Vowel Sounds

Hi everyone, hope your week is going well...it's almost FRIDAY!!! Just a quick update to let you know that I have posted a NEW product in my beloved TpT store ;)

All this and last week my kiddies have been learning about long and short vowel sounds during literacy centres. To start bringing all those sounds together, I spent my night making two posters to hang in my room for fast and easy reference throughout the year:

I have also included a centre activity to this package that includes variations of a sorting activity in order to allow for easy differentiation:

Those are two examples of the different sorting "mats" available: the first mat is meant to sort long and short vowel sounds in general, and the second "mat" is the more challenging option that requires students to sort not only the long and short sounds, but also the independent vowel sounds within those two main categories. 

Also included in this package are the pictures and words (not pictured) for sorting, as well as extension worksheets (1 of 3 pictured below):

Above is one example of pictures to sort. You can choose to have students sort vowel sounds using just pictures (have students say each picture word out loud to add some oral practice!), they can sort just words, or you can challenge students by having them sort both pictures and words together.

You can pick up my new Vowel Sounds Poster and Activity Package by clicking on any of the pics above or right HERE. 

That's it for now. I'll be back (hopefully tomorrow night!) with an update of some of our week's activities! Brace yourself for a very cheesy "long vowels" sign-off: 

SlEEp tIght!

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Behaviour Management Freebie

Just a quick little post because I have been asked about what I do for behaviour management. Aside from my individual behaviour management clip chart to encourage self-management, I also use a group points system. Displayed at the front of my class, I have a little board where each table group has a ziplock baggie assigned to their group number. I use two sided math counters as my point tokens. At any time during the day I can award or take away a group's token based on behaviour. 

The great thing about groups points is that it takes a group effort (teamwork and collaboration) to earn or lose a point. The whole group must be working extra hard, or doing something kind, etc., to earn a point. 

I also use my group points as incentive to get to class on time. I have a SMARTboard timer that I set on a countdown from 6 minutes and 30 seconds the moment the bell rings (morning bell or recess bell). In order to earn a "freebie point," the entire group must be sitting at their desk reading a book by the time the timer buzzes at 0. This means that the kiddies have to get undressed, change shoes, use the washroom, get a drink, etc. QUICKLY without wasting time talking (*arguing*) with peers, or simply fooling around in the hallways for some. I may have to increase the time slightly as the weather gets colder and the layers get thicker but it certainly minimizes a lot of wasted learning time! 

ANYWAYS, at the end of the week, the group with the most points gets a certificate indicating their "prize". I am a big believer in non-traditional rewards, and the kids actually really enjoy the awards such as getting to bring in a show and tell item, getting to wear a crown for a day, etc.

You can download the FREE certificates and 2 pages of prizes by clicking the ABOVE PICS or HERE. I just cut out the sheet of prizes and keep them in a container. When it comes time to award the winning group their prize, I just pick one of the folded papers and read them their prize. The paper goes back in the container for next week's top group to potentially win, and the certificate goes home with each of the winning group members. Quick, easy, and fun- that's why I love it!

Halloween in November...and some other stuff

Hi everyone! So this post is certainly long overdue, sorry for the wait...I will make up for that now, starting with: HALLOWEEN! Wow. Halloween seems like forever ago now. I canNOT believe it is already November. Time is flying by. Before we know it, it will be Christmas!!! I was out of town all weekend and was instantly launched into the holiday spirit by the fantastic amount of snow in Winnipeg. Despite the effect it had on the roads, the weather was so awesome that I just HAD to come straight home and decorate the house.

ANYWAYS, with my Christmas lights festively glowing, I can now update you all on the past two weeks!

There's my darling firsties and I on Halloween. I was super duper dreading that day but we actually had a blast! I tried to keep the day a little more low-key, yet they kiddies seemed to really enjoy our themed activities. In the morning (after the annual Halloween costume parade) we did some Halloween writing (sorry, I can't remember where I got this worksheet!):

I loved that writing activity because it's a simple way to get the kiddies writing in complete sentences and including details in a piece of writing. We did the top page first and, from there, they had to pick one idea from each column (I can, I see, I have) and write them in a mini paragraph using complete sentences. 

After recess we had Halloween math centres, which I forgot to take pictures of :( The centres were basically a review of some of the key things we have learned in math so far this year but with a holiday twist. During math centres, I did some good 'ole bribing with candy corn. If they were working hard I gave each child a couple of candy corns each time we switched centres. I HATE candy corn but they of course thought this was the bees knees!

At the end of a long day, I sent my little monsters away with a silly treat:

All I did was put marshmallows in a ziplock bag, and cut, fold, and staple on the label.

To download your FREE editable labels, click the pic above or HERE.

