Can Life Please Slow Down?!

I know we all lead very busy lives as teachers.  We not only have our own biological children to worry about, but we have twenty-six other children to worry about.  Oh, man!  I am going to be the first to tell you that I have been running around like a headless chicken for the entire month of February.  I have had district classes on two of the Saturdays (which, of course, included a lesson plan that I had to create), and we went out of town to celebrate my daughter's tenth birthday (where does the time go?!).  On top of that, I had parent/teacher conferences (If you need a sheet to organize your conferences, head here or here), lesson planning, grading, and more.  Holy smokes!

Needless to say, I am SUPER excited for Spring Break to come next week.  Ahh... maybe I will be able to enjoy a bit of time to myself.  Who am I kidding?!  I will be working on new things for my classroom.

Speaking of new things for my classroom, I just finished a new set of DIBELS prep bellwork.  I can seriously tell you this bellwork has SAVED my sanity!  It keeps my high kiddos challenged, and it helps my struggling kiddos practice the skills for reading and for DIBELS.

This is the front side of each day's bellwork.  The kids read nonsense words and letter names to their neighbor.  They complete phoneme segmentation for eight words.  Finally, they read a sentence and draw a picture to match the sentence.  This is my favorite part because I love to see the kiddos' illustrations. 

Three days of the back side of bellwork looks like this.  The kids read ten of Fry's high frequency words to their neighbor.  They write five Ayres words in pencil and in crayon.  And then they think of their own sentence using one of the words listed.  If you teach kindergarten at a Spalding school, the bellwork is aligned with spelling lists 14-20.

When I originally rolled out this bellwork, I was a little concerned about this activity.  It turns out that this is their favorite!  The kids unscramble the Ayres words at the top of the page.  I usually allow them to work with their neighbor.  They get so excited when they successfully unscramble a word.  They are pretty fast, too!

I usually use this paper on the day of our spelling test.  The kids must find their spelling words (the Ayres words) and circle them.  They LOVE finding other words that I sometimes sneak in there as well (sometimes I plan that, and other times it just happens).  Again, I have never seen kids so excited about bellwork.

Can you tell I am SO excited that I finished this?!  My students are engaged in meaningful work while I am able to pull students for RTI.  In kindergarten, it is so difficult to keep kids occupied for any amount of time.  This bellwork has changed that for me.  And I'm not just blowing smoke up your skirts.  It has made my life SO MUCH EASIER!

Well, I am off to fold clothes and get ready for the week.  The last week before break is always super crazy, so wish me luck!  Have a fantastic week!

DIBELS Prep Bellwork

I am linking up with Jennifer at Simply Kinder for her Teaching Blog Linky Party!  Woot, woot!  Go take a look and find some great new blogs (and probably some pretty sweet freebies).

Things have been absolutely crazy around here.  I bet it's been the same for you.  I know people think that teachers have all of this time off, but as I pointed out to one of my friends, teachers work even on their breaks.

With that being said, I am SO SUPER excited to show you what I have been working on.  I had a test run in my own classroom the last two weeks of school.  If it can work then, it can work anytime.  Am I right?  Holy smokes, were they ready for break!

Anyhoo, my RTI time is in the morning during bellwork.  I have twenty minutes to work with my students that need a little extra help.  My aide pulls students to work on sight words while I pull students for RTI.  The rest of the class works independently on bellwork.  Yes, my kiddos have been trained to complete bellwork on their own.  I go over the instructions and complete one day of bellwork with them.  If they can't remember what to do after that practice day, they must ask a friend before raising their hand to ask me.

I made a full 40 days of bellwork using the same format, so your students will be pros by the time they are finished with all of the pages.

The first page focuses on the skills that are tested on the middle of year and end of year DIBELS assessments.  The kids read nonsense words, letter names, and they complete phoneme segmentation.  I also added a sentence (or two or three) to start them on reading comprehension, which is tested in first grade.

The back of the page has three days of the format shown above.  It has rainbow words, fill in the missing letter, and practice sentence writing.  Now, if you teach kindergarten at a Spalding school, these words practice spelling lists 6-13.  Don't worry if you don't teach kindergarten at a Spalding school!  These words are taken from the Ayres list of high frequency words, so it will benefit your students as well. 

 On day four, your students will have a word scramble with the spelling words.

On day five, your students will have a word search with the words that have been practiced all week.

I am in LOVE with this bellwork!  My students are challenged, they let me work with my students that need extra help, and my DIBELS scores have improved.  Have I mentioned how much I love this bellwork?

If you would like to take a look, click here.  I am going to have it on sale for this weekend only.  The price will go back to normal on Monday, so hurry up and take a look!  

I am in an amazing mood, so I am going to throw a sale as well.  Everything in my store is 20% off.  Woot, woot!  But, you had better hurry because prices will go up on Monday.  Click here to take a look.

I hope you are having a fantastic, relaxing (ha, ha) break!  Have a great weekend!

More new stuff

I have three more products to tell you about.  I'll start with my favorite.  As you know, I LOVE Scaredy Squirrel.  The book Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend (by Melanie Watt) is hilarious!  The minute I read the book, I knew I had to make something for the back to school season.  Kids aren't always sure how to make friends, so this book opens up some valuable conversations about how to make new friends.  For more information, click here.

The next product I'm really excited to share is the CVC letter match up.  This would work great with phoneme segmentation, first sound fluency, and letter sounding.  This pack includes three differentiated activities that practice CVC words.

