Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Math Madness Wednesday: TIme


I am linking up with Krista over at Teaching Momster.  Teaching how to tell time seems to either be one of the easiest things to teach or the most difficult.  Kids either seem to get it or really not get it!  I always end up having to do smaller groups or individual work for those who struggle with time.  One activity I use is "Time for Play-doh" where the kiddos use play-doh to make the hands on the clock.  They love that this is hands on!


Stephanie made this cute clock sign for her classroom this year.  She labeled all the 5 minute marks and the clock stands for the "o" in clock.  It's such a super cute idea!  It is also a great way to draw attention to the clock in your room so that students notice it and start to try and use it themselves!
I also love getting out my "Hot Dots" and using them.  I have a whole set of time cards.  The pen gives them immediate feedback on their answers!  Plus they are fun!  You can get Hot Dot cards and the pens on Amazon.  I was fortunate enough to get mine through Donor's Choose.



You can check out some of the products I have in my store that will help you teach time in your classroom!
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Time-Printables-Hour-Half-Hour-Homework-Seat-Work-and-More-1033512

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Time-for-Math-Common-Core-Time-Activities-for-First-Grade-797225

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Time-for-Play-doh-Time-Activity-Common-Core-Aligned-709179

Stephany






Saturday, April 26, 2014

Dauber Winnners

Thank you for the incredible response and numerous comments on the previous Hands on Learning post.  We enjoy reading your comments and ideas on how you would use certain resources and products in your classroom.  With that being said, there can only be three winners of the Dauber Mega Pack.  They are...

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Dauber-Mega-Pack-1203386

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Dauber-Mega-Pack-1203386

Happy Saturday!!
Stephanie

Friday, April 25, 2014

Trade and Grade...Working on Long & Short Vowels!

I am so excited to be participating in this month's Trade and Grade hosted by Amanda over at Primary Gal!
This month I got the chance to trade with Laura over at Differentiation Station Creations.  I got to "grade" her long and short vowel unit which is a super cute and effective unit for teaching students to differentiate between long and short vowels in a word.
She uses cute vowel characters to help students remember the vowel sounds for each letter.
There are a variety of different types of vowel cards in the packet.  You can have students sort a mix of all vowels or just the short/long version of a certain vowel.
I had some of my students sort a mixture of the vowels onto mats during small group instruction as a review.  Once we had completed the activity, I placed the mats on the front of buckets and placed the activity in one of the stations for review.  The kids loved the characters and sorting the pictures into the buckets!
Also included in this packet is a great printable flip book for reviewing the short and long vowels.  This is not only a great activity but you could refer back to this this for reviewing short/long vowels whenever your students need a quick review.
You can pick up a free sampler of this activity by clicking the image below!

You can purchase the whole packet in Laura's TpT store by clicking on the cover below!
Laura is reviewing my Super e Unit!  Head on over to her blog to check it out!
And finally, you can go check out the rest of the Trade and Grade Reviews and grab up the free samples by clicking on the image below!
Happy Trading and Grading!
Stephany


Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Hands-On Stations (with a chance to win)

First of all...  Congratulations to Katie from Creating Teaching Inspiring and Rebecca from Ladybugs Lounge!!  They both won Stephany's Summer Fun Awards!!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/End-of-the-Year-Awards-Summer-Fun-Theme-259726

Are your students more engaged when working with hands-on manipulatives during literacy and math stations?  Mine sure do...  especially this time of year.  Well, now it is time to dig out the sidewalk chalk, hula-hoops and BINGO daubers!  I even get excited about going outside to use sidewalk chalk!!


Here are some ideas of how you can use some of these easy to find products with your students.

Sidewalk Chalk- Take your students outside to write word wall words, sight words, sentences, practice letter formation, and even math facts.  Students of all ages can practice math facts using sidewalk chalk.

Hula Hoops- Use hula hoops to create Venn diagrams, compare shapes, compare and contrasts animals or another topic, or sort items that are alike or different.  I even use hula-hoops in math.  Students can use them to add two or more groups together.

BINGO Daubers- now here is the part I am most excited about.  I have created the following Daubers Mega Pack to use at literacy and math stations.

