October Daily Messages

At the end of September, I posted a set of October Daily Messages for Kindergarten.  Would you believe that I'm just now gettin' around to blogging about them?  Oy...  You can find them in my Tpt store and I'm working on a November set as well.

The messages included look about like the image below, but each one is a little different.

When I did a daily message in my classroom, I put it under the document camera each day. We solved the words with missing letters together.  That gave us an opportunity to talk about specific phonemic awareness skills, phonics skills, word wall words, spelling words, decoding strategies and comprehension strategies together.  Then I gave each student their own copy of the message and they filled in the blanks, read it to themselves and read it to a partner.  Finally, they took their copy home to read it to their parents (or their dog, or a stuffed animal).

When we worked on blends, if we discovered a word that had a consonant blend at the beginning we added it to our Book of Blends.  You can also find My Book of Blends in my Tpt store.

I am lucky enough to visit lots of classrooms for my new job, which I love! I've shared my Super Spelling Forms and Autograph Bookmarks with several of my teacher friends for word work and accountability for independent reading time.

I'm off to a Painting with a Twist event with a friend!  Have a great week!

Every Teacher Loves a Sale!

It's time for the annual back to school sale on Tpt!  This adorable button was made by More Than Math by Mo.  You can download it free from her Tpt store here.

All of my products will be 20% of during the sale, but you can use the code BTS14 for extra savings on everything in your Tpt shopping cart.

The most recent additions to my store...

Super Spelling Forms 

 forms to use with any spelling words + easy Super Spelling Power Stations

Autograph Bookmarks

bookmarks + autographs = increased accountability 

Turquoise and Lime Green Book Bin Labels

Fact Power Folder Set

Some of my other products...

Writing My Opinion 

opinion writing prompts, graphic organizers, book covers, rubrics, anchor chart pieces 

Fall Math Journal Prompts

(winter and spring prompts are also available)

Personal Reader Sight Word Stories

(Short Vowel Personal Readers Stories, Long Vowel Personal Reader Stories 

and a BUNDLE are also available)

Activity Pack for Back to School

Sharing My Writing Through the Year

No time for show and tell?  

Let students share their writing with these fun prompts and turn it into a keepsake book to send home at the end of the year.

Digraph Activities

Funky Fun Vowel Games

Funky Football Fan Fun

Daily Classroom Schedule Words

Camp Read A Lot  Classroom Campout Fun

Information Highway 

Informational Text Unit for March is Reading Month or anytime of the year.

 (passport registration for the Information Highway)

Here are a few of my favorite products from some of my teaching blogger friends.

Sight Word Poems by Jodi from Fun in First.

You can buy this set as part of a bundle as well.

Shark Close Read by Jennifer  from First Grade Blue Skies.

Jennifer has several different close reading sets that are amazing!

September No Prep Math and Literacy Centers by Annie from The Moffatt Girls.

Spring Is In the Air Digital Papers by Corinna from Surfin' Through Second.

She has several sets that I love!

Time to fill up your cart with great deals!

Happy shopping!

Don't forget to use the code BTS14!

Technology Tuesday (7th edition)

Welcome!

I've been sharing some of the technology 

my first graders are exploring this year!

Some of the things in my Technology Tuesday posts 

are apps and some are websites. 

 So you don't necessarily have to have iPads 

to explore some of these things with your students.

If you missed the previous editions,

 you can find them under Technology Tuesday in my side bar.

Today, I'm sharing...

My Favorite Sight Word/Spelling Apps

Spelling Magic 3 by Preschool University

This app has a word builder and an alphabet mover game.

Play Sight Words - Grades 1 & 2 by eFlashApps LLC

ABC -Magnetic Alphabet Lite - Learn to Write For Kids by Dot Next

Rocket Speller by Little Big Thinkers

Spelling Bug Free - by Power Math Apps

Spelling Test Free by FunExam.com

(With this app, you can create your own lists and the students can take tests on those lists.)

Phonics Tic Tac Toe Interactive by Lakeshore Learning Materials

Hope you'll visit again soon! 

Technology Tuesday (6th edition)

Welcome!  It's Technology Tuesday!

Today, I'm sharing a list of my favorite long vowel apps 

and a few other resources that I learned about recently

You can read about how I use mini iPads in my classroom for individualized word work here. 

