Teach Me Sight Words!

Y'all, she's at it again!  My dear friend Jessica at The Littlest Scholars  is at it again and has another set of interactive listening centers to help your students learn.  This time she has created Teach Me Sight Words to give your students a ~5 minute sight word tutor to help reinforce and teach sight words.

Here's how it works...

You can purchase and download this set from Jessica's store, and print it.  It is better to print these on a color printer because the sight words that are the focus of each book are highlighted in yellow, but this is not necessary.  

Next, cut the books out.  I chose to only cut 3/4 of the border so that I could use the other side of the border to staple so that none of the student workspace in the book was cut off.

I downloaded the file and uploaded the files into itunes.  This was such an easy process and I added them to my library.  I placed the files onto two iPods that I have, but you could upload these and burn them onto a CD or tablet.  Placing them on more than one iPod allows me to have students working on different words at the same time, and the ability for students to move onto other words if their others are not ready.  

What I love about these pages is that the students can listen to the recording 3-4 times so that they are able to complete each of the pages.

The activities in this book include:
Reading and spelling the word
Reading the word in a sentence
Tracing the words with your finger
Tracing the letter with a pencil
Finding and circling the word
Writing the word
Writing the word in a sentence

I place these iPods in centers and allow students to choose to head to that center.  One of my little sweeties can not get enough of these books and has learned 3 new sight words this week, and for her this is a HUGE deal.  She loves to read her book to my assistant and I and has been so proud of the work that she has been putting in.  These books are such an investment, and the best part is that they are self guiding, if she is not able to read the books on Monday when we get back, she can do the same books again!

To save paper, you can also print all of the books, laminate and cut them and place them in a center with an EXPO marker so that the students can reuse them again, and again!

You can download a FREE copy of the sight word AND here.

Happy Spring, y'all :)

What teacher doesn't need more storage?

Well, we are at it again! Nearly 200 teacher-bloggers have teamed up to bring you another round of BRIGHT IDEAS... no products, no freebies, just great ideas to help make your day to day teaching life easier!  You will be able to complete the hop from any blog, as it is a large circle, so there is no real beginning or end, or you may go to the inlinkz at the bottom of this page to check out where to hop next!

This year I came to a new school and a new district to become their 5th Kindergarten teacher! When I came into my classroom it was bare, 3 bookshelves, 2 tables and NO chairs! I wasn't too worried about gathering resources, my biggest question was where I was going to put all of these little bodies that were arriving in just a few days! We were able to find about 24 chairs, but still that wasn't going to be enough. It was enough for students to have a place to sit when working whole group, but not enough for my table or my assistant's table for small group instruction... So my bright idea is CRATE SEATS! 

Crate seats can be expensive to make, so I found short cuts any place I could without cutting the quality of the end result.

Materials to Gather:
1 -- crates
2 -- wood (I went to Lowes and spoke to someone about buying the right stuff, I bought a large piece of ply wood, and they cut it for me at no charge! The measurements you need are: 15 3/4 x 12 3/4)
3 -- cushion (To make this step cheaper, I used an egg crate that is typically put onto bed, I purchased the XL twin from Walmart)
4 -- cute fabric (Who knew fabric was so expensive?  I purchased a flat sheet bed set from Walmart, costs roughly $5, this won't make me feel as bad when I want to change them out year to year!)
5 -- staple gun
6 -- staples for staple gun

Optional
1 -- shower curtain (Teaching K, you just never know what is going to happen or the fluids you may come across, little did I know JUST HOW MUCH this would save my life this year!)

Step 1: gather all of your materials

Step 2: ASSEMBLE!

First, I took the egg crate as a whole and placed it over the cut board and used a marker to mark off where I needed to cut, then cut the egg crate.

Second, I placed the shower curtain over the cut egg crate, marked it and cut it -- you want to make sure this will go around to staple onto the back so that nothing can leak around it!

Third, I stapled the shower curtain into the board to hold the egg crate in place.

Fourth, I laid the bed sheet out onto the table.

Last, I marked off and cut the bed sheet to fit over the egg crate and the shower curtain and stapled it to the board.

Then, repeat!

Step 3: Sit, store, teach and enjoy!

Here is the finished product!  I made 12 of them and still had 2 or 3 pieces of the board left over, but 12 pretty much took up all of the bed sheets and the egg crate.

Classroom benefits of crate seats:
-- STORAGE!  I store everything from school supplies, reams of paper, seasonal books, changes of clothes, and teaching resources in these bins!   They hold so much and make for less clutter!

-- Perfect sized seats for little learners (Adults of many sizes have also sat on the crates in my room and they've held up wonderfully!)


-- Adds a pop of color to the classroom

Up next on the hop is Nicole from Teaching with Style!  She has some great fun guided reading warm up games to get your students ready to learn.  Just click her icon below to continue hopping, or you can scroll down to the inlinkz to hop around!