Do you have buckets of BINGO daubers stored somewhere in a cabinet in your classroom?  Are you looking to put them to use with engaging hands-on learning?  Just look at how many my colleague, Stephany, has in her first grade classroom!


All you have to do is put them in a cute bucket like you see pictured below.  Then print the printables from the Daubers Pack.


Look at the previews below for the skills that are included in this pack.
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Dauber-Mega-Pack-1203386

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Dauber-Mega-Pack-1203386

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Dauber-Mega-Pack-1203386


http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Dauber-Mega-Pack-1203386

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Dauber-Mega-Pack-1203386

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Dauber-Mega-Pack-1203386

If you are thinking about purchasing this pack, just wait...  I am going to give it away to three followers who comment below.  All you have to do is comment with your email address and how you plan to use this in your classroom.

Good Luck,
Stephanie

Friday, April 18, 2014

FIve For Friday- April 18th



We have a new little co-blogger...meet Maddux Nicole.  Stephanie says Maddux is a night owl so she is going to drop her off at my house with me since I am the night owl of the group!  I was totally surprised that she had a girl, I was betting on another boy!   

She also got this super cute gift from one of her student's talented parents!
While she's away on maternity leave, Stephanie's class has been learning about all kinds of great topics.  They learned about chickens this week using  a really great packet from First Grade Fever.



 We had our annual egg hunt on Thursday.  The students find the egg with their name in it in order to get their bunny bag filled with treats.  It's great to see the kids help each out and encourage each other to keep trying when they almost give up at finding their eggs.

 I am working on all of these fluency packets and trying to get them all cranked out for the bundle!  My goal is to have a set for each season, a year-round set and an emerging reader set.  They are all Lexile leveled, have word counts, rubrics, and student reading pages for assessment purposes!   Each student page also has different types of comprehension or reading skills activities.   It's a lot of work but I think they are going to be great for next year!  Right now the bundle includes Spring and Summer themed passages for $6 dollars.  As I add more bundles the price will go up so get in now and re-download the updates later!

 Finally, I made up these cute little tags for my friend Liza to use at the party for her daughter's class.  You can download the tags in  PDF form for free by clicking HERE.  I will be making this mix for my class next year! So cute!   

Here is the recipe if you would like to file it away for next year...
 

A bonus #6! I updated my Summer Fun Awards!  This was one of my first TpT products and it needed a little TLC!    Leave a comment and I will pick two lucky winners to receive them for free!  They are super fun, easy and cheap!  Love these awards!
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/End-of-the-Year-Awards-Summer-Fun-Theme-259726


 Have a very HAPPY EASTER!!

Stephany

Friday, April 11, 2014

Five for Friday


 
Spring is in the air.  Stephany created a super fast and easy Spring themed preposition activity.  You just cut out the egg prepositions, place a set in a large plastic egg (they fit perfectly) and students use each of the prepositions in a sentence and picture.  The kiddos loved getting to pick an egg and get busy working with prepositions!  You can download the eggs and the recording sheet for free from Google Docs by clicking HERE!
 
 I have started my maternity leave!  Hopefully, this baby will be here in the next few days.  I have been busy working on some emergent reader texts and other resources for my students and the substitute in my kindergarten classroom.  Since I will be out the remainder of the school year, I decided to make two readers for my students to use.  I also decided to create a CVC "reader" for the kiddos.  I know they are going to love the CVC book!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/All-About-Summer-Emergent-Reader-Text-1199988



http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/What-Does-the-Fox-Say-CVC-pattern-Book-1197621


Before I went on maternity leave, my Donor's Choose project arrived in large boxes to my classroom.  Here are a few pictures of the kiddos opening the boxes.  They were so excited to see the new book boxes!  They have so much ownership when opening the boxes.  I then have them write their "thank you" notes right away.



My kinders, with the help of a couple parents and classroom aide, threw me a surprise "baby shower".  Even though this will be my third child, it was so nice to have a "baby shower" again!  Here are a few pictures of the kids eating their delicious cake and cupcakes.  Since I do not know if the baby is going to be a boy or a girl, the cupcakes were blue and pink.

Thanks to everyone who purchased our Teacher's For Taytum Bundles.  We were able to make an $800 dollar donation to the March of Dimes in Taytum's honor!