Life updates (& why I've been MIA!)

For weeks I have been telling myself "today is the day I am going to open my computer and jump back into blogging and TPT and creating things for my little firsties"...and for weeks I just haven't been ready!
Here's why--

On December 2, after a week and a half of early labor, my husband and I welcomed the most perfect little boy into the world. I could not have ever imagined a sweeter, snugglier, more calm and better baby. Little Kole has been the best addition to our family and I have jut been soaking in all of his sweetness!
He has already grown and changed so much in his almost 6 weeks here on earth and I have loved watching every moment! And so every time I thought I was ready to open my computer back up, I would just get distracted by his sweet little cheeks and perfect little toes and would just need "one more day" off. Even now I am sitting here typing with one hand while my little Kole is snuggled up in my other arm because when he wants to be snuggled, nothing else in the world is more important than that!

I have 4 more weeks of daytime naps and endless snuggles before I go back to school. And I have to admit, I'm scared. I can't imagine going so many hours without having my baby in my arms and the idea of anyone else getting to watch him grow all day every day makes this momma cry every time! So I'm calling out to all of you who have done it and survived--advice, encouragement, empathy-I'll take any and all of it!

And just because I can't keep so much cuteness to myself--here are some of my favorite moments from the last few weeks with my little man!!

 

 

 

If you love his sweet little face as much as I do, hop over to my Instagram to check out even more precious moments! Thanks for sticking with my through my time off the grid-I'm not promising consistent posts, but as long asI can type with one hand, I promise I'm trying to get back in the swing of things! :)

Currently....November!

I'm excited to link up today with Farley over at Oh Boy 3rd Grade for another Currently link-up!

It is hard to believe that it is already November! This month is so exciting for so many reasons! 

Listening- Yesterday I didn't get any house work done AT ALL which means that today is full of catching up on dishes and laundry and cleaning. 

Loving- My baby is due on December 14 which means that I can now officially say he will be here next month!! I know these next few weeks are going to fly by and I am so excited that he is almost here! 

Thinking- Now that we have gotten the majority of the nursery put together, it's time for me to figure out how to fit baby stuff into the rest of the house! First step-figuring out where in the world I am going to fit all the baby bottles and dishes! 

Wanting- Wouldn't it be nice if daylight savings gave us an extra day in the weekend instead of just an extra hour? After such an insanely long week last week (Red Ribbon Week, full moon, Halloween, picture day, parent/teacher conference week, PTO trick or treat AND my hard drive crashing) I could DEFINITELY use an extra day to catch up! 

Needing- I truly wish I had a personal shopper that I could send out with my grocery list! The list is made and the coupons are in a pile, but I just hate going to the store! 

Yummy- I'm going with the idea that the faster I eat all of the Halloween goodies, the faster they will be gone and I can go back to eating healthy, right?! :) 

Pumpkins and Spiders and Halloween, oh my!

We are in full fall mode in our little first grade class and I am L-O-V-I-N-G it!!!!

My little ones have been working so hard and I have seen so much growth from them already this year! 

We have been loving digging into some fun Halloween activities and I wanted to share them with you!

My firsties are Halloween OBSESSED! Having some fun with Halloween math has been the best motivation for them to crank out some work! 

We have practiced number bonds... 

and read all about spiders using our witches fingers

and made these precious little Frankensteins!

We wrote precious sight word sentences with some awesome Dollar Tree stickers

and LOVED spelling our sight words with skeleton bones! 

This week we are working on some awesome Spookley the Square Pumpkin Activities and I am just trying to survive a full week of crazy Red Ribbon Week activities!!As great as all the Halloween themed fun has been, I have to admit that I am a little ready for my kiddos to calm it back down a few notches. (At least for a day or two until they get excited all over again about Thanksgiving themed fun!!)

What are some of your favorite Halloween activities?! 

Currently... October!

One of my goals for the month of October is to get back into blogging more frequently and linking up for some awesome linky parties!
I always love reading everyone's Currently posts and I'm excited to post my own this month!

Fall means cool weather and new seasons of favorite shows and football! Wishing I lived closer to Target (the closest to me in AN HOUR AWAY!) so I could obsessively shop fall decorations! And I am loving the constant baby kicks and movements from my little man-can't wait to snuggle him in my arms-10 weeks to go!  

Five For Friday! (And thank goodness it's finally Friday!!!)

Has it been the longest week in the world for anyone else?! I am so excited for this Five for Friday post simply because I am SO GLAD it is finally Friday!!!

