A FREEBIE Christmas Gift

For many years we gave our students pencils and erasers for Christmas, just to find them lying on the floor after they left.  A few years ago we decided to make a new tradition that focused more on spending time with our students.  We came up with “A Day Off of School...At School!”  Students come in their jammies, we enjoy morning cartoons together, eat donuts, play games, and over all spend a memorable day together.  The day before we give our students the special postcards that tell them about our exciting day and send a quick email to the parents (in case the postcards don’t make it home). It is a simple, fun, free way to create some Christmas spirit in your classroom.  Enjoy! BUT the BEST part is....we get to wear our matching jammies too!!!!

If you would like to grab this freebie just click here.

Keep On Dancing In Your Teacher Shoes!

Deanna and Jenelle

It is Better to Give, but Fun to Recieve

It is the "gimme" time of the year.  The commercials are telling our kiddos that they need everything.  The stores are stocked and overflowing with stuff that we start to think that we may need someday...or now. First and second graders are busy writing novels to Santa reminding him of ALL of the things that they WANT...or in their words, need.

It is the perfect time to step back and help them realize the true meaning of Christmas.  Using our favorite buddy, the elf we send Santa Christmas letters for someone else.  We ask our students to think about someone in their lives who really deserves something special from Santa.  They then write a letter to Santa telling Santa why this person deserves extra special attention..

They usually write about their parents or their siblings (especially since we share ours about our parents).  It is so sweet to read what they think Santa should bring them and why.  The day after they write them we sneak their letters into a sealed envelope "from the principal to their parents" and put them in their mailbox.
If you would like to download the paper click here.

Merry Christmas!

Keep On Dancing In Your Teacher Shoes!
Deanna and Jenelle

The Elf is Missing....

So Elfie forgot to come back to first grade today....busy elf?  Maybe.  Busy morning is more like it.  The second grade elf must have forgotten to bring him back with him. ;-) 

The best part about all of this is my kiddos are convinced that he is here....somewhere....just in a REALLY good hiding spot.  They have been searching nonstop since they arrived.  Hmmmm....how long shall I let this go on?  They are happy, and working together, and QUIET - incase he makes a noise :-)  Maybe he should "hide" more often.  

I should turn this into a writing project.....Or should I just kick back and watch them carry on while I sip my coffee and enjoy their cooperative spirits!?!?!?

Isn't teaching fun.  I love my job!

Keep On Dancing In Your Teacher Shoes!

Deanna and Jenelle

Game Day Freebie!

Our kiddos are getting STIR CRAZY!  Bring on Christmas break!!!!  Wishful thinking I guess since it is only Tuesday and it feels like next Friday will never come.

Here is a little Freebie to lure them in and practice some much needed listening skills.

Enjoy!

Click here to grab it from our store!

 

Keep on dancing in your teacher shoes!

Deanna and Jenelle

A Techie Tree

We are beginning our "BIG" word processing unit in the computer lab.  Wahoo....watch out computers...here we come!  We are working on shift key capitalization, beginning keyboarding skills, and highlighting and changing text.  Needless to say...it takes all three of our computer lab visits to finish, but at the end they think that they are typing wizards!!!

The end result is a Christmas tree that they print and take home...in COLOR...I know, how exciting!  They love it though.  

The directions are simple.

1.  We brainstorm Christmas words and put them on chart paper.

2. We type using an * as a space instead of a space bar.

3. Everytime our line gets a little bigger than the one before we push RETURN and move on to the next line.

4. When it looks like a tree, we learn how to highlight and change the test to green and the * to any colors we like.

5. PRINT and send home an e-mail reminding our parents how much work this project is for a 6 year old.

And it looks like....

We do a tree, but you could get creative. A snowman....a mug...the possibilities are endless!

Keep on Dancing in your teacher shoes!

Deanna and Jenelle

Catching Up and a Freebie!

