The 3rd Annual Great Canadian Valentine Swap!

It's that time again! It's time for the 3rd Annual Great Canadian Valentine Swap. The 2017 edition! Last year we had over 180 classes from across Canada participate. I'm hoping that this year will be even bigger and better!

 Julie from Plaisirs du primaire and I  have joined forces again this year to bring you a FRENCH version of the same great swap! All the same rules apply. More info will be posted soon about the French swap.

What is a Valentine Swap? 

It is a way for K-6 classes to connect with other classes from across Canada and to learn about their communities. Each class will be responsible for making and decorating 20 valentines. Please, no store bought cards. Classes are encouraged to write a letter describing their community and school. You can photocopy the letter to save on time, especially for younger grades.

If you are looking for Valentine art ideas ideas make sure you check out my Pinterest Board.

These are the cards that my grade one class made two years ago.

 A coworker made these adorable bees with her grade ones.

By Friday, February 3rd, you will need to mail all 20 of your Valentines to the 20 different classes from around Canada. Then, keep your eyes on the mail! I can't wait to see how excited my kiddos are to get 20 Valentines from around Canada this year! 

We mapped where our Valentines came from last year. (Yes I know my map is super old and no longer correct.) We also looked up the different communities on Google Earth. 

Here are some other displays.

Sign Up Information

Sign ups will be open until January 11th or until the maximum number of participants has been reached. 

Inscrivez-vous ici pour recevoir des valentins en français. COMING SOON!

By Signing up, you are committing to:

• making 20 valentines with your class
• mailing all of the valentines by Friday, February 3rd, 2017
• paying for the postage

More details will be sent out the week of January 12, but you can start making your Valentines right away if you want. If you have any questions please comment below or email me before signing up. 

Holidays Around the Blog : Diwali

Thanks to Amy from Learning Lessons With Mrs Labrasciano for hosting the Holidays Around the Blog Linky! 

Last week on October 24th a few of my students celebrated Diwali. They were really excited to talk about how they celebrate Diwali. 

We watched this great video by National Geographic.

The students thought that the Rangoli's were amazing. So we decided to make our own.

I scooped up some sand from the sand table and we mashed coloured chalk into the sand to colour the sand. One of my teaching partners used a a few drops of food colouring and got a nice bright colour! Next time I will use food colouring. It will save my arms from all of the hammering!

We found some great Ranogli colouring pages from Activity Village. Click HERE. 

The students spread a small amount of white glue on their page a section at a time.

Then, they carefully spread the coloured sand on top.

They worked and worked and worked on these. They were so engaged.

This was a very messy activity. But the students were so proud of their Rangoli.

Hop back over to Learning Lessons with Mrs Labrasciano blog to check out pther "Holidays Around the Blog".

Thanks for stopping by!

Monday Meet Up with TTT

 I'm linking up again with The Teaching Tribune for their Monday Meet Up!

This weeks is all about me!

 I TEACH: I teach first grade, or as we like to say grade one, in Ontario, Canada. I love first grade for nine months of the year! September in grade one is so hard! Harder than any other grade that I've taught. 

I HAVE: an amazing family, even if the little one is hiding. She was watching out for alligators.

I have two beautiful little girls. They are finishing off Grade 2 and Senior Kindergarten. They just competed in their first tennis tournament and won Silver and Gold. 

 I have been married to my husband for 10 years! It's hard to believe it has been that long. He thinks he's funny!

 He's really Not! I am way funnier.

 However in all seriousness we make a great team.

I watch: I don't watch much. I used to be an avid TV watcher, especially CSI and reality shows. But, kids shows have taken over my life. Most nights I am too tired to get up and find the remote so I can change the channel. Unless it's Caillou, then you should see me move. I can't stand Caillou. 

If I'm going to watch something it's likely to be an action movie. I love car chases, fight scenes and all out craziness.

I LISTEN: I listen to top forty in the car. But mostly I listen to my children singing "Let it Go!" over and over and over again.

I READ: I read everything. I read every chance I get. I have a few favourite authors that I will read again and again, while I'm waiting  to find the next great read.

Kelley Armstrong, and Illona Andrews are by far my favourite authors.

Have you watched Bitten yet? The show is based on Kelley's books! I was so excited when they decided to make the books into a TV Show, especially since I live in the real BEAR VALLEY! It was amazing watching our little Canadian town turn into a little American town. The Bear Valley Diner is really a costume shop. The Sentinel is now a music school!

 I DO: I used to do a lot of running, now I just do a lot of running around. Taking the girls from violin practice, to tennis, to soccer. It feels like I never stop!

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by my blog today! 

Summer Bloggin' ~ Monday Meet Up

I am linking up with the Teaching Tribune for their Monday Meet Up! 

I thought this was a brilliant idea. This is how it works... I get to introduce you to one of my blogging friends.  I had the pleasure to review one of her products a couple of months back in the "Trade and Grade" hosted by Amanda from The Primary Gal. So when she asked me to be her partner I was beyond excited!

My partner is Kim from Splish, Splash, Ms. Landers Class. I love her products, and even better my students love her products. She is such a sweet person and she is super easy to work with. So without further ado, let me introduce you to 

Kim Landers.

Thanks for stopping by! Click HERE to head back over to The Teaching Tribune and meet up with some more amazing teacher bloggers.

