Canadian Product Blog hop and Sale!

So here it is the first post in our Canada Day Blog Hop and TPT sale.
My entire store is on sale!

If you get lost, just leave a tab open to this blog to get re-oriented!


I'm in the midst of creating a bunch of products for my first-grade classroom next year that I can use in the early fall, and I thought why not make them fall leaves, specifically Maple leaves? This way my Canadian colleagues can use them as a social studies connections, and my American followers can also use them as a fall/autumn theme. I think it's win-win!

My Freebie is a fun centre activity where my students use clothespins to mark how many maple leaves are on each card.

If you like this, you may also like the other three finished maple Leaf products:

Check out the rest of the hop here (expect links to start Saturday morning):

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Bulletin boards around my school

Here is a series of bulletin boards I snapped around my school at the end of the year.

These first five are from our lovely third-grade teacher. She and her EA are awfully talented!

Our LNC teacher (Literacy and Numeracy catalyst) put up this board just before she went on Maternity leave. I love the tissue flowers!

Our 2/3 grade teacher gets official credit for this, but it was actually one of our wonderful subs who did it for him when she was covering his class for a week. It's awesome!

Our Librarian put this up at Easter, so pretty!

By our Elementary office, put up by our lovely secretary.

Are you inspired for next year?

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If you would like to guest blog, or would like me to guest post on your blog, please comment or send me an email.

Want to find awesome resources for your Early Childhood Education classroom?
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First grade supply list 2014

I had to edit the supply list for my incoming firsties so their parents know what to send the first day of school.

Here's what I came up with:

I wanted WAY more glue than they brought this year. We ran out so early in the year.
I also requested earphones so in the computer lab and for when we sign out the iPads we can have more quiet and fewer conversations while I do my running records.

Do you notice my last item?
At my school, the students all bring their supplies to school on the first day of school in their book bags, and then the bags are never ever seen again. I felt that was a ridiculous expense, so I decided my kiddos would bring their supplies to the school in the much less expensive canvas tote! I think it's genius. time will tell if parents agree. I really want to spare them an unnecessary expense.

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If you would like to guest blog, or would like me to guest post on your blog, please comment or send me an email.

Want to find awesome resources for your Early Childhood Education classroom?
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5th Annual Elders Gathering 2014

This past week our community celebrated it's fifth annual elders gathering. 

Here are a few pictures of my students enjoying a few events from the week:

Pigging out on Yummy fried bannock.

Trying our hand at beading.

Watching the guy do some awesome wood carving/burning.

We checked out the hide the elders were scraping. All pretty cool, right?

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If you would like to guest blog, or would like me to guest post on your blog, please comment or send me an email.

Want to find awesome resources for your Early Childhood Education classroom?
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Mapping a community

For our mapping unit, we finished up by building this town modeled after our own community, including all the major buildings we have as well as a Dairy Queen, lol.

We used our map to practice directionals and talk about the community helpers who work at various buildings.

How we made them stand up. Cool, right?

I'm thinking of making this into a usable resource, would you be interested?

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If you would like to guest blog, or would like me to guest post on your blog, please comment or send me an email.

Want to find awesome resources for your Early Childhood Education classroom?
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Help support Reading With Mrs. D and our family. Join Swagbucks and we can both earn money to spend on our kids!

Super dad!

For our fathers day gifts, my class made their dads these super cute Super dads. the letters on their chests are obviously the first letters of their dad's names. 

I try not to use templates for our art too often, preferring more personal art choices.

I think they turned out pretty well, what do you think? (FYI, the first is my teacher sample)

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If you would like me to review other books for kids please leave a comment. It must be useful to either teachers or parents of children age 4 to grade 2.

Want to find awesome resources for your Early Childhood Education classroom?
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Our Reserve/Village connections

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We read as a class this non-fiction book from the Turtle Island Voices collection. We read it and then discussed how even though our small northern community isn't a reserve, we have many similarities to the things the reserve in the book has. We then decided to make a list of things our community has and write a book of our own about our Village. This connects very closely to our Social Studies unit where we are learning about community workers and mapping. 

I LOVE making class books! And this is sadly our last of the year...

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If you would like me to review other books for kids please leave a comment. It must be useful to either teachers or parents of children age 4 to grade 2.

Want to find awesome resources for your Early Childhood Education classroom?
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Living Things Unit: Super Plants! (Adaptations)

As part of our class discussions about plants and animals we returned to our discussion from early in the year about plant and animal adaptations to the seasons. This time we included geography in the discussion (arctic tundra and desserts especially). We then decided that plant adaptations are kind of like their Super powers, so we each designed a plant with a new Superpower.

My teacher sample featured a flower with a shield to protect it from unwelcome bugs.

This student gave their flower an invisibility shield so animals can't see it to eat it.

This Super Power has the flower flying so it can get away from being stepped on. 

And this student gave hers punching powers. See the bruises on the red flower?

How do you teach plant adaptations?

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If you would like me to review other books for kids please leave a comment. It must be useful to either teachers or parents of children age 4 to grade 2.

Want to find awesome resources for your Early Childhood Education classroom?
Visit Reading With Mrs. D on Teachers Pay Teachers
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Today's featured resource: 

Help support Reading With Mrs. D and our family. Join Swagbucks and we can both earn money to spend on our kids!