Dive into Endings

I LOVE clip art and fonts! I have been restraining myself from all of the CUTE Christmas clip art on Scrappin Doodles. I have a serious addiction to fonts too. Ummm, I might be beyond addiction....I have downloaded 1,222 fonts. Yes, my name is Heather and I am a FONT FREAK!!!!

I am a beach freak too. The beach is one place I can totally relax. I love the sound of the waves as I read a great book. So, this beach clip art makes me VERY, VERY happy!

This is a game that can be used any time of the year....and I like that. My different reading groups have been working on word endings: s, ing, ed, and magic e plus blends and digraphs. This group of kiddos are going NUTS over word reading games we play during reading groups. You can mix and match these cards depending on the skills your kiddos need. There are s, magic e with s and ing endings. The cards with the ed endings are a mixture of the 3 different sounds ed can make (ed, d, and t). All they do is read the word. We also play it where they have to say the word in a sentence. This is great for your ESL kiddos and a great way to develop vocabulary. =)

If they get the shark card, the game is over. =(

clip art by Scrappin Doodles

I would LOVE for you to take the time and leave me a heart note. :)

Jingle A-Weigh

This is ALWAYS one of my kiddos favorite math stations. Several years ago I bought LOTS of jingle bells from Hobby Lobby when they were on sale. There are lots of different sizes but I use the small ones. Since we do non-standard measurement in 1st grade in Texas, this is perfect! All you need are jingle bells and different objects you have in your classroom. I hope your kiddos love to Jingle A-Weigh too!

If you are still blog stalking, please consider following me....I have a really awesome giveaway planned for later this week! As always, please leave me a heart note if this makes your bells jingle! =)

One Day....what we REALLY are teaching

I LOVE Conscious Discipline (and P-L-E-A-S-E go read those posts if you haven't already!) but Our Family Circle Time has been short and hurried lately because and I am soooooo, soooooo, SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO stressed because I have not been getting in everything "they" say I am supposed to during a day. Hmmmmmm, HELLO- I am NOT a magician....READ MY LIPS....It is NOT possible!!!!! So, today we were busy bees but I took the time to celebrate all of the kind and helpful behaviors that my kiddos are always doing and I noticed how much they are doing this without me even having to say anything. I have been so caught up in trying to meet benchmarks and get them "where they need to be" that I took for granted the values and characteristics I would want someone to say about me and I want my kiddos to learn as well.

One of Our School Family jobs is the "Kindness Recorder". This person gets to add kind flowers to our flower pot. When they notice someone doing a kind act they go to that person and say "I am going to add you a kind flower for __________________" and the person answers them "Thank you for noticing that." We have around 12 flowers and when the flower pot is full the Kindness Recorder empties it and we start over. We had to empty the pot 5 times today. And I heard the sweetest things such as:
*I am going to add you a kind flower for remembering to use your heart words.
*I am going to add you a kind flower for rolling Natalie a paper towel.
*I am going to add you a kind flower for sharing your crayon with Joshua.
*I am going to add you a kind flower for remembering to say I am sorry.

I realized that the curriculum is important and they need to know how to read and do math but the smartest child is not really going to be successful if they are mean, greedy, hurtful, and rude. We have the chance to teach our kiddos so much everyday by how we react to them and the example we set. I had to remember this poem I wrote because we are so much more than a teacher who just teaches them knowledge and facts....we must truly touch their hearts first.

I hope this poem inspires you too! I would love a heart note if this touches your heart as much as it still touches mine. =)

A Gift from God...and a fun freebie!

Thanksgiving Break went by WAAAAAAAYYYYYY too fast and I ate WAAAAAYYYYY too much! I feel as if I need to be like a boa constrictor and not eat for a week and just digest everything still in my tummy....but it sure was YUMMY!

As I thought of all the ways God has blessed me, I thought of my teeny, tiny little ol' blog and how much it has inspired and encouraged me. I am thankful for soooo many blogs out there that inspire me and give me ideas when I am brain dead. Just think of all of the little hearts we touch with all of the ideas and activities we share in our blogging friendships (and blog stalking!) We come across OODLES and OODLES of ideas that we are ready to use with our kiddos ASAP but if you are like me, there are obstacles...HUGE OBSTACLES that seem to put out our fire and burden us with even MORE on our plates. I truly believe with all of my heart that God calls you to be a teacher. Yes, every now and then we meet a fellow teacher that we wonder WHY are they teaching because they have either lost their passion or they see it as an easy job and REALLY do work from 7:30-3:30 (or maybe it is just me that hasn't figured that one out!)!!!

As we approach the Christmas season, we get caught up in "gifts" of the material nature but some of the most priceless and treasured gifts come from in the heart in love, patience, kindness and simply giving your time and attention to someone. You are a gift to each of the children in your room. A gift they will forever treasure. Here is a poem I wrote and want to share with you.....I am still uncomfortable sharing my poetry because it is a piece of my heart but if it encourages you and reminds you to give a little more love and patience to on of your kiddos then it was worth it! =)

Now, here is the freebie I promised before I started my above rambling!