Who do I admire? Part 2

I have hooked up with Amanda from The Primary Gal to bring you "The Bloggers We Admire." This is by far my favourite link up! It is so much fun! This is how it works. I picked a blogger whom I admire (which was incredibly hard since there are sooooo many amazing bloggers out there). Then the even harder part was to pick a product from his/her store. I was so lucky because the blogger that I admire allowed me to use TWO of her products in my classroom. I then had the opportunity to use her product in my classroom and show you how great her work is in action. The best part is that she has no idea that I picked her!

I know...I know. Enough talking Emily (Oh man, you can tell I'm excited when I start talking to myself). Who is the blogger that I admire? Well here are the clues....

 Did you figure it out? The blogger that I admire is no other than Stephany Dillon from Primary Possibilities! If you haven't found Stephany's blog check it out. You won't be disappointed.

My grade 1's have been working really hard on learning to tell time to the hour and the half hour. Some of them are flying through this; others are struggling a little bit. We've been using a lot of games from my store to help them practice. Click HERE to check out some of my time games. But I was looking for more practice, so I was super excited when Stephany allowed me to use two of her time sets! Let's just say my students are in love with these activities.

I'm sorry I can't save the best for last. I am so excited about this centre and so were my kids. They couldn't wait to get a chance to go to this centre. Click HERE or on the picture to find it in her store.

Stephany has a lot of hands on activities in her store. This is one activity that I have been eyeing for a while. How fun is this? Students use Play Doh or Plasticine to make the hands on the clock. 

This activity really made my students think about the difference between the hour hand and the minute hands, as well as the proper placement of the hour hand.

It's Time for Math is filled with  different opportunities for students to practice telling time in a variety of different situations. Click HERE or on the picture to find it in her store.

A. Time to Match
In this centre, students match the analog clock to the digital clock. 

Some of the more advanced students played memory and go fish with the cards.

B. True to Time
In this centre, students  decided whether the digital time and the analog time were "true or false". 

The students loved seeing if they could find the ones that had the mistakes on them. 

C. Time of Day
In this centre, students placed the cards depending on whether the action would be completed in the am or the pm.

D. Time Bump
Bump is one of my students favourite games. We have bump games of all kinds in our classroom.

I like how Stephany put the o'clocks in yellow and the half pasts in blue. It made it much easier for my students. 

To allow some of  my struggling time readers a chance to be successful at this game, I gave them the o'clock cards only.

Not only was Stephany amazingly kind enough to allow me to use both of these products in my classroom, she created a freebie just for you! 

Click HERE to access the freebie!

Click HERE to check out more great items in Stephany's store.

Check out my Secret Admirer blog post below!

An InLinkz Link-up

May the 4th Be With You

Devon from Teach with Fergy had the brilliant idea of having a "May the 4th Be With You Sale." So of course the amazing Amanda from The Primary Girl ran with it. Man that girl is organized. So here we go the May the 4th Sale starts now! My Top 4 products will be on sale, 20% to 30% off.  

 We are currently learning to tell time to the o'clock and the half hour, Ontario grade 1 curriculum. My students love this game. It is super easy to differentiate, pick which times your want your students to work on (:00, :30, :15, :45). Players put the analog clocks on the floor. One player is the caller. The caller calls out a number, the rest of the players race to find the correct clock first. The player with the most cards at the end of the game is the winner.

Hunting for the correct clock.

Found it!

This is by far my favourite writing unit for my students. I have found that once we have worked through this unit that the quality of my students' writing has improved exponentially. Everything is included in this unit. Learning Goals, Success Criteria, posters, anchor charts, arrows for peer assessment, checklists for self assessment and all kinds of writing paper for different levels of writers.

Writing Rainbow: Goal Setting

Included in this set is a writing goal setting kit.We used page proctectors that we attached to the poster with clear packing tape. Leave the top of the page protector open so that you can put new examples in. Since writing in grade 1 and 2 changes so quickly throughout the year, we change the writing samples, so we are displaying a clearer example of what the students' writing should "look" like. I conference with each of my students and we come up with a goal together. 

Writing Rainbow for Goal Setting

They then clip their name to their goal on our large writing rainbow. 

We attach the same goal to their writing folder along with any words that the student has difficulty spelling.
If you like the writing folder covers click HERE for a free sample. Boy and girls covers are included.

Canadian First Grade Teachers: This is item is like finding pirate treasure! I absolutely love this unit! Meet Pirate Penny, Captian Nick L., Davey Dime, Carrie Quarter, Loonie Lou, and Toonie Bird. This merry band of pirates love money! This unit includes: posters, sorting placemats, worksheets, word problems, ideas for a class store and 8 money games that your students will beg to play. 

Pirate Slap It!

Pirate Flip and Cover

Pirate Bump

Even though we completed our money unit in January, my students still ask to play these games when they have free time math games. I am currently working on an American coin version of the unit.

Have your students played a bump game yet? My students absolutely adore bump. If they have a choice bump and slap it games would definitely tie.  In time bump, students read the digital time and then find the matching analog clock.

Six different game boards are included in this set.There is a game board for o'clock, half past, o'clock and half past together, quarter after, quarter to and quarter after and quarter to together.

To check out more TPT shops that are taking part in this sale, check the linkup below!

An InLinkz Link-up

 
Thanks for stopping by! Remember this is a one day only sale! Get it while you can. Click HERE or on the picture to go to my store.

Happy Shopping!