a small group, I deal the cards out to 3-4 players and the winner is the first person out. It is a lot of fun, once they get the hang of it. Then they can take the game home at the end of the week to share with their family. 

Click on the picture to get your Freebie! Go check out more great freebies at the party and don't forget your dish to pass!

Are You a Winner? Owl Book Freebie!

I found so many awesome coffee themed items at Target this
week in the dollar aisle!

Are you ready to be a WINNER? Well, if you didn't win the laminator give away, you still have a chance at winning some amazing prizes from Dana at Fun in !st Grade. She has %)...I mean 50 different items she is giving away! I donated a cup of coffee because as you know ...







Click on the buttone to head over to Fun in 1st Grade and spend the afternoon entering to win some cool and HOT prizes!

Before I show you the winners, I want to thank you for entering my GiveAway and give you a book I wrote about owls. It is kind of silly, but a fun way to have your owlets learn sight words and a couple of things about owls! I hope you can use it!

And the winners are...

Thanks you to everyone who played along. Thanks to MyBinding.com owls, Giveaway, laminatorfor being so generous to teachers! You are terrific!!

Caught at Work! FREEBIE!

What do you get when you put two Sugar Bears into a classroom of first graders? Mayhem! Well maybe not quite mayhem, but something close to it! These cute little visitors were so much more interesting than anything I could provide. Guess who got the attention? Yep! The  Sugar Bears. Talking about what animals would make good pets one of my sweet owlets mentioned Sugar Bears. I had never heard of them and even questioned him about whether it was a real animal or not! It is and I have pictures to prove it!

I have had some amazing days this past week. My students are doing a great job building stamina in all of their Daily Fives. The hardest Daily for this group is the Read with a Partner time. They would rather wrestle with a partner, talk to a partner or play with a partner. It did help when I started taking pictures of kids doing the right thing...

I have wanted to come up with a way that students can monitor their own reading/work habits during our Daily Five. I am so excited to use this for the first time on Monday. As each student completes a Daily they'll be able to color in the number of owls for how they felt they worked during the Daily time. I'm excited to see if this will help them use their time more wisely. Feel free to use this rubric, too. I would love to have suggestions or ideas on how I could improve it.

Color in one owl if you'll try harder next time. Two owls if you worked some of the time. Three if you worked most of the time. Four if you worked harder than you ever have or the whole time!

First Grade Common Core

Need I say more? It has arrived at almost every school in the nation. It is important to know what "Common Core State Standards" are. I would direct your attention to http://www.corestandards.org/ to understand what CCSS is if you are to embarrassed to ask! What I love about Common Core Standards  is that it provides a checklist of skills I need to make sure my Owlets know before they fly on to another grade or school. I can be as creative at addressing those standards as I want! This book is a great resource for teachers, parents and administrators to help every child understand what they need to know to move on to the next level! First Grade Common Core is coming to a school near you! I can't wait to get my hands (computer) on this resource!

Hmmmmm.....What hoop can I have you jump through today to earn another entry for the LAMINATOR I'm giving away?  Go check it out!! Click the word "LAMINATOR" to go to the rafflecopter!