An InLinkz Link-up

An InLinkz Link-up

Currently March!

So really, I am going to be better about this whole blogging thing! Part of my plan is to participate in a linky to keep my self more accountable ;) I have joined Oh' Boy 4th Grade for her Currently! If you would like to link up, go to her blog and set it up!

Listening to: I can NOT keep my eyes open past 9 p.m. most nights, so I love to DVR EVERYTHING! I also hate commercials because they just waste so much time! I also love Jimmy Fallon on the tonight show, he is doing a fabulous job.

Loving: Today I had ALL the windows in the house open, music blaring and got some serious spring cleaning done! It was nearly 70 and sunny, and one of my friends and I are training for an 8K next month and we got in a wonderful 3.1 mile run today, it was perfect weather! In January, while nearing the end of training for a half marathon in February, I got injured with a stress fracture, so I am just getting back into running longer distances! 

Wanting: After watching the news though there is a winter storm headed our way! This has been the coldest winter I've had in Mississippi and I'm ready for the warmer temps for sure.

Needing: I went to the grocery store today, and now just can't decide what I want to eat for dinner! 

????????: You guess what the theme is!

Don't Waste a Second!

I'm so excited to be teamed up with all the wonderful teachers for the Bright Ideas Blog Hop! This is the first blog hop that I have teamed up with, and can't wait to learn about all of the ideas the other teachers have. Every great teacher can always use a few more tricks up their sleeve, and we are here to share some of our favorites!

 Keeping my group of Kinders quiet in the hallway can be quite the challenge, especially now that we have been kept inside by the cold temperatures lately. My school has implemented Urgency Boxes in the cafeteria because the lines in there can get quite long, but being the only K class without a bathroom, we have some pretty long wait times there too. This year I have started trying not to waste these precious minutes by putting together skills that we can work on quickly, quietly and on the move.

Little cards similar to these have been so helpful to keep my students learning while we are on the move in the hallway. These cards are easy use, and the students love them! Each student can have a ring with a skill that they need, or work through the cards and pass them.

These cards can be such a saver if a student is struggling on a specific skill and gives a few extra minutes while not having to manage behavior too much. We use AIMSweb so having the missing number cards is so important for all of my students so that they can quickly figure out the missing number, and the picture cards are great for students to blend and segment CVC words, and can be doubled as rhyming cards.

We also have been working on our teen numbers, and my students have memorized how to make the teen numbers while in line over the last few weeks. It has been so easy for me to ask the number and my students to reply back the answer -- for example, "What makes 13?" and in unison, the students respond back with "ten and three." LITERALLY, anything, can be reviewed in the hallway. Some ideas that teachers at my school have used are sight word cards, addition problems, skip counting, rhyming words, and CVC words.

For more BRIGHT IDEAS on Classroom Management, check out Julie from Second Grade Style. If you would like, you may also take a look below at all of the other wonderful teachers that have teamed up for our Bright Ideas Blog! Happy Sunday :)

Happy 2014!

I have linked up with the wonderful ladies at Bloghoppin' for a 2014 Goals Linky Party!

This year is sure to have a lot of fun and family involved! Two of my best friends are getting married, and I am getting married as well -- I can't wait to make the trips to watch these 2 wonderful couples get married, and finish planning my own wedding. I was just having a conversation with one of these brides the other day about how it is so surreal to be doing this kind of planning -- I still can't believe that I will be 26 this year and sometimes it is really hard to see that I am actually a grown up -- until I open the bills HA! We also have a family vacation planned with the Michaels family, and of course trips to Iowa to see my parents, for wedding showers and our reception! This year is sure to log a lot of miles on my Rogue!

Over the River and Through... An ice storm?

I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday! Ours took a little bit longer than we had hoped to get started, but everything ended up working out! Michael, his mom and I set out for Iowa the day we got out from school in 2 cars (he is a nurse and had to both work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day so they were going to come back early). We got about an hour and a half into our trip and my dad called and said that the ice storm had hit earlier than they thought and to turn around. I was an emotional wreck for the entire drive home. The weather finally cleared out and I headed to Iowa without them for the holiday, but they joined us in Iowa after Christmas. Michael and his mom had never seen that much snow and it was so adorable to watch them play in it as grown ups! One of my New Years Resolutions is to be so much better about my little blog as well as my TpT store! I have put up 5 new sets, and have the bundle of these sets discounted as well! They are for short vowel sounds, something that we are going to hit HARD when we come back from break -- those AIMSweb scores KILLED US! To help get some more blogs to follow and ideas for my classroom, I have linked up with Simply Kinder to join a link party! This one is just to find some more blogs to follow and get some great ideas!

