Friday, January 25, 2013

Did Anybody Miss Me? :)


SoIve really neglected my blog lately! Did anyone notice I was gone? J

Id like to say that Ive been super busy with all kinds of personal and professional commitments, but alas, twas laziness that was behind my complete lack of blogging!

My holidays were wonderful! I got to spend a lot of time with my family and got much needed rest!

School started back on January 7th, 2013. It was great to see my sweethearts but very difficult to leave my sweet Kitty at home! L

Since going back to school, we’ve been chugging along and learning, learning, learning! I wanted to share a few of our new favorite things and a few pictures of some wintery activities!


In case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm OBSESSED with anything sold in Lakeshore Stores! I happened upon these word family cubes at the Columbus, Ohio Lakeshore store and HAD to add them to my letter cubes with initial consonants! My kids have been practicing reading onset and rimes using these awesome products! I've been making them record whether the word they roll is a real word or a nonsense word to check their understanding. The results have been pretty good so far! Pictures to come soon!



I also saw these Rhyming Houses on Pinterest and immediately knew I had to have them! I scooped these babies up when I grabbed the word family cubes! The kids have REALLY loved playing with these houses! I love hearing them discuss the words/pictures and whether or not they think it rhymes with the picture on the roof of the house! I've got some pretty amazing kids! :) I HIGHLY recommend this product! It is a really fun way for students to improve/review their rhyming skills!

A few weeks ago, I read the book, Sneezy the Snowman to my sweeties! They really loved that story! I asked them to answer the question, "Why did Sneezy melt?" Below are a few photos of some responses. I wanted/expected them to go a bit deeper with their explanation but I'll take what I can get! 

His response says, "Because he was very cold so he drank hot coco and he got in a hot tub and he got near a fire." This is too funny! Clearly, I need to start reinforcing when to end a sentence and start a new one! :)

"Why did Sneezy melt?" (I wrote that on the white board!) "Because he drank hot coco."

Finally, I've got a few students who are STILL (ugh!) struggling with basic sight words. While shopping at Target a few weekends ago, I found some treasures in the bargain bins right as you walk in the store! I wanted to share them with you so you can go get your own!



The sight word cards on the left will make a really great center for my struggling students! I'm going to provide each group with a set of these cards and a timer. Then we will see if the students can read through the sight words before time is up! I think this will be a good motivator and a fun way to practice the sight words that these struggling readers haven't mastered yet! I also love that there is a sentence on the card as well! My higher students can see if they can fluently read the sentences before time is up! 

I'm thinking that the equation building cards would also be great for math centers and number recognition games at the beginning of the school year!


These heart dice will come in handy during Valentine's Day activities! Seriously! Go to your local Target and get these items before they are gone!! 

Well, that will be all from me tonight! I need to get back to working on my “Football Frenzy” games! I’ve been updating my existing products and plan on adding more vowel teams (ee vs. ea!) to the growing collection of “Football Frenzy” games! My end in mind is to get everything into one big packet before Super Bowl time! Wish me luck!

Check out my store’s best seller by clicking the picture below!


See you guys later! Thanks for hanging in there!

Mary








Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Gingerbread freebie if you want it! :)



Hi all! 

I posted a simple patterning freebie to my TpT store. There are gingerbread boys and girls on the page. Students can make a pattern of your choice OR of their own choice. I’m doing this with my students tomorrow (12-19-12) and the plan is to ask them to create their own pattern.

I was thinking it would be a good formative assessment if you were to ask your little ones to create a certain type of pattern (AB, ABB, BAB, etc.) before gluing them down. Simply walk around with your clipboard and check for understanding!

Click the picture to get it!
 
If you like it, please consider rating it!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope that your week/break is going well! 
My heart is heavy and I'm still in shock after learning about Friday's tragedy. I've been loving on my sweethearts A LOT these last few days! Events like that help me realize/remember that my priority is my students and their safety when they are with me at school. 

I hope I make it very clear to them how much I care for them! God Bless!

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Early Christmas Gift/FREEBIE!


Merry Christmas to my followers/stumblers! J

My students and I just got done learning about plane shapes and solid figures (3-D shapes). I’m all about decodable/emergent readers to help my students learn about concepts while becoming more fluent readers so I created a book to help them with those very things!

It is FREE on TpT so go get it! I would REALLY appreciate it if you would “Pin It” and rate it if you like it! Here are a few pictures from the file:





Click HERE to get this free shape book! Enjoy!

~Mary~

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Reindeer Games!


We had fun playing reindeer games yesterday and I wanted to share some pictures! My students were really excited when I began discussing these games! They had a blast!


 This game is called "Reindeer Run". Students practice sums to 12 by rolling two dice and adding/counting on the dots. These two boys really got into playing!



In the photo below, he is adding 4+3 to see how many spaces to move is game piece.


These two little sweeties are playing, "Catch that Reindeer!" One player hides Rudolph behind a shape. The other player calls out the name of the shape and player 1 picks up the card to show whether Rudolph is hiding behind that shape or not! It encourages students to call shapes by name and increase their shape naming fluency. The pack includes 3D shapes and plane shapes. I'm waiting until next week to introduce 3D shapes!





Both games are in my Have You Seen My Reindeer? Math and Literacy Activities pack on TpT. Click here to see it. Thanks for stopping by!

Mary