Tuesday, April 30, 2013

CVC Word Practice

I feel like I've been so neglectful to my blog and my followers! I'm having the end of the year, it's crazy, busy, oh my---assessments galore, tired, what else do I have to do? blues....LOL

Anyone else feeling the same?

Our big end of the year assessments for K begin next week, but in the meantime, there are tons of other things that I need to do and haven't, or rather, I'm trying but I can't get it all done...how many hours in a day do they think teachers really have?? 

Enough of that.

So because I feel neglectful, here's a little freebie for you!

We've been pounding the CVC word practice and my kiddos are becoming such great readers. They love to show how much they know and can do.

So here's little ditty I made up so that your students can practice reading. It's a CVC Read & Find---cupcake edition!

Hide the cooks. Read the word---if you can, check to see if the cook is behind the word. If not, keep trying!!

Click on the picture to take you to the download. Feel free to leave some comment love! :)






Oh, and both my TN shop and my TPT store are having sales until tomorrow!!! 

Friday, April 26, 2013

Winner Winner!

Quick post. Congrats to Sarah---she won the infinity polka dot scarf and my Going Buggy for Math Unit.

I decided to also have rafflecopter pick another winner for the Going Buggy unit---so congrats to Anne who won the unit as well.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Ladies---check your email. Sarah--I'll need your address so definitely email me back!!


Thanks to all those who entered.....maybe I'll host another scarf giveaway soon!


I'm tired.....K registration was today...so have a good night!


And the Going Buggy for Math unit is 40% today only over at my TN shop!!!

Check it out! 


Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Linky's, Giveaways, Freebies...oh my!

So I'm a few days behind (as usual) for Latoya's Let's Get Aquainted linky party, but better late than never I say!

 

This week is all about My Classroom!

Disclaimer first: I am finishing up year 10 at the same school I've always been at and I've been in this particular classroom for 8 years now. If you didn't see my earlier posts at the beginning of this bloggy journey, then you need to know that our school has the "open" classroom concept. Well it began that way, then someone figured out that it was a little noisy, so we have "portable" walls. Many areas are still completely open, but instead of rolling cabinets as walls now, we actually have walls for the hallway. Our classrooms are completely open in the back still. 

If you go into my room, you can walk to three other K classes without ever going into the hall. I just put all this out there so that when you see pictures or other things, it'll make sense. 


First stop: My Mimio! (It's no Smartboard, but it sure is great to have!) Our school won the $50,000 US Cellular "Calling All Schools" giveaway that they do. I think it was two years ago that we won. So those that did not have Smartboards (mostly everyone) were given a Mimio, projector, and document camera.

I usually use mine everyday. It turns your existing whiteboard into an interactive board. In the first picture we were using abcya.com to play sight word bingo.



Today we used a Mimio activity that I downloaded from Mimio Connect to practice addition. Students had to spin a spinner and put that many black dots, then spin again and put that many blue dots. Then we added. 

Again this is just my white board that I have that the Mimio turns interactive.


Second stop: This is a bullentin board that I put together about two years ago to display student work neatly. The black background is actually a black plastic tablecloth for $1 at Dollar Tree. I then just hot-glued clothespins to construction paper (that matched the colors in the border) and it makes our lives sooo much easier to change out their work. 

I may change out the colors and stuff this summer but still keep the same concept.
Here it's displaying our awesome Zoo animals from our zoo theme the past couple of weeks. I have been using Deanna Jump's Zoo unit to aid in this.  

 Third stop:This is part of my classroom library. We were fortunate enough to be given over 300 books from Scholastic about 2-3 years ago. Those are all in the red bins. I have mine organized by the NC standard course of study. Each bin has a colored dot and the books inside the bins have the same dots. Of course, we are now using the Common Core Standards so this has all changed but I have no time to revamp the book bins. That will come....one day...maybe....hmmm...


Above it is my popcorn wall. I use real popcorn bags with the alphabet letters. The words are on pieces of popcorn as well. I think I'm just about tired of seeing popcorn (it's been up there for like...years...) so this is going to be revamped this summer as well. 



The green tablecloth covers books that I don't want the kiddos dragging out. I try to change up the baskets every now and then. To the right of the blue couch there is another book shelf covered as well. 






So that's it for the favorite spots in my classroom. Make sure you head over to Latoya's blog for more favorite classroom spots.


Two of my favorite bloggy friends, Irene and Kimberly Ann, are having an amazing giveaway!!! Make sure you head over to their blogs for this awesome survival kit of "stuff", gift cards and awesome packs from their stores!























Don't forget about my Fabulous Followers giveaway that ends Friday!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway


And because you read this lonnnnggg post...here's a little freebie from my Going Buggy For Math Unit.  Click on the image to take you to Google Docs.



Tuesday, April 23, 2013

How many to 10?

We've been working on addition/subtraction to 5. The majority of my kiddos have this concept b/c I think I've done everything possible besides standing on my head to get them to understand it. One way I've been working on this is to give them 5 two-color counters. Then I'll say "show me some that are red and some that are yellow."

