Up and At Em! A {Groundhog's Day} Pack!

I still feel like we are just coming back from Winter Break, and yet, Groundhog's Day is only 2 weeks away! Groundhog's Day is one of my favorite holidays to celebrate in the classroom. It is super child-friendly and adds a sense of "magic" to the air simply by the fact that the act of a shadow can predict our weather patterns. Just in time for the occasion, I've decided to make a Groundhog's Day Pack to help channel in on the fun of the day!

This pack has everything you need to celebrate the big day! Starting of course, with party hats! There are two choices depending on what happens with the groundhog's big debut in Punxsutawney! 

Along with the hats is a foldable reader with one sentence explanations of how the holiday works and what happens if the groundhog does or does not see his shadow. While these are a lot of fun, my favorite part of the pack is the ultra simple craft!

What better time to introduce (or reintroduce) the shape, hearts! Just in time for hearts to flood our classroom for Valentine's Day, this sweet groundhog craft is made out of three hearts!

There's also an option for a blank face if you'd like your kiddos to draw their own groundhog face!

There are also printables for tallying and graphing predictions for if the groundhog will see his shadow, making predictions as you read, and compound words (like groundhog!)

I hope you can find TONS of use for this pack in your own classroom! Get it here in my TPT store!

Have a Happy Groundhog's Day (I personally am rooting for no shadow and Spring to come early!)

Keep your head in the clouds!

xo

Winter Reading {Freebie}

It was COLD last week in Jersey! Too cold to play outside, too cold to have the snow melt away, and too cold to even THINK! My principal was kind enough to have an impromptu Hawaiian Day! Staff and students were invited to come in with their Hawaiian shirts on, were greeted with upbeat hawaiian melodies playing on speakers in the hallways and our principal even handmade Pineapple Smoothies in the teacher's room during lunch! (Is he not the best at cultivating a happy school culture for his students and staff?!)

In honor of keeping the warmth moving strong, I figured the only right way to contribute to the winter blues was to upload a simple, no prep, FREEBIE for your budding independent readers!

My kiddos have been working hard on their VERY first sight word: CAN

Since we are already masters at our uppercase letters, now we can read sentences that start with, "I can" if we use picture clues to help! Check out our picture clues below for some of the pages of our I Can Winter Freebie Independent Reader

Download your free Winter Reader here!

Enjoy this little piece of sunshine amidst the bitter cold!

Keep your head in the clouds!

xo

Ms. Bacsik Gets Married!

Hello Friends! LONG TIME NO POST! I know it's been quite some time since I've been able to update the blog, but for good reason!

I GOT MARRIED!!

For those of you who have planned a wedding before, you are aware of how the closer to wedding day, the longer the to do list grows! Needless to say, between starting the school year completely unpacking my 6 years of teaching out of boxes (my classroom was under construction this summer), with only two days to do so (EEK!) AND planning a wedding 2 months away, my time was quite preoccupied outside of the classroom.

One of the highlights of the day, however, was absolutely having my class invited to the ceremony.

If you ever get to do so, please consider having your little ones at your big day. The kids and families have been talking about it ever since and it was the cherry on top of a perfect day!

So while you wait for some more blog posts (and I've already got a few started- gear up for some Winter and Groundhog activities coming your way!), enjoy some wedding photos in the mean time!

All Photos by the incredibly talented Janet Lanza, of Janet Lanza Photography

Keep Your Head in the Clouds! :)