Last Week in Pictures (Plus Pirate /ar/ activities!)

First off, sorry to everyone who has emailed or commented here lately. My week was beyond crazy so I didn't have a lot of time for blogging. I've also become addicted to a new TV show that I've been trying to pull myself away from. :) Did anyone else see the new Revenge episode Wednesday night where we finally got to see who was shot at the White Party???

 To the first three who commented on my Math Madness post, I promise I'll email them to you today! To those who have commented or emailed to ask about a Dr. Seuss unit, I'm working on it now and *hope* to have it up by Monday. I didn't realize Dr. Seuss week was week after next. Can y'all believe that?? My kids are starting to get his books for AR and they are getting sooo excited about Read Across America Week. 

This week, we talked a lot of presidents. I wasn't sure how much this would interest my kids, but they loved it! I think it was one of their favorite topics so far. 

We made hats for our door:

Side note: I did the same thing with Cat in the Hat hats for my door last year and thought it turned out really cute.  Check it out here.

We also made George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. I had planned on making a President Obama, but we ran out of time. 

You can find the facts sheet and bubble maps in my President's Day here.

 I also started doing something different for our  "A to Z sounds" board. I use to just put the name of the sounds we had covered like Long a or /th/, but I realized that was just a waste of space since it didn't have any words that contained those sounds. Everyday, we make charts for our weekly sounds on our smartboard, so I started copying those charts onto paper and displaying them on this board. It has worked out sooo much better and now the kids can actually look to the board to see examples of those words. Here's a few of the charts:

And lastly (sorry, I know this is a really long post!) my kids need a little extra help with the /ar/ sound. I've created a ARRR!!! Pirate mini unit that we will be doing next week at Word Work. You can get it here. It's a short packet, so it's cheap! :) 

Reading Street Teachers- we've been busy with so much other stuff in my classroom, that we haven't had much time for extra stuff in our reading series. So if you've noticed a lack of "extras" for the last few stories in Unit 3, that's why. Plus, Unit 3 is my least favorite unit. The good news is Unit 4 is my favorite, so I'll start posting more fun things for each story. We're on Mama's Birthday Present next week, complete with a fiesta on Friday! :)

Unit 4 Questions of the day will be uploaded soon!

Bandit Y Literacy Center

I've just uploaded my new word sort center. I'm using this as a review center for reviewing y as /e/ and /i/. A wanted poster like the one I created here is also included. Get the packet here. 

Freebies to the first 3 to comment!

Hope everyone is having a great week back at school!

****I'm working on the Phonics Tales packet and hopefully it will be done by this weekend for those of you who have emailed and commented. :) :)

The Bandit 'Y', Number Words, and Greater Than Less Than Alligator

I had started this post the week we got out for Christmas break but then realized it had never posted. Our last story was An Egg is An Egg (not a fav of mine) and our phonics skill was y as 'e' and 'i'. There are many ways of teaching this but I have found the "Bandit Y" to be the most helpful. We created a wanted poster for this guy, who is known for stealing e and i and acting like them. My kids LOVED this and it helped so much to those who were struggling.

We also did number words to 10. This was the lesson in Saxon, but I felt like my kids were ready to learn this a long time ago, so I started making center activities for this skill back in October. Needless to say, this lesson was a breeze at this point. Since we had extra time, we made a chart using this now familiar number words.

I also wanted to share my great find at Pier One Imports (love that store!) How perfect is this as the greater than less than alligator??? We haven't gotten to that in our math yet, but when I bought this into the classroom my kids were so excited about it and wanted to learn the skill that goes with him. I love when they get so excited about learning!

Don't forget- it's the last day of my sale at Teachers Pay Teacher. Visit my store!

Long e Honey Bee Word Sort...TPT

Click here to get my long 'e' honey bee word sort.

Sheep in a Jeep- Teaching Long 'e'

Aren't these cute?? Our phonics skill this week is long e so along with our reading series story (Honey Bees), we read Sheep in a Jeep and found all the long e words- all 32 of them! This is a wonderful story to help teach long e and my kids loved it!

***I've gotten a lot of emails and comments asking how we have time to do all this. I precut everything in order to fit it all in. There's no way we could do it if the kids had to cut all the parts out. It is very time consuming, but the kids love it and I think it brings so much more to the learning process and allows the kids to better understand concepts and skills since they feel more involved in the process. :)

***patterns coming soon!

Dinosaur Patterns Freebie, Counting Turkeys, and Ed and Edie!

I have finally uploaded the dinosaurs patterns! Sorry it took a little while! Click the pic to get them. I've uploaded them onto my teachers pay teachers store, but they're free. I've found it's easier to download from TPT instead of Scribd. 

I found this gem of a book today in our classroom library. So wish I would have discovered it last week. It would have been oh so helpful!

If you haven't yet gotten to the Big Circle in Reading Street, be sure and pick this book up! My kids loved it and it would have been wonderful to use at a poetry center during this story. I may even extend our dino study into this week so we can use it :)

Need a quick activity? A handprint turkey is always a hit! We made these while we counted by 5's and 10's.