Once they do that, they then have to tell me in an addition sentence what they have.

 So here would be 3 red plus 2 yellow is 5 in all. Then I ask them to say it without the colors. 3 + 2 =5. 

I still have some kiddos who can't remember that they always have 5 so they tend to count, but we're working on it.

Today, some of my kiddos were working on how many to 10. I gave them a ten frame and I might would say "show me 4 red." Then how many yellow counters do you need to make 10?


Somehow I ended up taking two pictures of the same problem but you get the point I'm sure! :)  So this was show me 5 red and then how many yellow does it take to get to 10?

So 5 red plus 5 yellow equals 10. They did very well with this and of course the ten frame makes it so much more organized for them.

I created a little worksheet to use as practice. Click on the picture to grab it up.

I didn't have this today when practicing b/c I just made it but I'm going to use it tomorrow for my lower level groups. I will read the problem to them and have them complete it with the ten frame and counters. Then I will have them color the ten frame correctly on the sheet and fill in the numbers.

Here ya go!



Don't forget about my Fabulous Follower giveaway. It ends on Friday!!





I can't seem to get my "schedule posts" to work right. I had something scheduled for yesterday and it never worked. I had to go in and post it. Am I doing something wrong?? 



 




 

Monday, April 22, 2013

Manic Monday Freebie! and a Question

I can't believe it's already Monday again!!! How many more Mondays do you have left? I haven't counted yet...almost scared to! :)

But what better to give on a Monday but a freebie! I'm linking up with Classroom Freebies and their Manic Monday linky.
 

So here's my little freebie for you. Students will match the addition problem to the answer, which is located on a seed. There is also a recording sheet to use to record the answers. Click on the picture to grab it up!!




Don't forget to enter my Fabulous Followers giveaway. You can win the polka-dot infinity scarf and my Going Buggy for Math unit!! This giveaway ends on Friday!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway



Ok...question for you....I have been participating in the daily deals at TN. Well I received feedback on my Sight Word Find and Practice  

  

Here is the feedback in a condensed version: I bought it on sale, it may be just a little pricey at regular price.

My concern is...why are you complaining about the price if you bought it on sale???

How would you handle this? I'm grateful for feedback always...b/c it only makes me better. I think though it's not that fair to leave this kind of feedback b/c 1. you bought it on sale 2. you bought it on sale 3. you didn't have to buy it

I know that I, as well as all of you awesome people out there, spend tons and tons and tons of time on making and creating products. That counts into some of the pricing. 

Anyway..that's my rant. It's just aggravating sometimes. 

What would you do?? I haven't responded yet..not sure how.


Enjoy your Monday!!! And thank you to all you amazing teachers out there who do what you do each and everyday in and outside of the classroom!!!!


 

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Watermelon Fun Product Swap

First of all...I have a love/hate relationship with technology. I have been teary-eyed most of today because my external hard drive was acting stupid. THE same hard drive with all my TN stuff, TPT stuff, MY GRAD SCHOOL PROJECT, everything......so anyways...got it figured out. Thank goodness...it's been a tough day. Now to the fun stuff! :)


 I signed up to do the product swap over at Jessica's blog a while back.

  

I was partnered up with Gwen from Learning With Mrs. Brinn for this product swap. I chose to work with her Wild About Watermelon unit. 

http://mcdn.teacherspayteachers.com/thumbitem/Wild-About-Watermelon-Unit-1366495505/home-242679-1.jpg
This unit is great! It starts off with a circle map all about watermelons and what students already know. It also includes bubble maps, writing activities, counting, cvc word practice, graphing, place values, rhyming, and so much more.

I chose to do two of the activities in my small groups. The first one was with my math small groups. It was using her booklet patterns to make addition books. I chose to use construction paper for each page instead of students coloring because well time is a factor.

Here are a few that we worked on. Unfortunately the lighting in my room is horrific for pictures so bear with me on a couple of these later in the post!




It just so happened that I had a few kiddos out the day that I did this, so these kiddos were the lucky ones to use the ink pad to make seeds. If the others had been there, they probably would've just drawn seeds because I had only one black ink pad. 

We rolled a dice and stamped and wrote the first number. Then someone rolled again and stamped and wrote the second number. Then they would add of the seeds and write the answer.

They absolutely loved this activity!!





While these kiddos were working on math, the other small group was with my TA working on literacy activities. I had her use the letters from the word WATERMELON to make words. 

 Here they made the word ME.
 This would be the terrible picture but the word is watermelon. Sorry about that.

 There are recording sheets included in the packet to write all of the words that they made on. 

 I loved doing these activities and the kiddos did too. They were so excited when they could read all of the words they made. I had one little girl run up and want to read each word. I took a picture and now it's missing off of my phone. GRR technology has not helped me out much the past couple of days.


One other activity that I wanted to do but the books were not in our library was the Venn Diagram comparing the books The Enormous Watermelon and The Enormous Potato. I'm going to try and do that next week after I go to my local public library and see if they have those books.

We also get healthy snacks for each classroom 3x a week and it just so happened that watermelon was one of our snacks this week. So it was a great follow-up to the unit.

