Getting ready to go back to school? Enjoy a few back to school FREEBIES, ideas, favorite back to school must haves, and enter a giveaway for a $10 TPT gift card! When school approaches, I scour the local dollar stores to collect bins, bins, and more bins for the classroom. I find I use them for everything! Some ideas are turn in bins for work, scrap bins for the artsy days, and to hold our library books since it’s one less item in their desk. I also love to plan out my week with a bin to hold the work for each day of the week. Did you know that you can order from the Dollar Store online and they deliver it to your local store? So easy! For my book bins, I love to label them. If you’re looking for some great labels, check out the Editable Labes in my TPTstore. Here’s a sample of some of the labels in my Ultimate Edition. Additional themed and solid color labels as available as well. I also create custom labels- just ask! Bee Theme Solid Colors Zoo Theme Purple Labels When students enter on the first day, I find it helpful to have a coloring sheet or something for kids to do while I’m collecting supplies. Enjoy these FREE Welcome to Our Class Coloring Sheets. There are sheets for Pre-K through Third Grade and a generic Welcome to Our Class! My favorite back to school item: Paper-mate Mechanical Pencils with 1.3 lead Seriously a game- changer for those who hate goinbg through pencils at a ridiculous rate. They are always sharp and kids never want to lose their fancy pencil! My a-ha moment and new must have: Click here to find out how to make glue sponges for your class! Now for the fun part! Enter for a chance to win a $10 Tpt card to get you started for the new school year! Have a great one! a Rafflecopter giveaway

All designs are original. Unless otherwise stated. Available as paper, matte vinyl and glossy laminated vinyl. All stickers are die cut with easy peel off. Every order comes with a small freebie :) Please note that shipping does not include tracking. All stickers are sent through stamped mail. Follow me on Instagram @nocturne_undertones and on TikTok @nocturne_undertones to stay updated on sales, giveaways, and new product releases. Got any questions? Please feel free to message me at any time. I will reply as soon as I can. All of my stickers are handmade and I create every product with love. Since everything is handmade please allow for some differences between the description pictures and the actual product. *FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR REPRODUCTION OR RESALE *PLEASE NOTE THAT THE FREEBIE MAY OR MAY NOT BE MY ORIGINAL WORK. I'm not profiting from the freebie and it is only sent as a thank you to my customers. All credit goes to the original creator/s.

The Middle Ages and Medieval time period is so fascinating and kids really enjoy learning about it in history studies.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned in THIS post how I would be taking a giant step forward in “stepping up” my sight word instruction this upcoming year. Not that I need to “teach” sight words any differently, but offer continuous and hands on ways for my kiddos to practice them. Another area I will be offering...

Worms play an important part in healthy soil and kids love them. They will have alot fun with these free printables and worksheets about earthworms.

{Shameless plug for my GIVEAWAY} Sorry! But, here's a freebie for enduring it. My team and I had to teach "Sequence in Research" last week. Really? How do you do that? Remember funny co-worker {the Gone With the Wind one}, she suggested that we complete research on famous African Americans for Black History month. Then, we could use this to help them sequence their report. Brilliant! We began our research by going to several websites including Biography.com and Factmonster.com. Both were very valuable resources. Especially Factmonster. This week, we are using the information we gathered to create a three paragraph biography. The information has been great. I wanted a culminating activity that we can hang in the room {and take down the Conversation Heart stories...those pieces of candy are starting to look gross...}. So, this afternoon I created this poster so that my students can complete it while I'm gone {AGAIN} at another in-service tomorrow. The document on TpT and TN does not have a gray background. I only did that to be able to show you on here. I took a screen capture of it. Is that the best way to do this? If you are loading documents, how do you load a picture? Do you have another method? I'd love advice, so comment below everyone!

Hey everyone, I hope you're all having a great Thursday. I'm happy to announce my GIVEAWAY winners! Congrats to Crystal and Marybeth! Thanks to EVERYONE who commented! I've been making some practice sheet here and there for different things and haven't got around to posting them. So I thought I'd post them now. This is very random and I hope you can use them either now or next year. I used these to introduce 'How to Writing'. They are also a great sequencing review. Click HERE to download. We've been working on counting to 120. So here are a few practice sheets. There are 4 'Fill Ins' and 4 'Start and Stop'. Click HERE to download. This is a little game I re-made. Now it goes to 120. My kiddos LOVE playing it. Click HERE to download. Thanks for stopping by. I hope you've found something you can use in your classroom. Come back tomorrow for news of my upcoming SUPERBOWL SALE!

