Giveaway and an Upcoming Sale!!!

Head on over to Dinah's blog to enter her AMAZING giveaway with 77 (yes, I said 77) teachers who have donated! Oh MY!

It begins tomorrow, February 1st! WoW! Where did January go?

Anyway, there are some really great prizes to see over there!

These banners are sooooo cute!

Check them out here!

There is a SUPER (get it :)) SALE coming up at TpT.

I have updated many of my products to align with the Common Core and JAZZ them Up!!

Just enter the code: SUPER!!

These are a few of the updated items in my store. 

I still don't know who I am routing for in the Super Bowl. I am going to a party to celebrate our friends coming home from New Zealand. They have been there for six months. It will be SUPER to see them!

Have a wonderful day!!!

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Writing Workshop Wednesday

We use Lucy Calkin's Units of Study.

We have used it so many years now I can't remember when we began. I LOVE it. Ms. Calkins has even aligned it to the Common Core Standards. I think it was alright the way it was, but they had to make it more rigorous. 

Anyway, we are on our "Author's as Mentors" Unit. 

We began yesterday having our discussion about "Small Moments". We have been working on this since the beginning of the year. One of my firsties raised his hand. I called on him. He asked, "What is a Small Moment?". I think I nearly banged my head on the table. REALLY????

I explained in my best, calm, teacher voice what "Small Moments" were. He responded, "Oh, Yeah! I know that!". {{{SIGH}}}

We talked a little more about "Small Moments" just in case anyone else couldn't remember what they were. I gave them some examples they could choose from:

Two weeks in Cape Cod OR Whale Watch Trip

My Weekend OR Driving and seeing the snow on the ground that looked like diamonds

(They got it!)

Then I read Angela Johnson's The Rolling Store.

What a beautiful book.

This book is about a grandfather telling the story of a "rolling store" that used to visit their community every Saturday. It is a beautiful story.

The "Small Moment" that Ms. Johnson writes about is the grandfather's memory and passing down the story of "The Rolling Store".

We discuss what Ms. Johnson's "Small Moment" is in the story and how she made it into a story.

I had the students think about a "Small Moment" they would like to write about. Then I had them "turn and talk" to their elbow partner. I had our Literacy Coach in the room with me at the time so the two of us went around and checked to see if each student had a "Small Moment" to write about.

I sent them off as writers to write their "Small Moments".

They had enough time to write their "Small Moment" and extend it a little. After that, if they had finished writing, they could sketch a little bit.

I asked a student to share at the end of our Writing Workshop.

This was the end of our first lesson in "Authors as Mentors". 

What a great beginning!

I am hoping to post each Wednesday about Writing Workshop.

Have a wonderful day!

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Little Learning Lovies and a Freebie

Have you RSVP'd yet? 

"Come join us for an hour of online fun at the Little Learning Lovies Facebook Page! We'll be chatting about ways to chase those terrible winter blues away, especially concerning home educating, how to bring on more fun all the year round and how games and activities do more than just disguise drill practice. We'll also be having specials, sales, giveaways, contests, freebies and more, all packed into that hour."

I am going. Let's just see if I can stay up that late! :)

Hope to see you there!

My freebie to you in one of my Making Words Activities for Valentine's Day.

This activity has all the letters from SWEETHEART.

Make them into whatever work you wish.

You can work on word-families, small words, bigger words, plural words, etc.

This can be used as a whole group activity, small group (think Guided Reading), or put into a Literacy Center/Daily 5.

My firsties LOVE it when I pull out Making Words!

Have a wonderful day!

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I Need Your Help

Mid-Winter Blues Giveaway

I don't know about you, but this is when I start to get a little stir crazy. The kids have been inside the ENTIRE week for recess! AHAHHAHAHAH!!!!

I needed something to take my mind off it.

I needed a GIVEAWAY!

I have some amazing bloggers lined who have generously offered their FABULOUS products. 

If you would like to help out, I would really appreciate it!

Please fill out the form below.

I will be back tomorrow with a flash freebie. :)

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A Little Blinkie from Barb and Place Value Games

I stalk visit Barb's blogs daily. She is so creative and is such a great teacher. I would love to be a student in her class. Well, she has these little blinkies, if you haven't seen them before. I rush on over to her blog when I see them posted and GRAB them so fast!

LOVE THEM!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Place Value Game

I have a lot of these posted on my TpT store. 

Click on the picture below to get to the amazing Common Core Standards Site. It is easy to maneuver around as long as you can find it. Sometimes I can get to the main site and then not get to this particular place. Anyway, it is a really great resource when you get to it. :)

So, Place Value for firsties...

