Birthdays and freebies and giveaways OH MY!

School news: 

I've been busy obsessing over creating more Dots on Turquoise merchandise! My latest creation is a dots on turquoise voice level chart. 

Click the Pic for a link to the FREEBIE!



Have you seen these charts? They are starting to pop up everywhere and I think they're fantastic! Mostly I like how they help kids see that different voice levels are appropriate in different situations. A student talks super loudly at stations, but is almost mute when giving a presentation. I think this chart will help cue them to use proper volume.

Changing the subject, today is the LAST day to enter the birthday giveaway that Liz is throwing over at Polka Dot Firsties. You could win my digraph sort or other super cool prizes from great bloggers. Check it out!

Click the Pic to enter

 

Not school news:

Happy birthday to me!!! This week is birthday week! Specifically Tuesday was the big day. Here's my hubby bringing out the cake.

29 candles this year. Last year of being in my twenties, which is simply unbelievable. Does anyone remember Deana Carter's song Strawberry Wine and the line that says "I still remember when 30 was old"? Well 30 still seems old, even though it's knocking on the door! 

Anyway, my family came to visit for my bday and we had a delicious dinner at Copelands. Great for my parents' New Orleans roots. Speaking of, here are my lovely parents: 

And my dear hubby and me:

Oh yeah, I got a bike!!! Hubby got one for his bday in May, so now we can ride together! The only problem is that after one ride through our very hilly neighborhood, he announced he's never riding again. Oops!

 

I also received some new Back to School books. They're so cute, and I can't wait to read them with my kiddos! I'm linking up with Andrea at Reading Toward the Stars to share these great books! Click on any of the pics to find out more about them on Amazon.

 



Great for explaining why we have rules.



A great way to talk about tattling.

 

Another tattling book (this is a big deal in K!). This book uses
rhymes to explain the difference between reporting and tattling.

 



Writing with a Side of Freebies

One more week of school! I can hardly believe it! Unfortunately for my kids, they have a teacher who believes in working until the veeeeeeeeery end, so we are staying busy. Mostly, we've been writing. I feel like this is a great way to provide closure for the year. Today, we reviewed all of the things we've done in 1st grade, and they wrote about their favorite part. I get so tickled when they write things like "I love math when my teacher gives me HARD problems." So. Cute. I have quite the little group of authors this year because they were SILENT for a loooooong time while they wrote.

Yesterday, we reviewed persuasive writing. I made this freebie to help: Persuasive Writing: What's the Best Season? We've been learning about the seasons all year, so this provided a good science review in addition to writing practice. I hope you can use it!

Bossy R Freebie!

I can't believe this school year is almost over! Only 26 more days! Some years, I would wish that time away, but not this year. I have such a great little class and I hate to see them go. After all, you never know what little darlings next year will bring....

During this end-of-the-year time, I'm reviewing our phonics skills from the year. My school uses Saxon Phonics, which I like, but the curriculum moves really quickly. It spends one day on a skill and then moves to something else. Whoosh!

I noticed my kiddos having trouble with r-controlled vowels, so we spent last week reviewing good ol' bossy R.

• We did a "write the room" activity with pictures of bossy R words. The kids had to sort each picture into it's correct bossy R spelling.
• We talked about the bossy R triplets--ER, IR, and UR--that all make the same sound.
• We read bossy R books like Shark in the Park. Oh that Timothy Pope and his telescope!
• In groups, student
• +s brainstormed as many bossy R words as they could. They came up with some good ones!
• We made a garden of bossy R flowers.

I was pretty proud of this last activity since I created the worksheet myself. I'm still new at this worksheet-making thing, but I'm having fun learning! My fellow teachers helped me test this activity out and they liked it, too.

Click here if you'd like the worksheet. FREEBIE!

 

Here are some pictures of our finished projects. Each teacher did it a little differently...

 



I Made Something!!!!!!!

I did it!!!!! I made something to share with anybody and everybody who wants to use it!!!!! I'm SO excited!!!!!!!!

Ok, let me back up. One of the main reasons I started a blog was because of how much I use other people's blogs. Teachers share so many awesome resources and ideas, and I wanted to contribute as well. So my real-life bestie Melissa from Don't Let the Teacher Stay Up Late helped me set up this blog and taught me how to make activities for my classroom. Thanks, Melissa!

So....TA-DA!! Here it is! My first activity. It's a long vowel sort that reviews vowel digraphs like AI, AY, EI, UE, EY, EE. My fellow first grade teachers helped me test it out today and they approved. I hope you can use it, too! There's two versions to differentiate the difficulty (if your school is like mine, differentiate is the ultimate buzz word!). Enjoy!

  Click here to get the long vowel sort