Conferences....Check.  Thanksgiving...Check.  Flu shots for the kiddos...Check.  Get our act together on blogging...check.  Get a few of our new TPT projects finished and uploaded...check!  Seems like lately the more we check off of our to do lists the more we add to it. I'm sure many of you can relate! We have been busy playing catch up this week after some well deserved family time over Thanksgiving break.

Along with checking things off of our lists our very favorite Elves on the Shelves have come to visit our classrooms.  The students are enthralled with "Elfie" (creative name choice...we know!) and "Jasper".  Elfie is just visiting for the first time in first grade.  They have been practicing their good behavior so that Elfie can give a good report to Santa each night. Jasper on the other hand has returned to visit the second graders and has brought with him a top secret mission from Santa.  SHHHH!  Santa has spilled his hot cocoa on his laptop and lost all of his data on Christmas customs around the world!  He has asked the second graders, with the help of their elf Jasper, to collect data on Christmas customs so that he can be ready for Christmas (See our Christmas Around the World with Elf on the Shelf Unit on TPT for more details).  So far Jasper has visited Germany, Holland, and Mexico this week and has brought back information for the second graders to to take notes on for Santa as well as some very nifty art projects!  All in all they are having a blast while learning about Christmas around the world.

We have also begun playing winter morning meeting games from our brand new collection of Winter Themed Classroom Meeting Games on TPT.  Check it out!  They are so fun...who wouldn't want to throw "snowballs" at their teacher? or at their students? :)

We have also been working on a FREEBIE for all of you for a while and have finally found time to finish it and get it up on TPT.  Both of us utilize literacy centers and Daily 5 for our language block and are constantly looking for new word work activities for the kiddos to keep busy with while we meet with our guided reading groups.  Spell-O-Rama was born out of this need.  Please go to our TPT store to download it for FREE.  The students absolutely love it and it can be differentiated to meet many different phonics and reading levels with little prep for the teacher...which is always a plus in our book!  Oh, and the suoer cute font that we used in this game is called No Bullies Allowed by Alyssha Swanson over at Teaching and Tapas.  Best of all it is FREE too!

Keep on Dancing in Your Teacher Shoes


Deanna and Jenelle

Hurray! We were Nominated!

Hurray!  We are so excited and honored that our blog was nominated for The Liebster Award.  Thank you Melissa and Brittany over at Frugal in First!  This award is for new bloggers with less than 200 followers...that would be us!  We are a definitely newbies when it comes to bogging ourselves, but have had lots of great blogger-types to look up to as mentors.  We are thrilled and privileged to have the followers that we do have.  To think that someday we may have more than 200 followers is a dream that we hope will come true soon!

Here are the rules for the Liebster Award:
1. You must post 11 random things about yourself.
2. Answer the questions that the nominator set for you.
3. Create 11 questions for the people you nominate.
4. Choose 11 other blogs with fewer than 200 followers to nominate and link them in your post.
5. You cannot "tag back" the other blog, but leave a comment on this post with URL of your Liebster post so I can learn more about you and see who you nominate.

Here are the 11 random things about us:

1.  Deanna has six brothers and sisters and Jenelle has one sister.
2.  We met each other while living in an all girls dorm in college...we were the only non-freshman who chose to live there...we didn't have to have roommates that way!
3.  We were both pregnant with our fist kiddo at the same time...we bonded over morning sickness and chocolate cravings.
4.  We both met our husbands in high school.
5.  Jenelle is a Zumba instructor and Deanna just got trained as one this month...can you tell we love to dance, in teacher shoes or otherwise!
6. Deanna has been to Europe twice...and plans on going again, and again, and again!
7.  We both have cabins that we love to go to in the summer...we especially love floating on inner tubes and soaking up the sun.
8.  We would rather read picture books than adult books...and aren't embarrassed about that.
9.  We both secretly wish to be authors of children’s books some day.
10. We are both severe Asthmatics. Bring on the inhalers...puff, puff!
11. We both have two dogs. Jenelle has two Yorkies named Manny and Scooter and Deanna has two "Mutts" (Border Collie/Plotts Hound Mixes) named Rufus and Rajah.

