Saturday, February 29, 2020

Book Time! New Kid!

Ah! Does anyone else get excited when the ALA announces the Newberry and Caldecott winners each year? I do! I've never participated in a Mock Caldecott or anything mainly because I'd just rather read the winner or winners--depending on how busy my book situation is ha!

You can get a copy here!

Here's the rundown on this years book:
Jordan, a smart kid with crazy artistic talent, his going to be the new kid at a fancy private school. Yikes! It's always hard being the new kid. He is paired up with a friend to show him around and during his first day finds himself with Andy, not the nicest kid in school. Because he is quick on his feet, Jordan finds a nice friend group. Now while this is a surface skim summary, Jordan and his friend ___ struggle with the fact that teachers can never remember their names and assume their athletic abilities based on their skin color. There are in's and out's and up's and down's but the book portrays what it's like to be a regular African American kid in a rich white school.



This year's Newberry Award Winner is New Kid by Jerry Craft and every page of this book eye catching and awesome! It is definitely worth reading. I am so glad that they chose this graphic novel (!!! what! what!) and I love the story.

The main things that I love about this book is that they are
1. SO FUNNY--so of course you are going to keep reading
2. Relatable--Jordan (the main character goes through so many
3. SO much DISCUSSION--this book is jam packed with things that need to be discussed in today's classrooms.

I also spotted this at the book fair--so keep your eye out for New Kid--it's completely worth it and your students will love reading this Newberry book!


Tuesday, February 18, 2020

Easy Peasy Prep Candy Heart Challenge

Looking for an easy activity to make it through Valentine's Day?! This is it--perfect for you K and 1st grade friends!

Also, it is February!!! And halfway through February! Are you glad that we made it this far?

All you need are these CANDY HEART CHALLENGE pages and some candy hearts and you are good to go.

You can find this activity in my TPT Store Beth Van or by clicking HERE


Organizing a class party? Homeschool party? Candy Heart Challenge is perfect.

I needed an activity for a class party that I was helping with and the kiddos ATE UP THESE challenges.



It's a lot of building and creating and counting and pulling things that your students already know...just translating them into candy hearts--which we all know playing with candy is lots of fun.


It's also a great STEM center or activity that can be done in groups or a rotation.

I love that candy hearts are relatively not the messiest thing and are a great manipulative to have on had during the month of February.

And candy hearts are always an excuse to go to Target too--like we need another excuse, right?!

Get your hands on this activity in my TPT store or click HERE



Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Tips for Christmas Delivery Treats!

It's that time of year! We made it through Black Friday and Cyber Monday and we still have a few packages coming our way. So before it was cool we have been leaving treats on our front porch for our delivery drivers haha...before it all made the news. I know all of those men and women are up early and out late this time of year making sure all of our packages make it.



I thought I would share our sign that we post with our treats!

Feel free to download and sign your family's name--or leave it blank--and share with friends!

It just been fun to surprise our postman and UPS gal that always drops our packages off and Fedex has been coming by too


Here's what we have found our people--yes, people who deliver our packages are totally "our people" love

1. Cheez-it's and something salty
Cheesy crackers and Doritos are the hot items in our basket! They haven't really been into cookies in the past. This year we are trying out peanut butter stuffed pretzels and twizzlers too--for something fun!

2. Leave it out late at night
I didn't realize this until we missed a delivery person but UPS is out delivering well into the night--I checked my email for packages and it arrived at 8 PM so leave your treats out so you don't miss a Christmas helper!

3. Set it up early
The month of December I see mail trucks out earlier than usual so before taking kids to school just set your treats out. Our local USPS guys are out early dropping off packages and then the regular mail comes later in the day.

4. Restock! You don't need to set everything out. I set a budget for about $25 for all of the treats and things and just put a few things out for them to choose from. I rotate things so some of our same delivery people have some variety of snacks.


Here is the sign! Just print and you are good to go. I laminated our sign to survive crazy weather--mainly just humidity and rain because Texas never really has winter!



I know you and your family will love setting this up and all the delivery people stopping by your house will be so thrilled with a little treat during this busy season of the year.

Please print and pin and share!

Merry Christmas!

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