Scott Foresman Decodable Activities-Unit 1

Click the pic to get the phonics and comprehension activities for Unit 1 of the Scott Foresman Reading Street series.

Plot Passages

Remember this center?

I finally finished this pack and uploaded it onto TpT. Check it out below:

I've also included an anchor chart and a graphic organizer for a text to text connection activity. Want to win a copy? Head over to Facebook to see how!

/or/ and /ore/ Centers

Click here to get my newest word work pack, featuring the /or/ sound.

First 3 to comment HERE get it free! 

Scott Foresman Decodable Readers

I've had a lot of emails asking about this center that I shared a few days ago.

This goes along with the Scott Foresman Reading Street series. I have finish Unit 3, which is the unit we are currently on. I am working on Unit 1 and 2 and will share those as soon as they are finished. Click the pic to get your copy! 

Five for Friday

I'm linking up with Kacey over at Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday! I'm sharing random happenings from my past week, including school and non school related.

 Let's start with the non school randoms, shall we?

My latest Sephora mini-haul arrived Tuesday. I have become obsessed with Soap and Glory. Any other fans of this brand? The Hand Food hand cream is the BEST hand cream in the word. And it smells AMAZING! You have to try it out. The small size is only $5. I have several for my purse, bedroom, and desk at school. The extra one in the picture is for my cousin. Love it!

What?!? I had no idea I had $19.50 to spend from my extra bucks at CVS. My fall beauty spending has finally paid off. :) It was definitely a nice, little surprise today. 

Now on to the school related randoms.

We did a little germ activity for science today. We read this book, which I thought would be too hard for the kids to understand, but was pleasantly surprised at how into the book they were.

Then we made germs!

I'm working on a literary companion for one of my new favorite books, Hugs From Pearl.

I am IN LOVE with this book. It's by the same author of A Pet for Petunia, another favorite. This is just the sweetest story. Check it out here.

Here's a little sneak peek of the craft that will be included in the pack.

We've also be busy finishing up our author study on Jonathan London, author of the Froggy books.

Be sure and link up with Doodle Bugs here.

My weekly centers in pictures

This past weekend, I spent all of Sunday working in my classroom. I cleaned, made copies, and organized centers. My week has gone SO MUCH SMOOTHLY as a result! I thought I'd share some of the centers that we've been doing this week. The kids had gotten bored with centers lately, so I decided to spice it up a bit. They have loved it and have worked so much harder. :) It's been a great week. A snow day tomorrow would just be icing on the cake!!!

I don't know about y'all, but I have a hard time finding passages that are short enough for my first graders (especially my strugglers) to read quickly and comprehend enough to fill out a graphic organizer about what they just read. I wrote these passages and made sure the kids could identify the four parts of SWBS. They have done GREAT with this! It's really helping with understanding plot.

This graphic organizer is included in my comprehension pack. My boys and girls this year have understood main idea more than any other group I've ever had. Isn't it funny how some groups really "get" a skill while other groups struggle with it. 

I found these skill word cards over on Little Book Lane. I had my kids pick a word and write a story about the picture that the card had on it. This is helping with their writing and practicing our sound skills at the same time!

This has been my favorite center this week. The story is a decodable reader from last week. The kids have to highlight the compound words (which was the skill from last week), write them in the box below and then flip over to the back.

On the back are comprehension questions and a small box for illustrating the story. Not only does this reinforce phonics, but helps with comprehension!

I didn't do good taking pictures of this center, but I did want to share it with y'all. Aren't these masks adorable?? I found them in the dollar section (what?!?) at Michaels. I created monster sight word cards that the kids practice while wearing the masks. Love it!

My kids actually gave me the idea for this next center (I originally learned this center from Kacey at Doodle Bugs, but my kids helped me remember it) . Last week in our independent/buddy reading center I noticed my kids had been taking a few word cards and hiding them around the back corner. Another student would find them and if they said the word correctly, they got to keep it. They just had the best time with this, so I decided to take cards, hide them around the room, and have a student try and find them all. I LOVE that it gets them up and moving.

I also remember to snap a picture of the focus board in action. This is not my original focus board, but me being the nut I am, changed it sometime in November. It works so much better now! 

