Beach, New Product, and Paint Swatches, OH MY!!!!

Hi everyone! It is already May tomorrow! So excited! Warmer weather has hit Rhode Island! I LOVE it! I mean it is nothing compared to you lucky southerners! I have been watching the weather and hearing all about your 80 degree temperatures and sunny days! Either way, I have been trying to get some work done on new TpT products without missing out on the sun, so I went down to the beach and worked outside this morning! I didn’t have to substitute today! (I guess that’s one perk of being a sub!) It was beautiful! It was just nice to be outside! I feel like I can be on the computer working on blogging and TpT for hours and I lose track of time and the nice days! So, I am glad I was able to get in the sun! Check out the pic I took of the beach!

 

 

I view TpT as another job! It is a lot of work, but I really love doing it so I guess that is what matters! I like it even better when I get to work at the beach! Who can complain about that?!

 

Well anyways, I have funny story to share with all of you! So, I walk into Home Depot a few weeks back and start grabbing paint swatches for an activity with my after school students. The Behr paint guy comes over and says, “Hi, you must be doing A LOT of painting at home with all of those.” Well, yea that was embarrassing!!! Here I am at Home Depot grabbing free paint swatches to save some money but took an amount that was obviously a lot (whoops!). The guy laughed when I said I would put some back. Either way, I end up telling him what they are for and that I teach and whatnot. The man says to me that he loves the fact that they are used for school. He tells me that they are discontinuing a lot of the paint, therefore, in a few weeks he would have paint swatches that would just be thrown away. I said I would gladly take them so he took my number to call me when they would be getting rid of them. WELLLLLL, when I went to pick them up today there were 4 huge boxes of paint swatches! They were so heavy I needed the Home Depot employees to load them in my car (pathetic, I know!). While I am SOOO grateful, there are more paint swatches than I know what to do with?!?! Take a look at what I got today!!!! I find it really funny actually!!!

 

 

 

I have 4 huge boxes that are all this full! I have a feeling it is going to take a while to use them all! Haha!

After finally hauling those boxes into the house with some help from my brother, I was able to post my newest product that I have been working on for 2 months! Boy was that a long 2 months! It was such a relief to know it was done and posted! It is nonfiction reading comprehension passages about animals! It includes multiple choice comprehension questions, graphic organizers, and various ways to use the passages! My students have really enjoyed them so I am very confident other kiddos will too! Below are some pictures!

 

 

 

 

Click HERE for more details about this product!

 

Thanks everyone for stopping by! Time for dinner! All this writing has me starved!!! ;-) Talk to you all soon!

SUPER SIGHT WORDS - Common Core & FREEBIE

  Phew! Finally! I just finished my Super Sight Words packs (1 pack uses DOLCH PRIMER list & other DOLCH FIRST GRADE list). I have been using these activities and games with the students in my after school program and they have really loved them! It is great to see how engaged they are while they are learning. Below are a few pictures from what's inside.

 

The bundled set of these packs is also ready! Yay!

 

 

  

Also, I wanted to let everyone know about my former cooperating teacher who I completed my student teaching with. She has recently joined TpT and has some really awesome products! My favorite one is her “Word Detectives” reading strategy product. It is a very engaging version of guess the covered word. I have seen this product in action, and let’s just say, the students LOVED it! The students were so excited and eager to participate! I encourage you to try her FREEBIE below in your classroom.

Thanks for stopping by! Back to school tomorrow! ;-)

LOTS of Sight Word FUN!!!

Wow! What a fun day yesterday! The students had a BLAST learning the sight word “your”. Being that this is for an after school program, I want to make it as engaging as possible for the kiddos. They are pooped after a long day in school (as most of us are too). Let’s just say, they were engaged! We practiced the word “your” in soooo many hands-on and exciting ways. Check out the pictures below!

I wrote the letters Y-O-U-R on the back of Dixie cups that I found on sale at Wal-Mart (pack of 100 for $2). The students worked in pairs to mix and fix the letters in the word. They LOVED being able to manipulate the materials. I think they were getting a little bored with the whiteboards. So, this was a hit!


The students also enjoyed removing letters from "your" and having their partners guess the missing letter.


