Acclerated Reader Boards

Accelerated Reader is a HUGE program at our school.  It is highly promoted and used from Pre-K through 8th.  I personally love the program but I do know lots of people that do not like it.  Anyway I wanted to share some of the bulletin boards that the teachers in my hallway have used this time for AR. 

First up is ME:)  I love my board this trimester.  I was inspired by the video game Frogger and was really surprised to learn that several of my firsties had never heard of this game.  Are you kidding me???  I mean it was right up there with Pac Man when I was young.  Anyway, I hot glued cars on the road and had my kiddos hop up to the lily pads as they reached their AR goal.  I used percentages because not all my kiddos have the same goal.

Here are a few close ups of my board/wall.

Our Second grade teacher made her AR board baseball themed.

How cute that they are running bases to reach their goals.

 

Third Grade went with a sweet AR board and was inspired by the Candy Land game.

The kids move their token around the board as they reach their AR goal.

 

Fourth grade went with a sports theme too.  Basketball!!!

They are shooting for their AR goal:)

 

Do you use AR at your school and if so what ways do you use to motivate your kids to read?

Five For Friday Linky {April 26}

 I'm linking up for the first time with Doodle Bugs Teaching's awesome Friday party. 

Click the button to link-up:)

 

First: I finally got my new computer!!!!!  I have been wanting one for so long and Monday I was able to get.  I have no idea what I'm doing on it and trying to learn Windows 8 is like trying to learning a new language.  I'm sure I'll eventually figure it out.

 



Second: My kiddos made this little torn paper art and advice for how to heal the Earth for Earth Day.  I found this great idea on TpT of course.  It was a  freebie by Jamie Sears {Click Here} to get it.

 



Third: We had a heath fair that was put on my the 8th grade.  It was a major project for their PE class.  They taught the kiddos about health foods, good hygiene, some easy exercises and things that are not good for our bodies like smoking.  My first graders loved it.

Fourth: I let the kiddos use the microphones and whisper phones as they read during centers and they had a ball.  It was so cute to see how using something different made a regular boring idea into something golden. 

Fifth: I only have 17 1/2 days of school left!!!!!! Yahoo:)  This is a pic of our last lunch menu.  This made it so real to me.  The year really is almost over.  Come on summer and the warm weather.

Fourth Grade Common Core Workbook

Have you seen these great workbooks?
They are wonderful!!
I have the First Grade Common Core Workbook and I love it.
This one is the Fourth Grade Workbook and it includes over 850 pages of Worksheets, Activity Centers, and Posters that teach all the Fourth Grade English Language Arts Common Core Standards and all the Fourth Grade Mathematics Common Core Standards! 
You never know what the future may hold so I'm getting this one too just in case I find myself teaching 4th grade in the near future.
Click on this link to go to the Fourth Grade Common Core Workbook to check out all the great things that are included. 
Do you want a chance to get a FREE copy?
{Click here} to see what you will need to do.  But hurry you only have until April 21 to get it.

Facebook Giveaways!!!

Happy Sunday to everyone and a

VERY Happy Birthday to my dear sweet hubby. 

I am having several giveaways over on my facebook page today. 

Throughout the day I will be giving everyone a chance to win

 copies of my Reading Street Simple Centers.

The first giveaway has just started too!!

Head on over to enter to win.

 

The Busy Busy Hive facebook page

 

 

Winners, hatched egg, Birthdays, Giveaways and a FREEBIE!!

First off let me announce my winners of my

Bundled Set of Simple Centers for Reading Street Unit 1.

All the ladies that entered were winners!

Yep I gave it away to everyone that entered.

Thank you ladies and enjoy:)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Next my kiddos were extremely excited on Thursday because our Praying Mantis egg hatched.

Here is the egg casing before it hatched.

Our new babies!

At first there weren't very many babies but the next day we had lots more.

We released them on Friday so they would be able to forge for food.

We will go back next week to see if we can find any of them hiding in the

bushes and if they have gotten any bigger.  The kiddos really enjoyed this.

Tomorrow is my Hubby's Birthday and my birthday is on Tuesday so I am going to be having

some flash giveaways over on my facebook page tomorrow.  So if you'd like a chance to win some of my simple centers or other reading items head on over and like my page. 

