Sentence Practice & CVC Words

One activity we worked on this week was building sentences. Many of my students do a good job with this, but others...well struggle. I wanted them to have extra practice but not necessarily during writing time. 

I put the students into groups of 3-4. I gave each group a set of word cards and they had to build the sentence. We reminded each other that capital letters go at the beginning and punctuation at the end. The groups worked together to build the sentence and practice reading (this helped those struggling readers to feel successful).

After reading, each group came up and placed their sentence in the pocket chart. They then read the sentence to the class. Once all groups had a turn, I gave each group another set.

Another activity we practiced this week in small groups was CVC words. I did this with one of my middle groups. I have a set of letter cards from a pocket chart activity I bought years ago. (I think these are from desktop pocket charts I found at Wal-Mart on sale?)

I actually made this activity years ago as well, but pulled it out for the first time this year. I used old file folders and velcro dots to make this. Each set has only 3 picture cards (again on with velcro dots). The students are given the folder with only the picture cards on them. They then have to use the letters to build the word.

I love this set of cards because it's color coded, so if something is missing, I can easily find it. 

Don't forget about the TPT sale that everyone is talking about!! To help you practice CVC words, grab up my new Baking Up Word Families pack. Its 20% off plus the extra 10% that TPT gives you!

 

Rosa Parks & Ruby Bridges---Black History Month Activities

This week we've started learning about Black History Month and a variety of leaders who have impacted the Civil Rights Movement and how it has impacted school environments and society as a whole.

I teach in an inner city school where our population is 95% free and reduced lunch and come from a variety of backgrounds. Many of my students live in the "projects" that are just across the railroad tracks. Each student has so much to offer and sometimes education isn't as important as it could be. I want to ensure that my students understand how important education is. And how they can grow and learn and become leaders who might change the world. 

So being able to provide role models to them such as Rosa Parks or Ruby Bridges is important and for them to understand that ONE person can be the change.

We started yesterday with learning about Rosa Parks. Although I teach K, we used Scholastic's activities about Rosa Parks to spark discussion. Many of my students were already familiar with her and what she represents.

Here's the link to those activities.  

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/activity/rosa-parks-how-i-fought-civil-rights

After reading and learning about Rosa, we completed a writing activity. The students created a bus and then their writing was placed behind it. 

We began our discussion of Ruby Bridges today. We used links from Scholastic as well to learn about her impact in our schools and how it changed for us today. 

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/unit/ruby-bridges-everything-you-need

There is a great kid-led interview, an interactive Scholastic News magazine and more! Very kid friendly so it definitely helped with discussion today.

After--we discussed what Character Traits are. My students are tough on each other sometimes, so I want them to understand it's not about what's on the outside, but the inside. 

So we created a character traits poster (forgot the picture). Basically, I drew a sketch of a child. Students gave me words that would describe someone on the inside, I wrote it on a sticky note, and stuck it to the poster. I explained a lot to help them to understand, but they came up with words such as: respectful, kind, nice, happy, have manners, etc.

Don't Forget!! It all starts tomorrow!!

                           

Learning Randomness & Did You Hear.....????

Yes, I'm still alive. Yes, I still blog. Yes, I seem to fall asleep for a quick nap when I get home and then I blog stalk and then I crash again. Yes, I'm back. What a whirlwind the past two weeks have been. With this whole snow thing, it's really caused me to fall behind in a lot of areas because I'm so busy trying to play catch up in other places!



So I'll catch you up on a couple of projects we completed for Valentine's Day (totally missed due to bad weather---so it happened the day AFTER President's day!), President's Day and Dental Health.

Ugh---I'm struggling with Picasa tonight!!!

So we decorated our Valentine's boxes. Unfortunately, with all of the days off and everything, we had very little to put in them, but the kiddos still had fun!
 

Then we played catch up on President's Day. I did not hit on it as much as I wanted but we read a Weekly Reader and used a Mimio activity that I found discussing President's and the White House.

We also made George and Abe. I have had this project for YEARS! And not exactly sure where it came from because I've had it for so long (probably a great retired teacher passed it down!)

One side is George and then you flip and the other is Abe.

How cute!!!
 

 

Then we worked on some Dental health activities. I hate that everything I did the past two weeks was so quick but I wanted to make sure I didn't skip anything!

We talked about how to keep our teeth healthy and what we needed to do to fight away those "sugar bugs". As a whole group, we came up with ideas to keep our teeth clean. After, I partnered the students up and they created their own cavity fighting shield. 

 Idea came from Pinterest (Source)

So that's a quick wrap up of what happened last week! I will be back later this week with some fun Black History activities we have done!


Oh---did you hear??? I'm so excited that I'm going to be an author over at Teaching Blog Round Up!!! There are some incredible bloggers already over there, so I'm honored that I get to participate as well!

If you haven't heard of it, stop on by!!

 

Oh and in case you haven't heard this either...TPT has reached 3 million users!!!!! Whew what an amazing milestone. So of course, there's a HUGE sale that will be happening on Thursday and Friday!!

