Word Work

Let me begin by saying I am EXHAUSTED.  We had a snow day on Friday and I am still. not. caught. up. *Sigh*  We had a round of parent-teacher conferences last Tuesday night.  They went well.  We have our final night coming up this Thursday.  Between that, being ready for the week without having been at school on Friday, trying to complete all my homework for my reading endorsement, doing laundry, cleaning the house, paying bills, working on new products, trying to get everything ready to file my taxes, and everything else...I'm just wiped out.  But, c'est la vie, right?  ;)

Needless to say, I needed a little "retail therapy."  Enter: GroupDealz.  Please tell me you've been there, right?  I have purchased countless accessories on this site!  It's AMAZING!  They have the best deals EVER!  This is what I just purchased for $9.99!  A lot of their deals aren't on there very long and they add new ones everyday.  This deal expires tonight at midnight.  If you want one, you'd better run!  If I remember correctly, you have to sign up with an e-mail address first before they let you view the deals. It's totally worth it, my friends!  And there's no obligation at all.  You can just browse forever and not buy anything.  But you might just get hooked like moi...

I wanted to let you all know that my March Math Centers - CC Aligned are finally up!  I have put them 10% off for the next 24 hours.  :)

Now on to some Word Work talk!  I do a modified version of The Daily 5, due to our crazy broken-up schedule.  One of the components of it is Word Work.  I have created Word Work packets for every spelling pattern known to man, haha.  I think there are something like 28 packs in my shop!  They range from short vowels to long vowels to digraphs and everything in between.  Let me show you how they work!

Each pack contains 10 different activities that have to do with the phonics pattern for the week.  I bought these fun drawers over the summer.  On the left side, each drawer contains one type of Work Work activity.  I printed off labels and stuck them on each drawer so that the activity stays the same each week.

The first activity is called "Shake Up."  I filled water bottles with colored rice (you pour white vinegar into a bowl of rice, add several drops of food coloring, and mix it up).  Then I copied, laminated, and cut little pieces of cardstock with the phonics pattern within each word.  They shake it up and search for all the words they can find and then write them on a sheet of paper.  The students LOVE this one!

There's also a simple board game using words with the phonics pattern.  Students practice reading words in order to progress on the board.

Next we have the ever popular "I Have, Who Has" game.  This game is best played with 3 or more people, but in all honesty, they have just as much fun doing it with a partner!

Then we have "Build a Word."  In the packet I have letter tiles for this activity, but I actually found a tub of foam cubes on Amazon that I use in my class.  They practice building words with the phonics pattern for the week.

Next is "Word Sort."  They practice recognizing words with the phonics pattern and words without the pattern.

Another activity they like is called, "Line 'Em Up!"  There are 12 words with the phonics pattern that they must put into ABC order.

There are 4 more that I don't have pictures of.   One is "Satisfy the Sentence," which is simply a fill-in-the-blank with words with our phonics pattern.  Looking at them in context helps them learn it!  Then there's "Mystery Word," in which the identify scrambled up words that contain the phonics pattern.  Next is "Locate the Hunks," which are poems where they highlight words with the phonics pattern.  The final one is "Rainbow Words" where they write a particular word with the pattern 3 times, each time using a different colored crayon.

You can find all the Word Work packs HERE!  I hope you enjoy them and get as much use out of them as I do!  My students truly look forward to Word Work each and every week.

Have a blessed week with as little stress as possible!  :)

Happy V-Day!

Don't hate me, but this really is my least favorite holiday.  BUT, being home with my family and ordering take-out really has made it a lovely evening.  I stayed at school until 5:40 working on stuff, so it was nice to come home and not have to cook.  ;)  Don't get me wrong, celebrating love is great, but I'm just not a fan of Hallmark holidays.  Well...that and all the sugar at school.  ;)

Just wanted to pop in a quick second and let you know that the winners were picked for the giveaway! Kelly Stahl was the winner of the lanyard, Angie was the winner of the necklace, and Amanda Nickerson was the winner of the Scentsy warmer/scent bars!  You ladies should have an e-mail from me.  Thanks for all who entered! :) :) :)

I want to encourage you to keep checking back because since I'm a consultant, this will NOT be the last Scentsy giveaway!  And just to get you excited, I'm going to do another giveaway for Teacher Appreciation Week in May!  :D

In the meantime, I've been working on my new Guided Reading Galore pack.  I have had SO many requests for the template, so I'm putting together a huge pack with all sorts of things you can use for guided reading.  But since this about YOU, is there anything in particular you're wanting included?  Anything you're specifically looking for to help with guided reading?  Let me know and I will try my hardest to add it!  :)

Thanks, friends!  Have a nice, long weekend!!!! :)

A Giveaway Just for YOU!

