Wednesday, April 11, 2012

I'm back and Charlie, the Ranch Dog by Ree Drummond

Hey Y'all! I have been gone forever, but I'm back! I started the blog full speed and loved it, then got busy and busier and even busier and just got straight out side tracked! I'm glad to be back!

 I have a cute little book and compare and contrast idea for you guys today! I am obsessed with The Pioneer Woman. I read her cookbooks, cook from her cookbooks on a weekly basis and I now read her children's books. Oh.my.word. What a cute story! Her children's book is called, Charlie the Ranch Dog and it not only shows a lot about life on a ranch but is also PERFECT for teaching compare and contrasting! Here is glimpse of the adorable cover I found on The Pioneer Woman website!


This is a true story about two dogs, Charlie, the lazy Basset Hound, and Suzie, the highly energetic Jack Russel terrier who live on a working cattle ranch. You just have to buy it to understand the cuteness! DO IT! I got my copy at our Scholastic Book Fair for $4.99! It is available at Barnes and Nobles, Amazon, Books-A-Million etc! Here are two compare and contrast activities I made to go with this book you can download for FREE! *SIDEBAR- I cannot for the life of my get these to upload to googledocs with my cute font and everything, anyone know why??* If you want a cutesy copy email me/comment and I'd be happy to send you the file. My kids had a blast with them! It would be great to add to a farm or animal themed unit as well!

I will leave you with an adorable picture of the real life ranch dog Charlie for which this book was written courtesy of Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman, at her fantastic website!

I told you...ADORABLE!
Happy reading :)

Erin Mason





Friday, February 24, 2012

One foot, two foot...

Looking for some god Dr. Seuss ideas for the big day next week?? Well to help save you some time, keep reading this post! :) I've already searched high and low and I have some great units and freebies to share with you from some of my favorite teacher bloggers! Here it goes!

1. Go check out Erica Bohrer's blog for a great little 1st grade unit on Dr. Suess. It is her most recent post on her blog (as of the time of this post). If you already purchased this before she did say re download because she added some more Dr. Seuss goodies! I am going to be digging into this unit tonight!
2. Have you ever been to Suesstastic Classroom Inspiration? Well if not, this is the perfect time to go!! It will get you in the Dr. Seuss mood for sure! Mel D. has a FREE primary Dr. Seuss unit at her TpT store. I know I always repeat the FREE, but y'all, it's FREE! SO no excuses, go download it tonight! She has a good variety of literacy activities to go with a few different Dr. Seuss books. Click below and GO!


3. A new blog I found a few days ago was Second Grade Locker Room and it just happened to have a Dr. Seuss giveway as the most recent post! I went ahead and bought Sandy's Dr. Seuss unit (it was only $1.70!!!) from her Teacher's Notebook store. I had never used TN before, but it was a very positive experience! This unit has a really cute shoe graphing activity to go with The Foot Book. I love it! There is a GREAT variety in this unit too- so many activities (reading, math, even science!) to go with MANY Dr. Seuss books. So head to Sandy's blog and TN store soon!
At The Second Grade Locker Room there is also a Dr. Seuss Linky party if you have any great activities you want to advertise to fellow bloggers! :)

4. Fun in First has another FREE Dr. Seuss unit! Jodi graciously posted her Dr. Seuss mini unit for free again this year. Follow the link above right to the post! This unit has some great literacy center ideas (rhymes, word families, antonyms and sequencing) you can incorporate into your weekly rotations! I can't wait to add them in here and there for some extra fun in our centers!

Hope this helps you find what you need to celebrate Dr. Seuss next week with your munchkins! Have a wonderful weekend y'all!

Erin Mason







Thursday, February 23, 2012

Happy birthday Mr. President!

It's been another busy week in my 1st grade classroom. We've been adding President's Day activities in wherever we could and boy are some of them super adorable! I've been using Amy Lemons FREE President's Day Packet for many activities.I repeat, FREE packet! It is full of cute ideas for George and Abe! I also made some sweet little George Washington's I saw on Cara Carrroll's blog. (And they were super easy y'all!) Here are some pictures I snapped of our George project!
 We wrote an interesting fact to go with our craftivity! (I think half of my munchkins wrote about how cool it was that George Washington loved horses!)
 How cute? Thank you Cara for the adorable idea!
Happy birthday Mr. President!

Our Abraham Lincoln craftivity is getting finished tomorrow! It is from Amy Lemons
Go to her TpT store for this FREE packet! Look for an update soon on that! One more great little President's project we did this week (well, we aren't totally finished yet...) was a little booklet from Jodi Southard at Fun in First. Visit her TpT store for this cheap President's day add on! 

It's almost FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!

Erin Mason

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Free fonts!

I recently discovered  Kevin&Amanda's free fonts! And O.M.G. AMAZING!! If your like me and new to this blogging world, you need all the free resources you can get! This is a great starter tool to help you begin making worksheets and units (if you are into that) or to help you jazz up your blog. I saw the button on a lot of different  teaching blogs, such as The First Grade Parade. I am glad I checked it out!

So visit Kevin&Amanda and use their cute and trendy fonts- for free!! Be sure to grab the button below (or on their site) if you use their fonts and post it on your blog!


Happy Hump Day y'all!
Erin Mason

Friday, February 17, 2012

A little of this and a little of that!

Here is my week in pictures!
We started off in a pink flurry of fun! We did this freebie at the beginning of our Valentine's day fun. I cant remember where I grabbed it from- so if you used it too, leave a comment! :) It was a fun way to use candy and math in one!
                                 
Here is a picture of my "semi" finished writing wall. I have to move my lifeskills to make room for sample writing of work to go above, but you get the jist! I am liking those colors together- gives my room a little punch of color! Check out that freebie pack here!  
                                
 I talked earlier about the Cara Carroll TpT unit Love, Splat that I recently bought and LOVED. It had so many wonderful and diverse projects in it for all levels in your room. Here is a picture of one of our writing craftivities from it! I wont lie, it was a lot of tracing and cutting work for my little munchkins but they loved the end result! :)
                                 

Have a good weekend! TGIF y'all!
Erin Mason

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Need a cute idea to spruce up your writing wall?

Happy ALMOST Friday y'all! Whew. I am so glad it is a 3 day weekend (kind of). We have professional development on Monday but it starts an hour later than I usually get to school which means I can SLEEP IN! I am not a morning person by any means so I am excited! Anyway, in the chaos that was our Valentine's week I found an awesome and FREE writing wall resource. In my school district in Florida we have started our preformance appraisal system of teacher "grading". So we had to think of a area of weakeness and write a plan on what we would do this year to improve this area with our class. There is more to it, but that is the jist of it. So I choose writing, it is definetly an area I think I can improve upon... a lot! So I am always looking for new writing ideas, wall signs, reminders, conference sheets etc to help me on my mission. I was searching through one of my favorite blogs, The First Grade Parade, and found a super cute writing freebie! I loved it so much, I have a new writers corner in my room with it already! :) It was a blog post from Cara last year. Here is a cute little sample picture.
I mean you cant go wrong with black/white and pink and those cute graphics! And it's FREE! So go grab it if you didn't last year! She has other freebies listed on the post too! Enjoy! :)

Do you have any great writing freebies, writing blogs you follow or have you seen any good writing resources lately?


Erin Mason

Saturday, February 11, 2012

A little Valentines spolier!

Happy Saturday!! So I had my munchkins make our "love monster" valentine holders (from the All You Need is Love unit from The Teacher Wife ) on Friday afternoon so they would be nice and dry and ready for the big day Tuesday morning! Let me tell y'all...cuter than expected! After some of my 1st grade team saw them, they decided they have to do them too! Theses fun and different Valentine holders were easy and the kids loved being able to create their own "love monster". Here is a little pre Valentines Day spoiler of the little love monsters drying! (PS- ignore the randomness in the cubbies below!) :)



Have a wonderful weekend!
Erin Mason