 We have been working so hard on understanding plot! SWBS is helping! I'll share some activities with this skill later on in the week.

Cool Compound Penguins-Freebie!

Aren't these penguins cute?? This activity was perfect for teaching compound words. Grab your copy of the patterns below! :)

Click below to get yours.

Five for Friday

Link up for Five for Friday with Doodle Bugs here.

1. My week started off GREAT. This happened:

Roll Tide!!1

2. I started my new Valentine's Unit (started, not finished!)

3. The Bachelor returned this week, but I STILL have not seen it. I watched the game Monday night and then it's been such a busy week that I haven't had a chance to catch up yet. Please tell me I'm not alone in watching this cheesy show. 

4. We started our new author study on Jonathan London (author of the Froggy books). We are using lots of activities from Jennifer's pack over at First Grade Blue Skies. I'll post pictures of some of our activities soon!

5. After an exhausting week, I'm ready to relax tomorrow night by watching the Miss America pageant. I LOVE watching Miss America and Miss USA. My mom and I always write down our favorites at the beginning and then see how many we have that make it to the finals. :) 

New Phonics Pack

Want to hear a funny story? When I was 16 years old and had just gotten my license, my best friend and I were driving home one night. There was something in the road, which I thought was a paper bag- a perfectly acceptable object to run over. No biggie, right? WRONG. That "paper bag" turned out to be a skunk, which sprayed my car as I ran over it, creating the WORST smell that I have ever smelled in my life. My new car smelled like a skunk for weeks! I will never be able to look at anything skunk related and not think about that scent filled night!. Click here to get my newest phonics pack- featuring the final -ng and -nk sound. 

Alfie the Apostrophe

Have y'all ever used this book to help teach contractions and possessives? It is the CUTEST book! I created an anchor chart to help reinforce this skill and then made little Alfie's after reading. 

I've created a packet that contains the patterns for this craft and also a contraction sorting activity. You can find it here.

Want to win a copy?? Head over to Facebook to find out how.

MPM School Supplies

Several weeks ago, I had the privilege of shopping at  mpmschoolsupplies.com. I was able to spend $25 in exchange for writing an honest review of their company for my blog. I LOVED shopping on this site! I don't know about y'all, but it is so hard for me to find a good teacher supply store to order from. The closest one to me is an hour away, so I'm a huge online shopper and I'm just thrilled to discover this new company. Let me show you what I got for $25!

I love these reproducible books from Evan Moor.  

 These ABC cards from Dr. Seuss are meant to be displayed, but they are the perfect size to use for a center activity.

Another great Evan Moor book!

 The thing I loved most about this site was the fact that I was not only able to get teaching things, but picture books as well! I nabbed these two fantastic reads!

Want to know the best part??? SUPER FAST SHIPPING! I'm not kidding y'all! I received my items in 2 days! I LOVE super fast shipping! That in its self won me over!

They even provided my fabulous readers with 10% off your first 10 purchases. Click here to redeem it!

A Roll Tide Sale!

Tonight's the BCS national championship...Roll Tide!!!!! In honor of this huge event, I'm throwing a one day sale in my TpT store. Everything is 15% (because Alabama will be winning their 15th national championship tonight!). Click here to visit my store. 

Phonics Packs

I've had several emails asking about my phonics pack, so I thought I'd do a post showing what all is included and the ones that are available. I make these each week and upload them. So far I have all the short vowels and all the long vowels covered. I've also got a pack for /sh/ and /th/ and y as a vowel. I just finished laminating and cutting out the long /e/ ones, so I thought I'd use those as examples so y'all can see the different activities included.

Each pack comes with four word work centers: a word sort, word scramble, fill in the blank, and ABC order. The word scramble and fill in the blank come with a word bank for the kids to use, as you can see below. Each center comes with a recording sheet for the kids to use.If you have any specific phonics skills that you would like to be created into a pack like these, feel free to email! 

 **Sorry for the not so great iphone pics! 

Word Scramble

 Word Sort

 Fill in the blank

 ABC Order

Click on the pics below to check out each unit. 

Updated: Click the "Phonics Fun" link at the top to check out all my phonics packs!