Here are the 11 questions and answers from our nominators:

1. What do you love most about teaching? Least? 
We love dancing and using our imaginations with our students.  We do not like indoor recess and dread the day we come back after breaks.

2. Do you have a favorite teaching blog?
We love Dancing in Our Teacher Shoes of course!  J/K!  We love so many it is hard to pick just one or two.   
Here are a few of our favorites:
I (Heart) Recess
The Teacher Wife

Just check out all of the blogs we love on our sidebar...there are just too many to name!!!

3. Have you always wanted to be a teacher?
Deanna: Nope...I actually thought I wanted to be a pediatric pulmonologist (lung doctor for kids) right up until I applied for college.  Then I had an epiphany...teaching was my calling...duh!  Jenelle:  Not to be cliché but YES!  I was a teacher to my entire neighborhood and even gave homework!  I really wanted to teach in the children’s hospital, but ended up in first grade.

4. What is your favorite grade to teach?
FIRST!  Although Deanna teaches second right now and loves them too! :)

5. Do you have any pets?
We both have two dogs (Jenelle: Manny, Scooter Deanna: Rufus, and Rajah) and Deanna inherited great-grandpa's goldfish (Dolly) this fall when he moved from his house to an retirement community. 

6. Why did you start a teaching blog?
It was about time we did...we figured that we had gotten so many ideas from others that it was time to share a few of our own and repay the favor!

7. Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks?
STARBUCKS!  Although here in Minnesota, Caribou Coffee is the best even though it isn't a choice.

8. Do you follow the Common Core Standards?
We do, but we work in a school where we are not required to do so…yet.

9. What is your favorite place to vacation?
Deanna: The cabin...or anywhere but here!  Jenelle: Florida...wait what's a vacation?

10. Favorite place to shop?
Should we list them all?  DSW, Hot Momma, Barnes and Noble, Etsy, and TPT of course....the list goes on!

11. What is your favorite recipe?
Who has time to cook...does pizza delivery count???

Here are the 11 questions for blogs that we have nominated:

1.     What do you do for “fun”?

2.     Who is your greatest influence or hero?

3.     If you could go back in time to meet anyone, living or dead, who would it be and why?

4.     What is your favorite picture book and do you read it to your students?

5.     What is the craziest thing you have ever done for your students/teaching job?

6.     What is your favorite way to recover/energize after a long week of teaching?

7.     Where would you take your students on a field trip if money was not an issue?

8.     What is one thing you have to do but wish that you didn’t?

9.     If you had to design the teacher “uniform” for your school what would it be?

10.   If you had to have a class pet what would it be?  Ours would be a rock…sorry if we stole your idea.

11.  What is the largest and smallest class sizes you have ever had in your career? 

Blogs we are nominating: 

Kathy Griffin’s Teaching Strategies
Teaching Special Thinkers
More Time 2 Teach
A Perfectly Poetic Page
The Kindergarten Pod
Hippo Hooray for Second Grade
Education to Mention
Mrs Balius's First Grade
Secrets of the Second Grade Sisters
Mels Box of Chocolates
First Grade Smiles

50th Day of School

Thursday was the 50th Day of School for us.....however we only have one day of school this week and then CONFERENCES and then a much deserved little turkey break!!!  

So we decided celebrate 50th Day today.  

We LOVE Cara Carroll's mini unit: Crusin' Through the 50 First Days of School!  It is awesome!!! 

From root beer floats (yes...your eyes are not deceiving you...that is a keg of root beer back there)

to stinky feet Sock Hops 

to a little good old Leave It To Beaver

we celebrated in style!

We are HALF WAY TO 100!!!! Can you believe it?

