Cinco De Mayo Fun

Cinco De Mayo day is coming up! Are you celebrating in your classroom? My fiesta unit is on sale for 20% off until Monday!

Included in the unit are vocabulary cards (full size and index card), graphic organizers, a fiesta fry phrase center activity, and a candy sort for long and short vowel word using pictures. Click here to check it out and get it on sale :) Head over to facebook to enter to win it!

Who Doesn't Love Mrs. Wishy Washy?

While doing my student teaching 4 years ago, I discovered Mrs. Wishy Washy. I remember my class LOVED her and she has now become a favorite of mine. I was beyond excited when I discovered that the author, Joy Cowley, has written a new set of early readers that feature this lovable character! 

I was recently contacted by Hameray Publishing and I received complimentary products for review. All opinions are my own and this is not a compensated post.

I reviewed two different types of Mrs. Wishy Washy books and both are perfect for young readers. The first is part of The Joy Cowley Collection

These are leveled readers that feature Mrs. Wishy Washy and all the farm animals. There are several different levels and they are color coordinated so you can easily organized them depending on their level. You can see all of the different titles Hameray Publishing offers in their catalog and you can request a free catalog here. I love looking at all the different choices of Mrs. Wishy Washy books they have to offer. These leveled readers would be a PERFECT addition to a Joy Cowley author study!

The other type of book I reviewed was part of the Early Birds series. This series is perfect for kids that are just starting to learn to read. The word count is located on each back cover of the book and this set of books contains a lower number of words that are easy for early emergent readers to read and comprehend. These books would be great for your strugglers! 

Hameray Publishing Group is having a fabulous giveaway right now!! You can check it out by clicking below!

 To learn more about Hameray Publishing, you can check out the following links:

www.pinterest.com/hameray

www.HamerayPublishing.com

www.facebook.com/Hameray

Hameray Publishing is also offering a discount code for 20% off (expires 6/30/13). So when you get your free catalog, don't forget to use the code: ZJCC13

Hameray Publishing has also offered a Mrs. Wishy Washy Big Book to one of my followers! : ) : ) All you have to do is follow my blog! 

Contest ends Sunday night (4/22) at midnight! 

Good Luck!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Jack and the Beanstalk Literary Companion

Just uploaded my newest literary companion for Jack and the Beanstalk. Many different graphic organizers are included and also the craft patterns to this Jack and the Giant craft

Click here to check it out or head over to facebook for a chance to win! :)

The Little Red Hen Activities and Craft

I've just uploaded my literary companion for The Little Red Hen. Click here to get it! Here's a preview of what all is included:

My favorite part? Lots of activities that require no prep! Just print, copy and you're good to go! 

 Also included are patterns for the little red hen craft and writing activity

Click here to check it out and head over to the facebook page for a chance to win!

Five for Friday!! :)

I'm linking up with Kacey over at Doodle Bugs Teaching to share with y'all 5 randoms from the week. Join in the fun here!

{1}

We are having a BALL with our fairy tales unit. We've been learning a lot and reading many different fairy tales. We started the unit off by reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I found the CUTEST craft ever from the Glyph Girls. You can find it here. Didn't they turn out precious??? I plan on changing the title to Goldilocks and the four bears, because as you can see, we only have four boys in our room!

{2}

We also read The Little Red Hen and did a little writing activity with it. We decided if we would help the little red hen, which I thought everyone would say "yes, of course", but we had a few that refused to help. I absolutely LOVE this little girl's response as to why she would not help the little red hen.

How creative is that??? Love it!

{3} 

The weekly phonics pack fits in perfectly with our fairy tales theme! This phonics pack features the suffixes -ly and -ful.

{4} 

Since April is National Poetry Month, I decided to take a day off from fairy tales and learn a little about poetry. We did this adorable activity that I saw from the always fabulous Amy Lemons. I LOVE activities that have self portraits, so this one was right up my alley! I first gave the kids a blank piece of paper to draw themselves, but a few were having trouble, so I supplied them with a self portrait outline to use if needed. I love the way they turned out!

Check our the accessories! LOVE!! :)

Aren't these shoes cute??

{5} 

I'm becoming obsessed with instagram, y'all. Follow me if you're like me and obsessed too! :)

msleslieann01

Happy weekend!! :)

Reading Street Decodable Unit 5

Unit 5 is finally finished! Click here to grab your copy. I'd love to hear from you if you use these in your classroom :) :)

Peter's Chair Freebie

We are knee deep in fairy tales right now, but after browsing through iPhoto just now, I realized I never shared with y'all our activity we did for Peter's Chair a few weeks ago. I can't remember what the comprehension skill was that week, but I felt like the story lent itself perfectly for teaching theme, which we all needed a refresher on! After talking about the importance of the things Peter took with him when he decided to run away, we brainstormed things that were special to us and that we would want to take if we were going on a trip ( I didn't want anyone to get the idea to run away!) I did this suitcase activity two years here and I used my own pattern. I would include the pattern, but I can't for the life of me find it!! I had to google the outline of a suitcase this year, which worked just fine! You can find the writing portion here if you want to use it :)

Happy Tuesday, y'all! :)

The princess and the Pea: Updated!

We've started fairy tales in our classroom and we are having the BEST time!!! I cannot wait to show y'all the most adorable Goldilocks and the Three Bears craft we did yesterday. I'm using today to prepare things for next week when I remembered my Princess and the Pea activities from two years ago. I decided to update this file since it was one of the very first things I had ever created and, let's face it, it could use some spicing up! I've just uploaded the revised edition onto TpT, so if you've already purchased this unit, be sure and go back to redownload it. I've added a few new graphic organizers and updated it with all new clipart. :)

Kevin Henkes Author Study

We have had the best time with our author study on Kevin Henkes. The kids have LOVED all the characters, but I think their favorite has to be Lilly. Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse has become a favorite read in the independent/buddy reading center. I decided to come up with a little craft for this story when I stumbled upon this adorable character map from Sarah Cooley. I decided to totally copy it word for word recreate it. Here's how it turned out:

 We made these little purses to go around the character map. You can find the patterns here (freebie!!)

Since we had a few extra minutes before car riders this afternoon, we decided to learn how to draw Lilly. We did this with the pigeon during our Mo Williems author study and it was a hit. I was a little worried that Lilly would be too hard to recreate and the kids might get frustrated, but they did such a great job! :) Love!

Don't forget to download your copy of the purse patterns for your Lilly book study!!