Ladies, check your e-mail :)
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Last Chance Giveaway!
My giveaway ends tonight!!!! Enter NOW!
Go ~HERE~ and enter to win for my giveaway! There will be 3 winners and it's super easy to enter! You could win a $10.00 Scrappin Doodles Gift Certificate, my favorite Thanksgiving book "Turk and Runt: A Thanksgiving Comedy" or any 3 items from my store!!!
Thursday, October 27, 2011
My Bat Hat!
A few years back on a trip in the mountains of West Virginia, I found a bat hat! I use it every year around this time and the children love it. This year, I have found a Turkey hat. I can't wait for November!
Don't forget to check out my giveaway ~HERE~
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Verb Rap Song
I have attached a link to a great song to use when teaching action verbs! My children are addicted to this song. Be prepared though...you won't be able to get it out of your head either!
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Giveaway Reminder
Don't forget to go ~HERE~ and enter to win for my giveaway! There will be 3 winners and it's super easy to enter! You could win a $10.00 Scrappin Doodles Gift Certificate, my favorite Thanksgiving book "Turk and Runt: A Thanksgiving Comedy" or any 3 items from my store!!!
Click ~HERE~ to go to the blog post and enter.
Good Luck!
Sunday, October 23, 2011
I just finished this Needs & Wants packet for November. In case you don't know, I am in love with the Pigeon from the Mo Willems series. I absolutely can't wait to introduce this crazy character to my new students. So, I figured what better way to teach teach the difference between wants and needs than from the Pigeon? The Pigeon wants a hotdog but does he need a hotdog?
This packet will help your children understand that people often want much more than they need. As a result, we must make choices about what we need and what we can afford.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
It's Giveaway Time! 3 Winners
It's Giveaway Time!
A couple of clicks and you will be entered to win! There will be 3 winners and the winners will be announced Sunday, October 30th
There are 3 ways to enter...and there will be 3 winners!
1) Become a follower of my TPT store and leave a comment saying you are now a follower.
2) Become a follower of my Teachers Notebook store and leave a comment saying you are now a follower.
3) Blog about my giveaway or just my blog in general on your blog! (I added this one because this would just make me super duper excited to be thought of in the amazing blog world :)
The first winner will receive a $10.00 Scrappin Doodles Gift Certificate
The second winner will receive a copy of my favorite Thanksgiving Book "Turk and Runt: A Thanksgiving Comedy" by Lisa Wheeler
The third winner will receive any 3 items of their choice from my Teachers Notebook store or TPT.
Gingerbread Man Freebie
The holidays are right around the corner!
I've been getting in the holiday spirit by getting my Gingerbread Man units ready. I am posting a Gingerbread Man freebie to get you excited too! Go grab your freebie, December will be here before you know it!
If you like what you see, please become a follower!
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Our Adjectives Runneth Over!
Let's Get Poppin With Adjectives! That's just what we did in my room last week. Thanks to Babbling Abby at The Inspired Apple and this fabulous unit. My students had a blast with adjectives. Below is a picture of my bulletin board of our Adjective Writing and Popcorn Adjective craft.
We completed the poster below as a whole group coming up with adjectives based on our 5 senses to use later for writing. Our adjectives runneth over!
Monday, October 17, 2011
Digraph Practice
After looking long and hard for activities to practice "wh", "sh", "th" and "ch" I found that many words are not represented with a good visual when learning these sounds. Since I have a high ESL population, I felt that the visual to match the digraph was essential....so of course, I made my own!
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Friday, October 14, 2011
Love Your Word Wall
In my class, we love our word wall. No, really. We love our word wall. In the sneaky way that only teachers can do, I’ve convinced my class of how important our Word Wall, Word Study Words & Word Families are.
After reading this, I realize you’ll think I’m loco (crazy in Spanish) but I promise it’s worth going a little loco to get the kiddos on board.
Each week I introduce 5 new sight words on our “Word Study”. This is the hook. These pesky words “talk” to me ALL day looong. Or so that’s what I tell the children J Obviously, words don’t talk, but my children think that they do. What are they talking about? Well, they want to go home. Their home is our classroom Word Wall. The problem is, they are not allowed to go home until my students learn them.