-Match magnetic letters to the printed letters (capital and lower case versions)

-Fill in the first sound using magnetic letters or a white board marker (capital and lower case versions)

-Fill in the sound boxes with magnetic letters or a white board marker

There is an answer key and two recording sheers (one for first sound and one with sound boxes).  

For more information, click here.

The last product I want to tell you about teaches about Arizona symbols.  If you teach K-2 in Arizona, this pack is for you.  It has anchor charts, a book about Arizona symbols and surroundings where the kids illustrate some of the pictures, and worksheets on Arizona symbols and leaders.  For more information, please click here.

Finally, I'm going to post my Squirrel craft as a Manic Monday freebie.  

Click here to download.

And, I'm off to a busy week of meetings, kindergarten celebration songs, and lamination.  I'm changing the theme in my classroom.  Have a great week!

I was busy this weekend

I've been working on quite a few projects this month.  I think about the back to school season, and I get all inspired to find new ideas and new ways to teach things.  School hasn't even ended, and I'm in back to school mode.  I know... I'm nuts.

Maybe it has to do with our incoming kindergarten testing that has been going on.  Those little peanuts seem so small compared to my almost first graders.  It makes me think back to my first goal as a kindergarten teacher: Walking quietly in a straight line.  Anyway, we are using my "Getting Ready for Kindergarten" pack, and we've gotten some great feedback.  We e-mailed it to parents because it has clickable links to great videos and resources.  We simply asked parents to give us their e-mail address, and our wonderful registrar sent it off for us.  If you are interested in learning more, please click here.

I've also been working on a sight word speed reading pack.  I wanted something where the kids could graph their progress, and see how far they've come.  I figured that I could draw the line on the bar graph and the kids could color it in.  While I was making that pack, I thought about DIBELS, and I added nonsense words.  So, the pack includes Fry's first 300 words, nonsense words, graphs for each, and certificates for your speed readers when they meet their goals.  If you are interested in learning more, please click here. 

While I'm on the subject of sight words, I created a game to practice them.  "Pop" contains Fry's first 300 sight words, nonsense words, capital and lower case letters, along with Spalding's first 70 phonograms.  The clip art popcorn is in black and white, so you can print on yellow cardstock or paper.  For more information, please click here.

Don't worry... You can still read.  These are the nonsense words.  :)

Whew!  There is more to come... I need to take a break because I'm being pampered by my husband and kids.  They cleaned their playroom and have been loving me all day.  My husband made all of the meals and painted my toenails.  I'm one lucky gal!

Abraham Lincoln and Spelling Practice Bellwork

So, it's not Abraham completing spelling bellwork, but those two things are on my mind.  We worked on Abraham Lincoln this last week.  He is such a neat president!  Last year, I read Chasing Lincoln's Killer to my fourth grade students.  I had to leave out several bloody parts (like when chunks of his brain were leaking out of the bullet hole in his head), but it was a REALLY good book.  I highly recommend reading it.  I learned a TON!  Anyway, so we made our Lincoln little books and wrote our Lincoln sentences.  We practiced the sentences for two days, and then we completed the craft.  What fun! 

All of those activities are available in my common core, read across the curriculum, handy dandy, all-in-one unit that is available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store and in my Teacher's Notebook store.

I am always looking for fun ways to help my students practice spelling.  I have my students write rainbow words, complete word searches, find their spelling words and graph them, and we use them as "passwords" to enter our classroom.  Here is a freebie that I made last week to help kiddos practice spelling.

 

I like to have options, so there are pages with and without a name line so you can make double sided copies.  There are a few different variations on the sheet as well.  

 

Click here for the freebie, and have a GREAT week!

 

 

   I'm also having a giveaway!  Hooray!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Reviewing Spelling and Phonograms

I love to have my students play meaningful games to review spelling words and phonograms. 

To review phonograms, we:

• write them in shaving cream on our desks (which also helps clean them since our district banned Clorox wipes)
• write them on white boards
• swat them on the big whiteboard.  I hang a bunch with magnets, and two kids race to find it and swat it.
• play phonogram bingo

To review spelling words, we:

• have a spelling list word search
• read "the password" that is a binder ring of the spelling cards for the week.  They have to read one word before entering the room and while they wait in line after using the restroom in the hallway.  This also helps me work one on one with sounding (at least for a couple of seconds), and allows me to see gaps in their learning of phonograms.
• have daily bellwork where we find and graph spelling words
• have rainbow words where they write the word in pencil once, then in crayon/colored pencil two more times
• Bingo
• Races on the big white board
• play "I have, who has".  I have a version of the kindergarten lists 1-20 in my TpT store.
• Roll, Read, Keep (I have a version with all of our spelling words, Fry's first 300 words, number words to twenty, addition and subtraction facts through ten, doubles addition facts, and Fry's first 100 phrases).  Check out my store for this MEGA pack.

Here is a link to a little freebie to review phonograms, letters, or spelling words. One says "Phonogram BINGO" at the top, and the other just says "BINGO".  There are two sizes for the game boards as well, depending on how much your students can handle.

 I just printed these on cardstock, laminated them, and the kids write the phonograms using their white board markers.  I used beans as markers, but my student teaching mentor teacher (I love her) used torn construction paper.  They kept those baggies in their desks.  Brilliant idea... see why I love her?

Do you have any fun ways to review phonograms or spelling words?