Five for Friday Linky! Mrs. Grisham, November 21st

Yeah, yeah. I know; it's technically Sunday. I've loved reading about everyone else's lives and have planned on joining this great Linky part for months now so Sunday is better than no-day I say! I'll work on my punctuality :)

Yoobi is definitely one of my favorite things from this week. It's this great American based company that makes high quality, colorful school supplies. The BEST part is that for every product bought,they donate a school supply product to low income kiddo's like mine. Check out my post Yoobi here!



On Thursday some friends and I did something that only crazy adults do. We went to a play that started at 8:00 on a weekday!! That is late in our old age. It was Little Women though and totally worth it! The actors and actresses were great and though there were many yawns during the show, it was fabulous. Love community theater :)




I FINALLY finished a Holiday Place Value Math Game Bundle just in time for math centers this week. I'm doing a GIVEAWAY of this product. If you teach 1st or 2nd grade please enter and good luck! Enter here! It focuses on addition and subtraction to 200, building numbers, comparing numbers, expanded form, and word problems.  Then I made it fun and cute with snowmen, Christmas lights, penguins, elves, pilgrims, and turkey's with pumpkin pie!

Crickets! My class is learning about insects this term. So far we'd received beetles, milkweed bugs, and butterflies from district. This week we got crickets! The students loved observing them at our science center, but boy are they noisy! I won't be too sad when all the insects go back to the district on Monday.

Oh Thanksgiving!! I'm am so excited! Of course I'm not quite on break yet. I teach Monday and Tuesday with after school meetings both days and report cards are also due to our principal Tuesday, but I'll take two crazy-busy days for a 5-day weekend! I'm looking forward to a fun two days of Thanksgiving theme learning. 

Liebster Award and The Horrible Blogger I've Become

Hello there! I have officially accepted that I, Mrs. Grisham, have been pretty horrible at blogging the past 2 months. I have tons of ideas and things to share and if there was a machine that would magically, or scientifically, take all my thoughts and upload them onto a blog without me having to do any work, I'd be a blogging master!! But since I am busy and somewhat lazy, this is not the case. My online to-do list finally required more than one page so I buckled down today and got some stuff done!

Despite my horrible habits the past few months, a few super sweet teacher-bloggers have nominated me for the Liebster Award; an award for new bloggers who are just getting started. Oh my goodness!! Thank you so much to My Life at the Pencil Sharpener, LisaTeachr, and The Owl Teacher. The online teaching community has been so welcoming and getting encouragement from others helps me tremendously!! Thank you so much for the award and I can't wait to share more about myself and pass on the love to some other new bloggers I've been learning and growing with.

                               1. Why and how long ago did you start blogging? 

I blogged personally for a few years, but just couldn't find my niche. I was an avid Teachers Pay Teachers shopper for a few years and this past summer, about 4 months ago, decided to become a seller. I noticed many of the top sellers had blogs so I shut down my personal blog and transitioned to this blog. I am loving it so far! I've met so many other great teachers, am learning ways to improve my practice every day, and I love getting to share my work with others.

                      2. What one word sums up the heart of your blog and why? 
Fun! I love teaching because I get to have fun every day. I want to bring fun and creativity into as many minutes of my students day as I can. I think many teachers have this desire to infuse fun into learning and so I love sharing my fun ideas with others. I get paid back ten-fold in the fun ideas they share with me! Fun learning=engaged students!

                  3. Is there something you learned late in your blogging journey you                                                              wished you knew before?
I'm still pretty new to this journey, but I knew  how powerful networking was when I first started. I'm learning new things all the time from others and could have cut down a lot on my work load if I would have started reaching out earlier. I also seriously wish I had code skills. It's one of my goals to become more fluent is posting and altering html code.

                     4. What is your favorite past time other than blogging? 
Well, I love teaching. Other than that I love being outside. Kayaking is my favorite sport, but I also love hiking. Books, trashy reality tv, and good food are all some of my favorite things too! Oh, and that really handsome man with a beard sitting on the couch next to me :)

                  5. How many hours per week do you dedicate to your blog? 
Please see aforementioned admission of how horrible I am at this. My blogging schedule is definitely still in it's random phase. My goal is 1-2 hours a week. One day!

                      6. What category of blog posts do you enjoy the most?
I love posts with creative ideas that will bring excitement and learning into my classroom without a ton of money or prep work. I also love organization ideas, because who couldn't use a little more organization in the classroom,and book posts sharing new books and how they can be used as mentor texts. I love LOVE food blogs!

                              7. Where does your blog inspiration come from? 
Amy Lemons! She is my favorite! Her classroom ideas are always so cute. She shares ideas that are related to her products, but she also shares tons of free, easy to implement ideas too! I love how real and down-to-Earth she is and how comfortable she is to share news about her family; it's fun to watch her daughter grow up!

                      8. Which post that you've written are you most proud of?
Honestly, all of them. For me I'm simply proud when I've polished and posted something. I have about 10 un-finished posts so the finishing is the accomplishment, lol. 

              9. Is there any post you have been planning to do, but have 
                                             postponing it for a while now?
See above posts, about ten. I have ideas about how I run Reading Workshop and Word Work in my classroom, my classroom economy system, three craftivities we've done so far this year, Dia de Los Muertos stuff,  so many! They all win see their day in the sun though, one day :)

                                10. What is your favorite aspect of blogging?
I love talking and collaborating and I think it is amazing that this platform allows me to do that with people from all over the world. How cool is that!!