In the post above, I also shared my favorite short vowel apps.

My Favorite Long Vowel Apps

CVC Sorts 2 by JFK4SDK

Pocket Charts! Long and Short Vowel Sounds by Good Neighbor Press

*Pocket Charts has lots of great iPad apps for different skills (inexpensive and worth the money).

ABC Spelling Magic 4 Silent Final e by Preschool University

Little Stars Word Wizard by Innovative Mobile Apps

*My favorite thing about this app is that two students can turn the iPad sideways and play against each other.  Or, I can challenge a kid to a game as a reward!

Last Friday, I attended a conference about using iPads in the classroom. 

 The presenter, Kelly Harmon,  was great!  

She was truly a wealth of knowledge 

and I left feeling like my head was going to explode from all the ideas.  Ha!

As I explore the things she taught us, I'll share some of those on my Technology Tuesday posts.

Here is one of my favorite apps that she shared.

Educreations Interactive Whiteboard by Educreations Inc.

You can use this app as a white board (goodbye whiteboard/eraser/marker drama).  You can also use this app to create presentations.  It allows you to add photos, voice recordings and text to the screen.  I'm  planning to use it for mini lessons for reader's and writer's workshop.  If I take a screenshot of a page from a book that I want to use to model something, I can use the voice recording option to highlight something that I want students to think about or to give directions for the students to use during independent practice.  The things I create can be saved and/or emailed for future use.

It is easy enough for first grade students to use to make their own presentations as well.   

Speech Buddies also contacted me last week, to ask me to share a link for an article on their blog.

Since it is technology related and I have a speech and language background I agreed to share it.

Top 10 Online Sites for Building Language Skills

Looking for little 100th day of school fun with your iPad(s)?

The app below will allow you to take a picture of your student

 and "age" the photo to show what that person might look like at a certain age.

Aging Booth by PiVi & Co. 

Next week, I'll be sharing more about what I learned at the iPad conference along with my favorite apps for blends and digraphs.  Have a great week!

It's Almost Super Bowl Time!

If you think your students might enjoy some football themed activities to prepare for the Super Bowl, you might want to check out my newest product. 

If you're like me, you feel like you are constantly trying to hold onto the fun 

and still meet the standards.

That's why I created this product.

Hot off the press...

Funky Football Fan Fun

This product includes:

football themed making words activity

Everything You Need to Play Football

How to Play Football (graphic organizer & writing pages)

Football Poetry Challenge

The Best Football Team (graphic organizer & writing pages)

If you follow my Tpt store and leave a comment here with your email address, 

you'll have a chance to win a copy of this product.  

I will randomly choose a winner from the comments that are left 

before 8p.m. on Monday (1/20).

March is Reading Month Planning

At my school, we are beginning our planning for March is Reading Month.  We'll have a school-wide theme, which has not been agreed upon yet.  I also take my own kids to camp for one of the weeks!  Well, I should say that my kids come to camp...in our classroom!

Last year, my class went to Camp Read a Lot (which was really a classroom campout in our classroom). I honestly think it was my favorite week of teaching (in 15 years)! My little campers (and their camp director) had so much fun!

 Here is a picture of the outside of my room all set up for camp!

 We used the table in the picture as our camp registration table. As I welcomed the campers on the first morning of camp, one of my parents worked at the registration desk to register each camper. The registration form is in my Camp Read a Lot (Classroom Campout Fun!) product.

 I did my campout during the last week of March, 

but it could be done at any time of the year.  

I'm thinking it would also be lots of fun at the end of the school year.

 

Don't ya love my teepee?!?!  It's actually not mine.  My friend, who teaches across the hall, let me borrow her teepee.  I had another teepee (from our library) and 3 small tents (borrowed from parents) set up in my classroom throughout the week.

We had a theme for each day of camp.  The themes were Read Under the Stars, Hike and Read, Campfire Stories, S'more Reading Please and Camp Sing a Long. Activities to go with the theme for each day are also included in my Camp Read a Lot (Classroom Campout Fun!) pack.

Here is a picture of my kids on Read Under the Stars day. I hung glow in the dark stars from the ceiling so the little campers could read with their flashlights.  I also played one of those sounds of nature CD's since there are always crickets chirping in the dark at camp.

You can read two more posts about Camp Read a Lot  here and here.  

You can also check it out at my Tpt store!