100 Day Hats

Tomorrow is our 100th Day of School ...and we can hardly wait to celebrate!

Each student in my classroom will be coming to school in a original "100 Day" Hat that they created at home with the help of their parents. Each month I assign a family project  - and this was the one assigned for January.

Of course I had to create a 100's Day Hat as well. This is the one I created tonight- modeled by my 4th grader. What a trooper!

There are exactly 100 pieces of 100 calorie popcorn hot glued onto a popcorn container I already had. It was simple to make, completely original, and I didn't have to spend one cent.

I am anxious to see what my first graders have come up with - we have kept this one a big secret!

Click here to grab a generic copy of the parent letter I sent home to introduce this project.

Word Work Packets

Over the last month I have created a number of Word Work packets that focus on vowel sounds spelled a variety of ways.

Each week, I have shared a new packet with my students... introducing one activity a day.  The students love these - and their decoding and spelling have really improved!

An added bonus is that my word work is set for the week... and since each packet includes similar pages/activities, once an activity has been introduced- students know just what to do the following week with the new pack!

Each Word Work packet includes:

• Word Cards to use for sorts, read and write the room, and reading games
• I Have ... Who Has card set
• Word Searches

Many also include:

• Game Boards
• Additional Worksheets

The following Packs are now available in my TPT Store:

Help the Dwarfs Do Chores:
Word Work for /ore/ spelled ore, oar, oor, our, (w)ar

Mr. Wonka's Sweet Treats:
Word Work for Long e spelled ee and ea

Search for Treasure: 

Word Work and Games for -ure and -ture

Pioneers on the Frontier:
Word Work for /ear/ spelled ear, eer, ier, ere

Help Guard the Squire's Empire:
Word Work for /ire/ spelled ire, ier, yer, iar

Baby Bear's Chair: 

/air/ spelled air, arr, are, err, er, ar, ear, eir, and ere

Be A Word Wizard: 

Working with Long O Words spelled OA and OW

Be A Word Wizard:
Working with OO Words

Be A Word Wizard:
Working with Long U Words spelled UE and EW

Out and About with Little Brown Mouse: 

Working with /ow/ words spelled ow and ou

What's Cooking? A Pot Full of Activities 

for Vowel Digraph OO

If any of these packs sound like they might be useful in your classroom, check them out this Sunday, when everything in my store is 20% Off! 

Super Bowl Sunday SALE

Visit my TPT store this Sunday for a Super Bowl of Savings!

Use Promo Code SUPER and get 28% off all of my products.

Go 49ers!!!!

(Sorry Baltimore fans - but since I am from the San Francisco Bay Area... I just have to root for my HOME team!)

Holidays Around the World

Happy Holidays! I trust you are all enjoying this busy but festive time of year! As evident by my lack of postings, I have been crazy busy ... just like you!


Despite all of the 101 things we are trying to cram into each day, my students and I are having a marvelous and truly magical time as we travel the globe learning about the many traditions associated with each country on our travel itinerary... as we explore Holidays Around the World.

Each day throughout the month of December, the children complete their boarding pass, grab their suitcases, and wait in line to go through security. They love this! I first check their boarding passes, then pretend to scan them with a plastic handball racket and hoola hoop. Occasionally, someone sets off the alarm and needs to be pulled aside and re-scanned. Next, they drag their suitcases across an empty table- pretending to run it through the x-ray machine. They then board the plane and take their seats. Once they are all aboard, I close the door and give the official airline announcements -including stowing their carry-on luggage and turning off electronic devices.

I did the research a week ago, and created a "real" itinerary that includes airport names, air miles, and flight time for each leg of our journey.  The kids love it!

Then we watch our in-flight movie (a PowerPoint presentation all about the holiday traditions and celebrations of our destination city/country) Usually a snack is served that is related to the country as well.

Flight instructions are read again as we land, then passports are stamped and our suitcase pages for that country are completed.
A local craft and/or activity follows. What fun!

