Work Hard, Play Hard, & Be Kind

Happy summertime teacher friends!!! I hope you had a fabulous school year.  I'm so giggly to be able to share a new freebie with you.  But first a little backstory...

Like many campuses, every year my school selects a building theme.  This past year we chose a game theme and our slogan was "Work Hard, Play Hard, & Be Kind!" 

Our team does a wonderful job decorating and our students always love coming back to see what we've done with the building.  The foyer was decorated to match our theme announcement and each grade level hallway decorated in a specific game!

school foyer

(excuse the blur...bleh!)

Now the goodies...

I love, love, love the way our staff works together.  We have an awesome rapport!  One tradition that we implement, every year, is Affirmation Bags.  Each staff member has a bag that we place in the lounge or bring to faculty meetings to be filled with kind notes from other staff members.  It's amazing.  Somehow you always seem to have your "bucket filled" with just the right note on just the right day! Of course our affirmation bag has to match our theme for the year.  Check out our game themed bags that I made this year!

Striped bags from Amazon.

 I just love the way they turned out!

You can snag the editable labels in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store. 

Math Flashcard "Monstage"...with Freebie!

Well earlier this year I posted here about storing word wall flashcards into our daily binders.  After cleaning out my own first grader's binder, I realized that I never posted the math flashcard pics and printable!!! This one actually took me awhile to figure out. I knew that I wanted to use the super cute alien/monster duck tape.  I also wanted to figure out how to incorporate the word monster or alien into the label.  The results....

So I did have to explain to my firsties what a montage was, in order for them to pick up on the "mon-stage" reference.  I really don't think they were as concerned at that point with the words as much as they loved the super cool duck tape! giggles

The labels turned out too fun!

(Graphics & Fonts by: Springhill Graphics, Kevin & Amanda)

Of course you can grab your own set of labels by clicking here!! They are made to fit Avery 5163. 

If you've got another fun idea for a play on the word monster, alien, or space that would work for flashcard storage...I'd love to see your comments. Perhaps I can re-vamp for next year!

Word Wall "Stache" Freebie...

Well you know with all of the fabulous Duck Tape prints available it was only a matter of time before I got my glittery hands onto a few packages! It's been super fun creating a handful of projects with the tape lately.  I'm lovin' my newest Pinterest inspired project with the adorable mustache tape...

Each week we (First Grade Teachers) send home a page of flashcards for students to cut out and keep for word wall word practice.  Until this year, we've just kind of crossed our fingers and envisioned that every child kept a plastic bag of flashcards at home in their quiet homework spot...giggles!!! So, this year we decided to add a spot in their Daily Take Home Binder to "stache" the flashcards. Perfect opportunity to use the "stache" tape.

First, I printed matching labels...

and attached the Duck Tape and labels to a quart sized plastic baggie.

Then I punched holes using our electric 3 hole punch (1 bag at a time) and added them to Take Home Binders. tadaaaa!!! Love!

Click HERE for your free copy of the "Stache" labels!!!

Happy taping!!

Aaarrre you ready for a giveaway?

I am so excited to be teamed up with 3rd Grade's a Hoot for a Pirate sized give-away!! We are celebrating her 1000th follower with a treasure full of pirate themed goodies!! Check out the loot...

From 3rd Grade's a Hoot:

Pirate Classroom Decorative Set

Pirate Behavior Clip Chart

Pirate Word Wall Labels

From 1st Grade Glitter & Giggles (me!)

Pirate Leveled Library Labels

Pirate Writing Process Sign Set

Pirate Writer's Eye Set

2 Winners will be chosen for this one! Contest ends Friday.

 Click here to visit her blog and enter to win!!!





New Zebra Leveled Labels!!

As you can see from the previous post we were allowed back into our classrooms early this summer.  It was very rare. My campus is usually the last one on the cleaning/floor tour for the district.  This summer we were moved to first! Some of my teacher besties and I totally took advantage! Laptops in tow, a Cherry Dr. Pepper in hand, and lots of giggles along the way we spent multiple days prepping our spaces. We had a great time helping each other out and sharing ideas. 

One of my most re-pinned classroom pictures on Pinterest is my leveled library from the Where It All Goes Down Post from last summer. The boxes are from Really Good Stuff (Wow my classroom has changed a bit since then!)...

On to my point...

One of my teammates has a jungle themed room and asked if I could make leveled labels to match her theme and color scheme.  I was so excited to see how they turned out and I LOVE them! (The white buckets are ice buckets from Walmart!)

You can check them out in my Teachers Pay Teachers store!

Sneak Peak (well really it's a sneak read?!?)...in the works for 1st Grade Glitter and Giggles...I'm pairing up with 3rd Grade's a Hoot for a Pirate sized giveaway!!

A Few Things...

Just dropping by for a quick post about a few assorted items! Wow, what a busy year we are already off to. My class has done a nice job at getting their first grade year started and my new team is learnin' the ropes. Hopefully, we are almost to a point where I can give this blog a little bit of TLC. (Just need to get passed my formal observation tomorrow!)

There are a few items that I'd like to take the time to touch on today.

Thank you so much to my BFF Misty at 3rd Grade's a Hoot for honoring my glittery little blog with a Top 10 Blog Award.  I jumped into the game a bit late and many of my faves, well deservedly so, have already been awarded. There are so many wonderful blogs out there and multiple that I "borrow" ideas from. I am so grateful to you all.

I've also added a couple of new items to my TPT store that I'd like to share.  Several have asked about the book bin labels shown in my classroom library on my "Where It All Goes Down" post.  Take a look!

And for all of you Owl Lovers out there...check out my Owl Focus Wall Headers!!



I'm really trying to pace my time between lesson plans, creating for my kiddos, pinning, blogging, and making sure that my little kinder princess and her teacher have everything that they need. It's all SOOO MUCH FUN! Let me know if there is any glitter or giggles that I can send your way.  Enjoy the rest of your week!

Label Love!

Well I'm up for 2 big reading changes in my class this year. 1 is implementing the Daily 5 and 2 is switching from using Fountas Pinnell leveling to DRA. Sooo....one thing HAD to happen...I needed to take a look at my classroom library!! The switch had been going smoothly until it was time to show the level for each book in my library.  I have several hand-me-down books and some are already leveled with handwritten letters so these would need to be covered! I just couldn't find any leveling methods or products that matched the decor or the style of the rest of my room. TIME TO CREATE!! I'm loving the new labels that I made! Just perfect! If you are interested, the labels and instructions are available on my TpT store. Here is a little sneak peak...

       



I am lovin these labels!!!

I also have a set of Matching Literacy Genre Headers!! 

I'm all over the polka dots this year. Giggles!