It is a hard concept for them. We begin right at the get-go. The first day of school, when we are working on calendar, we also fill in our Place Value Chart. 

0 Hundreds, 0 Tens, and 1 One.

We link that up with our counting by 10's. How many groups of 10's do we have? How many do we have left over? By this time, Day 90, I think most of them get it. The others know what numbers are suppose to go in the chart. For reinforcement, I have plenty of these Place Value Games on hand. I have some for almost every holiday, season, animals, etc. 

I laminate and cut out all the cards and Place Value Mats. Cardstock works best. This way the numbers do not show through on the cards. 

I usually include many different "decks" (numbers 1-10) in the packet. You can use all of them or just a few to play the game. 

Each player needs a Place Value Mat.

You can use one recording sheet for each of your kiddos. 

Shuffle the cards and place them face down.

Players decide whether they are going to play largest or smallest number wins.

For this example, I am going to play highest number wins.

One player draws from the deck.

This is not a very high card, I may play it in the discard or in the ones.

You may not want to use up your discard yet. I would probably place mine in the one's column.

Player two draws a card and does the same thing. 

Once a player places a card in a column, you may not move it. This encourages them to use some different strategies.

Once player two has gone and placed their number card. Player one goes again.

This time, player one has drawn the highest card possible in the ones. This definitely will go in the hundreds column.

The game goes on from there.

The players only draw four cards the entire game. One goes in each of the columns. 

When filling out the recording sheet, all players can fill out the numbers and then check if they "won" or not. 

I just noticed that I need to put a bigger barrier in between each of the players numbers. It looks like it a very big number right now. I will update each of my games today.

I hope you enjoyed learning about how I work on Place Value with my firsties.

Have a wonderful day!

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A Bit Chilly!

Ooooooh Weeeee!

Not only do we have FREEZING cold temperatures here. Our boiler was not working for the entire three day weekend! The staff found out at about 6:30 am. Too late to get those little kiddos back home.

We worked ALL DAY in our coats and hats. They would have kept their gloves on, but they couldn't use the iPads!

It warmed up to around 70* (in the classroom) at around 1:30. Goodness!

We made the most of it. We pretended we were in Antarctica on an expedition. :)

I love FIRSTIES!!!

On another note, I have updated many of my products and am working on having them completely updated by the end of this weekend. Boy am I ambitious!

Head on over to check them out!

Would anyone like to help out? I am going to have a Mid-Winter Blues Giveaway in February. 

Please leave a comment or email me if you would to help out.

Thanks so much!

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Dr. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

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Magical Product Swap with Angelia

I participated in Mrs. Stanford's "Magical Product Swap". It was so great to get products from an amazing teacher and review them. The kiddos had sooo much fun!

I was matched up with Angelia from Extra Special Teaching.

Have you checked out her blog? It's amazing! She has so many ideas and products. 

The first product was "B and D Confusion Activities".

I took some of my firsties that have been having trouble with B and D.
They had so much fun!
First they covered all the b's on one page and all the d's on the other. I used buttons, but if I was going to give it to the whole class, I would use highlighters. How excited would they be?!?!

The second activity was to sort all the b's and d's as well as the b words and d words. Angelia included different fonts sot the kiddos can see the difference in the letters.

The next activity they did was to put the b or the d on the beginning of the word. Angelia did a fantastic job of finding pictures to go with the words.

The last activity consisted of writing some of the b and d words on the recording sheet.

This bundle of activities was fun and meaningful. It had direct instruction on how to use every activity. The font was clear and there was a culminating activity which brought the whole thing together. 

My kids LOVED it!

Have I told you how wonderful Angelia is???!!!???

Well, she sent me not only one product...BUT TWO!!!

She is so sweet!

This little activity is a Sight Word Game.

This is a game where the students take turn choosing a card and reading the word on the card. If they read the word correctly, they get to keep the card. If they do not read the word correctly, they have to put it in the bottom of the pile.

There are special card in the deck too! My kiddos loved finding these! :)

When they finished. The got to choose some sight words and write them on the recording sheet. For them to be able to choose the words was such a motivation for them.

Once again, Angelia makes this product fun and meaningful for my firsties. She has included graphics that the students love to look at and has included a few surprises they totally enjoyed. 

Thank you so much to Jessica for hosting this Product Swap and working so hard to pair up the teachers. 

Also, thanks to Angelia for swapping with me and making such wonderful products!

Have a wonderful day!

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