This is the time of the year that I typically get overwhelmed and just worn out.  There's not much of a break between Christmas and Spring Break.  And we are going on two years now without a single snow day.  Talk about depressing!

I have thought long and hard about what my very first giveaway would look like.  After a lot of pondering, I decided to treat YOU!  Not your students (directly).  Not your classroom (directly).  Instead, I came up with an idea to throw a sweet little giveaway that is a little something for you!

So what all is included?  

A rainbow rhinestone lanyard from Doliphine!  She has such a huge selection.  I ordered a gray one and brown one for myself!  A little sparkle can make any day better, in my opinion!  ;)

 I'm also giving away a necklace, complete with 3 (real) Swarovski crystal beaded balls handmade by me!  It's my newest hobby!  These tiny little beads are threaded and strung by hand.  It takes about 15 minutes for me to create one.  My first one took 2 hours!

And last but not least, since I'm a Scentsy consultant I thought I would give away ONE warmer and THREE Scentsy bars!  The new Spring/Summer catalog comes out March 1st for the public.  Instead of picking one out to give away, I decided it was way too hard to pick one, especially when I don't know what YOU will like!  That's why I'm letting you choose everything! :)  And let me just say, the new catalog has the BEST new warmers and scents!  I am SOOOO excited about it!  I have 2 Scentsy warmers in my classroom.  In case you don't know what Scentsy is, they are a line of wickless, flameless candles!  You put a couple of scented wax into the top of the warmer, turn it on (just like a lamp), and the warmth of the lightbulb melts the wax and gives off an amazing scent!  The wax gets hot, but it won't get hot enough to burn you.  In my demonstrations I always dip my fingers into the wax to show that it's completely safe.  ;)

CLICK HERE TO BROWSE THE NEW CATALOG TO PICK OUT YOUR WARMER AND SCENTS!

If you ask me, there's no way you can go wrong on winning any one of these!

So how do you enter?  Enter through the Rafflecopter below!  :)  The winners will be picked on VALENTINE'S DAY!  The giveaway will close on midnight Wednesday.  I will choose 3 winners (one for each prize) when I get home that evening!  :)  If you're chosen, I will send you an e-mail to get your mailing address to send you your goodies!  :)

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Super Bowl Sunday Sale and some new products!

It's officially 2:17 a.m. and I'm EXHAUSTED.  I'm planning a giveaway at the end of the week, so check back for sure!

Until then...

I finished my February Math Centers and they are up in my shop!

I ALSO made a quick little pack for kids who get done with their work and say, "What do I do now?"  One of my biggest pet peeves!  Not that they finish early, but because I tell them every time their options.  And it's February.  Sheesh.

So I whipped up this little packet of choices that can be printed and stapled into a little student flipbook!  They keep it in their desk and pull it out when they need something to do quietly at their seats.

Everything in my shop is 20% on Sunday!  Enter the code "SUPER" at checkout for another 8% off!  Happy shopping!  My cart is full!

Target Finds!

Saturday was a fun girl's day!  I went shopping in Columbus with Amanda Nickerson from One Extra Degree and Lisa Pesce from Fourth and Ten!  We had some yummy lunch at The Cheesecake Factory and spent lots of time gabbing.  Then we hit up The Container Store, Pottery Barn, and lots of other fun places!  Then we all parted ways and I kept on shopping...

I went to Babies R Us to pick out a new carseat for my 19-month-old son.

THEN I went to TARGET!  Ummm...yes, please!  Love that place.  Of course I stopped at the Dollar Bins since they were right near the front door.  And LOOK what I found!  Are these dice not the cutest?!?!?!  And they're large dice, too.

