Awesome Graphics

I wanted to give a shout out to a very talented individual... Her name is Michelle!

Have you been to her blog yet?
First of all ...Love her blog name!  
She is so generous with her talents!  She posts A-DORABLE graphics  (many of them FREE).  I exchanged a few emails with her and she just cracked me up!
If you are a clip art addict looking for a new place to get your fix, check her out!
P.S...She is having a sale today!!!!

Leap Year Sale... YES!

It's here and it's big!   Don't you just love a sale?

As you have heard, TpT is offering 10%.  I will also take 20% off everything in my store! 

Click to go to my store.

This may be the time to stock up on some items.   FYI:  I have added to my Writing Work Stations for November packet.   So if you have previously purchased this, you can get the revised version by going to "My Purchases".  There is no additional fee for this.

Click to go to my Writing Work Stations.

I know I have loaded up my wishlist in anticipation! I'm pretty excited!

Lesson Plans for Next Week

In my small group I will be using another of my TpT favorites, Kim Adsit.

This is an awesome packet filled with graphic organizers.  Beyond adorable!  I think it has it all.   Here is my plan... I am going to copy these on card stock and laminate them.  Then I will have my kiddos use an Expo marker during our small group.  I think I will feel better about a few of the trees that will be saved and my kids will love using the markers on these.

Our school had a motivational speaker a few weeks back and he shared this affirmation with us.  This will be my shared reading next week.  In the world of kindergarten, the line that states, "I can think for myself.  I can say no when I want to."  is usually pretty benign.  Right now, a student might tell me they jumped off the top of the equipment because their friend told them to.   But what if this affirmation stuck with them?  What if they receive peer pressure later in life and they could say no when they wanted to?  

Sorry this seems to have a white background in Google Docs... I'm not sure how to fix it.

In my small group math we will be playing Deanna's Fish Out of Water Game.

and my Stacks Game 11-20.

I tried it out with some of my groups last week.  They did a wonderful job.  All of my groups were able to work with-in the 11-20 set.  I had two partners team up so 4 students were playing with one set of cards.  I loved the conversations they were having, "Oh, we just need 13, then we can play 14, 15, and 16."  and "we just need 3 more to finish this stack."  You can see some students are really strategic (perhaps they have more games experience).  I am going to keep this activity in small group until I feel they can be independent with it.   

For writer's workshop, I am going to keep the same focus.  We just need a little more time with this idea.  It did not quite sink in last week. I hope to post some images of students who attempted this in their writing this week.

 Here are my lesson plans for next week.  Click on the images to download the document with source links.

I finally finished my Daily Math Journals for March

That's all folks!

Writing Work Station for March... and a new math game!

After a visit with the dentist, I was able to finish a few things. Yippee!

 Here is a game I thought up.  It is a bit like solitaire.  In this game the students will sequentially stack their number cards.  The first one to complete 3 stacks will be the winner.

I am introducing this as a 1-10 stack and 11-20 stack, but I am thinking about making a skip counting (2, 5, 10) version?   Thoughts?

I played a version of this with a few students (just the numbers without the cute graphics).  They loved it! I hope they love the St. Patrick's Day graphics.

Writers Workshop-How about science fiction

Here's the deal... Writer's Workshop is still hard for me. I think I am over thinking it.  I feel like I have relinquished all control and sometimes wonder if it was easier when I did not give the open reins to my kiddos.   My students are passionate about writing.  They chatter about it constantly. They want to tell me everything they have planned for writing that day, but it is impossible to listen to them all and still get to my conferring kids.  Should I go back to the way I taught writing before?  It seem to work REALLY well...

Then I get a glimpse of this and it all seems worth it!

(If you click on the images you will get a better view)

 Here is what I could say about this writer... HE HAS WRITING STAMINA!   Holy Smokes!  He was able to sustain his focus on this piece for many days (I think it took him 2 weeks). He understands the genre and can write in this genre.  He KNOWS exactly what he wants to say.  As I was trying to make sense of some of his words, he would correct me,  "No, it is sky base."... I still have no idea what that is...LOL!

He writes with voice.  He can build suspense.  He understands that stories have a beginning, middle, and end.

I suspect I got in the way of his ending.  I mentioned to him that I would like to post his writing on my blog with his permission (and the next day he was done). I think his next steps would be talking about how stories end and what makes a good ending.  In any event... Way to go my little friend!

What am I working on?

 

I promise to have these ready by this weekend!

Lesson Plans for Next Week-American Symbols and a FREEBIE

We have some winners! (I will be emailing you in a few minutes)

And everyone is a winner with my Sentence Builders for March FREEBIE for a limited time.   Here is the condition of this FREEBIE.  Will you please let me know your thoughts on it?   Is this something you would like for April?  It will remain free until the 1st of March.

Here are my lesson plans.  We had two snow days last week, so you may see a repeat of plans. 

You can grab these lessons with links by clicking on any image.

Peek at my Week Presidential Style and Flash Giveaway

Boy, the weekend has been busy, so I am late with my Peek at my Week post... Sorry!

Here are a few things I have been working on.

I saw this clip art and I knew I had to have it!  I have a few science fiction fans who will freak-out when they see this.  I think it is time for some of my small groups to work on CVCe words. 

 As promised, I made a Sequence game for blends.  This one is for br, cr, dr, gr, tr.

 And I added an "I Can..." chart for my Puppy Love Word Family Games. Why didn't I do this sooner? You can download the revised edition for free by going to "My Purchases" in your TpT dashboard.

Here are my Literacy and Math Stations lesson plans for next week.  Just click on any image to download them (complete with links to the activities).

Here is the FLASH give-away part.  I will select 3 winners. They will get my Star Wars CVCe product, Sequence for blends product, and  my Puppy Love Word Family Games.

All you have to do to enter is follow me and leave a comment. Simple!

I will be back tonight at 6:00 central time with the rest of my lesson plans and the winner!

What was my day like?.. Awesome!

After two snow days and a postponed Valentine's Day party, I was a little worried... I'm not going to lie!   But we had a WON.DER.FUL day.

Here are a few highlights.

 Tomorrow we will start on our America Read, Write (Trace)  Glue, and Draw.

 They still get excited about our Writing Work Station.

Still loving the Stamping station.

We started our new Pattern Block paper.  You can grab these here.

I introduced the Sequence Game to my small group and I literally had to shoo kids away.  They were clambering to see what it was all about...LOL!

Today we had our Valentine's Day party.   I loved all of their boxes.   So Cute!  Angry Bird...haha!

I have the best parents...  Seriously!   They plan out the party and activities while I get to enjoy them. One activity we did was a treasure hunt.  One of my parents made this AWESOME map of my room and placed a heart where they kids could find their clue.   The students searched my room in teams.

Once they found their clue envelope, they opened it to reveal their clue. They then took off in search of this symbol.

It was fun to see all the other parents looking for the symbol too.   Sweet Mrs. M had slipped the backpack onto my back and this was pinned to it.  So, so, so FUN!

The backpack was filled candy!

Hands down!   Best V-Day party EVER!

Snow Day #2 = Presidents

So 4 inches of snow equals gave me another snow day!

Perfect opportunity to look ahead.

I was asked if I would make another ABC Uno Game... So here it is!

Click on the image to go to the product.

 Click on the image to go to the product.

So here is the giveaway part.  I will give away 3 sets of these tonight.  All you have to do is

1.  Make sure you follow me and leave a comment.

I will select 3 tonight (the FLASH) via Random Number Generator.  You have until 8:00pm central time.

I will email you in a few minutes!!!   Thanks everyone!