Candy Corn Commotion!

I told my students that there is a rule in my classroom:  we can't talk about Halloween until October 1st.  So after many weeks of the kids asking me how many days it was until Halloween in September and my response being, it's still September, I am not talking about Halloween yet...they walked in October 1st, a student saw the date and they all started asking me, How many days until Halloween?!

Bless their little hearts. I know they are just really excited, but 31 days of asking how many days it is until Halloween.  I just direct them to the calendar now...count the days! :)

So I have the decorations up in the classroom and I have been gradually putting Halloween centers in the mix for Literacy and Math.  After seeing the following pin on Pinterest, I decided I was going to throw some candy corn into the mix for math this week.

This pin has just been pinned 194 times from my board, but I know it is super popular!  It got me thinking...

Source

I decided that I would use the fact family candy corns as an art project, but I want to give the students some practice first.  So I made these Candy Corn Fact Family dry erase centers:

I made 15 of these candy corns and while we are doing Guided Math groups this week, the kids will work on practicing fact families with their partners during their games rotation.  There is just something fun about doing fact families on candy corns instead of fact triangles.  If you are interested in them, I put them in my Teachers Pay Teachers shop for only $3 these next two weeks!

Click {here} or on the picture to go to my TpT Store

Then I think at the end of the week we will make the candy corn craftivity.  I used the cute black and white template from the clipart set that I used for the math center candy corns and this is what the kiddos are going to make:

I think they will love them!  I put them as a freebie in my store if you are interested in them...

Click {here} or on the picture to go to my TpT Store

They are bilingual in the sense that one says "name" and one says "nombre," but use them how you want.  We are studying nouns right now and I thought it would be cool to do noun candy corns where the students have to write a person, a place, and a thing.  There are a lot of ideas!

I hope to link up later this week and report back on how it all went.  I hope to have some pictures of the kids in action for you all!  

Have a great week!

Dollar Store Inspiration

Last night I stopped at the Dollar General before going into school and I found some good deals.  Of course I had to make something to go along with them...

First up, this squiggle book for 50 cents...it gets better, it was 30% off at the register!

 I have used squiggle as a center for all of my teaching years and it is still one of my kiddos favorites!  For those who don't know what squiggle is, you start with a squiggle or a doodle and the students have to finish the doodle and make it into something.  Then when they are finished with their drawing, they write a story about it.

After many years of using the same boring sheet I thought it is time to spruce it up. Then I decided to share it with everyone and make it a freebie in Spanish or English!

Click here to get it in English!

Click here to get it in Spanish!

What I think I am going to do is cut the squiggles from the book and glue them on these pages.  I might just handwrite the squiggles, too. I am super excited about this -- it is about time I updated my squiggle page!

Then I found these sequencing puzzles for $1.  There are 8 different puzzles in the pack -- they are kind of flimsy, but not bad for a $1.

The puzzles would be nice as a center, but I wanted to have a writing accountability piece to them too, so I created these sheets.  I originally just made the one sheet for my students (using the words I know they need), but when I decided to offer it as a freebie, I thought about the different levels (kindergarten to third grade) that might want it, so I tried to level the worksheets.

Click here to get these pages in Spanish!

Click here to get these pages in English.

So that's all I've got for now.  I am working really hard on some cool math stuff to share with you all, I am very excited!  School is getting closer...18 days until teachers go back!

Chevron Finds & Rewards Bracelets Freebie

I have all these ideas in my head of what I want to write about and I let it get so overwhelming, that I don't even post!  Ugh!

Well, today's post is dedicated to my chevron finds (I think I could do a whole blog on it!).  I went to another Target last weekend and I found not only the gray and pink desktop calendar, but a thin monthly calendar that matches!  So I had to get them both!

It would have been better if it was gray and yellow (like my awesome school bag that my hubby got my last Christmas - it's yellow inside!), but I can't have everything in those colors (or can I?) 

Follow the link to look around this Etsy shop!

THEN!  I was at Wal-Mart with my mama and Gracie the other day and I saw all these notebooks.  Yes, if you know me, I did freak {a little}!

The chevron and the dots were a dollar each and weirdly enough, the little half notebooks were two dollars (eh, half the size and double the price?).  I still brought one because it was cute!

That's about it for my shopping lately...I did finally find the teal pocket charts at Target and got those, but nothing else too exciting.  Now, if you made it this far in the post, it is time for a freebie!  Now in my Teachers Pay Teachers store I have Reward Bracelets for Super Students (in Spanish or English)!

Each of these packs have 13 reward bracelets that you can download, print, and tape, glue or staple your students' wrists to tell them how awesome they are.  There are bracelets for doing homework all week, being a good friend, being a good helper, being an awesome writer, mathematician, and reader.  There are even ones for birthdays! Click on the picture or here for English and here for Spanish to get them for FREE (have I mentioned that?) at my TpT store!

I think that is it for now!  Off to play with Gracie for a bit before bed time!