Spotlight Saturday & Birthdays
Why is it as a kid we LONG for our birthdays to come, and the older we get we LONG NOT to see our birthday show up? I experienced that this week turning _____ (fill in the blank with anything you'd like as long as it's lower than 35) NOT! :-) It didn't help with my own children thinking I was one year younger than I really am. When I added that extra year onto the one they thought I was, they were like, "Hmmmm...REALLY?" Thank heavens for 1st graders who honestly have no sense of time and age. One of the 1st graders at my school heard it was my birthday and said, "Happy Birthday...are you past 25 yet?"
Welcome back for another edition of Spotlight Saturday. I've got some great freebies for you again today. 
Teaching by Hart has a cool math warm up for you in her "Spot the Imposter" freebie. It's so simple, but so fun, and sparks some great math conversations. Need a time filler? Engaging warm up? Thought provoking small group starter? Grab Kim's imposter sheets where which are loaded with numbers. All the numbers on a page have something in common. There is one, "the imposter" that doesn't fit. Students begin searching for odds, evens, multiples, etc. Looking forward to the fun I can have with this one!
Sometimes you run into things and think..."Why didn't I think of that?" I took one look at these and thought back to the years I taught Kindergarten and First grades. Where were these when I needed something "magical" to motivate some of my kiddos to read? Everybody needs some fun reading glasses, right? Check out Tracy's Guided Reading Glasses for grades K-4. You just provide the popsicle sticks and you've got yourself a class full of adorable little reading nerds. :-)
Second Story Window has 6 weeks of spelling homework for you, which can be used with any spelling words, in her Spelling Tic Tac Toe Homework pack. Students use their spelling words to do a variety of activities. It also incorporates a little student or family choice as to which parts are completed. It serves 1-3 grades the best and is a nice alternative to the normally boring spelling homework sheets you usually see.
In closing, I hope you were able to grab my "Writing a Paragraph Hamburger Style" freebie this week. If you missed it, head back to my home page and check the post prior to this one to snatch.
Bananas for birthdays even when the candles take up a LOT of space on the cake,
