A Day at the Beach

I just completed a cute "A Day at the Beach" writing pack for one of my students who will be out for a week on independent study.

After I printed it, I thought, "Why not share it with my blogging friends as well?"

So here it is! Just click on the first picture to download your FREE copy.

Hopefully you will be able to use it as well.

Enjoy!

Back to School Night

 We had our annual Back to School Night last night - when the parents come to meet the teacher and hear all we have planned for their children. Do I ever feel blessed! I have another amazing group of students and parents this year! I absolutely love my job... It is such a joy to teach children who are kind, well-mannered, hard working, cooperative, and enthusiastic. Of course, we all know how those lovely children got that way- because of great parenting! So I am counting my blessings and loving every minute with my incredible class of 1st graders.

Now for the GOODIES

Although, every teacher's Back-to-School night packet is very specific to their own room, policies, and curriculum... I love looking at what other teachers distribute to parents. Don't you?

I always get good ideas, help with phrasing some item I will be covering, and sometimes even inspired to switch up everything I had already planned.

So, I thought I would post a copy of my 2013 parent packet and teacher presentation to help anyone else who is in the middle of creating one of their own.

Hopefully one of my followers can benefit from something you find in one or both of these pdf files.

Click on the pictures to download.

Back to School TPT Sale

This Sunday and Monday TPT is holding a BIG "Back to School" sale. Everything in my store is 20% off. Add the promotion code BTS13 at checkout and receive a whopping 28% off.

I can't wait to do my shopping! How about you?

So Much Still to DO!

OMG... I can't believe how little I have accomplished so far this summer and how much I have yet to do to get ready for my new group of first graders. Although I had the best intentions of keeping this blog up to date during the break - I failed miserably. Everything takes WAY longer than I ever plan for.

In any case... I wanted to share a few of my latest creations and some FREEBIES to keep you coming back.

Over the summer I completed a few new Word Work packs:

OR and ORE

TH, SH, CH, TCH

Long I spelled: I, IGH, IE

I also created a comprehension-based 

Reading Detective Pack 

a 156-page African Animals Non-Fiction Writing Pack 

with matching Paper Craft

Finally ...

This morning I also uploaded a new Word Family Houses FREEBIE to my TPT store that you might find useful. Grab YOURS!

Grab a few more freebies below from my new Word Work packs.

Freebie 1

Freebie 2

Freebie 3

Short A, Short I and Short O PowerPoint Shows

The absolute easiest way to have my student practice blending, decoding and reading new words is to add all the words into a PowerPoint Show and set it to run automatically or have a student be the "mouse clicker" moving us from slide to slide. We go through the show slowly on Monday and by Friday... we are whizzing through ALL the words.

My weekly PowerPoint shows focus on the spelling pattern and/or phonics skill for the week, which of course is dictated by our Reading and Language Arts curriculum.

You can grab my UNIT 1 PowerPoint Shows below.  There are 3 presentations in all. (Each has been saved for use with both older (.pps) and newer versions of PowerPoint (.ppsx) Unfortunately, in order to protect graphics copyright, I am unable to save them as .ppt for individual editing)

The shows included focus on vowels:

Short A
Short I
Short O

Click HERE to grab yours for FREE.

If you find these useful - all future units will be available shortly in my TPT store.

HAPPY SUMMER!

SRA Imagine It! Spelling and Challenge Lists

If  you are a first grade teacher using SRA's Imagine It, and intend to begin spelling activities and weekly tests in UNIT 1, instead of waiting until UNIT 7,  then you might want to grab a copy of my newly compiled "Words to Know" and "Challenge Lists" for the entire year.

This year I will be including these pages in the 3- pronged reference materials section of  our "Ship to Shore Folders" that travel between home and school each day. That way, I do not have to run the spelling lists each week - just think of all the time and paper I will be saving - and my students and parents will know what is coming in the weeks and months ahead, and won't lose those loose pages. It's a win-win. 

Getting Organized

Thank you to those of you who stopped by my little blog and left me your ideas for organizing my "word work" materials. I took many of your suggestions and here is a picture of what I came up with.
2 packets down about 40 more to go! Yikes!

I decided to use:

• 3 prong folders to enclose page protected master copies of worksheets (They are not as bulky or as expensive as binders and should work well).
• zip lock baggies to enclose game pieces and cards. I am placing them in the back pocket and securing with small binder clips.
• front cover labeling  that includes a picture of the enclosed word work packet and a round label that lists the skill (long u) and our language arts unit number where this skill is taught/reinforced

I plan to store these in my filing cabinet or in crates/boxes labeled by month (Then I store until it is needed and it can remain out for a few weeks until the next packs come out) 

I am crossing my fingers that this works! I'll let you know!