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I'm not sure why I am surprised that it is Saturday ALREADY! I say it every time I have a week off... "where did the time go??" At the beginning of the week I think I have all the time in the world and then POOF... gone. Today we have an egg hunt and egg decorating on the agenda .. my husband has been prepping my son to find the "golden" egg. I'll hopefully have some pics to share next time. :) I wanted to quick share two "new" products. I put new in quotes because the first one I had on my blog as an idea and now it is all ready to go as a product! :) I've used this in my classroom all year and my students LOVE them! Plus it just looks super cute any time of the year! If you don't have brain breaks in your classroom yet, this little diddy would be perfect for you! It's easy to make, the breaks are SUPER QUICK to do, and it will get you out of the last 2 month rut! :) This is only $2 AND it is on sale right now! :) See it HERE Next up... This little pack is full of surprises! It even surprised me!! hehe... It has math, reading, writing (common core aligned) and some "fun" sheets too! Here is a look at some of the pages: Addition facts and money coloring Money match with alike and unlike coins- you can mix and match! There are 3 non-fiction reading passages! I love this one! :) And some FUN too! I can't wait to start using everything in this one Check it out HERE:) Oh and it is on sale too!! :) Which leads me to.... Sale ends tomorrow night! EVERYTHING is on sale... even all the new stuff! I also have a freebie for you that I hope you can use... This would make a super cute spring center or just a fun cut and paste activity (I have this in grayscale too!) Click HERE to get it. (if you do grab a copy pretty please leave me some feedback love!) Remember that gigantic sale I had a few posts ago? Well it ends TONIGHT!! Time to get in those last minute entries!! Finally, I will be giving away TWO of my new products- it will be your choice of either the brain breaks OR the Spring Surprises Pack!! Just leave a comment, tell me which you would like to win, and add your email! I will choose someone TONIGHT (10 pm central time- sorry to my email readers but this is a quick giveaway!). Have a GREAT day today and Happy Easter! Future posts: Huge giveaway winner and FUN with FLUENCY!! This will be several posts and lots of ideas!! :)

This afternoon I spent probably 30 minutes pinning items. Well, every time I do that I think I hit the refresh button 100 times. If you are a blogger or on TPT, you know you do it too. There is nothing more thrilling than seeing how many times one of your pins get repinned. It is a little geeky, but in my world names like Deanna Jump and Jenaya Shaw mean more to me than Kobe Bryant or Jennifer Anniston. Sure, those people are great, but I'd rather have a repin by one Deanna or Jenaya over an autograph any day. Now, if you are like me, while pinning you feel like you are looking through someone's photo album. You see the beautiful wedding pictures, the family dinners, the candid shots, and then their "What were they thinking?" shots. There are tons and tons of things to pin or I wouldn't have managed to pin around 4,500 items in the last year. However, there are some pins that I can't understand. The main ones are the kid food pins. They are adorable, but really? For example, the owl pancakes. They are cute as can be, but do you guys want to eat bananas, Cheerios, chocolate chips, and a cashew on your pancakes? Bless the heart of the person who came up with it, but I don't understand. In my world the best pancakes just need butter, syrup, and a side of bacon. Alright, now that I've told you all about my Pinterest day, I have a few things to share with you. The first thing is some of my new freebies. I had TONS of people pin my compound sentence worksheet and my missing addend worksheet, so I'm guessing that most of us are wishing we had a few more resources for those specific standards. So, this morning I created two more. I used robot clip art because we are reading "My Robot" in a week or two. I thought these would compliment the story. The pictures are below the robot freebie, so if you like it, then click on the picture to go get it. One of my teammates also asked for something with three addends, so I whipped up a Robot Center. I am posting that one on TPT, so if you like it, you can click on one of the pictures, and go to my store to get it. It's also a freebie, so PLEASE, I'm begging you leave a girl some feedback (Specifically, this girl). Last week, I also volunteered to be a part of a couple of giveaways. I hadn't done any giveaways before, so I decided I better get with the program. Below are the giveaways that I have joined. You can click on the pictures to go join. Each of these giveaways got so many things donated that they broke the items down into grade levels K-2, 3-5, 6-8, etc. All of them have some awesome products, so I hope you will go check them out. Hope everyone gets some rest tonight and has a great day tomorrow!

