Phonics Packs

Just uploaded two new phonics packs onto my TpT store. Click the pictures to check them out or head over to Facebook to see how to win a free copy. Also, I've had a few requests to bundle some of the phonics packs (short vowels, long vowels, etc). If you would like to see these bundled, let me know!

What We've Been Up To

We have been busy learning lots of new things! Here's a few pictures from the last couple of weeks.

Last week we learned that 'ow' and 'oa' appear in words like 'boat' and 'row. We created our own boats and made lists of 'ow' and 'oa' words. If you want the pattern for this craft, let me know and I'll post!

I've never had a group of kids understand odd and even better than this year's group. I found these adorable charts over at The Lemonade Stand and just had to recreate them. They go along with a book, but I didn't have it so we just talked about these two characters and then watched a cute odd and even video from School Tube. 

We are busy reading words with two vowels in them, which of course means we are also busy watching the Starfall video that goes along with this skill. I have heard that song OVER and OVER and OVER.

We are learning sums of 10. 

Several weeks ago we talked about the sound of /dge/ and wrote stories/sentences about words that contained this sound. Clipart on the pink paper is from the amazing Ashley Hughes!

Hope y'all are having a GREAT week! :)

Five for Friday

I'm linking up with Kacey over at Doodle Bugs to share my Friday five!

{1}

I'm obsessed with this book right now! I mentioned in my last post that I was trying to teach math better after getting a new math series this year and this book has certainly inspired me! I'll share more about my math soon.

{2}

Since we're on the subject of math and Debbie Diller's amazing book, I've been busy creating some centers from her book. I can't wait to try these out next week!

Aren't these frog clips cute?? I found them at CVS of all places! They are perfect for number line counting.

I made my own,number lines but then I found this WONDERFUL pack from Lindsey (the teacher wife)

{3} 

I just had to capture this sweet moment today during AR reading. I let the kids find a place in the room to read and this sweet girl decided to use our computer cubes! :)

{4} 

I managed to get all my word work centers created, laminated, and package BEFORE the weekend!! I'm so excited that I won't have to spend my Saturday doing this. 

{5}

Guess who made their first visit to our classroom this weekend?? Our leprechaun, Luke! He replaced our hand sanitizer with a good smelling green kind and remind everyone that he was on the lookout for good behavior! 

I wish I would have remembered to take a picture of the bottle at the end of the day. It was ALL gone. I bet we had the cleanest hands in the whole school :D :D

I'll leave you with our new door. Can you tell that we are a little excited for St. Patrick's day??

Happy Friday, y'all!! :)

Author's Purpose

Understanding the author's purpose for writing a story seems like the easiest skill to me, but year after year, my kids have trouble with it. They can tell me whether it was to inform or entertain, but if I ask them WHY they thought that, they look like they don't have a clue. I decided to do a little mini lesson on this today and use some text to text comparison. We started with a blank chart this morning:

 Then, throughout the day, we read 3 different read alouds. I picked two fiction stories and 1 nonfiction. The nonfiction text was one we had already read and did an activity with. I did this so they could concentrate more on the facts and not the content. I didn't want to overwhelm them with new info. 

 At the end of each read aloud, the kids told me what the author's purpose was. They also had to find evidence in the story that supported their choice. I feel like this was helpful in teaching this skill. We could still use more practice, but I like the way they can refer back to this chart when they work on completing a graphic organizer using a leveled text. 

Happy Tuesday! :)

  

Math Fun, Anchor Chart, Objectives, and Centers

I haven't shared much on math this year because I haven't been the biggest fan of our new math series.  Last week I decided to start having a good attitude about and work with what we had. I am happy to say that we've had a much better math experience after this attitude change. We start out the lesson each day by using my FAVORITE purchase EVER on TpT: Cara's Calendar Companion. This little resource is wonderful and has helped my kids SO much. After we complete the daily calendar, we go back to our seats and start the lesson. After doing part of the lesson on their own, I check who understands the skill and who still needs more help. Those that need help, go to the small group table with me and those who don't, get start on their math journals. If you would like a more detailed post on my math lesson, let me know and I'll do one, complete with pictures :). After we did math groups today, we did our very first Think Math! I was so proud of how hard they worked on this. I captured the moment :)

When I create a Think Math page, I go ahead and draw the answer, but I cover it up while they're working on the problem. They have to write the problem, determine the number sentence, and illustrate the problem. 

We've started subtraction, so I used Think Math as an addition review. 

While sorting through math charts from last year, I rediscovered my money posters. You can find these in my Show Me the Money unit here.

We are learning about dinosaurs this week (Mr. Bones for all you RS teachers!)

We made predictions about what Mr. Bones will discover.

 We talked last week about surprises that can be treasures

We've learned all about ai and ay, better known in our classroom as the married couple, thanks to Babbling Abby's fabulous teaching idea found here

I redid my objectives. This was the old way I had them displayed.

I liked this way, but it took up too much space on my white board, which was already limited on space due to my Smartboard. Here's the new way:

Works so much better!

I've been collecting water bottle caps for months now. I finally had enough to create this center.

Hope everyone had a fabulous Monday! :)

Goldilocks and the 3 Bears

Just uploaded my word work pack for /dge/. Click the pic to get it. Want to win a free copy? Head over the Facebook to find out how! :)