You can use this as a Read the Room activity or with the kiddos browsing boxes. All they do is hunt for 3 words for each of the letters in the word Christmas. They will then color the vowels red and the consonants green.

Please know how truly I am blessed by each person that takes the time to stop by my blog and an even BIGGER THANK YOU to each person who leaves me a heart note. Each one brings a smile to my face and encourages me to continue to share freebies and words of encouragement with you!

As always, I would LOVE a heart note!

A Stinkin' Cute Turkey...that is thankful for word wall words

2 more school days....AHHHHHHHHH! Will we make it??!!!!????!!! I LOVE my kiddos but I am ready for a break (and shhhhh, yes, there are a few I am REALLY ready for a break from....bless their sweet little hearts!) These turkeys are sooooo, soooooo adorable and they are great for getting to kiddos to hush work quietly. I have no template for them to trace or any paper sizes you need to pre-cut exactly. The kiddos just watch me make it and then go and do their own thing. I LOVE how each turkey is different just like each of them. Take a look at some of these adorable birds!

and turkeys DO come in all shapes and sizes!

After making the turkey, they write Word Wall words on the feathers and then go and read the words to 2 people. Easy and cute...and that is a craft I am thankful for. :)

Click here to get your copy for the turkey's tummy.

If you have been blog stalking, please consider following me.  Please leave me a heart note if you like this...I LOVE reading each note and they encourage me to share more!

A Turkey Free Game- magic e

I L-O-V-E games and activities with cute holiday clip art but I also love games I can pull out anytime. I LOVE frogs and have TONS of frog decorations in my classroom. I think my nieces last counted over 65 (and my classroom is tiny!)! Not only do I like frogs (the animal) but it is the acronym F.R.O.G. that reminds me of what I need to do daily...especially with teaching... Fully Rely On God. So, here is a frog game to help with reading magic e words.

I whipped out this baby in about 30 minutes yesterday so please let me know if you see any mistakes (oooh, I just typed a magic e word!) I usually only print one page of the special game cards (the ones with extra turn, take a card, and the game over) so the game lasts longer and they can be reading more! If they draw the magic e card that means game over because he was caught sprinkling his magic dust on the vowels and wasn't sneaky enough!

Please leave me a heart note if this *freebie* made you smile! I have an AWESOME give away coming next week. Here is a sneak peek at part of the give away...

These shirts are ADORABLE!

Gobble Up a Graph

Here is a quick little game to practice graphing. You can have the kiddos graph the results of 10 spins or use the blank graph to use however many spins you want your kiddos to use. This is a beginner graph for my kiddos before they start being able to answer more "rigorous" questions independently. If you are a Texas teacher, I just said the "r" word that brings stress to all of us and makes us want to consider being a Wal-Mart greeter! OY!

I hope you can use this in the last few "survival days"! I am off to work on some Word Study games and cuddle with my boys! Any requests for word study?

my boys

Houdini and Edison

  

graphics by Scrappin Doodles

As always, please leave me a heart note! I am so grateful for each one of them and each one of you!



Turkey Scratch...Number HELP!!!!

As I was looking through some 100's charts my kiddos had completed I found myself getting a headache! OMGosh!!! I need a translator to decipher whatever "code" something scratched out on these 2 papers. I think my Blog Helper Edison-my cat aka Frankenstein aka The WONDER-CAT (seriously, he knows how to open the fridge and jump up on doors and perch...could have done a better job! We had a serious "Come to Jesus" talk about not letting the numbers trick our super duper smart brains by making our pencils do the wrong thing. Yep, we even talked about we need to be bucket fillers to the numbers so they won't get upset when they realize they look wrong! I then said I thought it looked like "turkey scratch" and a turkey must have snuck in their house and left a message on the paper that said "DO NOT EAT ME FOR THANKSGIVING!" Of course, I am saying this and my kiddos are saying "NO! That is a 35!" HAHAHA! I love a story with a side of drama and sarcasm! =)

I know it is still common for my Firsties to still be reversing numbers and doing squirrelly things so I am not too worried YET! Here is a quick game for practicing writing numbers and adding too! And the BEST part is you do not need TAG...or to LAMINATE it...or use COLOR INK!!!! WAHOO! I go through that stuff like CRAZY!!!! I change the pictures on this game many, many times for different seasons and units and my kiddos love to race the numbers to the top. I hope your kiddos enjoy it too!

Please leave me a heart note if you think this might ease some of YOUR turkey scratch pain!

Here are two pictures of my cat Edison "perching"!