I have been inspired by my 2.5 year old son's love and fascination with "Toy Story" lately to use my Mr. Potato Head as a classroom management tool. I don't use it often, and I certainly can't use it the whole year. It loses its novelty after that long. But I thought it would be perfect for the end of the year. It is novel. It is fun, and the end of the year is a little more laid back than ...March (standardized testing, dun-dun-dunh!). However, Mr. Potato Head has MANY uses in the classroom, and I wanted to share just a few of those with you. Some are my examples of how I use them, and others are from fellow Pinterest users (genius, how did we ever live without Pinterest?). Here are 7 uses for Mr. Potato Head in the classroom. (Make sure you read all the way to the end of this post. You might have a little surprise at the end!) 1. As mentioned, CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT (whole class) I like to bring him in and set him at the front of the class. Almost always, students are familiar with exactly what it is. I let them name him and then I explain how he will help us behave for x amount of time. This can be the last 20 days of school or the last 2 weeks before a holiday or break. You can use it at any time of the year. I've done this two ways - you can do a positive, add-on approach. Take off all the Mr. Potato Head pieces, put them all in a box or container and as the students earn behavior points each day for following the rules, being kind to one another, or just keeping it together before a holiday or break, I add one piece at the end of the class (or at the end of the day). Or you can do a take-away approach. You can deck Mr. Potato Head out in all that he can wear, and if he keeps all of his clothing, accessories, and parts, the class earns x reward. This can be a popcorn party, or even just an extra recess at the end of the day or the end of the week. The rewards must be geared towards your kiddos - do what works for them and motivates them! picture found here picture found here 2. CLASS MASCOT This is similar to the classroom management approach, except he's just a member of the class. You can have your kids name him, dress him, make accessories or signs for him. Use toothpicks and tape to hold signs to his hands. You can decorate him according to seasons or holidays. It's just an extra, fun way to encourage classroom community. He could even be a buddy to read to, or if you want at times, he can be a reward to sit on someone's desk for extra good behavior for a day or so. 3. LEARNING BODY PARTS For younger students, this is an excellent way to start labeling and spelling body parts. For older students, you could use this as a spelling/vocabulary activity. For example, they could find synonyms for "shirt" or "shoes". You could easily do a "shades of meaning" type of activity with this - you could have students find versions of clothing from casual to dressy. I created a very simple FREEBIE for you to use. You can get it here, or click on the picture. 4. BOOK DISPLAYS I saw an example of this on Pinterest. I even thought of the line "I'd give an arm and a leg for a good book!" (picture from Pinterest - Enokson on flickr.com) 5. 5 SENSES Younger children could learn the 5 senses and list something you do with each sense. Older children can write creatively using adjectives to describe what Mr. Potato Head (or Mrs.) might see, smell, taste, feel, and hear! I have found that teaching students to write a diamante poem is a great way to get them to express and describe the 5 senses creatively! picture found here 6. SEQUENCING You can take pictures of each step in "building" a Mr. or Mrs. Potato Head. Students could follow the steps and directions and complete it in a center. You could also take pictures of completed Potato Heads and have students "build" him/her and write down the steps/order they followed to build the Potato Head. picture found here 7. COLORING PAGES I wouldn't advise having students just color to color (well, maybe only a few times a year), but you could use coloring sheets to have students practice a variety of skills - sequencing, labeling, spelling, writing, etc. Also, if you are using a center like I listed in #6, you could have a coloring sheet as a follow-up activity. These could also be used as morning work. You could use them as an entrance or exit ticket, having students write a new word they learned or one of the 5 senses they've learned about. There are tons of coloring pages out there. You can Google it or search on Pinterest. Here are two I found. picture found here picture found here 8. HEALTH/FOOD UNIT If you teach health or food/nutrition, you could have students create a "Healthy Mr. Potato Head". Here is one example I found on Pinterest. picture found here 9. PARTY DECOR/END OF THE YEAR TREATS Ok, this was just cute. It's not necessarily academic. If you have a toy class theme or your kids like "Toy Story" or just Mr. Potato Head in general, this would be so cute. picture found here I hope you can use some of these in your classroom. If you want to enter to win a Mr. Potato Head, I'm giving one away. This is only a 24-HOUR GIVEAWAY, so if you want this little guy, don't wait! :) a Rafflecopter giveaway Thanks for stopping by! Don't forget to enter this week's Birthday Blowout giveaway. It's "BACK TO SCHOOL" themed products! You can enter that giveaway below. a Rafflecopter giveaway

Bible Story Printables from Old Testament stories like the story of Creation, Noah’s Ark, David and Goliath, Jonah and the Whale & more!

