Organizing Your Classroom

Find out how to make 

Turn into a

 

   with these circles and more!

Head on over to 

See you there!

Indiana Back to School Blog Hop! (LOTS of Freebies!)

I just wanted to let all of the amazing followers of A Class*y Collaboration that the Indiana Bloggers are having a fantastic blog hop dedicated to Back to School!  Every stop on the hop (haha - that rhymed) has a freebie and other great B2S suggestions.  And when you get to the end there's a chance to win a $75 gift card of your choice!!  Two of the authors here on CC are from Indiana and are participating :)  You can check out my post by clicking on the photo below.   You can check out Brenda's post by clicking on her blog button underneath that!  We hope to see you on the hop - make sure you leave us some LOVE!

Kids as Authors

Don't you all just love kid writing? It literally makes me smile. I love teaching first grade because I get to see my students' writing evolve so much. I love the beginning of the year when they are just starting out. Sure, many students are more proficient writers, but there are plenty that are at that beginning stage.  One of my favorite writing activities is called Be an Author. I give students a wordless book with pictures. They get to be the authors of this book. It's a favorite among my students every year!

This is a book made by an incoming kindergartener. 

Come by my blog and read a detailed post about how I use these books and pick up a freebie book to use with your students. 

Free Love Letters

First of all, I hope that you all made sure to like our Facebook page! We have freebies that are only available to our fans- click on the image below to take you there!

Speaking of freebies. . .

I started creating fonts a few months ago.

It all started like this:

"My name is Irene and I am a font junkie."

I simply couldn't afford my habit.

So, here I am; and hopefully we can all benefit from my addiction! Ha!

I put a lot of love into my letters- hence, they're collectively named:

Each font name that I come up with is either something funny that someone (usually my son) said or something relevant in my life at the time.

These three font names are part of the latter.

Hope you can have some fun with them! 

 These fonts are for your personal and commercial use. Please just read the TOU in each download.

Have a great day!



Meet the Teacher Magnets (Free Template!)

Hey y'all!  I know some of you are already back in school (I'm SOOOOO sorry), some of y'all are just starting to get back in your rooms, and others have a whole month more till they even want to speak about Back to School.  No matter what stage of the game you're in, this free template for a Teacher Information Magnet is just for you!  I will be giving out these magnets to parents at Meet the Teacher and probably again at Open House but they are always nice to have on hand in case you get a new students or what not.

If you would like to create your own Meet the Teacher Magnets on Vistaprint like I did, click on my button below to head on over to my blog to snag the free template and directions!

Hope y'all have a great night!

Sabra

 



I'm a FAN, are you?

We are SO excited that you are here!

We invite you to our Facebook Page to become a FAN...

for another easy GIVEAWAY win!

Just choose LIKE on our Facebook page, go directly there, and click on...

 to grab a set of FREE activities from our WONDERFUL authors!!

P.S. If you are a FANGATE WINNER, leave us a comment below. 

Re-purpose, Recycle, Reduce...& a WiNnEr!

Like most teachers, I try to re-purpose whenever I can. The hubs loves those animal crackers, and when we go on car trips, we usually get a big container to much on in the car. Again- like most teachers-- I always wonder, "What can I use this for?" (Can you relate?) There HAD to be something for these containers! I mean. Seriously. They're great big bears!

These friendly guys became containers for our unifix cubes. Are these seriously cute, or what? They just look adorable sitting on our shelf!

I also had the opportunity to try out some super cool 'green' paper made by Roaring Springs Paper Products. recently: a couple of notebooks geared toward kiddos made of recycled paper, some really neat paper that's made of sugarcane (have you ever heard of this? so cool...right?), and a couple very teacher-friendly recycled paper notebooks. They're called cross overs and each sheet has one side with landscape lines & the other with portrait. Love it!

I'm actually hosting a giveaway right now, too. Roaring Springs would like to give away a sample pack exactly like the one that I got to one lucky person. Click on over & get in your entries! You'll love this paper!


I'd also like to announce the winner of my Pin It To Win It...
Delighted....it's YOU!!
An email is on it's way to you!