The highlights so far have been: finding a burlap sack of goodies at our doorstep - following a surprise knock on December 5th - and clogs filled with little gifts on the morning of the 6th. We also drew names for a "Sinterklass Surprise" exchange and are currently making homemade ornaments for our "Secret Sinterklasses" at home. Our St. Lucia procession led by the oldest girl in our class was also a memorable moment. Too precious! I can hardly wait for next week.

Thanks to a number of creative teachers and the TPT website, I had almost everything I needed to make this unit come to life for my students. But, of course I always have to tweak or add that little extra. So,I created my own suitcase (folder) for the scrapbook pages, travel itinerary with flight instructions, boarding passes, passport page, map, and flags, and am working daily to create PowerPoint shows a day in advance. Thus - the hecticness of it all! But well worth it!!!!

If you are interested, you can find the following "Holidays Around the World" supplemental materials in my TPT store:

Suitcase for Holidays Around the World

Airline Ticket, Itinerary, and Flight Instructions for Holidays Around the World

Christmas in the United States

Christmas in The Netherlands

Holidays Around the World: Germany

Christmas in Sweden

Holidays Around the World: England

I also some FREEBIES:

Sinterklass Surprise Ornament Exchange Letter

Christmas in the United States

Sight Words Practice

Since I have a nautical themed classroom, I refer to my OCR Imagine It! high-frequency words or word wall words as Anchor Words.

Several days a week we practice them together as a class using a 1 second per slide, PowerPoint presentation. It is also a quick an easy way to test the children. Since the slides advance quickly and automatically, I know exactly who knows them on sight and who doesn't! I can mark the recording sheet as the slides flip and the student reads aloud for me.

You can grab a FREEBIE copy below as well as the scoring sheet I use for assessing students and a set of Anchor Word bookmarks for each unit.

PowerPoint Show

Bookmarks and Assessment Recording Sheet

If you use a reading program other than Open Court, you might want to consider creating a PPT that matches with your curriculum. It really is so easy to manage, and it has worked like a charm!

November FREEBIE

Dishin' Up Dinner

My November Freebie is HERE. This game focuses on reading and spelling  words that are commonly used in the primary classroom as well as super e words for the vowels a, i, o, and  u. Students roll and move around the game board by reading the words correctly, when they land on a dinner item they must spell the word on the backside correctly to collect the card and begin dishin' up their Thanksgiving dinner. The first player or team to fill their plate with every course: turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, carrots, corn, bread, and pumpkin pie - wins.

Enjoy!

Host Your Own Cranberry Day

Looking for new ideas for celebrating the upcoming fall harvest and Thanksgiving? Wanting to do something different so that your students aren't always having the same old classroom feast in November? Why not host your own Cranberry Day?

Last year, my 1st grade teaching partner, Kelley, told me she celebrated Cranberry Day with her students each November. Since she grew up in Massachusetts this was a given! However, since I have lived my entire life in California, I had never heard of this celebration, but thought it sounded wonderful. It was! The parents donated all the supplies we needed and several volunteered to run one of the stations.

I kept it simple last year, but decided I would add a few more activities that Kelley had shared with me this year. I can't wait!

The children will rotate through the following stations:

1. Taste Test: Which do you like? (unsweetened juice, sweetened juice, dried cranberries, fresh cranberries, cranberry sauce, cranberry muffin, etc.)

2. Freshness Test: Do the cranberries bounce?

3. Video: Growing and harvesting cranberries

4. Drying Cranberries

5. Using Cranberry Dye

6. Stringing Cranberries (Make a popcorn and cranberry garland)

7. Observe Cranberries Using Your 5 Senses


We will also complete a "Can, Have, Are" sheet which we will use later during our writing period
and complete a Class Graph to determine who did and did not like the taste of fresh cranberries.

They will also read a little Did You Know? Cranberry Facts book I created using facts I gathered for the Ocean Spray website. It includes facts about Cranberry Day, how cranberries were used by the Native Americans, where and when cranberries are grown and harvested, how they were served at the Pilgrims feast, and more.


The booklet and other activities I created to help me implement the activities listed above are available now in my TPT store. Check it out!

You can grab a FREEBIE page from the packet HERE as well.

Happy Cranberry Day!