The Middle Ages and Medieval time period is so fascinating and kids really enjoy learning about it in history studies.

The job of a mail carrier is essential. Help your kids learn about and appreciate the role of mail carriers with these FREE Postman Printables and Crafts.

Did you know that Grasslands are located on every continent with the exception of Antarctica? Grasslands are similar to savannas and home to large herbivores, while savannas are home to herbivores and carnivores such as lions, leopards and cheetahs.Enjoy this list of printables and crafts to use in developing your own unit study:

Following the directions is a skill all kids must learn. Why not make it more fun with this FREE Follow the Directions Activity Pack? These printable worksheets will take them around the town, to animal habitats, through their own bodies, and more!

Are you studying the Middle Ages or Medieval/Renaissance Times in your history this year? Maybe your children are just fascinated with princesses, knights and dragons. I love finding printables to supplement what we are studying in our homeschool, or to help peak my children's interest in a specific subject.

Alphabet curriculum for the preschool and kindergarten classroom. Teachers can read about comprehensive alphabet curriculum and alphabet centers.

This afternoon I spent probably 30 minutes pinning items. Well, every time I do that I think I hit the refresh button 100 times. If you are a blogger or on TPT, you know you do it too. There is nothing more thrilling than seeing how many times one of your pins get repinned. It is a little geeky, but in my world names like Deanna Jump and Jenaya Shaw mean more to me than Kobe Bryant or Jennifer Anniston. Sure, those people are great, but I'd rather have a repin by one Deanna or Jenaya over an autograph any day. Now, if you are like me, while pinning you feel like you are looking through someone's photo album. You see the beautiful wedding pictures, the family dinners, the candid shots, and then their "What were they thinking?" shots. There are tons and tons of things to pin or I wouldn't have managed to pin around 4,500 items in the last year. However, there are some pins that I can't understand. The main ones are the kid food pins. They are adorable, but really? For example, the owl pancakes. They are cute as can be, but do you guys want to eat bananas, Cheerios, chocolate chips, and a cashew on your pancakes? Bless the heart of the person who came up with it, but I don't understand. In my world the best pancakes just need butter, syrup, and a side of bacon. Alright, now that I've told you all about my Pinterest day, I have a few things to share with you. The first thing is some of my new freebies. I had TONS of people pin my compound sentence worksheet and my missing addend worksheet, so I'm guessing that most of us are wishing we had a few more resources for those specific standards. So, this morning I created two more. I used robot clip art because we are reading "My Robot" in a week or two. I thought these would compliment the story. The pictures are below the robot freebie, so if you like it, then click on the picture to go get it. One of my teammates also asked for something with three addends, so I whipped up a Robot Center. I am posting that one on TPT, so if you like it, you can click on one of the pictures, and go to my store to get it. It's also a freebie, so PLEASE, I'm begging you leave a girl some feedback (Specifically, this girl). Last week, I also volunteered to be a part of a couple of giveaways. I hadn't done any giveaways before, so I decided I better get with the program. Below are the giveaways that I have joined. You can click on the pictures to go join. Each of these giveaways got so many things donated that they broke the items down into grade levels K-2, 3-5, 6-8, etc. All of them have some awesome products, so I hope you will go check them out. Hope everyone gets some rest tonight and has a great day tomorrow!

In case you couldn't tell, I am brand-spankin' new to the land of blogging. I've wanted to do it for years but never found the right purpose in my heart. Now, I definitely have stories, advice and insight to share as a Teacher, Christian, Wife and just plain ole' Human. So, to celebrate my beginning, I am sharing some of my products with you! Yep, that is right! My first 10 followers are going to get my newly-created Kindergarten Spring-Inspired Math & Literacy Packet! The entire list of pages included can be found here, on my TPT store: Spring-Inspired Math & Literacy Packet There are 20 pages in all and you can have them FOR FREE! Here is a preview of what is inside: Okay, the rules are simple: FOLLOW ME and IMMEDIATELY COMMENT on this post with your e-mail address. I'll email you the PDF and that is that! Super-easy, just the way I like things to be. :) Welcome to my World!! Thanks for reading! God Bless!!

Hey there and Happy Thursday aka officially one day into SPRING! Not sure what has been happening with weather lately but sure hoping “official spring” goes in our favor! Spring brings rain and thunde

Seilbahn-Wertmarken-Adventskalender - bei HANDMADE Kultur findest du schöne Ideen und kostenlose DIY Aleitungen zum Selbermachen.

If your older students love detective and mystery stories they will love learning about Sherlock Holmes.

