Life is Good

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Congratulations to Karyn! You will be receiving an email from me :) 

Does anyone own a Life is Good bag? I recently got this one and love it.

 If you're a teacher you, of course, own oodles of bags and they all have it's own purpose. This bag I found is perfect for picking up my reserved books from the library and carrying home my binders, notebooks, and papers for grading over the weekend. It's very durable, spacious and high quality. There is a nice little zipper pocket on the inside too which I can store pens and pencils. 

Life is Good Giveaway!

How would you like a $50 gift certificate to Life is Good?! It's easy and you can have up to 7 entries :) A winner will be chosen next Saturday. Good luck!

  a Rafflecopter giveaway

Classroom Pictures!

Summer, where did you go?! I can't believe I'm heading into my 5th year of teaching this September. This is the first year I'm not moving rooms which is exciting, but still needed to paint and give it a makeover!

 Here is my library area. Isn't the mural amazing? I have the best husband ever, and he reminds me every day ;) 

 Word wall! These can be downloaded here. 

Here is my calendar area. The bags contain all the things for the month (holiday cards, birthdays, thematic date numbers, etc.). You can read a little more about it here on my best friend and colleague's blog!

Here is a previous post about my magnetic pig! Scroll to the bottom of this entry.

Here is my little technology nook. I have a laptop and Kindle. This is mostly for "listening" choice in Daily 5, free time, and math centers. Oh, and husband refurnished the table set. Did I mention he's pretty handy and amazing?

This is my job chart. I contemplated doing something different this year, but the kids just LOVE seeing their heads on those bodies. You can see it in action in this previous post. 

I LOVE the blue door.. I put our character education traits on it. 

Just waiting for my super cute tables to arrive and I'm ready to go!

Word Work in K-1

I use Daily 5 and love the program. One of my most popular blogging segments was how I use Daily 5 in my classroom (click Daily 5 on the right hand side under topics to view all of them). When I moved to kindergarten I had to change up word work a little bit to make it more appropriate and meaningful for the little guys. This year I'm teaching a K-1 classroom so I will have a mix of kindergarten students and first graders. Luckily I only have 15 students so this is certainly manageable :)

I specifically made this product for my incoming K's last year who were not able to recognize or write all of the letters in the alphabet. I actually laminated them to not waste as much paper and added it as a word work choice. I also occasionally sent them home as homework to the kiddos who were still struggling with certain letters. 

This is going to be my newest addition to word work. For the K kiddos and first graders who have mastered the alphabet it's now time for them to become fluent and comfortable with sight words. I'm not going to have all 220 of the Dolch sight words in at once. I plan on changing them out as I see necessary as to not overwhelm them. 

The kiddos are going to love this choice because they get to manipulate with letters and use a dry erase marker. Anything that requires a dry erase marker is a win for these little guys! 

Then I'll still have my usual choices in word work (click to see pictures) bins that they either practice with spelling words (if applicable) or word wall words: 

-Rainbow writing with colored pencils, crayons, or markers

-Stamping

-Clothespin letters

-Tracing the ABCs (beginning of the year only or for students who still need the practice)

-Chalk and mini chalkboard

-Dry erase marker and small dry erase boards from Target

Anyone have any other cool word work ideas?

Classroom Friendly Supplies

My good ol' electric sharpener made it through the end of the school year. By June it was only sharpening about 5 at a time before the motor would tire out and shut down (sounds like most teachers in June!). My pal Laura at Love to Teach told me about the Classroom Friendly Sharpener. Intrigued, I went on and placed my order that night! A few days later it came in the mail and I excitedly ripped open the box and unwrapped my new, shiny tool! 

And by golly it did exactly what it advertised! It sharpened these suckers with no hassle and boy are those tips pointy. I cannot wait to bring it into the classroom in September and see if withstands to 15 K-1's! 

$50.00 Winner...........

Congrats Karen from Flamingo Fabulous in Second Grade!! You won the $50.00 MPM School Supply gift card! You should be receiving your code from MPM within the next day or two :)

As a consolation prize, here is a 10% discount code you can use! 

Thanks for entering!! Happy end of the year :)

50.00 giveaway!!!

Who is already thinking about next year?! GUILTY! I have teamed up with MPM School Supplies to give away a $50.00 gift certificate to spend on whatever you want from their site! If you remember my post from October, I got a bunch of goodies and spent only $25.00!

