Pirates Galore and More

Ahoy, me Hearties!!!

It seems that many people are opting to decorate using the pirate theme this year. Did you check out Deanna Jump's post regarding her pirate ship centers and color charts? There are wonderful directions and freebies on her blog. (Thanks Deanna)
I wanted to remind you about the "adorable" pirate items I found at the Target Dollar Spot (cups, polka dot paper, baggies, etc) head on over to your local Target and grab them treasures before they are gone.

I am working on a new Pirate Theme Math & Literacy Unit, but wanted to let you know I currently have a 76 page unit already posted on TPT called Shiver Me Centers.

This unit has missing letter activities, word maker activities, pirate themed counting booklet (11-20), pirate measuring with 5 different printables,  word family activities, math fact families, skip counting by 5 and 10 and a shape match.

Here are a few “freebies’ for you to utilize with you B2S pirate theme.

Pirate I have-Who has?

Pirate Theme Letter cards (Upper & Lower)

Arrrrrrrrrr!!!! I hope these freebies help you to get everything into “shipshape” for a wonderful school year.

always, Melissa

Do you "like" it??

Good Morning!! I recently joined TBTS (Teaching Blog Traffic School) with Charity Preston. Even though it is taking me some time to go through the lessons, the wealth of information I have learned has been absolutely AMAZING!!! If you are curious about TBTS head on over to http://teachingblogtrafficschool.com and tell Charity that Melissa Freshwater sent you!!! J

 I am currently in the mist of changing my facebook page- I was doing it all wrong L and I need your help to correct my mistake. I have set a goal to have 200 likes by Friday and promised my fans that I would post a mini back to school unit (4 math and 4 literacy activities) to go with a popular children's book about colors. (Can you guess what it is?)

Head on over to my facebook page and click LIKE!!!!!! (Click picture below)

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!!!! 

Organize~Organize~Organize

Well unbelievably, I tried to relax and rest during my 3 week hiatus with my mom. From my previous post, you saw I did some relaxing in Key West, but you can NEVER take the teacher out of this girl. I think I searched every Target in Southern and Northern Florida looking for alphabet and number stampers. Still no stampers, but my mom and I had a "great" time on our wild stamper chase. I had some people question me about my classroom and organization. Last year, I shared our school library with a Title I math specialist so I had to improvise. I created a delightful space themed around Ice Cream". I have to say it was "scrumptious".

I thoroughly enjoyed walking into my room everyday and I think the student's that I serviced got a kick out of my theme.

Ice Cream Numbers (Yummy!)

Everyone loves the Ice Cream Man!

Alphabet, Numbers, Touch Math, and Sight Words

Days of the week (Can you guess what is behind the curtains????)

Well, this year, I will be moving out of the library (Yipppeee!!!!-Even though, I made the space mine, it was still very drab!) I will be moving two doors up the hallway-closer to the rooms I service good thing because I was seriously thinking of buying roller blades or a scooter. J

I have opted to transform my room this year into another delightful theme (SHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! It's a secret-More pictures to come!!!!!!) I started working on some of my labels and thought I would share them with you as I get them finished.

Since I was very limited on space, I needed to devise a plan to store my overwhelming supplies and make them easily accessible to me. After browsing the web, I found the best site Mrs. Bond's Fantastic First Graders (If you haven't been to Mrs. Bond's site-I suggest you head over right now and check it out for yourself!!!!-Tell her Mrs. Freshwater sent you! J) I loved how she utilized the Sterlite 3-drawer units available at Wal-mart/Target to store her materials and manipulatives. I knew this was my best and most inexpensive bet. Oh how Wal-mart loved me-(15 containers later-J)

Here is a sample of my bin organization:

Monthly Items, Stickers, Rewards, Supplies, Etc.

Math Manipulatives(LARGE) and Center Activities (SMALL)

Well, I started creating my "new" labels for this year. Thus far, I have my guided reading book labels (A-L) and my 18 drawers -materials at my fingertip labels! (They include:  Months of the Year, Stickers, rewards, etc) They are free and available at Google Docs- If someone has a problem with google docs- email me at mfresh2@aol.com and I will forward the pdf.

More to come so stay tuned...

By popular request-I added the remainder of the alphabet M-Z.
ENJOY

(Click-picture below to go to google docs to grab M-Z labels)

P.S. To make printing easier- The alphabet labels can be printed onto
Avery 3x4 Name Tags Inserts (item 5392)
Just PRINT- TEAR- LAMINATE

Oh The Places I Go...

After spending the last week in Key West, I have to admit I am very relaxed and rejuvenated. Can you blame me...look at this view-simply breathtaking.

 I enjoyed the days by the pool/ocean and nights walking on Duval Street (oh the things I saw...) But I made the mistake of doing a little net surfing and pinning on my pinterest account. Okay I will come clean, I am addicted to pinterest. (My newest obession!!) I kept seeing blog posts about Target dollar spot finds and I could not wait to leave the Keys to race to the nearest Target which is over 2.5 hours away.
Here are a few of the things I found:

Did Someone Say "Seusstastical Finds".....Cups, Bowls, Stickers, Pencils, Erasers, Notepads, Polka Dot Wrap, Silly Bands, oh my oh my

Arrrrr Pirates~I found adorable cups, two different size baggies, and of course I needed more polka dot wrap for this theme box.

Mix-Match Magical Finds: I grabbed some stickers, pencils, sign language pointers (I must make those adorable reader pointers for my struggling readers), certificates, and alphabet/counting puzzles great for my Kindergarten students and struggling first graders..... (Woooooo Hoooo)



Houston....I think I MAY have a problem-How could I pass up these cards about dinosaurs, space, and US animals (My kiddos love looking at these and learning interesting facts) I saw these rocket and space man bubble containers and the lightbulb started flashing in my head for new center activities (minus the bubbles of course!-Stay Tuned for details)

All in all my vacation and Target shopping spree was a "huge" success. I needed the week of lazy days, but you definitely can not take the teacher out of me. Who says we don't work over the summer????

Watch out for this weeks posts about organizing my TPT theme units!!