So all week long, we use these words in every way possible so that at the end of the week we can take our test and send them home. This is where I take it to the extreme. At random times during the day, I will talk back to the word wall words. Yep! All by myself I carry on a one sided conversation. I act frustrated as I tell them “Yes, yes, I know we’re working on you…yes, we will let you go home…no, hush so I can teach!” Or maybe I will suddenly stop teaching, point at the Word Study and say “That’s enough from you “want” (calling out a specific word) please be quiet!”
The children will tell you that they hear the words too. Just nod in sympathy and say “I know they are pesky words which one is the loudest?” Then they have to tell you the word (thus having to actually know the word (tricky I know). Have some children go touch that word when you ask.
As if all of the above isn’t enough, I take it a little further. The words want to go home and I pretend that sometimes they are trying to escape. I will randomly loosen the tape on one of the words so it will fall off the board during the day. When this happens, the children think it’s hilarious that a word is trying to “escape” and go home before we’ve learned it! We of course use that word by name as we tape it back up. Occasionally, I will take all the words off the Word Study and tape them in a path to the word wall (on the floor, student desk etc). The children walk in and have to tape the words back to our Word Study since they were trying to escape (reading them as they do). We take our test on Friday and then start the whole silly process over again on Monday.
To make the connection to our Word Families, I have the Carson Dellosa posters on another wall. Since “in” lives on our Word Wall, its family lives on our Word Family wall (pin, fin, sin etc). I tell them this so they can begin to see the words inside of words as it all comes together in their brains. The best part of our Word Family wall is that I’ve taught the kids to point to our Word Family wall and sing “We are family…” (Yes, you know you’re singing it in your head now) as they point and do a little bouncy move I made up to go with it.
I always talk about the words in our room and how helpful they are and how much I love them. This encourages the children to love them too. I have the children actually hug our word wall in appreciation because it’s so helpful to us. After completing a writing assignment where a child has used the word wall to spell, I will say “Just go give the Word Wall a big hug. It helped you so much on this paper!”
In conclusion, if you’ve entertained me this long, this process really doesn’t take any extra time in my day, it’s something that can easily be thrown in and bridges the gap between words we study each week, where they go from there and why we have word families. I would love to hear thoughts and feedback.
*Thanks!
Randi
Grab your FREE printable copy ~HERE~ at my new TPT store. Also check out my new word family lesson ~We Are Family~Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Free Owl Labels
Recently I posted classroom pictures. I thought I would share some of the labels I made for my classroom this year. I have a subtle owl theme going on in the room. Hopefully someone can enjoy these labels! If you download please leave a comment :)
Monday, October 10, 2011
November Write the Room
Fall is my favorite season and I don't want to waste a minute! I created this fun fall themed "Write the Room" packet to go with the season.
November Write the Room at my new TPT store (yes, I just jumped on that wagon)!
I have a large supply of clipboards that I allow students to take and use as they work. They love being able to find a spot in the room to work and clipboards are kind of a big deal to them! This is just one more activity they can use them with!
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Be Thankful for Syllables
I created a practice/review item for my class for syllables. My class has picked up on my love for anything with a theme! This item is available for purchase in my new Teacher's Notebook store!!! Show some love and head on over and check it out!
Click below to check out this activity!
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Crockpot Applesauce
Crock-pot Applesauce
We finished the month of September with lots of fun apple activities! The biggest hit was our homemade crokcpot applesauce! I broke the class into groups and gave each group a responsibility. We began early in the morning and had to painfully wait for our applesauce to cook.....if I had a nickel for every time I was asked "Is it ready yet?" I would be rich. In hindsight, the biggest lesson learned was that good things in life are worth waiting for! Thanks for stopping by my little corner of the world!!!
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Classroom Pictures (finally!!!)
Finally, I have uploaded pictures of my classroom from from August!!! If you have any questions, leave a message or e-mail me.
