Father's Day Follower Freebie and a Great Contest

First. let me wish everyone a Happy Mother's Day! I hope you all have a wonderful (and relaxing) Sunday with your loved ones.

The "crew" will be gathering at my house. We are so luck to still have my 85 year old mother with us. We will have four generations represented... my mom, my sister and I, my children and my
grandchildren.  How cool is that?! 

Not to rush things... but I will be out of town very soon so I wanted to post my Father's Day followers freebie (now there's a tongue twister!).  I am offering all of you a 10 page Father's Day Coupon Book.  It comes with cute coupons for your students to fill in, cut out, and put together.    It also comes with 30 coupon suggestions for the students to copy into their personal booklets.  The lists make filling out the coupons a breeze!

Click here to download

I do hope you all have had a chance to head over to Ms. Cranfill's Class for her 100 Follower Giveaway.  It ends tomorrow so be sure to head straight over ASAP!  Her blog is delightful and she is offering some wonderful prizes! Congratulations Ms. Cranfill.

Have a grea weekend-
Granny (Cindy)

Product Swap

I am linking up with Mrs. Stanford's Class Magical Product Swap.

 

Lucky me, I was paired up with Mrs Mc. at Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!  She is a first grade teacher from Louisiana.  Her site is really cute (I just had to start following her) and she creates some amazing products!  She also shares some pretty darn good recipes. 

She gave me her Compound Words Activity Pack.  The Compound Words Activity Pack is a collection of 5 engaging activities you can use to help your students practice saying, writing, and constructing compound words.  The activities include:

Compound Word Cards
Compound Match Cards
Compound Equations Worksheets
Silly Compound Word Maker
Compound Words Mini Book

It's a 79 page pack!  There are 34 pages of compound words, all listed alphabetically.  I really like the way she highlighted the words in two separate colors to help the kiddos see the words within each word. 

Then Mrs. Mc. added adorable picture cards and graphics. She has 10 pages of these cuties!

The packet contains multiple activities and their corresponding recording sheets.  She also added a Silly Compound Word maker and recording sheet... it's just too much fun. 

I am delighted to have been paired with Mrs. Mc.  Do head over to her blog and TpT store... you'll be glad you did.

Granny (Cindy)

DIY: Mother's Day Book Mark Craft

As promised I am sharing a quick, inexpensive, no-fail Mother's Day gift for your students to make and take. 

I like anything that speaks to the special nature of reading.   I also love having the children make gifts that their parents can actually use.  So why not have the children make their mothers beautiful book marks?

Materials Needed:

• Clear vinyl (This can be purchased at any fabric store.  You can purchase enough vinyl for an entire class for only $2.00 - $3.00.) 
• 2-4 small bottles of acrylic paints (These can be purchased at any craft store for about $1.00 a bottle)
• Paint brushes
• Gift wrapping paper scraps, spring napkins, decorative stickers, magazine pictures, etc.
• Glitter 
• Sewing machine
• 1 small roll of colored ribbon 

Step 1:
Layout your clear vinyl and cut it into 2" x 6.5" strips.  Each child will need two strips.

Step 2:
Put a variety of paints on a paper plate.  Instruct the children to paint on one of their vinyl strips,  blending the colors.  I like to provide other items so the children can use a variety of  "painting" techniques.  I give them q-tips, forks, foam stamps, etc. so they can add texture and design to their vinyl paintings.  

Please note, I have newspaper on the table when the children are painting their vinyl strips. 

Step 3:
When the paint is still a little wet, lay on any decorative spring stickers, or images cut from wrapping paper or magazines.  Sprinkle on a little bit of glitter.  Now let these works of art dry completely. 

 

Step 4: 
Once the painted vinyl is dry, cover the painted and decorated book mark with the clear piece of vinyl (remember, you cut two per child).  Now using a zig zag stitch sew the two pieces together.  If you don't have a sewing machine or don't sew,  you can always ask for a parent volunteer.  Each book mark takes less than a minute to sew,  hence you are only asking for about 45 minutes of help.