And then they had these adorable pink dice!  Yes!  I love pink!  Let's just say I'm PUMPED about my February Math Centers!

And I found 2 poetry books.  I don't have an overabundance of poetry in my library, so I snagged a copy of each of these.  And even though it says "Ages 3+" it's definitely not too easy!

I think I win this Target trip!  So hurry if you have one nearby...I've heard the dice are going quick! :)

Winner and A Great Book...

First of all, congratulations to Jen Jenkins Vukosic on winning Michelle's awesome Dental Health Craftivity!  Jen - you should have an e-mail already!  :)

A couple weeks ago I received this book in my Amazon order.

Let me just tell you, it has REALLY made me reflect a lot on my classroom.  I am SO excited about the things I'm learning.  I read just a few pages a night, which helps with trying to apply it.  Every single day, I think about what I read and implement some of the techniques she mentions.  For example, last night I read about how to respond when kids give silly answers to questions.  Today when some of my kiddos gave silly responses just to get attention and laughs from the class, I went with it.  Just like Debbie said, if you show them you're serious, they'll be serious as well!  It was pretty funny neat to see their faces just drop as I turned the tables on them.  ;)  Here's an example of the conversation we had:

Me: "What do you think might be something scary about moving to a new place?"

Class Clown Student:  "All the creepy, scary spiders!" (It wasn't a for real answer...he had a goofy grin on his face and started laughing...then the other kids STARTED to laugh, BUT....)

Me (without missing a beat or giving him a look): "What makes you think your new house would have spiders?  Why would that be something that would scare you?"

TOTAL change.  My kids just stopped.  And he tried to continue thinking, trying to justify his answer. This happened a couple of times throughout the day.  My normal reaction would've been to say something like, "Ok, it's not time to be silly," and then give them the death stare.  But usually they just keep cracking the jokes here and there.  You probably know that your class clowns will always be class clowns.  And for some reason, your stare-downs and "stop it" comments only seem to fuel the fire.  Oh sure, they might back off for a minute, but these students thrive off the negative attention sometimes.  So if you let them know you're serious and turn it around on them, you might just notice that it really does put an end to it!  And then they're roped into a serious discussion about books and therefore LEARNING!  Amazing how that works.  ;)

Anyways, I hope you all had a great Hump Day!  Only 2 days left before a long weekend!

P.S. Stay tuned for my first big solo giveaway!  I have some FUN plans for this, friends!!!!  Coming this weekend.... ;)  You won't want to miss it!

Product Swap: Dental Health + A Giveaway!

Hey there friends!  I'm super-pumped because I'm participating in my FIRST product swap!  I'm linking up with Jessica from Mrs. Stanford's Class for a fun linky!

I partnered up with Michelle from Just Wild About Teaching!  You MUST check out her blog!  She has some fantastic ideas and some oh-so-cutesy stuff!  She is one of my new favorite bloggers!

Since February is Dental Health Month, I decided to try out her Dental Health Craftivity!  And ohmygoodness...CUTENESS!

Inside, you'll find everything you need to make a cute Tooth Fairy craftivity for the kiddos to take home and leave their tooth in!  Then the Tooth Fairy can leave money.  ;)  Here's how it works!

Michelle includes all the patterns you need to cut out the pieces.  I used sparkly white felt for the teeth and then pink and blue felt for the wings.

These are all the pieces cut out to make a boy Tooth Fairy and a girl Tooth Fairy!  :)

Once I got everything glued on the front, it was SO CUTE!

On the back you glue a little pouch for the kiddos to put their teeth in in exchange for some money!

                         

How cute is that?!?!?!?

She also has pages GALORE to put together a booklet!  I made ones with blue covers for the boys and pink covers for the girls.

I have everything set, created, and ready to go for next month when we cover Dental Health!

Are you totally excited about her product?  Would you just LOVE a chance to win it?!?!  Well, here's your chance!  Enter the Rafflecopter below for a chance to win Michelle's Dental Health Craftivity Pack!

The giveaway well end Tuesday at midnight, so enter now!  :D  Good luck!

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