My little munchkins have LOVED playing our Ninja "I Have, Who has?" for a math warm-up this week! Just this simple game has helped some of my kiddos really learn their numbers to 120! There are only a few hours left for you to enter to win my Number Grid Ninjas pack- be sure to check it out now!!! 

**Winner has been chosen but you can still check out this pack on TpT for a great price! :) 

We have been working hard this week on some fun sight word centers! My class LOVES spelling their words with stickers! I was excited today when I did sight word test and every single one of my kiddos gained at least 3 new words this week! 

On the last day of every month, we fill out these data pages to track our growth from the month. My teacher heart was so happy to see some of the growth that my kiddos made in just one month! Check out this sweet baby's progress-I was so proud of him!!

Last week I shared about our new growing tower that I received through a STEM grant. We were so excited to see some of our plants sprouting up so fast! These are eventually going to be peppers! The kids are obsessed with checking out the sprout every morning as soon as they get into the classroom and I love how excited they are about it! 

 I love the Dollar Tree! This week I found some great things that I plan on using for some fun October math centers-spiders and bats and monster eyes galore! Be sure to come back next week to see how we are using all of these goodies! I also bought all of the awesome magnetic white boards that they had-I was in need of some new ones for sight word small groups and I think these are going to be perfect! 

Thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderful weekend! 

Five for Friday!

Hey everyone! It has been a week full of SO MANY THINGS and I'm excited to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for another awesome Five for Friday!

Last week we finished up solving The Case of the Messy Alphabet and so this week we were excited to start our new daily language detective case- The Case of the Sloppy Sentences! My kiddos are loving practicing capitalization, punctuation, and finger spacing and it is awesome to see how hard they will work on it just so that they can be good detectives! 

 

We have been going NINJA crazy in math this week! I posted yesterday about all of the fun ninja activities we have been doing and you should most definitely check out my post because it includes a contest with a chance to win my brand new Number Grid Ninjas pack! Here's a look at some of the fun we have been having! :) 

I am on our school's STEM committee. Over the summer we applied for a STEM grant in order to purchase a few growing towers for the school. We got approved for the grant and placed our order and finally got our growing towers this week! My kiddos were so excited about such a fun new thing in our classroom and I can't wait for all the awesome science learning that we will be able to use it for! We planted seeds for some vegetables today and the kiddos were in love! 

My awesome momma has an embroidery/ heat press business and made my entire team some awesome new shirts! We loved wearing them today-dress down days are my favorite now that my comfiest pants are my maternity jeans! :) 

I am in my third trimester now and finally have a sweet baby bump! This little munchkin is growing bigger and bigger every day and I am actually really loving having a bigger bump! I ordered some awesome maternity clothes from Pinkblush maternity and have loved having a belly big enough to wear them! I can't believe that our little man will be here in 11 weeks!!! 

Hope you have all had a lovely Friday! Don't forget to stop by and enter my contest to win some fun ninja math!! :) 

Number Grid Ninjas!!

We have had SUCH a fun week in first grade! We've have been learning our numbers ninja-style all week and I am so excited to share it all with you! Stick with me through the post for your chance to win all of these awesome activities!

My kiddos are OBSESSED with ninjas. They love the ninja KooKoo Kangaroo GoNoodle and they love books about ninjas and they have love love loved all of these new ninja math activities. Take a look!

My little ones are in love with mystery pictures! We had a great time using cue cards in independent mystery picture centers! I was pretty impressed with how their little ninjas turned out! 

 

A few of my little ones BEGGED me to get to fill out numbers on number grids-something that I was having to BEG them to do just last week-ninja power!

We have also loved playing number grid ninja games all week! For this activity, students received number grid boards and glued ninjas to different numbers of their choice. I collected all of their boards and then re-distributed them throughout the class and then my little math geniuses used whiteboards to write down the numbers that the ninjas were hiding! The pack also includes a version of this game where the boards are pre-made with answer cards for use as a math center! 

Something about being able to tell my kiddos that they need to practice "counting like ninjas" has been magical this week. They have worked quieter, harder, and more excitedly on all kinds of counting activities this week and it has been so exciting for me to see the progress that they have made as a result! Here are a few of the counting activities that we have enjoyed this week. 

Wanna know the best news about this Number Grid Ninjas pack?! I am so excited about it that I want to give one pack away! There are so many more exciting things that this pack has to offer (over 100 pages of math ninja greatness) and I hope that you will love it all as much as I do! The contest runs until Friday next week, so be sure to enter to win!!! Good luck! :)  

**GIVEAWAY CLOSED**