Open House and a Few Freebies

Tonight was our annual OPEN HOUSE. It is always a fun event!  I soooooo love seeing the children take their families on a tour of the classroom and proudly "show off" their work. It is a celebration of the year - but that also means many hours getting ready for the night. Here are a few pictures of our ocean-themed open house.

One of the favorite items the children left with for the night was a camera-shaped photo album filled with 4x6 photographs that I had taken of them during the year.

To make these, I simply printed the page below. Then, cut out the lens of the camera and laminated. Finally, I cut out the 2 laminated camera covers and used our school binding machine to punch and attach the 6-ring combs.

They were a hit! Grab a copy of the photo album covers HERE.

My students also left with a packet of poetry they had written. They loved their poetry unit! You can grab a copy of the Diving Into Poetry cover HERE.

Last but NOT least - the FREEBIE several of you have been waiting for...

the May spelling tic-tac-toe is finally available. 

Grab yours HERE. 

Enjoy!

Common Core Math Adoption

Our district is planning to adopt a new common core aligned math text for next fall. As of yet, we have not piloted or reviewed any of the materials. So, I was hoping to get feedback from those of you who have already piloted or have adopted any of the following texts that have been approved in my state of California.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Math Expressions K–6

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Math in Focus K–8

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Go Math! K–6

McGraw-Hill McGraw-Hill My Math K–5

Pearson Common Core System of Courses K–8

Pearson Scott Foresman enVision Math K–6 TPS

Publishing, Inc. Creative Core Curriculum for Mathematics with STEM, Literacy K–8

Pros, cons, suggestions?

Thanks! 

Collect the Evidence Booklet

I just created a little DETECTIVE- themed booklet for my students to SHOW the EVIDENCE they have collected to PROVE their answers to: who, what, when, where, why, how, author's purpose, central message and point of view. One the front cover they will write the name of their CASE FILE (AKA... title of the story) and their own name on the SPECIAL AGENT line.  On the back cover they will use all the evidence they have collected on the other pages to write a short CASE summary.

To make this even more fun, we will of course be wearing our fedoras and grabbing our magnifying glasses to help search for clues and evidence to crack the case and reveal our expertise at reading COMPREHENSION.

I'll let you know how it turns out! Can't wait to start.

You can grab a copy for yourself HERE. If you use it with your students, let me know how it goes... and PLEASE send me suggestions for revisions.

Enjoy your week.  Happy Sleuthing!

March and April Spelling Tic-Tac-Toe

I received a very nice comment a few days ago about my Spelling Tic Tac Toe activities. Yay!

In case you were wondering...I just love to hear back from teachers who are actually using my materials... or who plan to in the future. In fact, the more comments I receive, the more FREEBIES and more regularly I post.

Anyway... the comment ended by asking about whether or not I had a tic-tac-toe sheet for March and April. I do of course - put had only put them on TPT.  Since...sadly, no comments for a while.



However, since you asked Jessie Rue... here they are for FREE!

I hope you, your students, and their parents ENJOY! Have fun spelling!

March Measuring

This week my firsties are working on measuring length using standard and non-standard units.

Since I had already planned a mini-Read Across America event for Monday, followed on Tuesday with Mardi Gras, and then St. Patrick's Day the following week, before heading off for Spring Vacation, I thought I would create a March-themed measuring booklet for my kiddos that included all 3 of these celebrations.

I had a lot of fun with this one - trying my own hand at writing rhyming verse like the dear Doctor. It actually turned out pretty cute... but best off all- my students are really enjoying the booklet and are getting lots of practice measuring using inches, centimeters, paper clips, and linking cubes. They are also learning how to use approximation - and determine the nearest whole or half unit when measuring.

And to top it off, my early finishers are enjoying coloring the pages...and they claim they LOVE measuring! Yippee!

Grab a FREE copy HERE before Monday, March 10th. After that, you can find it in my TPT store.

Please let me know if you find any typos.
Enjoy!

TPT SALE

Make sure to visit all of your favorite teacher sellers at TPT on February 27th and 28th during the
3 Million Teachers Strong SALE.

ALL of my products will be discounted by 20%  and with the promo code: TPT3 you will save even more... for a total savings of 28%.

I can't wait to pick up some of those items on my wish list. Happy shopping!

/er/ spelled ear and long e spelled ey

This week we will be working with /er/ spelled EAR and long e spelled Y and EY.  I didn't have any word work packs to go along with these specific sound spellings...So,  I created 2 new word work packs over the weekend.

Here's a peek at a few pages of each.

Chim chimney, Chim Chimney, 

Chim  Chim Long E

is what I called the first pack. 

Since Mary and nanny end with long e spelled y and chimney sweep ends in the ey spelling... I thought I would go with a Mary Poppins theme.

We are Yearning to Learn /er/ spelled EAR is the title of the second.

Since researcher is one of the words I used... along with other forms of the word, I went with a scientific - learning theme.

Each pack includes:
SCOOT game
READ and WRITE the ROOM
I HAVE... YOU HAVE
WORD SEARCH
24-30 WORD CARDS of each sound spelling and an ABC order page.

Both packs are now available in my TPT store... but you can grab some freebies from each by clicking on the pictures above.