Drip. Drip. Drip. {Some Pictures, a Freebie and a Giveaway!}

...Nope, that's not a faucet dripping...that would be my nose. Okay, I'll admit it - at more than one point today I stuffed a tissue up my nose to prevent drippage.  No worries, my kiddos weren't in the room, but I HAD to prepare my cute little craftivity for today and the bending/cutting combo with my nose left me no other choice. 

I'm not quite sure what's going on in Good 'ol Room 8 but my kiddos have been a wee bit off the wall.  Yeah, probably a little bit more than a little bit...they were off in a big way.  I'm guessing it might be because we haven't gotten any snow. Seriously, that's my theory.  The kids are used to exerting their extra energy on the sled hills and there's no sledding to be had.  Next week will be better, right?!?

Since most of my kiddos brought their silly with 'em we went with that and read some Tacky the Penguin.  Love that penguin!  Didn't our "Tacky's" turn out cute?

We've also been working on solving number stories in math.  I'm still wrapping my brain around our new math series {Bridges}. This is my second year with it and I'm just starting to find the holes.  The kids do a lot of creating and solving number stories but it doesn't seem like the program does enough explicit instruction.  So, I've tweaked...the kids are getting good at recognizing the "Magic Math Words" and what they tell us to do.  I pulled out an oldie but a goodie...ADD Math.  Are you familiar with it?  I used to do it daily {Arithmetic Developed Daily} but have since exchanged it for Number Corner. One of my favorite pieces of ADD math is how it breaks down solving a number story...the acronym is TIPS which stands for Think, Information, Plan, Solution.  Each half piece of paper looks like this:

You can click on the picture and it will take you to their website if you are interested.  I know, I know...some might think it came from the time of dinosaurs...but I'm telling you some things stand the test of time and this is one of them!  Sometimes you just need direct, explicit instruction.  Really, you do!

I created this poster {Click HERE}  if you're interested in creating your own:

Clipart: Scrappin' Doodles

Our math program uses the spiral approach {Which is something else I'm trying to wrap my brain around} so in addition to number stories we worked on fact families. We did a fun activity that I found over at Kelley's blog. To grab it click ---------> Buggy for Second Grade!  They loved it and it was a little challenging for them.  A perfect combo!

I have got to give a shout out to Sheree over at Peterson's Pad!

She finally has reached 100 followers, but I'm telling you, she should be WAY past that.  Her blog is awesome. I can't tell you how many activities I've downloaded and used in my classroom.  She's so sweet and so creative and is having a giveaway!!!!! {Please take a minute and head over and be sure to follow...I'd love to see her reach 200 before she can even annouce her giveaway winner!!!!}.  She's giving away a $10 Amazon gift card or any one of her awesome TpT packets. 

And last but not least...I won this super cute shirt over at Heather's giveaway.  Luckily, I wore it today because I got so many stinkin' compliments on that thing, nobody noticed the tissues hanging out of my nose at our staff inservice in the afternoon... {It's a bit blurry which is a good thing...you'd call me Rudolph otherwise}.

Note the tissue in my hand...at least it's not shoved up my sleeve...how old am I?

If you want to purchase your own...I advise wearing it on a bad hair day, a day when you've got a pimple the size of Gibraltar...nobody will notice because all they'll see is your cute lil' shirt.  You can purchase one at Sewing Sassy {HERE}.

Happy Weekend!!!!!!

Holly