Happy Thanksgiving!

This weekend has been a whirlwind! We were fortunate enough to be able to visit family for the holidays and had a fantastic time. My son surprised us all by deciding to run in a 5k the day after Thanksgiving! He had done it once before but had trained for a long time before trying it. This time he just decided to do it the morning of the race! We are all so proud of him...he did a fantastic job!

I had every intention to do a little Black Friday shopping but it never happened. I promised the kids that we would all watch the Punkin' Chunkin' special on the Science Channel. We went to the actual Punkin' Chunkin' a few weeks before and there was a possibility that we could be on TV. Little did I know that the special was 2 hours long! I did get to see a split second of my kids as they panned the audience! We'll have to watch it again with the pause button ready! Anyway, by the time the special was over, I was done for the night...no shopping for me! I'll have to make up for it on Cyber Monday! (I can shop and watch TV at the same time!)

Speaking of Cyber Monday, TpT is having their big Cyber Monday sale! Everything is discounted site wide. All of the items in my store are 28% off! If you have been using the focus walls or the morning work and don't yet have all of them, now is the time to buy! The sale is actually from Dec 2-3 so you have a little time to shop. I know my wish list is growing!

If you haven't been lately, there are a couple of new things in my store. I finally finished December Morning Work...about time! The Catholic version has pages for each week in Advent.

There's also a great Christmas Cookies real/nonsense word activity:

I love doing these activities with my kids. They really help with students who need practice with decoding. It's amazing how much more quickly they can decode from the beginning of the activity to the end! 

So, be sure to stop by and check it all out! 

Happy Shopping!!!

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!!!

Busy, Busy, Busy

Wow, when the school year started I had no idea how busy I'd be this year. I had great plans for posting on the blog at least once a week. You see how that went! Overall, though, school is going great. I have a fantastic class and an amazing TA so I can't complain! We've just started to really get into Houghton Mifflin Reading and this is my favorite time of year with it. We started our reading groups and have begun to focus on high frequency words. I bought this resource pack from Made for 1st Grade and it has been a lifesaver! I've had it for three years now and by far the thing I use most are the Lightning Words. It's a weekly sight word homework sheet and the results are amazing! I love it! You can see it here: 

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Houghton-Mifflin-Resource-Pack-1st-Grade-2004-edition-145234

 If you teach Houghton Mifflin this is definitely worth it! New for me this year is Reading A-Z. I put it on my order last year and the resource fairy delivered it! I haven't spent too much time with it yet but now that things are slowing down a little bit I plan to. I had a free trial last year for a couple of weeks and I really liked it. I like the decodable readers but...WOW...I love the reader's theater. I started doing RT a couple of times a week and the difference in fluency was amazing! I only had a limited number of downloads so I made a few of my own scripts using our decodable readers that come with the reading series. By the time we were done "rehearsing" and performing they had read the book at least 6 times and they loved doing it. Definitely not boring!!

Well, beef stir-fry and hungry children are waiting!!!

Literacy Linky Party!

I just joined up with iHeartLiteracy for a K-2 Literacy Roundup linky party! I linked my Houghton Mifflin Focus Wall for Theme 1. It's getting to be that time and if you've just started school and you're using HM Reading Theme 1 is right around the corner. For me, next week is the last week of the Back to School theme. I know how important Kindergarten review is but I have to admit that I love getting into the routine of the themes, starting reading groups, etc. When I put up my focus walls I feel like we're really back to school! Come join the party!



Speaking of back to school, last week we made our first class book. Every year I start with this one since we're working on letter/sound review. It's an ABC Book made with the children's names. Tomorrow I'll bind it and put it in the class library. I can guarantee that for a few weeks we'll have to pick sticks (popsicle sticks with the student's names on them) to decide who gets to hold/read the book. Even after that, though, it's always a popular book. I have a special book box for all the books we make together along with yearbooks from past years. Always a hit!

Well, we've certainly enjoyed the long weekend! I don't think we really did anything at all but it was nice to not really have any pressure. Now it's off to make lunches and iron shirts (and find out what last minute homework someone accidentally forgot!).

September!

September is right around the corner! Now is a great time to pick up my packet of September Morning Work. It's packed with great math and literacy activities for September. I use Houghton Mifflin at my school so the literacy activities are loosely aligned with that but it can be used with any program. Stop by and take a look!

Flash Freebie!!!

As promised, here is today's flash freebie! From 6-7 pm today I'll be giving away the newest item in my store. It's Picture Me in First Grade:

This great back to school activity includes a picture frame for students to draw or paint a self portrait and an All About Me sheet for them to write about themselves and their favorite things. I'm doing this one next week and I hope to have it ready for a back to school display for our parent night on Wednesday.

I'm also super excited to do this again at the end of the year. I love seeing how much the children have changed--in their likes and their abilities. The handwriting alone is always so different. I'll send the beginning and end of the year papers and drawings home at the end of the year but I'll keep copies for their portfolios. I'm thinking I'll bind them somehow but I'll cross that bridge in May!

Enjoy!