And 4 weeks from Christmas break!  :)

Deanna and Jenelle

10 Things We Have Learned

Last month we began two new teaching adventures.  We began our very own blog AND began selling our own teaching ideas and units on Teachers Pay Teachers and Teachers Notebook.  Its amazing how many things we have learned in such a short amount of time.  In case you are beginning your very own blog or Teachers Pay Teachers adventure, here is a list a few of the things that we wished we had known before we started:

1.  Always use Power Point!  Power Point works so much more smoothly when making TPT units than Word or Pages.

2.  People will not automatically find and follow your blog.  Its all about shameless self promotion any where you can!

3.  On TPT, your preview does not automatically show up as the thumbnails. You have to add each page as a separate picture.

4.  Commercial use clip art can be expensive and addicting to buy!  Be sure that you have an actual use for it before you buy it... Etsy and Teachers Pay Teachers are great resources for clip art and borders.

5. Keep a notebook or file of all of you "amazing" ideas because you will start out with a bunch but it will take you forever to get to them all.  If you are anything like us you will forget them before you get to them!

6.  Don't forget to save your created units as a Power Point AND a PDF so that you can go back and fix the inevitable typos.

7.  Computer code is scary...find someone who does this for a living and have them create your blog template and add the buttons that you want.  We used Dreamlike Magic and they were SO awesome!

8.  When you link to other people's blogs ask them to link to yours as well...here we go once again with the shameless self promotion!

9.  Offer free things on your blog that you would want if you were your own follower.  Everyone loves free things but only if they are useful!

AND

10.  Don't take yourself too seriously and have fun!  You will make mistakes, you won't be perfect, and that's OK!  This is an adventure after all and what fun would an adventure be with no excitement!

Our First Snafu!

Milestones come in all shapes and sizes.  Sometimes they are wonderfully happy milestones, like finally having a classroom of your own, your first summer break, or your very first sale on Teachers Pay Teachers!  Other times these notches in our teacher belts are not so happy.  Between the two of us we have seen many milestones, some good, and some bad.  Today we added our very first unhappy notch in our belt as sellers on Teachers Pay Teachers.  Keep in mind that we have been buying from our amazing teacher colleagues on Teachers Pay Teachers for a long time but have only begun to sell our own ideas on the site a mere month ago.  A few weeks ago we posted our Christmas Around the World with Elf on the Shelf unit.  It was a labor of love and many an hour was spent toiling to get things just right.  Today one of our amazing customers (who we appreciate with all of our hearts!) reminded us that even when we think we have our ducks in a row, sometimes things slip through the cracks.  This well intentioned customer found... a dreaded TYPO!  What?  How did we let that happen?  How many times did we read through that document?  A ZILLION at least!  Who knew that Italy was shaped like a "book"and not a "boot"!?!  After feeling awful that we made a mistake we quickly fixed the typo, uploaded the fixed version and thanked our customer for finding the problem.  After the initial panic wore off and we had time to reflect on what happened, it reminded us that its alright to make mistakes AND more importantly, its alright for our students to make mistakes.  Sometimes, as teachers, we get so wrapped up in what we are doing, and we want things to go so perfectly, that we forget that our students are ALLOWED to make mistakes and SHOULD make mistakes.  That's how they learn...and in this case, that's how we learned too!

Keep on Dancing in Your Teacher Shoes!

Deanna and Jenelle

Work Habits and Behavior Freebie

Conference time for us is just around the corner.  Our report cards went home this week and we are starting to organize and put together the students' portfolios.  One of the most important things that we talk with parents about at conferences are the work habits and behaviors of their children.  As primary teachers, a great deal of our time is spent directly teaching our students the life skills and habits that they will need to learn to be successful in future grade levels.  We often feel as though these areas are not emphasized enough on the actual report card so we created a work habits and behavior assessment that both the students and teacher participate in. You can pick up this awesome FREE packet at either our Teachers Pay Teachers shop or our Teacher's Notebook shop.