              11. Which recipe, project, or idea on my blog would you be 
                                                  most likely to try yourself?
I really like how The Owl Teacher uses the differentiated Monster Math Program as I'm looking for a quick and easy-to-implement daily fact practice method. LisaTeachr has so many ideas I can't even pick a favorite! She is so much more techy in her classroom and I hope to become like that in the future and I do really admire her ability to post quality content so frequently. I'm going to use My Life at the Pencil Sharpeners Writers Workshop launch book idea next week!! We've launched Writer's Workshop already, but I love a good book suggestion!

Wooo, I love sharing! Now here are my nominations to pass the love along! 

1. Jan Hayden: Smiling in Second
2. Grade 2 Happenings
3. Growing Smart Readers
4. The Cutesy Teacher
5. T is for Teaching
6. Life is Everyday Choices

Now its your turn (nominated bloggers) to participate - here are the official "rules" for accepting:

1.)   In your post link back to the blogger who nominated you as a thank you and "shout out".

2.)  Answer the 11 questions given to you (the ones I answered above)

3.)  Nominate 11 blogs that have less than 200 followers each. Provide them with 11 questions (listed above) to have them answer.

4.)  Let your nominees know they've been nominated and provide them with a link back to your post so they can accept.

5.)  Send your nominator a link to your post so s/he can learn more about you as well. (you can just put your post link in the comments below) 

Holiday Themed Place Value Math Game Bundle and a GIVEAWAY

I finally finished my holiday math games! I love the holiday season; turkeys, elves, and snowmen, yay! I know my students do to so I wanted to put together some themed games to help them practice the math skills we've been working on. There are games for addition and subtraction up to 200, comparing numbers, expanded form, and composing numbers using hundreds, tens, and ones. The games are all common core aligned too in case you need that :)

You can find them in my TPT Store Mrs. Grisham's Little Lighthouse Learners. To spread the word about this new product I'm hosting a giveaway! It ends on the 22nd. Enter below
a Rafflecopter giveaway


I make several copies of each game and put them in sheet protectors. Then students play these games during math rotation with a partner using whiteboard markers. This allows me to quickly check student work and provide activities without wasting a ton of paper. 

Dia De Los Muertos: Free Resources

I love Fall and every Fall I teach my class about Dia De Los Muertos; a holiday celebrated by some Mexicans and Mexican Americans where they honor loved ones who have passed on. It's a great holiday to start the conversation about cultural differences. It's also really beautiful and kids can connect the concept to their lives because everyone can relate to the ideas of family and love. 

We are so lucky to live in a city with a great Art Museum. This great Art Museum hosts a Dia De Los Muertos event each year and offers scholarships for local low-income schools to come and visit the exhibits. I jumped right on that throwing together a field trip in less than 2 weeks; parent volunteers, scholarship application, bussing, lunches, and all! I teach in the 3rd largest district in my state serving more than 28,000 children so this was no small feat! I annoyed a few people because I totally didn't follow protocol which calls for all field trips to be scheduled 6 or more weeks in advance, but I will upset a few people for my students any day of the week!

Most of my students had never been to the museum despite it being 15 minutes away from our school. This is why field trips are so important! Especially for low income students whose parents often don't have the resources or time to provide them with these experiences. They got to look at all the art exhibits, but I will highlight the Dia De Los Muertos gallery here. They were entranced with the beautiful colors of the altars and stories of loved ones who had passed one. 

We were also incredibly lucky to get to speak to a woman who had built an altar for her granddaughter who passed away unexpectedly 2 years ago. Conversations between different generations is something to cherish so I will always remember this special moment my class was able to experience.








In addition to our museum experience, we did a few activities in the classroom. I'm the queen of finding quality activities that are FREE for little units like this and I wanted to share what I found. Thank you to the authors for sharing your great work with us!

My students read about the holiday and completed the comprehension questions with this worksheet from education.com

Then they really enjoyed the coloring sheets provided by Standoo.org.  So beautiful and intricate!

Lastly, I used the resource pack from the Mexic-Arte Museum to educate myself further on the holiday. It has many great activities for the classroom too!

I hope you will consider talking about this holiday in your classroom if you are able to start the conversation about cultural differences. If you are unable to talk abut the holiday, try to plan a field trip of any kind! Getting these kids out into the real world is critical to helping them grow into successful citizens who contribute to their community. Happy Day!

Yoobi! Amazing School Supplies Made in the USA; For every product bought, a product is donated to a school in need!

Yoobi is this great American company that makes school supplies right here in the USA. From their website: "Yoobi, pronounced “you-be,” means “one for you, one for me.” For every Yoobi item you purchase, a Yoobi item will be donated to a classroom in need, right here in the U.S. It’s that simple! Yoobi was born to make colorful, vibrant tools that spark learning and creativity. Not only did we want to perk up the school supplies aisle, but we wanted to help solve a very big problem."

How cool is that?!?! Due to my school's low income status, we qualified to get a FREE Yoobi Classroom Pack this year. It had folders, pencils, glue, markers, crayons, crayons, rulers, pencil sharpeners, practically all the basic supplies my kids use on a daily basis. They were high quality materials made using bright colors. I would even dare to say the quality was higher than my favorite supply company that starts with a C! My students LOVED their Yoobi bags and I just had to share the photos. It's too bad I can't show you their faces. Just imagine 24 surprised and smiling faces!

I encourage everyone to buy Yoobi supplies and want to thank this amazing company for their impact in my classroom this year!! Here is the link again, go check out their products! http://yoobi.com/