The great thing about this unit is that you can use for Back to School activities or End of the Year activities. We are definitely not finished with using this unit. I'm going to work with some more things out of here, especially on the last days of school where you are not quite sure what to do with them (the students that is!). Does anyone else have days like that...or is it just me?


Make sure you head over to Gwen's blog and say hello and stop by her store to pick up the Wild about Watermelon unit!! 







Friday, April 19, 2013

Five For Friday

Happy Happy Happy...it's Friday!!! I love Fridays! Not just because it's the last day of the work week but b/c well....it's the beginning of the weekend! (Same thing right!?)

fiveforfriday
So I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her Five For Friday. (I love linky parties!)

Does anyone else have a time coming up with only 5? Sometimes I have wayyy more but sometimes...it's hard!

 1. Only 34 days left of school!! I'm not trying to rush it or anything, but sometimes, well it's just time to be out. I do love my kiddos but I think I'm ready to be out. More so ready for Grad school to be over so that means school has to be out. 


2.

I had fun playing outside at recess with the kiddos this week. Hmm...ok...I didn't have a blast but it was ok. (Recess is not my favorite activity of choice)

3. The Product Swap hosted by Jessica. My partner Gwen and I exchanged products, so I can't wait to share about that tomorrow!!!

4. I ordered our Classroom Faces t-shirts by A+ Images today. I won 24 free t-shirts wayyyy back in October by entering a giveaway on Miss Kindergarten's blog. So I'm excited. I can't wait to see what they look like in once they come in!

5. Don't forget about my Fabulous Followers giveaway. I have some awesome followers and you can win a polka dotted infinity scarf and my new Going Buggy for Math pack!!






a Rafflecopter giveaway




Happy Friday!!

 

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Vegas? Scarves? Tons of stuff from other bloggers? Giveaways galore!

Had to take a break from that capstone I can't seem to finish......to show off some awesome giveaways and remind you of a few!!

Don't forget to enter my Fabulous Followers giveaway. You can win this awesome polka-dotted infinity scarf and my new Going Buggy for Math unit!



And my bloggy friend Regina is having her 100 follower giveaway! Head over there and check it out. I'm lucky to be able to be a part of this giveaway with the likes of some amazing bloggers!!
  https://mail-attachment.googleusercontent.com/attachment/u/0/?ui=2&ik=a003b14448&view=att&th=13e0bcc3996942e0&attid=0.1&disp=inline&realattid=f_hfj3mib50&safe=1&zw&saduie=AG9B_P9FxqsabkKXXIMNFXX9QUdz&sadet=1366070275609&sads=ErowqtyV3S252jWEKvGindFCyDQ


Check this out!! Rockin' Teacher Materials is giving away a complimentary certificate for the I Teach K! conference in Vegas in July. 

Have you ever been? I haven't so I'm definitely excited about this!! 

Click on the picture to take you over to her blog to enter!!
  

Well I was going to post pictures about our Zoo unit that we've been doing but my pictures didn't save. Grr. So I'll post more tomorrow!! 



 

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Fabulous Followers Giveaway + Let's Get Aquainted

I'm linking up with LaToya over at Flying Into First Grade's Let's Get Aquainted Linky. I love her linky party each Sunday. I know it's Wednesday but it's still fun to link up.

So here goes.

 

TOPIC - Skittles Game

 

Here is the code:

Red- Favorite Ice Cream Flavor

Orange- Favorite Memory from College

Yellow- Favorite Sports Team

Green- Favorite Fast Food Place

Purple- Wild Card(Tell anything about yourself)
 

Red--My favorite ice cream flavor
Hands down---chocolate. And preferably in a milkshake form. Oh my word...love it. Makes me want one now and it's almost 11 pm...probably  not a good idea.
Orange--Favorite memory from college.
This one is hard. I have so many great memories. And some not so good. Favorite? The night I met my hubby. He didn't go to school there but we met through mutual friends while I was there. And we've been together ever since. 
Worst memory (I know this wasn't on the list but it popped in my head)---When Hurricane Floyd hit and I lost my apartment. Never lived away from home---then I had no where to stay. Ugh. Not cool.

Yellow--Love Carolina Hurricanes Hockey...sooo much fun!! Went to one game a few years ago and I have been hooked ever since!
 

Green-- I try not to eat fast food very often, but if I do, I'd rather eat Chic-Fil-A or Cookout (only in NC).
Image
 Purple--Wild Card
I love knitting, making crafts, and just creating. I designed this blog after teaching myself how to do some stuff. I still have a ton to learn but I enjoy it. Also I made this infinity scarf that I'll be giving away!!



So that leads me into my Fabulous Followers Giveaway! A giveaway just because I love my followers.

You can win an infinity scarf just like the one above, except that mine wraps one time, whereas the one that YOU can win will wrap twice. It'll still be the same polka dot fabric but just longer! :)

Also you can win my Going Buggy for Math unit that I just finished. This unit is jammed pack with tons of math work stations. 

These are just a few examples from my unit. I hope that you will enter to win!!