Spring Cleaning Sale

I know I've said it before...I love a sale!  It means I can buy more and save more!  I am teaming up with some great bloggers to offer a Spring Cleaning sale in my TPT shop from March 29th to March 31st.  Everything in my store will be 20% off!  You don't need to enter a coupon code, it's already discounted!

Thanks to Beth Ann from Zip-A Dee-Doo-Dah Designs for the graphics.

Here are some BUNDLES which already offer a great savings to you.  You can save even more during the sale on these products:

Have fun shopping!

Community Helpers (and a FREEBIE)

 Our class post office really got the kids into the role of mail carrier.  They loved sorting the mail into the mailboxes and delivering the mail to their friends.  This got them interested in the jobs around their community, so we talked about community helpers and the workers in our neighborhood.  We started by looking at different jobs and talking about what they do.  Many of the kids were eager to share what their own parents do (sharing is such a big part of kindergarten!).  With each image I showed them, I made sure to have a female and male example of that same job (example, female and male nurse, female and male teachers and so on).  We also spoke about correct terminology.  We don't say 'fireman,' we say 'fire fighter' because girls and boys can do any job!  The kids were eager to share what they want to be when they grow up!  My wonderful ECE Linda got this activity all ready for the kids.  With each activity, the kids talked about what materials/tools each worker needed and why.  The kids made doctor's bags, fire trucks, smiles (with marshmallow teeth) for the dentist, and Sheriff's badges.    

I've had this prayer since I taught Grade One (in my practicum many years ago!) and I wanted to share it with all of you.  Click the image below to get your free copy.

I've also finished my Trace Stamp Color Cut and Paste it, Community Helpers/Workers pack.  Click the image below to take you to the pack.

Well, it's March (Spring) Break right now and I'm looking ahead.  We usually talk about Spring after Spring break, but that probably won't happen just yet, since we are still in the middle of snow storms!  I think we are all done with winter around here!  Seriously, we need a change of weather! I hope your Spring break is Springy! (unlike mine!)

Crown Me!

I am always looking for new ways to teach sight-words!  Those words that can't be sounded out and just have to be remembered from sight can be tricky for some students!  Check out an older post of mine, here, to see some of the things we do to learn our sight words.  The kids in the class have been obsessed fascinated with making crowns!  Part of this fascination may be from the Disney winter movie hit Frozen.  The girls in my class will spontaneously break into song, singing every verse of "Let it Go" from the movie.  They would make crowns and pretend they were the characters from the movie.  This fascination quickly spread to the boys, who would also make crowns and adorn themselves with them throughout the day.   I ran with their idea!  I made crowns for various skills we've been focusing on!

 Here are the kids own crowns. 

Here are the kids making crowns from my Crown Me! pack.  The kids were so excited to use markers!  Some of the kids worked on the sight-word crowns, and some worked on other skills included in the Early Skills Pack (color words, upper and lowercase letters, etc.).  Because I have a combined JK/SK class, having a variety of crowns available with different skills was necessary.  A few of the SK's are still reviewing letters (and that's okay!), so they worked on that, and many of the JK's are reading sight-words and non-patterned text (which is fantastic!) so I was able to differentiate instruction based on the child's level.  

The kids colored all the words they could read!

They cut out their crowns, and attached them to a long piece of bristol board.  We measured it to their head and they wore their words proudly!

They actually wore their crowns all day!  We had to remind them to take them off for gym class!  The best part was that they had had so much fun doing this learning activity!  

The crowns can also be used for assessment purposes because they are so visual!  Since the kids are having so much fun reading and coloring their words, they don't even know it is an assessment situation.

 Click the pictures below to take you to these packs:

***Check out the BUNDLE for savings***

This pack has:

-Uppercase letters

-Lowercase Letters

-Number words 1-100

-Numerals 1-100

-Color words

-2-D and 3-D shape words and symbols (for pre-readers)

This pack has

-Dolch Pre-Primer words

-Dolch Primer words

-Dolch 1st Grade words

-Dolch 2nd Grade words

-Dolch 3rd Grade words