And lastly, one of our phonics skills this week is ending -ed, so I created Ed and Edie. I made the married couple "ai" and "ay" via the fabulous Abby's blog last year and it helped my kids understand that sound so much better! 

********Don't forget to enter my 1000 followers giveaway! I'll pick the winner tonight, so there's still time to enter!

Sea Shell Sort...TPT

Click here for Sea Shell Sort. I made this to go along with our sound skill this week, which is long /i/ and long /o/ after the constant blends 'nd', 'ld', and 'st'. I made it with sea shells since we are doing Junie B. Jones Aloha-ha-ha next week. The directions page in the packet has Junie B. telling the instructions, but it could be used without teaching the story.  :)

Awesome Automobiles...TPT, Three Little Pigs, and Inventions

How's that for a random post title? It's been awhile since my last post, but it's been beyond busy here lately. How many of you are counting down the days 'til summer??? My creativity is just about gone (you'll see what I mean in a little bit!) and summer's calling my name! A little inspiration did finally come to me last night and I whipped up a sound sorting packet for our sound skill next week, which is /aw/ and /au/.

Just uploaded it to Teachers Pay Teachers and you can find it by clicking the picture or by clicking here!
I cannot say thank you enough to everyone who has purchased items from my store!!!! :)

I've been meaning to post our Three Little Pigs project that we did awhile back. Our comprehension skill was sequence so we used a familiar story to reinforce this skill. I divided my kids into four groups. Three groups were in charge of making a house, while one group made the pigs. Afterwards, we discussed the sequence of the events in the story.  I thought it turned out really cute.

We are in our last unit in our reading series and all you Scott Foresman Reading Street teachers know this unit is all about great ideas and inventions. This is a really hard topic that is especially difficult to teach at the end of the year. I have been thinking and thinking and thinking of good activities to go along with this theme, but can't for the life of me come up with anything creative. So, I turned to one of my favorite blogs, The First Grade Parade and found a wonderful post on inventions. Ms. Carroll had her students come up with inventions and write about them. They were beyond adorable! Reading Street teachers....go check it out! It fits in perfectly with Alexander G. Bell...Here are some of my kids' inventions.



I so wish someone would invent this! So creative! :)





Captain Hook and His -ook Coins...TPT!

Just uploaded my new sound sorting activity for this week to Teachers Pay Teachers, which deals with the "ook" word family. Captain Hook has made a special visit to our classroom this week to deliver this 'game' Check it out by clicking the picture above or click here!

Scout the Grouchy Hound Center Activity...TPT!

I have just uploaded my activity for next week at my word work center onto TPT. It focuses on the diphthong /ou/. Students have to sort bones and record their findings. Click Scout above to go to my teachers pay teachers listing or you can find it here! :)

Down on the Farm /ow/ Packet Revised on TPT

Hey everyone! If you purchased my Down on the Farm diphthong /ow/ packet on TPT, I have just revised it. Before, the words were under the cows and it made it hard to cut out each cow. I didn't realize this until I had converted it to a PDF file to upload. I have changed it to make the words appear on the cows instead of under. If you have already purchased this packet,  TPT should let you download the revised copy. If you have problems, just email me! :) And if you want to check out this packet, you can find it here.  Thanks again! :)  :)

Meet Farmer Brown and his /ow/ Cow!

Well, since the picture uploader is not cooperating with me right now, I guess you'll have to meet Farmer Brown and his /ow/ cow sideways! This week's sound skill is the diphthong /ow/ so I decided to create some helpers to teach us this new sound. I also created a center about these two characters. The students must help Farmer Brown sort all his cows that got mixed up  and then record their findings. I've uploaded it to Teachers Pay Teachers and you can get it here!
Since review week is over and we start back with a weekly reading story, there won't be as much time for fairy tales but I'm hoping to get some in during the afternoons if we cut snack a few minutes. Coming up this week is Rapunzel, Cinderella, The Three Little Pigs, and The Wizard of Oz. I just purchased Babbling Abby's unit and I'm so excited to teach this story!! If you haven't checked her unit out, you must! It's beyond cute!

Vowel People!

Last week, our phonics skill was /ai/ and /ay/. I was tickled pink when I saw a chart for this skill on Babbling Abby's teacher blog The Inspired Apple. She made the cutest 'ai' and 'ay' people, along with a memorable story to help inforce the sound. I made my own 'vowel people" and told my kids the story of the old married couple. They loved it! One of my kids even randomly raised his hand in the middle of a math lesson and said, "Hey Ms. Leslie Ann, I have the married couple in my name!"(meaning 'ai') :) Here's my vowel people for 'ai' and 'ay'

Since our phonics skill this week is /ea/, I made a helper chart for these two vowels, along with the song from Starfall. If you haven't seen it, you must check it out here! I show this video to my kids when I introduce this new sound and it really helps.

Thanks for the great idea, Babbling Abby! :)

Ruby Helpers: Compound Words

Our reading story next week is Ruby In Her Own Time and part of the phonics skill is compound words. To help my kids understand this concept, I made Ruby Helpers. I'm going to display these on the white board while we talk about compound words.