We had a lot of fun using play-doh to make our sight word!


I picked up a pack of 80 pom pom's from the Dollar Tree! We used them to make "your". The students really loved this one!


This was the winning activity by far! The students used color changing markers to trace and re-trace "your". (I even found myself over at this station writing with the markers!) I got them at Wal-Mart on CLEARANCE for $2 for 6 markers! Such a STEAL!


We practiced writing our sight word on paint swatches. Can't beat this free activity!


I picked up a couple of these magnetic doodle pads from the Dollar Tree. (If you cannot tell already, I am a bargain shopper!) The students liked having a different word writing experience besides whiteboards.


Pipe cleaners!!! They really had a lot of fun making "your" with these! The students came up with creative ways to make the letters. Some students used multiple pipe cleaners to create each letter, while other students were able to bend one pipe cleaner into each letter. It was cool to see their different approaches!

After all of this (yes, a lot I know!), we worked together to make the word "your" with our bodies! I was stuck as the bottom of the "y". So, yes, I had two sets of feet in my face! Haha! It was fun though! I wish I had a picture for this one (bummer). Well, even though these activities were a lot of set up initially, the students loved them and that made it all worth it! They are requesting we do this for every new sight word! I was glad to hear it! ;-)

Thank you for stopping by! I have to get my day started! It is already noon! Yikes! How easily we get sucked into the internet! Check back later this week for my sight word product that will be ready and on TpT soon!

Kayla

Reading Comprehension Time! COMMON CORE of course ;-)

I know! I know! I have been M.I.A. for the past week. But, I haven’t forgotten any of you. I have been working on my newest product. This one was hard work. A LOT of hard work! But that is fine because now it is all done. Finally! Spring is Here - Original Stories for Reading Comprehension Practice COMMON CORE ALIGNED. As much as this product was time consuming, I am proud of this one. I have been focusing solely on holiday products that I almost lost sight of one of the most important things we teach our students. READING! Ahh the holidays and celebrations suck you right in don't they!?! Now, it feels great to have a TpT product that is useable for my buyers for more than just the length of a holiday or celebration. So, be sure to check it out.

Anyways, now as much as I was working really hard on that product, I have been doing other things with my time. Things like relaxing, sleeping in late, taking my time drinking my morning coffee, and oh yea, staying up late catching up on my DVR. Yup, I am on school vacation. Who would think a 23 year old could get so tired. Oh, but I do! After this lazy week though so far, I feel well rested!

Well, now that I have spent ALL of my morning blogging and pinning, I guess I need to do something more productive like.....going to get my nails done. ;-) Haha! Thanks everyone for stopping by!!! Check back soon for a St. Patrick’s Day freebie similar to my Christmas and Valentine’s Day edition freebies!

Reading Strategies Original Poem FREEBIE

Another FREEBIE everyone! I have made an original poem about reading strategies. Boy, did this one take me a long time! I never realized how hard rhyming can be! If you were here with me while I wrote this you would have gotten a kick out of the words I was trying to rhyme. I even tried to find a word that rhymed with opinion! So, yes, clearly my brain was going a bit nuts. Either way, I hope you enjoy this poem and find it useful!

Click HERE to grab your copy of the original poem "I Am A Good Reader"

Miss Nelson Is Missing Draw Talk!

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During reading block, I told the story of “Miss Nelson Is Missing” by Harry Allard through a draw talk storytelling experience. Draw talk is a form of storytelling that involves drawing 5 or 6 major events on a large pad of paper beforehand, and then while telling the story you draw in smaller elements of the story to bring in details. I learned all about this method in an awesome college course I took my senior year.
The children were so engaged while they listened to me tell this story through draw talk. They loved seeing my illustrations and were eager to see what details I added to each picture. For a few weeks afterwards, they were asking me to tell all stories that way! I highly recommend this method of storytelling for your students.

Here is the picture I drew of the opening scene of the book. Boy, did this picture take FOREVER to draw! Thank goodness I only had to draw in spit balls and paper planes while I told the story!

Here are a few pictures of the illustrations that I drew based on the book. The pictures are now laminated so I apologize for the quality of these images.