  My store will be 20% and you can get an extra 8% when you use the promo code: TPT3

 

I've added a couple of new things and revamped some old stuff. So go by and stock up your cart for Thursday and Friday!

Happy Valentine's Day Sale!

It's another black ice/snow day for us here so no school today! Working on day 4 of this week. So no Valentine's Day fun at school. One friend put it this way, "We'll have our Valentine day celebration along with the July 4th cookout...!" LOL Let's hope not! Have no idea how and when we will be making up all these days. 
  
In honor of Valentine's Day---let's have some sales!
I want to share the love and offer 20% off everything over at my TPT store this weekend!

Graphics by Graphics From the Pond & Creative Clips

Fonts by CK Fonts 

I'm also running a 25% off sale over at my TN shop as well if you are members there.

It's for this weekend only!! My new Beginning Sounds Bundle will be on sale as well!

 Along with my best sellers....

 

Or grab both of them in ONE bundle for extra savings!

 

 

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Are You Lucky In Love? & Giveaways! {Linky}

Two posts in one day. Call the blogging police or guards or who ever is in charge of all the rules! ;)

Molly over at Lucky to Be in First is having a cute linky party for showing what you love so I thought I'd join in! 

 

FIrst and foremost---love God and my family and friends and an awesome church family!! I couldn't even begin to name all of those who are such an amazing influence in my life.

But these two guys are my faves!! (Pay no mind to the pink Nerf gun the hubs has---his best friend's daughter got that for Christmas so he decided to play with it too!) Boys....

 

I live in Eastern NC---not far from the beach! Day trip anyone!!?? And all I can think about is the sand and salt and ocean....and the SUN and the WARM weather. Can you tell I'm OVA' the snow!?

 Chocolate and PB...need I say more?

I have "met" so many amazing friends through this crazy adventure of blogging. I can't name any one person b/c I would HATE to leave anyone out but you know who you are! Emails, giveaways, commenting, and just providing great support and feedback---you rock!

 Love you ladies!! Hugs!

I love DIY projects. Crafting, knitting, attempting to sew.....I've had so much fun creating burlap door hangers. Here's my new one for my front door!!

 

 

There are so many other things that I love but I don't think this post should be TOOOOO long, do you? 

I HEART creating, sharing, collaborating for TPT and TN. What an amazing blessing it has been....I get discouraged sometimes but I know that it's for my students OR your students. Those that need it the most--the kids. That's who it's for. 

I LOVE Teaching---as discouraging as it may be, especially with all the stuff NC teachers are going through. But I do love it. I'm not even sure I would know what else I would do.

So what do you love? Make sure you head over to Molly's linky party and link up!!

And don't forget about my friend Colleen's 200 follower giveaway!! I'm giving away my Beginning Sound Bundle and I hear that there is a TPT gift card in the mix as well!!  Click on the picture to take you over!

 

And I heard that the Mystery Box is BAAACCKKKK!!!!! I hope I can win this one day!! It's such an amazing giveaway from some even more amazing bloggers!!

 

Common Core Assessment Workbook

With the Common Core everywhere now and each school district in different areas of implementation, sometimes we need some extra resources in our tool belt. 

These common core assessment workbooks provide various assessment strategies that you can use for review, interventions, or a quick informal assessment to use for parent conferences.

 

I think printing some of these and laminating them to use as a quick assessment at the beginning of literacy groups and math groups would be helpful. 

100th Day Fun & a Giveaway

We celebrated our 100th day today. It was pushed back a week because of all that white stuff that fell from the sky and stayed around for 4 days---I'm NOT going to say the name b/c they are calling for MORE tomorrow and Wednesday!!!! :/ (Maybe not calling it what it is will make it go away!) 

We had fun though. Mondays are normally our block of specials (I don't usually have the kiddos on Monday mornings until lunch and then they have Guidance after lunch--so I "finally" get them around 1:15! But today was our Valentine festival at school so we stayed in the gym all morning have stations and fun games for Valentine's day. 

So the 100th day festivities began after 1:15. Which left little time to do a lot but we still had a blast!

I created this shirt this weekend (my awesome IA gave me the idea b/c she made a cute one for her daughter!) See those lovely buttons in the bag? I had planned on sewing 100 of them on the shirt. But I decided that if I did that---I couldn't wear the shirt but once a year!

 

This is just an iron-on transfer from Michaels. It's a chalkboard sheet so it can be reused again and again! :)

Enough of me...onto the kiddos. 

Gotta love munchies! My IA sat with the kiddos at the kidney table and they were able to use the 100th day mat (found here) to sort out the food. We had the following:

• M&M's
• Cheez-its
• Goldfish
• Gummi Bears
• Pretzel Sticks
• Chex cereal
• Froot Loops
• Popcorn
• Marshmallows

We didn't get in all that we asked for so we used the BIG marshmallows that we had on hand and they could get some of those to make it add up to 100. 

We also worked on our 100 day hats and writing 100 words!

 

 

And to the end of the day....we counted and danced to 100.

And danced the Macarena!

 

My buddy Colleen has reached 200 followers! She's letting me in on the fun and I'm giving away my new bundle pack!!

Hop on over to her blog and enter to win some awesome prizes!!