Deanna and Jenelle

Not Your Regular Fall Art Project

If you are like us you love student made art projects hanging in the hallways for all to see.  For us, the less cookie-cutter these projects are, the better!  There is something truly special about how young minds see the world are how that allows their creativity to just spill all over the page.  Here is our latest art project endeavor.  The second graders were all given the exact same, step-by-step, directions for drawing the owl and look at how wonderfully DIFFERENT they all are!  A simple piece of paper, a black crayon, some water colors and viola...second grade masterpieces!

 Someone call the Louvre!  There are some talented 

artists not getting the recognition that they deserve!

Getting Ready for the Elf!

Well....now that our report cards are finished it is time to start thinking about our favorite form of classroom management....THE ELF ON THE SHELF!!!  We know it is early, but he appears the DAY AFTER Thanksgiving, which is the day we come back from a long weekend and conference recovery.  So better to be prepared.  Plus we just had to order another one because last year one of ours was actually stolen off of the fan.  And he was TAPED to the fan!  Someone REALLY must have needed him.  He was untaped and elf-napped!  

Santa knows who you are..... :)
Any-who....

 We LOVE us some Elf on the Shelf!  Seriously, what better way is there to maintain awesome behavior than to have Santa's personal helper watching over us. We love that he reports directly to the "Big Man" himself.  No need for us to call Santa at the end of the week anymore. ;)

Last year our elves were delivered straight form the North Pole as a special present from Santa.  This year is a little different because one of us is now in second grade. The first graders will be thrilled at the arrival and the daily hunt to find their special friend, but the second graders did that last year and we REALLY wanted to keep the magic alive for the second graders too.  So we decided to keep the magic alive in second grade with a a super secret Elf Mission from Santa using Christmas Around the World as inspiration.  If you would like to check it out for yourself you can hop on over to Teachers Pay Teachers or Teachers Notebook.  Happy Elfing!

  Keep On Dancing in Your Teacher Shoes! 

Ode to Report Card Comments...

Its report card season again...that wonderful time of year where you have to adequately express in words, letters, and numbers how each child is doing in your class.  If you are anything like us, and your school is still chiseling your report cards onto paper with a black ink pen, you dread the moment you reach the final comment section.  You spend hours decided the best wording and then go back and change it twenty times.  You many even have some amazing white out splotches after you've changed your mind once again.  After looking at our white out covered, black ink stained fingers, we thought to ourselves, "There has to be a better way!"  And so our fellow teacher friends, we present to you an amazing invention called...LABELS!  Bet you didn't see that one coming.  Its so simple, and yet it took us seven long years to think of it!  So this year, instead straining and staining our fingers we decided to type out comments into an 1"x 2 5/8" Avery label template and just print and stick.  This gave us plenty of opportunities to change our minds...and even copy and paste when our awesome comments could apply to more than one student!  So get a cup of coffee and maybe even a piece of pumpkin bread and buckle down and write those comments!

Autumn Acrostic Poems

Autumn is here...it even snowed yesterday!  Minnesota is just awesome like that.  Speaking of autumn the second graders were getting into the spirit of the season by writing autumn themed acrostic poems inspired by a treasure we found in our classroom library that we didn't even know we had. Don't you just love when you find a hidden gem!

We read the book Autumn An Alphabet Acrostic, by Steven Schnur, and then had the second graders create a list of autumn words that they could choose from to write their very own autumn acrostic poem using our Autumn Acrostic Poem Template that you can download on Teachers Pay Teachers or Teacher's Notebook for free.

Check out some of their outstanding work.  They really impressed us with their creativity!

 Time to go through that library again...
Have you stumbled upon any treasures lately?

Keep on Dancing in Your Teacher Shoes!

Dance Break!

I like to move it, move it.  I like to move it, move it.  First and second graders like ....MOVE IT!  Dance break! 

One of the things that we LOVE to do to help with the mid day sillies is take a dance break.  There is nothing better than letting loose with our kiddos and shaking our groove thing!  

What about the "too cools" you ask?  Well...we let them be to cool for awhile and then we find the song or music video they just can't RESIST!  They may start out with the "elbow bop" or the pocket wiggle...and then, well pure fun conquers!