It's that time of year again! Open House season is here and we are busily working on projects to share with our parents on our big night. One of the big projects my students will be working on is their Animal Diorama and Research Report. This was something I did for the first time last year, and it was a HIT! I got this idea after my son had to make a diorama for his first grade class last year. We had so much fun creating his animal diorama as a family project, that I decided it was something I had to do with my class too! I brought the idea up to my second grade team, and they were all very excited about it... so we went for it! We decided to give the assignment the week before STAR testing. Since we wouldn't be giving homework during the two weeks of testing, that would give students more time to research, gather materials, and work on their projects. Students had about three weeks to complete their projects. We decided to have the students bring in their completed dioramas the day before Open House. We were thrilled with the results! Here are a few student samples from last year: Along with this diorama project, our students will also be completing an Animal Research Report poster with information and illustrations, as well as a writing assignment and an oral presentation. Our students will be getting both a Science and Language Arts grade for this project. I'm offering my Animal Research Report poster as a FREEBIE on TpT! Here's a sneak peek: You can grab it here. Animal Research Report Poster If you're looking for everything needed to do this Animal Diorama project with your class, take a peek at my Animal Diorama and Research Report Project Pack! It's got everything you'll need in one convenient spot! Last year, I struggled to find examples of dioramas online to show my students, so I've included detailed photo samples of my own students' projects, as well as a step-by-step presentation for your students. Here's a preview of all of the goodies included in this project pack! In addition to the Animal Research Report Poster and step by step presentation for your students (which can be projected onto your Smartboard or other type of computer projector), I've also included a student-friendly rubric with grading expectations for all aspects of this project, as well as a grading rubric for teachers to use when giving final grades for this project, student instruction sheet, writing template for research report, and a presentation outline to help guide students on what to focus on for their oral presentation. It's everything I struggled to put together last year for this project in one convenient place!

Howdy peeps! Lindsay here . . . Well, I survived. Barely. Our school district had its first day of school yesterday, but at my scho...

Are you learning about the continents? Here is a fun word search to do with your elementary students.

Looking for some fun space themed printables? Get these unique constellation lacing cards and many other free printables from Mrs. Home Economist.

My preschooler just LOVES to cut and paste. It's a great way for her to learn. Check out these FREE Cut and Paste Printables and Ideas we've found for you!

Grab these free quadrilaterals activity pages for a hands-on way to explore geometry. You also can use these pages for a vocabulary unit to explore words like vertices, angles, parallel, and rhombus. The activity pack has various practice sheets, including several pages to help kids learn the differences and similarities between each quadrilateral (i.e. squares, rectangles, rhombuses, trapezoids, and parallelograms).

I found a magnet book at a garage sale one time and my kids loved looking at it and reading about how magnets work. I thought it would be fun to put together a unit study on magnets so I began my search online. Here are some of the fun things I found!

Free X-Ray Themed Printables

Hey y'all! This summer I've been reading the book Notice and Note: Strategies for Close Reading by Kylene Beers and Robert E. Probst (I'm sure you've heard of it or seen it floating around Pinterest). All I have to say is it is INSPIRING! At first it made me a little nervous because it looked a smidge "textbookish" to me but it got rave reviews so I thought I would join up with a book study and give it a chance. At least with a book study if I didn't love it, they would still keep me on track to finish it and have good ideas to share, lol. Well no worries apparently! It is a fabulous read (very easy and smooth) and has some wonderful ideas to use in your classroom. Here is a little four minute clip from the authors that explains their purpose for this book. One of my favorite parts of the book was the signposts you use as you read. After reading this section of the book I can already tell that these six signposts are going to change my entire reading block! Not only do they make the reader stop and think but it also leads them to comprehend certain literary elements (even the hard ones like theme!) without even realizing it. Click on my button below to head on over to my blog and read more in depth about the six signposts and snag a few freebies to help implement them into your classroom! Here is just a little sneak peek ;o) Happy Sunday Y'all! Sabra

Making Your Life-Sized Body (Organs) - Activity

Science can be fun in your homeschool with these FREE printable sorting mats. The sorting mats can be used as a nature activity for preschoolers and kindergarten kids to learn about animals and their habitats. The sorting mats include habitats like the rainforest, ocean, desert, woodland, polar and wetland.

My kids love animals and habitats. We love nature around here and what better way to study it by doing studies on a particular region, habitat and area? We used to live in Arizona, beautiful, but oh so hot! I still miss the lovely purple, pink and red skies at sunset.