Make sure you all come over & enter to win the Paper Sampler Pack!

Happy Blogging!

Free Color Word Posters!

I hope that everyone is still enjoying their summer and not working yet. Ha! I just read about one teacher starting back today and it scared me. I am NOT READY! Instead, I'll distract myself by blogging. :)

If you know me, then you know that I can't get enough glitter and owls in my life. My classroom is covered in both. So, today there's a freebie for us all that is also covered in my two favorite things.

Today's freebie came as a request from this pack:

A buyer requested full page color posters, so here you go! Just click on the below image.

And have you heard? I am giving away tons of gift cards and products. You only need to follow one blog on this rafflecopter giveaway. Easy peasy entries! Click on the picture below to take you there!

Graphics credits: Glitter Meets Glue Designs and Bubbly Borders and More
Font Credit: Summer Love

Happy Monday!

Synthesis- When Life Gives You Lemons....

This summer, I've been hosting a book study on the book Building Mathematical Comprehension by Laney
Sammons. Honestly- I had never thought of applying those reading strategies to math. But it's brilliant, isn't it? I mean-- duh! Of course, you've got to

• Make connections
• Visualize
• Question
• Infer
• Determine Importance
• Fix Up & Monitor
• Synthesize

Last week, I finished the chapter on synthesis. As Sammons points out (& we all know), synthesis is an abstract skill, and those abstract skills have to be anchored in something concrete. One of the suggested mini-lessons she gave was making a cake: You take all of the ingredients and combine them together to make a completely new whole food. Now, cake is a little difficult for me to make in the classroom (although it would be super yummy!)....but what about lemonade?!

When you synthesize, you combine

• prior knowledge
• information from your experiences
• information gained from new experiences

to create a new understanding.

JUST like when you make lemonade!! You combine

• lemons
• sugar
• water

to create a new food!

Thinking Stem Cards

I am so excited about this lesson pack! It includes a super cute poster/anchor chart, a mini-lesson guide, and thinking stem cards. 

And I'm doing a PIN IT TO WIN IT!!

Simply pin an image of the "When Life Gives You Lemons..Synthesize!" pack, comment below with the link to your pin (& your email)....& I'll choose a winner randomly tomorrow night!

If you'd like to find out more about Building Mathematical Comprehension, just click the button.

Happy Blogging!

Flash Freebie on Multisyllable Words!

Visit my blog for a flash freebie on my latest product! It only lasts until I go to bed tonight, so hurry! Just click on the pic below.

Have you registered to be a follower of our new blog? Do it now, so you qualify for that great Freebie Pack! It's got some super items in it!

Have a wonderful week!

I learned something new

     Hi there, my new found friends! I have had quite a challenging and sad week, this past week. My uncle had passed away. My family has always been really close, and so this loss was a big one for all of us. None of my family were in any real mood to smile, let alone laugh. But for one shining moment, I was able to smile. Let me tell you why...
     As my family and I were awaiting for everyone to pay tribute to my uncle, I read to my four year old daughter. We were reading the number series from the "Alphabet Pals". I am not sure if any of you are familiar with the Alphabet Pals (from the 1980's), but my school teachers used to read these books to me all the time. Anyway, I was counting and reading this book to my daughter, when she suddenly stopped me. She said, "Mommy, I can do this." She started counting, and counting, and counting. I didn't think she'd ever stop. As she was counting, I felt a big smile come on my face. A smile that I had missed since before my uncle had passed away. I was so proud of her. She was growing up, and had learned how to count up to 20.
    I learned then that it was okay to be sad, but not sad enough not to smile. Sure, it's perfectly fine to miss our loved ones, but we must remember those that we still have. This was the day that my daughter taught me something new, and I am ever grateful that she did.

Let the Planning Begin!

Hello there!  This is Ciera from Adventures of Room 129 :)  Since we are all getting into that 'Back to School' mode (whether we like it or not!) I've decided to share with everyone my lesson plan template.  I worked really hard on it and am super excited to start using it this year :)  Wanna see it?  Just click the photo below to read all about it!  If you like it enough, there are even links to download a FREE copy (PDF or Word)!  Let me know what you think!