Here is a little Freebie for ya.  This is my first time trying to use google doc as a way for you to grab a freebie so please let me know if I did it wrong;)  I'd also love for a sweet comment if you were able to grab it too:) Click on the pic to grab it this little set.

Reading Street Giveaway Simple Centers

It's the last day of my Spring Break and I'm a little bummed.
The week went so fast and I still have so much I wanted to get accomplish.
Anyway one thing I did get accomplish was to make up simple centers for my Reading Street unit 1 stories.  I'm happy with the way they turned out and I have all 6 up loaded to TpT individually and in a bundled set.  I'm also updating all my other Reading Street simple centers to include all the games and directions that are in unit 1.  As I update them I will be updating the price too not by a lot but they will be going up. 

Each simple center contains the following items:
*cover
*directions for 7 different ways to play each game (great for differentiation)

1)    Simple Sort
2)    Race to the finish {game board included}
3)    Tic-Tac-Toe {board included}
4)    Concentration- Match Game
5)    Make a Pyramid
6)    Roll the die
7)    Card flip
2 sorting mats

2 sets of 18 cards of the skills being taught

2 word recording sheets

2 word sentence writing sheets
Click on the  pictures to go to my store.
These were made for my First Grade class but would be good for K, 1, and 2 grades too.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tried It Tuesday: a recipe

Today I decided to link up with Holly over at Fourth Grade Flipper for her Tried It Tuesday.
I'm going to tell you about our dinner we had tonight.
It was super easy and only took 4 ingredients to make the main dish.
Russian Chicken or Sweet and Tangy Chicken
Here is the link to the website I stumbled across to find this recipe. {Syrup and Biscuits}
I did however make a few changes to make this a lighter healthier version.
This is what I used:
* boneless skinless chicken breast (about 8 small pieces)
* onion soup mix (1 packet)
* Russian dressing (I used 2 small bottles, next time I might use just one)
* sugar-free apricot preserves (1 cup)
Mix everything together except for the chicken.
Place chicken in a pan and pour sauce over top.
I cooked mine at 400 degrees for 45 min.
I checked on it every 15 min and based the sauce over the chicken.
I served this over brown rice that I cooked with beef broth. 
My hubby and I really liked it.  The kiddos had eaten everything in the house already so they weren't hungry{imagine that:).
I'm not going to lie I think using regular apricot preservatives would have been better and made it a little sweeter with the tang of the Russian dressing but it was very good and we will have it again.
What was really nice was how easy it was.  I might even try it in the crock pot next time.
I wish I had taken a picture but I forgot.  Mine had more liquid then the pic from Syrup and Biscuits because of the 2 bottles of dressing but it did look close.

April Currently

I am on Spring Break this week and it has started off not so good.
My son woke up this morning around 5:30 not feeling well.
As the day went on he would be sick then OK.
He went to sleep around 7pm and now he is up and ready to go:(
Not boding good for me when I try to put him back to sleep around 8:30.

So I'm going to link up with Farley and hope for the best and a better day tomorrow.

Really the Hubby is channel surfing so he's watching Fast N' Loud now;)

I'm loving that I'm on Spring Break.  I don't have a lot planned this week except for tomorrow.
My oldest has a braces consultation and my youngest has speech.  I need to make the youngest an eye exam appointment too.

My next Science unit is on the Sky and weather.  I'm excited to start this unit.  One of my kiddos is really into the weather.  He even go to go the the local TV station and learn all about it from on of the meteorologist.  He also has several weather instruments too.  I also want to create a unit on this and maybe put it in my store.  We'll have to see about that though.

I really want some nice weather this week but I think it's going to be kind of cool.  I think it gets warmer next week once we are back to school.

New clothes.  I need them bad but I hate shopping for them.  If I could get back into exercising it wouldn't be so bad but of course I'm not so I don't like trying them on right now:(

My advice is for TpT creating and selling: be patient it doesn't happen over night.  It's hard I know it.  I still have to remind myself this.  I'm not looking to make a lot I just enjoy knowing that my products are helping other teachers and students.  That's what it's really all about to me.