We found using YouTube videos really helps everyone feel comfortable dancing and then we bring in just music so they can show off their own moves.  We thought that you may enjoy a few of the dances our kiddos CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF!

Eric Herman is an awesome artist with really creative songs and music videos. 

We always have "ants in our pants" in first and second grade so why not dance like you have...

Ants in Your Pants

 Or..Hip Hop Tooty Ta

BUT their FAVORITE right now is..

The Sid Shuffle - Ice Age: Continental Drift

 

Keep on Dancing in Your Teacher Shoes!

Deanna and Jenelle

More Spider Themed Math Fun!

As many of you teachers out there know, the Target Store dollar bins can be SO dangerous... but SO inspirational as well.  While heading to the store to pick up "a few things" we came across these amazing mini spider web rugs for a mere $2.50 a piece!  Of course we cleaned out the place knowing that there had to be something we could do with them. we put our heads together and this is what we came up with:

Spider Web Spill Math Game (Download the Game for Free)

The object of this game is for students to practice basic math subtraction facts (or missing addends) in an exciting way. 

Materials Needed:
White Board and White Board Marker
Spider Web Rug (or Spider Web Game Board)
Spider Game Pieces

Students work with partners and take turns dumping spiders on the rug.  Some spiders will land face up, some will land face down, and some will not even land on the rug.  Students then discard the spiders that did not land on the rug and count the number of remaining spiders.  This is their total.  Students then count the number of spiders that are face up.  This is one of the addends.  Students  write a subtraction equation on their white boards and solve it to find the difference. 

This game could also be simplified as a basic counting game (count the number of spiders that are face up) for kindergarten or preschool.  You could also use this game as an addition game (add up the number of spiders face up and the number of spiders face down on the board to find the sum.)

Keep on Dancing in Your Teacher Shoes!

Deanna and Jenelle

We Got Our SPIDER On in October

Halloween is just around the corner and while looking through our October files we began to feel a bit pumpkin-ed out by all of our regular go-to activities for the season.  Each year we have done some kind of fun and interactive character activity, such as the Pumpkin Elf or the Candy Corn Bandit. While this has always been a HUGE hit with the kiddos we were feeling the need to try something new.  This gave us the perfect excuse to be creative (otherwise known as "not getting our correcting done during our prep")  One of our favorite book series to use during Writer's Workshop are the Diary of a Worm, Fly, and Spider books by Doreen Cronin.  Being that spiders make the perfect Halloween character, we ran with it and this is the unit that we ended up with!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Diary-of-a-Spider-Mini-Unit

http://www.teachersnotebook.com/product/Diots/diary-of-a-spider-mini-unit 

                                                   AND

 http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Diary-of-a-Spider-Math-and-Phonics-Games

 http://www.teachersnotebook.com/product/Diots/diary-of-a-spider-math-and-phonics-center-games

Keep in mind that while spiders are perfect for Halloween, this unit could really be used at any time of the year to teach all sorts of writing concepts including voice, point of view, friendly letters, diary entries and so much more!

Keep on dancing in your teacher shoes!

Deanna and Jenelle

We did it!

We are SO excited to be starting a blog!  We are avid blog followers and TPT and Teacher's Notebook addicts and now we are a part of the community.  EEEEE!

We should probably start by introducing ourselves.  We teach first and second grade (currently) and completely LOVE our jobs!  We have been teaching "buddies" since college.  We are finally teaching in the same school together and are having a blast!  It is not unusual to find us on a Friday night reading children's stories to each other and brainstorming what we could teach with them so that we have an excuse to add them to our overpopulated personal libraries!  We love thinking of ways to make school fun and exciting and can often be found dancing with our students and in necessary costumes to add "detail" to our teaching.  Thanks for joining our teaching adventure.

Keep On Dancing in Your Teacher Shoes!

Deanna and Jenelle :)