Freebies and Five for Friday at Always Primary

                                                                                 

I am excited to be joining Doodle Bugs Teaching for their Five for Friday link up this week for the first time. I started blogging late last summer, but got cold feet and have neglected my blog for several months now - STEEP LEARNING CURVE!!!  But I'm ready to take the plunge again, so here goes:                      

Yesterday I was on my way to pick up my friend for a pedicure when a  tremendous storm hit. There was thunder and lightning, gale force wind, and an incredible downpour that luckily only lasted 25 minutes because it caused flash flooding and did all sorts of damage around town. Fortunately we were uphill when it hit because in the lower areas there were cars stranded and even floating in underpasses!

I have been busy trying to build up some things to sell for my TpT store over the past few weeks. One of the products I've been making is sets of survey questions for my Math centers. My students always love doing these so I decided to make monthly sets for the coming year. The beauty of this is that once they learn how the surveys and accompanying graphing activity work they are able to do it for the rest of the year with very little instruction, allowing me to get on with meeting with small groups. 

                                                                            

                                     In this back to School set there are four questions. This is one of them:

                                                                                

                                                             The graph page looks like this:                                                  

Last year I had a grade two class and they got the hang of the activity really quickly. I didn't need to provide them with anything but a couple of questions, a class list to keep track of who they surveyed, and a blank graph sheet to fill in. 

This fall, though, I think I'll have a combined grade one and two class, and the firsties will be just starting to read and write and will need more if they are going to be able to do this independently. So I made this sheet to support emergent readers (plus the graphics on the question cards):

                                                                                 

The firsties can cut out the pictures on the labels and glue them under the columns on the graph and the second graders can use the words.                                                                          

This survey and graph activity is in my TpT store by clicking here for FREE.  I have the October one in my store now and will be uploading others soon.  Check out the other freebies while you're there.

Next week my hubby and I and our dear friends are going HERE for two weeks!!

                                                             

                                                         Kona, Hawaii!!  I'm so excited!  

                        When we were there last my sweetie hooked this amazing billfish:

                                                       

                                                                              

Meanwhile at home I have a vegetable garden for the first time in years and we've been getting some wonderful produce. Here's one morning's pick:

The pickling cukes are already in the brine.  My family LOVES dill pickles!

                                                                                 

Hopefully people will come and pick things while we're away. The strawberries are dwindling now, but there're lots of raspberries which I like better anyway. We had a fierce competition with robins this year for the strawberries. The robins won....

The apricots are fully ready now and they're HUGE this year. They can go into the freezer before we leave. 

                                                                               

                                                    

One more small freebie to finish up the week. I give this sheet to my kiddos once a week to help them reflect on a Math activity they've done and how it has improved their understanding of a Math concept. 

                                                                                                                                     

   (This screenshot looks a bit blue...) Click here if you'd like a copy.

I did it!  (And I notice that Blogger has made some improvements in the last few months, thank goodness!). Now all I have to do is figure out how to link up........

If you read this it will mean that I've been successful, so please leave me an encouraging comment and have a wonderful weekend!