Recycling a Panda Plate

The moment I saw the new paw plates at Panda Express I knew there were endless possibilities for using them in my classroom!  The people at Panda were very kind and gave me enough plates for a class set.  But you could just use a few for a small group or center activity.  Here are a few ideas:

CVC Word Building

Number Order

Art Lesson with Primary and Secondary colors

Put each primary color in the top three spaces and use the bottom for mixing up secondary colors.

The plates also come with lids which would make it easy to store the letters or numbers with the plates.  When school starts up again I will post pics of these plates in action!  Have a great day :)



I Was Featured on Sunday Safari!!!

Hi friends! I got back home yesterday from being out of town and found out my blog was featured on Queen of the 1st Grade Jungle's Sunday Safari!  It totally made my day!!! Every Sunday Katie does a post about new and seasoned bloggers for others to check out.  A million thank yous Katie!  As a new blogger I'm still figuring out how blog land works and its been a lot of fun.  Everyone has been so welcoming.  You are all so inspiring I could spend HOURS reading all your blogs. 

Speaking of reading, my copy of the Daily 5 arrived today! I can't wait to dive into it tomorrow.  I'm still working on finishing up book #3 of the Hunger Games.  I ZOOMED through books 1 & 2, but 3 isn't capturing my attention like the first two did - that's OK though, I'm still a huge fan :)  I know the Daily 5 book studies have already started so I have some catching up to do!

BTW I have a Writing Resources pack in the works and it should be done end of week or early next week - can't wait to share it with you :)

School Books and FUN Books ~ Summer Reading Linky!

I LOVE to read!  So I was happy to join in on the Clutter Free Classroom's linky party.  I'm always looking for good books to read and can't wait to check out what others are suggesting.  I plan on reading books for school, and books just for fun.

Books to read for school: 

I had never heard of these books until I started reading the blogs - I feel so behind the times!  But better late than never I guess. 

Mrs. Jump is hosting a blog book study about this book.  Amazon says it's out of stock, where do I find it??? Discussion starts June 22nd.

On to the fun books!

I was up at 6:30 this morning finishing book 1 - I HAVE to run to Walmart today and get the others!!!!!

I've read all the other books in the Game of Thrones series.  I love a long book - short ones I read too fast!

Last Day of School

I can't even believe the school year is over, it hasn't hit me yet.  The last day of school was a blast!  We did my Drive - In Movie themed project day and the kids loved it.  One of my colleagues that also did it commented "I can't believe how easy that was!"  That is one of the things I like best about the whole thing - it's super fun AND super easy.  It's one of those special days in school the kids will never forget. The kids were so cute and they were eager to earn their "driver license" - hehe. After we did the "Parking Lot Measurement" activity, the students all wanted to cut apart the key measuring tool so they could have car keys - so that got me thinking... 'I need to add keys to my unit for the kids to earn, just like they earn their driver license and ticket to the movie!'  So I have updated the unit and added keys for the students to earn, along with more car project examples from this years batch of cars. If you've already purchased the unit, head on over to Tpt and redownload!  Like last year, the kids brought in some AMAZING cars.  I was seriously blown away!  Here are some highlights:

   Here are a few pics from the "Parking Lot Measurement" activity:

Interested in doing this project and activities with your students? Check it out in my Tpt store.  I hope everyone had a great end to the school year.  Now I'm looking forward to planning for next year :)  I'm so excited to try all the new ideas I've been finding on Pinterest and the blogs.  You all inspire me!  Here's to a great summer!!! :)