Word Walls!

Wow, this isn't my post but over at Dragonflies in First there is a fantastic piece on using interactive word walls. I have a word wall and I use it but it's not nearly as effective as I think it could be. I'm so excited to try these ideas. Check it out!

You can find it here:
http://www.dragonfliesinfirst.com/2014/03/interactive-word-wallbright-idea.html

Enjoy!

Fifty Followers Flash Freebie!

Yea! My TpT store has 50 followers. To celebrate, for the next 50 minutes my Short Vowel Spinner Games are Free!!!

Click the picture below to get your copy:

Enjoy!!

I'm Back!

Oh, that's right, I have a blog!!! Life has been so busy with home and school that I haven't been posting like I should. Of course, I haven't been cleaning, cooking, exercising or sleeping like I should either!

We spend the weekend in Delaware at the World Championship Punkin' Chunkin'. I should have my pictures downloaded tomorrow. Everyone had a fantastic time! I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it! Unfortunately we were right by the outlets and I forgot that there is no sales tax in Delaware...talk about a missed opportunity!

First grade is clicking along. The kids are just fantastic this year. We're finishing up our short vowel study and getting ready for long vowels and blends. Our enrichment teacher was in the other day with a great Halloween spinner game to teach map coordinates. It got me thinking about all the ways I could be using spinners in the classroom. We had just done a spinner page in math so I decided to make a game for language arts, too. I came up with a Short Vowel Spinner Game. The kids use a paperclip and a pencil and spin to find beginning letters for cvc words. We started using it as a center this week and they love it! They have to decide if the words are real or nonsense so it's great for decoding. It gives me a good idea of who's really decoding and who is relying on other skills. It also let me focus on kids who are having trouble with short vowels.

I'm definitely going to have to get a game together for cvce and vowel blends. (Of course, I still have to get December morning work made so it may take a while!)

If anyone is interested, here's a link to the game:

More to come but first I need to sleep!!!

Theme 3 is Finished!

Yea! The Theme 3 focus wall is finished and posted! Theme 3 is a little bigger because it also has spelling lists included. Here is a preview:

Enjoy! There's more to come. (Soon I hope!)

Sightseeing

We were very touristy today. My mom thought ahead and got in touch with her senator who got us tickets to see congress in session and a tour of the capitol building. I think you can get these just by showing up but this way we were able to skip most of the lines. Yea! It was very interesting and the kids loved it! Everyone was exhausted by the time we got home but that meant that I got some time on the computer! Theme 3 is almost finished and should be up soon. I had someone ask if I planned to post Themes 3-10. Yes! As soon as they are finished they'll be up. Each theme I do seems to go a little faster and the last few themes I've already done, they just need to be reformatted and cleaned up a bit to keep them consistent with the others. Once I get home I'll dedicate a couple of days/evenings to it and the rest should be up in no time.

We have a few more days of vacation and I think we're going to head out to the pool and maybe have afternoon tea at the Ritz. Fun!

Theme 2 is Ready!

The Theme 2 Focus Wall for Houghton Mifflin Reading is ready and posted on TpT. Here's a preview of some of the pages:

Houghton Mifflin Focus Wall Theme 1 is Ready!

I'm getting into a routine and actually getting some work done! Last year was my second year teaching first grade and Houghton Mifflin. I really like this program and the way everything is so incremental and builds week by week. The first year I was so busy just figuring everything out that I didn't even have a focus wall. Last year I did and it really made a big difference. I started out with just writing the information on a big chart paper. I have to admit that even thought it was old school, it was a lot of fun! It reminded me of my student teaching days, chart paper and lots of Mr. Sketch markers! (yes,I did sniff each one before I used it!) After a couple of weeks I realized that it would be much easier to just do them all in PowerPoint and print them out.

Once I started using them regularly I noticed that the kids would come in and look for them on Monday mornings! After a while they were reading them by themselves and looking forward to what we would be doing that week. They thought it was so funny when I would introduce something and they already knew about it because of the focus wall!

Over the summer I'm going to work on the walls, neaten them up and post them on TpT. The good news is...Theme 1 is done and posted! You can see it here: