SALE and Pinterest permission

Happy Monday!

I'm sure you've heard but in case you haven't... There is a SALE on February 29th at Teachers Pay Teachers! ALL my items will be on sale at 20% off. On top of this, if you use the promo code L2P9Y during checkout, you will receive an additional 10% off! YIPEE!!!
Now is your chance to get some of my activity packs for a super cheap price!

St. Patrick's Day Activity Pack

Plurals Pack

Parts of Speech Activity Pack

Clowning Around With Sounds

Sound Blends pack

Along with these great activity packs, I have a bunch of freebies at my store too!
 

By the way, you have my permission to pin on my blog! Not sure what this is all about? Click on this button to read Laura Chandler's post on Pinterest rules.

Also, I've been working on an amazing SPRING Unit so stay tuned and be sure to become a follower as I will be having my first GIVEAWAY very soon!

Have a great evening and happy shopping on Wednesday,

*FREEBIE* Sight Words Game - Find The Chick!

Good morning everyone,

This is just a quick little post to offer you a cute sight words game. Easter is just around the corner so I thought I'd start using my Easter clip art! Hehe!

This game is super simple and I'm sure your kiddies will enjoy it... I know mine will!

I included some blank cards so that you can add your own words (more sight words or theme words) to the game.

I'd love some feedback if you choose to download it ;)

Have a great day,

 

"SKIN color", Welcome, & New blog design

As my students were coloring their sight words today, a boy asked me to pass him the "SKIN color". I handed him the brown and he looked at me with a very confused face. I then asked him what he meant by "skin" color as there are many different shades of that particular color! He immediately understood what I was getting at and had to rethink his choice of words before asking me again for that crayon.

I have been hearing this over and over from students and it has always bothered me. Today was the day that I decided to confront my students with this issue. I wanted to explain to them that it bothers me and even hurts my feelings when they use the term "skin color". I told them that if I was drawing my husband, I would choose a brown shade and if I were drawing my son I would choose a lighter shade.

The lesson I learned today... Why have I been letting students use this annoying term of "skin color" for so long when it takes just a minute to explain that what they are saying in wrong? Aaaahhhh! I feel much better now that I have confronted my students because I know that they will think twice next time they ask for a shade of beige or brown! HA!

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In other news, I would like to say HELLO and WELCOME to my newest followers. I have noticed that my followers group has been increasing lately and it warms my heart to see that people are actually reading my blog! I hope you are all enjoying reading my posts and downloading my materials because I really am having a blast with this blogging adventure! :o)

Last week I changed my blog design. I had already created my blog button (you can read all about it and get a tutorial in a previous post) so I decided to make the rest of my blog design around that. I'd love to get some comments from you!
By the way, If you want tips on how to make changes to your blog design, check out Sneaky Momma Blog Design. I got all I needed right there on her blog for free! She has great ideas and easy to follow tutorials.


Have a great weekend everyone!

 

More SMART Board Lessons

I attended the second part of my 'Advanced Smart Board Workshop' today! I spent most of the day creating new lessons on SMART Notebook and it was a blast! There are so many great things that can be done with this software...

I am posting a few of my lessons on TPT for FREE! I hope they can be useful to some of you ;)

The first one is called All About Plurals. I made it to go with my Plurals Pack.

The second lesson is a perfect addition to my Clowning Around With Sounds game!

I also made an ABC order game to go with my St. Patrick's Day Activity Pack but I"m not quite ready to post that one yet. It will be ready on Friday!

I hope you and your kiddies enjoy these games! If you use them, I'd love to get some feedback from you :o)

 

Parts of Speech Activity Pack!

Every year we teach our students parts of speech. Yet, at this time of year we always wonder why they still confuse verbs with nouns and nouns with adjectives! Oye...

I created a nice little activity pack to help my students review parts of speech.

It includes a cute little birdhouse sorting game (right on time for spring... it's right around the corner, you know!). This sorting game comes with a recording sheet and an answer sheet for checking your work.
I also made the following activities:

• Sentence writing
• Check for understanding 
• Independent Sorting activity
• Fill in the blank Silly Story (just like those fun mad libs we did as kids! Do they still make those?)
• Parts of Speech Mini-Book

I have posted all of this on my TPT store today and... guess what??

I am selling it at half price for Valentine's Day so grab your copy quick!

Happy Valentine's Day,


 

Cute Linky Party!

I have a problem... I really think I do! I just can't seem to put my computer away for longer than 12 hours!! I woke up this morning saying that I would take a break from blogging and creating but my plans got changed when I received my weekly newsletter from TPT... and then from Charity at Classroom Freebies! Oh well...

Charity shared a cute linky party that I just couldn't resist! Jeannie from Kindergarten Lifestyle is hosting the latest linky party called 'You know you're a teacher when'. Here is mine:

For some reason, I just can't seem to ever come home looking the way I did when I left in the morning! I'm sure I'm not alone on this one ;)

My favorite 'You know you're a teacher when' this morning comes from Jennifer at Empowering Little Learners. Go check it out for yourself, it cracked me up!

Clowning Around with Sounds

Oh boy! I got up this morning thinking I would get started on a little game I needed to put together. HOURS later, I am finally posting it on my TPT store! Why so long? I'm not sure... I guess we all have our days when things just don't seem to go right! It might also be the fact that I am a little of a perfectionist so things sometimes take time to get done the way I want them to. Regardless, I am  very pleased with the way this new creation of mine turned out!

My students have been struggling with some sound blends lately so I thought I'd make a little game to help reinforce them. This activity will be used to review confusing sound blends such as CH, SH, AI, AY, EA, and EE.
It includes:

• 6 sorting mats
• 30 word cards
• a recording sheet 

This game can be used as a whole class or literacy center activity. It can also be used on a bulletin board as a sounds word wall (which is what I think I will be doing once we have played the game!)

I hope you enjoy this... I know I will!!

St. Patrick's Day!

Happy Friday everyone!

I've been working on my St. Patrick's Day activity pack and I'm ready to share it with you.

Here is what my packet includes:

• 22 Word Wall cards
• ABC Order game (comes with recording sheet and answer key)
• Acrostic poems
• Building Words game
• 2 Writing Prompts Sheets
• Wordsearch
• Rainbow Compound Words game (includes recording sheet)

You can grab your copy of this activity pack at my TPT store! If you are going to download this, I'd love to get some feedback from you :o)

Like my last activity pack, I will be sending this complete package for free to the first 3 people who leave me a comment. 

*Don't forget to leave your email*

For those who don't comment on time, no worries! You can download a writing activity (part of my St. Patrick's Day Pack) for FREE!

Have a great weekend!

SMART Board Workshop

What a day!! I just go back from a workshop called Advanced Smart Board. I don’t know if the ‘advanced’ part meant that we were supposed to already have been familiar with Smart Notebook but I went anyway! Good thing... I learned a lot!

After hours of practicing my new found skills on Smart Notebook, I have found some pros and cons for this program that I’d like to share with you.

SMART Notebook

• WAY more pre-made activities where you can simply pop in your information 
• Lots of graphics and shapes available 
• You can move tabs and graphics wherever you want on the screen. With Power Point, the objects that move have pre-determined animations (they move only in the direction and order that they were programmed to). 

Power Point

• WAY more options for animations 

It seems like a file created with SMART Notebook can easily be changed and saved by mistake by a student. As you are using the game and moving objects around, you will lose the original file if you save it when closing the game. There must be a way around this but I haven’t figured it out yet! **If you have any idea how I could make sure a student would not accidentally change my file, I’d love to hear from you**

Overall, SMART Notebook is as user friendly as Power Point. The big advantage, for me, is that the moveable objects are controlled by the students and not by the creator of the game. The big disadvantage is that the animations are not as fun as in Power Point.

By the way, if you want to create something in Smart Notebook and share it with a teacher friend who only uses Power Point (some people use it with a projector if they do not have a Smart board), you can save a Notebook file is a .ppt!

I have another FREEBIE for you today!

Today, I worked on a little game for contractions. It goes really well with my Go Fish for Contractions game. You can download the SMART Notebook file here and the Power Point file here.

I’d really like to have some feedback from you. Which program do you use to create your smart board lessons?

Part 2 of this workshop is next week and I’ll be working on more of these very soon so be sure to follow me here and on Facebook!

Bye-bye, Butterflies!

Facebook

Hi everyone,

This is going to be very short... Preggers is HUNGRY and I gotta go find me some foooood!

I wanted to let you all know that I am now on Facebook. So hop on over there and gimme some love by clicking on that LIKE button!

Bon appetit to me and good evening to you,

February Currently

Today I'm taking a break from creating new teaching materials and I'm linking up with Farley at Oh Boy 4th Grade for her February Currently.

 Aside from all this very important news about me...
Funny story for ya! My son asked me for a snack today and when I asked him what he would like to eat he said "Something magical!" Hahaha!

Plurals Pack, FREEBIE, & Webinar

Hi everyone,

I have completed my latest creation and I’m ready to share it with all of you! If you are teaching plurals in your classroom, this is definitely a must have! You can pick it up at my TPT store today.

This activity pack is filled with fun games for your kiddies!
It includes the following:
- 7 mini-posters to display in your classroom
- Singular/Plural Sorting Game
- Plural Rules Sorting Game
*Both these games include instructions, sorting mats, word cards, and recording sheets. Blank cards are also provided so you can add/change the words.
- "I have, Who has" Game
- Plurals Board Game (comes with instructions and 48 word cards)
- Plural Practice worksheets

If you like this product, check out my FREE interactive SMART board game!

As promised, I will be giving this Activity Pack to some of you so... be the first of 3 to comment on this post and I will be sending it to you for FREE! (Don't forget to leave me your e-mail in your comment)

If you are not in the first 3 to comment, don’t worry. There is something for everyone today! Here is my Go Fish for Contractions game. Enjoy!

Have you registered for Charity Preston’s FREE webinar on classroom organization yet? I have and I can't wait for it!  Click here to save your spot.

Have a great week my sweet bloggy friends,

Plurals Game

Happy Saturday morning,

Today I am offering you a cute game for the SMART board. I will be using it as part of my Plurals Unit.

Don’t have a SMART board? No worries... I created this game using power point so you can easily play using a computer and a projector!

You’ll notice that the title page is called “Pinewood Squares” (Pinewood is the name of my school). Feel free to edit this game by changing the title to the name of your school. You can also change the questions so that it can be used more than once!

If you have not done so already, be sure to become a follower as I will be posting my Plurals Unit tomorrow and I’ll be giving it away to some of you ;) 

Have a great day,

Great Links + Giveaway

Hi everyone,

I was blog stalking this morning and came across a couple of amazing online resources. These are so great that I thought I’d share them with you!

The first one is called A Story Before Bed. This website lets parents and teachers record themselves reading books. Students can then watch the recorded books over and over again! This is great for students who are struggling with reading and need someone to read to them. Also, if you are doing the Daily 5 in your classroom, it is perfect for “Listen to Reading”. They have a huge selection of books to choose from and they are giving away free recordings to teachers!

The next one is called Into the Book. This website is dedicated to helping students learn reading comprehension strategies. They are equipped with videos, interactives, lesson ideas, book lists, and links. Teachers can download resources such as songs and posters. Students can complete interactives and print their work when they are done.

And now for a giveaway... Amy at The Resource(ful) Room is giving away amazing prizes to one of her 300 followers! Check out her blog for all the details!

See you later ALLIGATORS,