One More Turkey Sort

7 school days until Thanksgiving Break....that is something I'm VERY thankful for! Do I hear a WAHOO from you too? :)

I have a couple of kiddos who are still have trouble distinguishing between letters, words and sentences. Here is a turkey sort you can use with your kiddos who need help with that. This activity also works on vowels, consonants and punctuation. Click on the picture to gobble up a copy of the activity.

graphics by Scrappin Doodles

If you want more of these sorts, hop on over to my TpT store.

If you are thankful for this activity please leave me a heart note! :) I smile with each one I read and today after church an anonymous sweetheart had filled my inbox with heart notes! Thank you!

Gobble Up Some Addition Fun

I am one tired turkey and we are just starting our Celebrations Unit next week....I am a turkey on the run trying to make it to Thanksgiving Break. From Labor Day until Thanksgiving Break is too long with no break but then I ask myself OMGosh, where has the time gone and what HAVE I been doing??!!??? Do any of you feel that way? The year is almost half over...PANIC!

Here is a fun little game for your math stations. Just copy on tag, laminate and cut apart! We will probably use turkey feathers instead of cubes. Of course, I might have to tell one of my TALL tales about how I came to find those turkey feathers since we are writing Santa on Monday to send us one of his "special turkeys"! I am so excited for Mr. Gobbles' return!

If you are thankful for this game, please leave me a heart note. I appreciate each one of them soooo, soooo much. Each one inspires me to share more!  =) So, click on the picture to gobble up this game! =)

graphics by Scrappin Doodles

Thankful Turkeys- a digraph sort

We have been talking about the H brothers and they have been helping us decode words with digraphs. When I tell the story about the H brothers, the kiddos get so excited and for the most part they remember those sounds....at least when the kiddos remember to bring their brains to school (hahahaha)! But you can NEVER have too much practice when you are learning to read so here are some cute turkeys to help out! Just copy, laminate, and cut out and you are ready for some Thankful Turkey digraph fun. Click on the picture to get your copy!

graphics by Scrappin' Doodles

If you don't know about the H brothers, let me know and I will be happy to tell you all about them. =)

If you are THANKFUL for this activity, please leave me a heart note! =)

Tally Dem Bones

Halloween may be over but we are still finishing up several "fall" activities! I am always behind because just as I am about to do an activity I have a "brain pop" and have to tweak it or add more to the activity (PLUS, I am always behind because there is not enough time in the day to teach everything I am supposed to!). Since we talked about bats last week and bones when we made our Tweet Treat I thought it would be so cute to tally with bones! So this meant we needed to receive another package from the Tweets! On the outside of the package was a note from the Tweets and the riddle puzzles. I L-O-V-E making these riddle puzzles and my kiddos go NUTS for them every year and they are great for teaching so many skills (and all you do is cut a sentence strip into puzzle pieces)! The kiddos worked with their brain buddy to put the riddle clues together and we then put all of the clues in the pocket chart. Riddles are a great way to work on inferring too!

We read each clue and talked about what the clue was telling us *might* be in the box. The kiddos inferred that there were bat bones inside the box! We then opened the box to see if we were right (LOTS of drama from me as I opened the package)! The book Dem Bones was also in the package and we read it first! =)

After reading the book, we then read the poem Bat Bones and the kiddos used their bat bones to tally as we read the poem. We then tallied and made other numbers using our bat bones. We used the recording sheets to help us. You can also give children their bag of bat bones to use in a math station or have several sets of bones to use in the math station and the kiddos can take their bat bones home to tally and eat!

Here is the Bat Bones poem.

Bat Bones

Here are the tally sheets and the large bones for making the tally marks.

Tally Dem Bones

 

Our bat bones were pretzels (and we had some white chocolate covered bones too!). Yes, I had most of my kiddos convinced they were really bones and not pretzels. I have a beaver skull I show the children and I talk to them about how they boil bones to get all of the skin off of them and to clean and sanitize them. So, the kiddos all thought they were eating *dirty* bones! Hahahahahaha I would love to see their parents faces when they tell them some of the things I say (or maybe not)!

I would LOVE a heart note letting me know what you think! =)

Froggy FindINGS

Happy Hump Day! This is just a quick little post about a game I made for one of my reading groups. I would be a rich lady if I got paid for every time I told this group that i-n-g says ing! One little kiddo sounded out crashing- c-r-a-s-h-i-n-g and actually said the correct word! OMWord...how his brain put that one together I will never know! =)   

This game works on -ing endings and double consonants. Copy on tag and laminate. I backed the frogs on construction paper to make them look even cuter! Put a small piece of velcro in the colored box and the matching piece of velcro on the picture. Have the kiddos read the word and find the matching picture. Record the answer and color the -ing with a crayon. Then, read your words to 2 friends!

Froggy FindINGS

Please let me know if you have any questions. And as always, I would LOVE a heart note! Check back later this week. I will hopefully be ready to post our pumpkins and our bone activity!