George, Abe, and the Tooth Fairy

Happy President's day weekend!  With Valentines Day on Friday, and my 100th day the week before, I couldn't squeeze in the presidents before the holiday this year.  So I just HAD to do a cute craft while studying the presidents a little bit this week.  And....

I was just talking to a dear teacher friend on Friday about using a die cut machine.  Her school doesn't have one!  Can you believe it?  And I told her about this really great computerized one called the Cricut machine.  One was given to me as a classroom gift years ago.  (Thank you, Rachel!!!) And boy, has it been handy!  I feel so lucky to have both an Ellison machine for my school and this baby below in my classroom.

When I told her about the Cricut machine, she said "Now, there's a blog post!"  (Thanks Samira!)  She had never heard about them.  Boy, they are great for a K-1 classroom!  And, it just so happened that I needed one to pull together George and Abe super quick!  So here's the way it works...

You put one of these cartridge things  into the machine.

Then, you put a piece of 6"x9" paper on this thing.  It's sticky.

Then you follow the directions and tell the machine what to cut and...

Taa daa!  It will cut whatever size little shape it is programed for automatically on your paper.  Super easy and very cool.   Check out the cute leprechaun ladders we made with it.  Today I needed a little star for George...

He is actually pretty small.  His face is a 4" diameter circle from the Ellison die cut machine.  I had to get everything ready for my little sweeties to make him tomorrow.  I drew out the hat the correct size and then copied the template onto the construction paper.  The kids will cut it out, add the star, and the other details.  We will put this together with Abe on a bigger paper and write about each of them.   The little star makes the whole thing! 

OK, I know you are asking..... What does the Tooth Fairy have to do with any of this?  She doesn't really.  But I also made a cute certificate to give to kiddos who lose a tooth.  Just wanted to share the love!  Click on the image below to go get it!

Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Teaching!

 

I Love Games!

OK, I know you are here to get the FREEBIE.  But yes, I am going to make you scroll through a shameless promotion to get it.  I needed a little rhyming review game for quite a few of my sweeties back in January, so I made a game for all of them to play.  I love games because they do much more than practice the target skill.  When you play with two dice, you cover subitizing skills, adding fluency, and one to one counting on the game board.  So we did rhyming and all that on this game board which YOU can have at the bottom of the post.

Of course I saw this idea on Pinterest.  I keep this container with the game markers in it.  It's easy to reach at all times.  I can use it with any roll the dice game board in the classroom.  I use these colorful buttons as game markers.  They work great!

OK, here is the other game I am loving right now....

I made this game to help my sweet students practice teen numbers while building concepts of place value.  It is a perfect time of year for this with my students.  This game uses problem cards like the ten frame one above.  Kids choose a problem card and then cover the numeral it represents with a cute game card like these....

This game comes with 4 different problem cards so you can play it four ways.  Ten frames like above....

Base ten blocks ...

tally marks,,,

and expanded form.  This game also comes with four different recording sheets for use in the center or as independent practice in homework, morning work, etc.

If you want to get the Valen-teens! game for your class you can find it on Teachers Pay Teachers.  I will be playing this game twice next week in my class.

OK, thanks for stopping by.  Here's the Roll and Rhyme freebie.  Just click on the image below to get it.  It is a roll the dice, move your marker, make a rhyme game.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

Hope you and your students have fun!
Happy Teaching!

Love Bugs!

We have been busy bees in the classroom lately!  It has been hard to get to the blogging.  But, I had to post these ADORABLE love bugs...

I needed a quick, cute, and independent art project for our February calendars.  I had love bugs on the brain.  There are soooooooo many ways to do them.  But these were simple and worked great!
 

Each bug just used: two big circles cut on the die cut at school, one was cut in half ahead for wings, a heart die cut for the head, googly eyes, and oil pastels for details.  I had one prepped ahead, and modeled a different one in front of the kiddos.  And the kids set off to do it independently as a center.....

I thought they did such a great job!  Hope they bring a smile to your face.  I had a perma-grin all day!
If you need calendars for your students to practice number writing each month you can get them at Teachers Pay Teachers. 
Happy Valentines Day!
Happy Teaching!