Long time, no post! I know this is long overdue!

Well I think the title says it all! I do have a TON to share but I promise I make it worth your while at the end of the post! Wink! Wink!

Since we (Mark and I) went on our house buying adventure, my spare time has been nonexistent. Between packing, moving, unpacking, and kinda decorating, there has been no time for creating units or blogging. Also, as all of you know, there is still the family birthday's, holidays and planned activities that still pop up when life seems to be out of control. So, I thought I would share some pictures of our home with you all of you. I hope this helps make you all feel not so abandoned! =)

Here is our kitchen and family room area. This was the weekend before our walk through, so Mark was inspecting EVERYTHING! I had to go to our walk through without him so he was making sure I knew the house like the back of my hand. =)

 

This was our home Easter morning the day after we moved in. I Know....it was a mess! Also I don't recommend moving during a holiday. The only thing that is were it needed to be was our new sectional! lol! Those are the dinning room chairs to the left! AAHHHH.... I cringe when I look at this photo.
This is the most updated photo I have of our family room! All the boxes are finally unpacked in this room. We still have to hang photos and things.  Overall, I am just excited to have a clear walkway!

Here is our kitchen! I am very proud of our teamwork here! Mark and I put up the back splash ourselves! I still need things for the top of the cabinets but I have to say, this room is coming along!

Last here is a look at our front porch and sidewalk! I am really excited about our little lights that lead up to the door!

Now onto school things! We have been knee deep in all things superhero and super villain! This unit has been a blast and a much needed distraction for me! The kids got so into this year and their stories came out really great. I have a few pictures to show you of the things we have been working on.

This is the superhero party. I got little red table decorations from the dollar store as well as superhero gummies for each student.  They also had a label to color for either their "Drink of Doom" or "Justice Juice"!

Then we set up the different cereal for the students to make their "super" mix! I have to say that this was sooo cheep and the kids ATE IT UP!

I found black and white boxes for the kids to put their super mix in and then I printed signs that I tapped over each cereal so they had a superhero or super villain name! They thought this was awesome and I have to admit it did look pretty cute! This cereal is Mind Control POPS!

The cereal you see here is Rings of Power and Good Vs. Evil Pieces. I had to make a cereal that had something to do with good vs. evil. They were OBSESSED with it. When we began writing our stories I had to post all the villain's names as well as the superhero's names so that they could put each other in their stories! I am telling you they took this very serious! lol! I loved every minute of it too.

The cereals you see here are Superpower Crunch and Cocoa Kryptonite!  All the bowls and scoops were from the Dollar Store as well! It was such a cheap party!  I don't think I spent more then $20 on everything. Now time to show off some of their finished master pieces!

Here is a few pictures of their projects! I didn't realize how many super villain pictures I took! I will have to go back and take some more of my students who chose to be superheroes! I do have to let you know that it didn't matter if they were a villain or a hero, they were just super excited to do this unit! They could not wait to write their stories.

If you are interested in this unit you can get it here! I have made a Superhero unit as well as the Superhero craftivity. The unit offers clarifying strategies and tools that are not pictured in the photos above. If you are looking for what is pictured above then click on the second image. If you want all things to do with superheroes then click on the first image! However, I will let you know that I have updated the unit with 38 new pages of materials!  So if you have already purchased the unit or just the craftivity you need to download a new version! Just click on the product covers to head over to my TpT store.

This one is for the Superhero unit.

This one is for the Superhero craftivity.

Also keep in mind that there is awesome text for a read aloud that goes along with this unit. You don't have to have it, but it really helps make their stories come alive and start the unit off with lots of excitement! You can click on the book covers below and they will take you to the Amazon listing! I know I have said this before but both books were written by a child author named Rachel Yu! Just another way to reinforce writing in the classroom!

Alright on to the next SUPER activity! So after our stories we learned about alliteration! Words that start with he same letter, a lot like tongue twisters! So keeping with our super theme I read a book by Bob McLeod. If you are interested in this one too, just click on the image of the book cover! It's great, he has made up his very own superheroes and has alliteration for go with each letter of the alphabet! This was another great read aloud!

 Here are some pictures of the pages my students are creating! Yep, we are making our own ABC Superhero/Villain Alliteration class book!

Dinatickus-Man destroys dinosaurs with his dynamite and dangerous claws!

The Highflying Hockey Heroine hits hockey pucks high and has a hot pink hat to hide her horrible hair!

The Lucky Liar loves to lie while laughing loudly and likes to launch lots of liquid from lemons!

The Marvelos Mega Muncher, munches everything in his marvelous path and he has mysterious magnets on his mind while munching a marvelous mega muffin and marshmallows! His sidekick: Mischievous Monkey! I love this one!

S-Hero has spider sidekicks to search in sewers with his super silver shield! His thought bubble says, "soup, spaghetti, sandwiches....lunch!"

Didn't they turn out so cute?? I haven't put the book together yet, so I will post a finished book when it is all laminated and together! If you are interested in this unit you can pick up a copy by click the image below!

Okay, I know this is a
kindavery long post but I have one more thing to share with you! In math we have been working on estimation! One of my teammates shared this idea with me about nice and naughty numbers. So I made some cute little number characters to help teach our lesson.

Here is how it works! Nice numbers are the numbers one through four. Their job is to let the first number rest or stay the same. Let's try one! Take the number 54. The 4 in the one's place is a nice number so that means the first number can rest while he changes to zero. Now the number becomes 50! He was nice and he did all the changing!

Well you are probably wondering about the rest of the numbers.... five through nine, well they are all naughty numbers! Let's try one more! This time say the number is 68. Well you are in trouble now because the number in  the one's place is an eight and that is a naughty number! He doesn't like being the only one changing so he makes the first number change too! That means the first number has to change up one to become a seven and he changes into a zero! Now you have the number 70!

Now you do still have to teach your students about the different rounding rules when deciding if the number rounds to the nearest 10, 100 or 1,000! But after that, estimating the sums and differences is a snap! Say the question wants the best estimate for the sum of 54 and 68! Well now all they have to do is add 50 + 70 = 120!

Since I have been MIA for such a long time..... I posted this as a little freebie in my TpT store! You can click on the product cover below! I hope you enjoy this! My kids loved it!! There are teaching posters, small and larger number character cards as well as response sheets for you to assess your students! I included everything for free!!

I hope everyone is enjoying school as much as I have been! Again I feel really bad about not posting for such a long time, so before I go, I wanted to let you know that I will be putting all of my superhero themed lessons on sale for 20% off until MIDNIGHT tonight! So if you haven't picked up a copy of these units you can today! Have a super week!