Step 5:

Have the children punch a hole in the center top of their book marks.  Loop the colored ribbon through the hole.

Finished Product:

Enjoy making these great little Mother's Day gifts with your students!  They will be the perfect gift to add to my Mother's Day Card/Craft. 

Love,
Granny (Cindy)

Mother's Day Craft-Card and Activities

I love working with the little ones on their Mother's Day cards and gifts. I tend to go for "craft-cards" and then add little token gifts (that they also make). I like the craft-card to be an easy assembly that looks good no matter how it is put together. Hence this year's Mother's Day packet:

Click here to see the item in my TpT store

 

Close-up of the front of the card

 
I like the children to think about how special the person is that cares for them. I am currently working with a group of kiddos - many who are being raised by their grandmothers, aunts, and a few by foster mothers.

I created prompts that allow for different titles and names to be written in the initial writing prompt- "My Mother is the Best Because..."  "My Grandmother is the Best Because..."and "My _________ is the Best Because...".   I hope this helps all the children in the class to feel comfortable with the activity. I used a similar strategy with the drawing prompt. 

The packet contains some really fun activities.  I especially enjoy the "All About My Mother" activity and acrostic poem activity.  What each child writes is such a hoot!  I still have many of the Mother's Day cards and activities my kids made when they were in grade school.  They are treasures well  worth keeping!

I will be giving away two packets in a random drawing on Sunday evening.  Just leave a comment and your email address.  I will be drawing names from the comments made this weekend. 

Have a great weekend
Granny (Cindy) 

P.S.  I'll post a Mother's Day craft very soon! 

500 Follower Celebration and Give Away.

Thank you, thank you to everyone who has helped me get to this 500 follower mark.  I am so appreciative of all your support and comments.  I would have never guessed, when I began blogging in August, that I would have made 500 new teaching friends in so short a time.

A number of my blogging friends have joined me in celebrating this milestone.  I am so grateful to all of you.

I am raffling two $50.00 Target cards and learning packets from 14 blogging friends.  I have set this up in two different raffles so that everyone gets as many entries as possible.

1st Raffle  

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway


2nd Raffle:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck to everyone!
Granny (Cindy)

April Currently

I'm linking with Farley's April Currently. 

Listening... to the pond in the back yard.  We are full into spring and our back yard pond is blooming and growing.  It's lovely to sit at the computer and look out the window, and listen to the "music" of the pond.

Loving... our spring weather.  Wild flowers are blooming, it's under 90 degrees (and that's saying something!).  I am having to be outside as much as possible!

Thinking... I'm ready for a new craft project.  I love craft, sewing, and art projects.  I just found a new blog "Renegade Seamstress" and it's just too fun and inspiring.  This gal takes really unattractive second-hand store clothing and remakes them into really cute outfits.   The other fun site I found is Thrift Diving.com.  This blogger takes thrift store disasters and creates fun pieces of furniture for her home.  She has some great examples of remakes that would be fabulous for the classroom. 

Wanting... just a few more hours in each day!  Enough said. 

Needing... some new recipes.  I'm on week 6 of having gone "vegan".  I need some recipe inspiration!

Advice... appreciate what you have.  I am so grateful for everyday that awake on the "up-side" of the ground :) ... considering the alternative!   Because we live in such a consumer oriented society, I fear that sometimes we forget to appreciate all that we have. 

Enjoy-
Granny (Cindy)

P.S.  My Heart Belongs in First is hosting a wonderful fundraiser for a little boy with E.B.  For a $10.00 donation, you'll get $85.00 worth of products from great bloggers.  The cause is worthy and the kiddos in your class will benefit from the great learning packets you'll receive.  It's well worth checking out. 

I Have... Who Has? Freebie

This is the time of year for REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW!  Because I love games, I also love to engage the students in review by using fun whole-class games.

Here is a cute little "April Showers I Have... Who Has?" place value/understanding numbers freebie. This is a perfect activity to introduce some April fun.

Click on the image to download

Have a great weekend
Granny (Cindy)

P.S.  Stay on the look-out for my 500 followers give away!  I'll be posting it soon.