Here is how to enter and you have up to 5 chances to win! Please leave a separate comment for each entry!

1. Visit MPM's website and comment with something you'd love to have!

2. Like me on Facebook

3. Follow my TpT store

4. Like MPM's Facebook

5. Share my giveaway on your blog or FB page

The giveaway will end next Tuesday at 4PM Eastern. Good luck and happy shopping :D

Spring has Sprung Freebie!

It has been gorgeous in NY!! Love the 70* weather and it looks like it's going to stick around for a little bit longer :)

Here is a cute spring craft I did with my kinders. You can download it for free here. 

Kindergarten Screening Inventory Assessment

It's that time of year... you know, where we start thinking about next year!!

I finished working on my screening inventory that I am going to use to assess my incoming kinder kids. It can also be used in the beginning of the year (and even throughout!) if you don't have the luxury of meeting your students before the first day of school. 

I tried it out on a couple of pre-k students that I will have next year, tweaked it a little, and voila! You can get it here or here! 

Earth Day Freebie

Happy Earth Day!! You can download this freebie here :) 

Also, had to share.... definitely a great way to start the week :) This one is a keeper!

Field Trip Reflection

On Friday The Sara Marie School took their first field trip on the bus. Can you say EXCITED?! We went to see "The Dinosaur Petting Zoo" at The Egg in Albany. It was a fun hour long show. The dinosaurs were very realistic puppets. I think it's safe to say there were no criers! Except for *that one* student who can't handle not getting called to go on stage. Field trip = success and 2 tired teachers! 

When we returned to school we had lunch, recess, Spanish, then about 15 minutes to kill before free time. I whipped together this cute little reflection form that you can download for free here. 

Have a great week! We might hit 70 degrees here in NY! 

Office Make-over

I'm blogging from my new and improved office :)

Before shot. 

I *LOVE* the grey/yellow color combo. I still have a few more things to do with it. I have to fill those nice, empty shelf spaces with my teacher junk that you can't see piled up on the other side of the photo and oozing out of my closet! I also want to pick out a fabric to wrap my desk in and my husband is making me this Pinterest-inspired art piece. 

This office make-over is supposed to encourage me to actually use it and get back into blogging and creating super awesome resources again!! 

Anyone else's Spring Break ending tonight??! I'll leave you with this adorable photo to ease the Sunday night blues :)

And yes, I get *crazy-cat-lady* stares when kitty litter is on sale at Price Chopper while my husband walks behind me and pretends to not know me. ;)

And the winner is.......

Yvonne!! Email me to claim your prize :)  

durntm@gmail.com

Amazon Gift Card and Easter Unit Giveaway!

I was going to do a giveaway when I reached 1,000 followers, so now that I'm a little over a 1,000.... here it goes!! :)

There are several ways to enter, so please comment separately!

1. Follow my blog and comment

2. Follow my TpT store and comment 

3. Like Ms. Durning-Leander's Fairytale on Facebook and comment

4. Blog about my giveaway and comment with the link

5. Give my giveaway a shout out on your FB page and comment 

That's 5 chances to win!!! I'll announce a winner this Friday evening. Good luck :) 

A Look at February

Wow, February is over already?! February was a very busy month with Valentine's Day, 100th Day, Dental Health Month, and Winter Break. Here are some fun things we did in kindergarten. 

 I did my usual 100th Day t-shirt project. I am a pizza this year!! My husband gets full credit for that brilliant idea. 

I gave the kids the numbers 1, 0, and 0 and told them to make a picture from it. These are some of the creative portraits the kiddos made:

  A puppy!

  A butterfly!

Love <3

Also happening in February was Dental Health Month. Here are some of the fun projects we did:

We learned what enamel, dentin, and pulp are and how we feel pain. 

 "Whose smile is it?" bulletin board. Parents (and students!) loved guessing which smile was theirs! 

 And look at those adorable marshmallow teeth!

Now that February is over, I'm getting all my St. Patrick's Day and Easter centers out! If you haven't checked them out, they are on sale this month :)

And news on the school........ 

It's been an exhilarating and crazy couple of months at The Sara Marie School. We had our first Emerald Ball which was a great success. Here is a picture of me and another one of the co-founders Joanna from Love for Early Learners.