Along with a lot of other TpT sellers, I have placed my store on sale 20% off through New Years Day! Its a great time to get all of your wish listed items before we got back to school next week :)

New Design!

I am so excited that I decided to get a new blog design!  Becca from Jumpin Jax Design completed my design and I am so in love with it :)

I decided that this would be a great time to hold my first big giveaway to celebrate my new look!  I am giving away my Sight Word Pack: Preprimer, Color & Number Word set from TpT -- a $10 value!   I use this set in my classroom to help reinforce the sight words that we are working on for the week.  It has been so helpful for my students and it has really boosted their writing because they have become more familiar with the sight words.  You can find the giveaway details below :)

 Only 3.5 days until Christmas break, we can do it -- even if it includes a million calls and texts to Santa :) a Rafflecopter giveaway

Unexcused Absence & Show Us What You Bought Linky Party

To say that I have been absent from my recently started blog would be well.. and understatement!  But I have been very busy working on items for my TpT store, wedding planning, and hanging out with some really sweet 5 year olds :)

We just finished our addition unit and it went so well!  All of my students have mastered the skill and I could not have been more proud of my lowest babies that worked so hard to make their math goal for the month :)

Today we received a special package from Santa!  I had one of our assistant principals deliver the package to our classroom...

We then wrote letters to Santa asking him for an Elf and why we would want an Elf.  I heard everything from "I want an Elf so we can learn more" to "I want an Elf so I can be good!"  Our Elf is patiently awaiting receiving his name tomorrow morning before we go to breakfast :) I can't wait to see their faces when they see the Elf in the morning.  They were so amazed when our cold packaged arrived from the North Pole.

SHOW US WHAT YOU BOUGHT :) There is a link party going on through Friday for the things that you purchased on TpT this week!  More info is below:

Incase you haven't seen yet, there is a HUGE TpT sale going on now.  My store, along with TONS of other stores are on sale for 20% off, and TpT is throwing in another 10% so you can receive 28% off. Tonight I cleared out my Wish List and bought some Clip Art from Scrappin Doodles that I'd had my eye on for awhile.  I am also very excited about this pack from Miss Kindergarten Love.  I'm so excited about all the time and stress that this bundle pack is going to be able to bring me for years to come!

I promise to be better at blogging, until then, 14 more days until Christmas Break :)

Hey y'all happy football Saturday!  My fiance is working all day so I have been just relaxing on the couch, working on some new products and watching TONS of college football :)  This is seriously my favorite time of the year!  

I stumbled upon this WONDERFUL give away that is over at dotsoffun for celebrating her 700th follower!  The giveaway is going on for 2 more days, but be sure to get your 12 chances!  The link is below!

Dots of Fun

I promise to be back soon with new updates and products!  

Rhyming Puzzles and Pure Joy

First of all, I have to say that I absolutely love teaching K and mainly for the pure comedy that a 5 year old can provide.  One of the students in my class can turn a bad day upside down so quickly and it is definitely a great way to keep going throughout the day!

Today with my strugglers I was able to differentiate the rhyming word puzzles that I made this weekend and are available here -- http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Rhyme-Time-882786

I only pulled out enough cards for each student to complete 2 puzzles and we went through them all together and then I gave each student 4 cards, 2 matches, and they were able to tell me the rhyming words!

They were so proud of themselves for their hard work and were excited to tell my assistant and anyone they could that they had figured out some rhyming words!  This was a HUGE gain for them, because before this they would tell me any old word rhymed, and this FINALLY broke through with them!  Tomorrow we are going to review the same material and then they are going to use the circling words sheet that is in the packet!

I was also able to differentiate the puzzles whole group by playing a whole group game.  Each student received a puzzle piece and they had to find the match that another student had -- I also made sure to give each of my strugglers a word that they already knew so that they could continue to feel successful. To find the match the students had to go around and match the pieces, if they found their match they went to sit on the carpet to whole group time and if it wasn't a match they said "see ya later" and found another friend to see if they had a match.... I was a bit worried there would be chaos, but the students did so well and loved it, we traded cards and did it again!  

I am going to keep modeling how to use this activity whole group and make it a center next week!  

Hey y'all!  My name is Lydia and I am a third year kindergarten teacher in Mississippi.  I grew up in Iowa, went to school outside Chicago and have been living in Mississippi for just over 2 years.  I live with my wonderful boyfriend fiancé, Michael -- we just recently got engaged!  

I changed schools and districts this year and am so happy thrilled with the PreK/K team that I am working with!  I also can't complain about the smaller class sizes :) 

We have been working on rhyming words and greater than less than the past few weeks and am excited to move onto more new and exciting things over the next few weeks!  You can check out my store on TpT at http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Owl-Be-In-Kindergarten.  I have been researching, buying and making things like crazy over the past week and will be uploading some more things soon :)  What are you working on in your classrooms?