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Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Meet Rita!



You are probably wondering…..who is Rita?  Well, I humbly post Rita as my first attempt at clip art.  This is a little frightening to me, considering some the amount of talent that exists in this realm.  But after practicing for quite a while, I've finally got up enough nerve to share.  She's not the prettiest, but she's a start.  

I have a lot more to learn, but I am excited.  I am ready to create my first clipart set and need some inspiration.  What type of clipart are do you need?  What would you like to see?  If I use your idea, I will send you a free copy of my finished set.  I can't wait to read your ideas!

Many thanks to Just So Scrappy for Rita's hair bows!  They are from the School Rules set. 


Monday, December 30, 2013

That Crazy First Week Back

It's been so long side I wrote a blog post, I almost forgot how.  I have been a self-contained classroom this year and all the additional planning has somehow taken over any free time I had.  I had reverted to blog-stalking, but thought I'd make a go of it since I had some downtime over the holiday.

I'm thinking about the first week back in January.  After two weeks off, the kids will be tired, out of sync, and off schedule.  Some may even be jet-lagged, in my neck of the woods.  I've found a few back-to-school activities that may help ease the transition.  

New Year's Goals

Creating goals really starts the New Year on the right foot.  Here is an example of a goal setting template you can find for free at my TPT store.  


It would look great matched up with the craftivity show below.

 

I love this freebie posted by A Cupcake for the Teacher.  It includes the pattern to make the New Year's hat shown in the picture above. I like the idea of copying the patterns on white card stock and having the students color their hats.  



Write Your Own MAD LIBS

MAD LIBS has published the following directions for "Write Your Own" Mad Lib.  



This would be a great opportunity to practice grammar.  Ask the students to write a brief story and include a certain number of nouns, adjectives, verbs, proper nouns, etc.  

Snapshots of Winter Break



This freebie is from Aimee VanMiddlesworth.  Students draw pictures of several different winter break memories then write sentences or paragraphs about them.  I like the idea of writing "captions" (NF text features!) for each picture.  Thanks, Aimee!

Enjoy your first week back!