The next day, I realized we never really did an official Halloween craft so I used this next craft as an opportunity to incorporate Halloween and word work. During our language arts block, one of the things we have been focusing on is word families and long/short vowel sounds. So I had them pick any three different families/vowel sounds and write two words each that fit those categories. Then we made this sweet little monster craft inspired by Babbling Abby (I don't know what I would do without all these inspiring teacher bloggers!!!):

(The craftivity below our monsters is a writing activity we did a couple weeks ago in science. After learning all about the seasons they had to pick their favourite season and write about it)

 This monster made me laugh...so much detail! The little thing was working away on it for about half an hour:

 In math, we have begun a new unit, "Time and Temperature." So I changed a couple of our math tubs (the kiddies usually do one math tub every day after whole group, small group, and independent practice in math):

Click the pic or HERE to get your FREE copy!

In this centre, the kiddies simply have to put the months of the year, days of the week, seasons, and holidays in the correct order. It's super cute walking by and listening to them singing the months of the year/days of the week songs to help them out :P 

Next is a matching centre focused on seasons. Get it free HERE. With all cards face down, they have to flip two cards at a time and determine whether or not the pictures or words match up:

(the picture is a snowy scene and the word says winter so the two cards are a match)

(Here, the Christmas tree tells us that the season must be winter, and the boy playing in the leaves indicates fall so those two cards are not a match). The kiddies LOVE this game.

I have a total of 8 math centres since I like to keep the kids in partners for math (they are much more focused and time-effective this way) Here's a quick look at two of the math tubs that I like to keep the same as a great review:

(A beading station to practice patterning)

(In this tub, the kids get extra practice with the early addition concepts of showing more and less)

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Get teaching tips, ideas, and FREEBIES every now and then.

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Speaking of math, I also added two more products to my TpT store:

*2016: THIS PRODUCT HAS BEEN UPDATED!*

I used this FREE booklet as a review/assessment of the important concepts taught in the last Number Sense and Numeration unit we just finished. The kids loved working through this booklet and it acted as an AWESOME assessment tool for me.

We just finished off this ordinal numbers booklet at the end of last week. The math unit we are currently working on introduces ordinal numbers yet does not provide much practice material for the kiddies, so I made up this booklet as extra practice. They totally loved this one as well. All they wanted to do was colour the cupcakes and train graphics that I used (seriously, make a worksheet "pretty" and the kids are magically more engaged...who knew?!)

Click the pics above if you would like to download/purchase your own copy! 

And that officially concludes my long update! Have a great week everyone :)

Halloween is Coming!

Oh boy...Halloween is coming. This Wednesday will really put my teaching skills patience to the test! If I can handle kids pumped full of sugar I'm pretty sure I can do anything!!! Okay, my personal pep talk is over. Now for a few of the things we've been up to this week...

Our school held its annual pumpkin decorating contest this week. The theme was twins or pairs. It is a bit of an understatement to say that I have a passion *obsession* for animated films (I may or may not have watched The Lorax three times this weekend as I was working...) and so I immediately made the executive decision that our class would make a pair of Minions from Despicable Me. Of course it wasn't too hard convincing my kiddies that this was a *brilliant* idea after showing them this clip:

ahahaha I've watched that about a zillion times and it still makes me laugh. I love minions. 

SO ANYWAYS, here are our finished products:

I think they are all kinds of adorable <3 

They ^ are all pretty darn cute too :P

Next up, we completed a Nam in a Ten Frame culminating activity to show our new knowledge of five and ten frames:

The kids really enjoyed this activity and I loved it, too! It's great because it is an easy way to assess who understands how to correctly use a ten frame (filling up each square one at a time from left to right and then from left to right again, just like we read a book). Not only that but I can see who grasps the concept of basic addition that the ten frame introduces (by answering "I need ___ more letters to make 10"). And, of course, it's always great to throw in some language arts (talking about which letters need capitals or lowercase) and fine motor (having them cut out the small circle counters to write their names as opposed to simply having them write their names directly in the ten frame).

You can pick up this activity--complete with ten frame printable, counters printable, and "Name Frames" worksheet--FOR FREE in my little TpT store by clicking the pic below:

While we're at it, here's another freebie 👇

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 In our Daily & Seasonal Changes unit in Science, we were learning about the seasons as a cycle that has no beginning or end (with an emphasis on visualizing "cycle" as a circle). I created this simple worksheet to see if the kiddies were able to show the seasons in the correct order:

The could start at any circle with any season they wanted. They also had to pay close attention to the arrows in the diagram so that they completed the activity in a clockwise circle (as opposed to completing the top two circles left to right and the bottom two circles left to right). The purpose of that is to emphasize the cyclical nature of the seasons.

 There is an updated version of this activity in my Daily & Seasonal Changes Science Focus pack but you can download this alternative sample for *FREE* by clicking the pic below:

And finally, we continued some pumpkin themed centres with this writing centre activity:

The kiddies had 5 different sets of scrambled pumpkin sentences that they had to group, unscramble, and copy. To prep this centre, alls I did was print out a bunch of copies of the last page from THIS freebie, cut out the blank pumpkins, laminate them, and write words and numbers on them with permanent marker (I chose to write on the pumpkins AFTER laminating them just in case I change my mind down the road and want to erase and change the sentences I have chosen). If you would like a FREE copy of my worksheet, you can click on the pic below:

That's it for now! Have a fun and relaxing weekend everyone :)