I'm super excited that you have all joined us here at A Class*y Collaboration!  This is going to be a FANTASTIC place for ideas, lessons, freebies, and much more!  If you haven't already - you probably want to head back to our "Giveaway" post and enter.  Why did I put "Giveaway" in quotation marks??  Because - EVERYONE wins!!  All you have to do is be a follower and you've automatically won a huge packet put together by all of the amazing bloggers worth almost $30!  If you haven't done so, go ahead and enter now!  AND one lucky winner will get a $50 gift card of his/her choice!  Don't miss out!! Just click on the photo below to head back to that post!

Have a great weekend!!

Everyone's a WINNER! Amazing Resource Pack OR $50!

Welcome! 

We are super excited to start this adventure with you!

12 amazing bloggers are working together to bring you a source of inspiration, ideas, information, and of course, FREEBIES! We already have lots of fun ideas in the works, and you are here for the first one! 

As a thank you for being our first followers, we're offering a

Follower Only Freebie Pack!

That's right! All you have to do is click that little "Follow Us on Bloglovin'" button over there, enter your info on the little rafflecopter widget, and the Freebie Pack will be on its way to you!

PLUS...one lucky follower will win....

Yep! Everyone's a WINNER!

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy, as they say!

And check out this amazing pack! Go click like, & get your info entered! We'll be sending out the pack once each week until July 30th...so make sure you're a follower & let your friends know about it, too!

Already following? That's awesome!! This is for you, too!
Just enter your info on the widget!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good to See You!

Thanks for visiting our new blog! We are all excited to get started on this new adventure.

I wanted to introduce myself as my first post.

This is my 31st year of being in the education profession. I have taught all grades from K-5 and previously served as a Supervisor of Curriculum for my system. For the past four years, I have worked in second and third grade classrooms, looping with my kiddos. I love seeing them grow over the course of two years. I am moving to Title I Reading for the upcoming school year and am E.X.C.I.T.E.D!

I am serving as a Common Core Coach for the Tennessee Department of Education this summer and am helping to train third grade teachers so they will be ready to implement the ELA Common Core in their classrooms this fall.

Our first week of training was last week and the participants were FABULOUS!

I hope you will visit my blog and get some ideas for your class.

I have posted several activities suitable for literacy stations on my Common Core Text Exemplar page.

Click on the button below to visit my blog!

Happy to be here!

    Hi everyone! I am absolutely thrilled to be here with you. My name is Jacque from Mommy & Me Creations. Currently, I am a stay-at-home-mom to two little girls-- Brooklee (4 years old) and Saydee (2). Before my husband (of 5 wonderful years) and I started a family, I both worked and volunteered in several early childhood classrooms for close to 10 years. I loved every single minute of it, and now I get the pleasure of teaching my own kids! Which I enjoy even more!
     On Mommy & Me Creations, I share fun little educational activities that I have done with my kids. On occasion, I will share free printables for teachers and parents alike. I also enjoy sharing little stories about my family, and the adventures that we have together.
     I am over the moon excited to be a new contributor of "A Class*y Collaboration". I would like to thank Brenda and Kathy for inviting me to be apart of it! I have been blogging since 2008, and have met so many new friends that I probably wouldn't have otherwise. My daily blogging goal is to make new friends-- I hope one of them will soon be you!
     To extend a friendly hello, I would like to offer you all this cute little school subway printable that I just created. This freebie contains words that remind me of school. Since it is July, I thought it would be fitting to use red, white, and blue on it.

Before downloading, please understand that:
1) This is for PERSONAL USE ONLY.

2) Please do not modify, resell, redistribute, or claim this printable as your own.

3) Please do not remove my watermark, if any.

4) If you re-post this printable online, credit must be given to

Mommy and Me Creations with a link back to this specific blog post.

** Please remember that these images are property of Mommy and Me Creations. 

I am just sharing some love, and ask that you send some back to me.**

Download the Freebie