Freebie Friday and I am Featured!

Yay!  I was featured on Teaching Blog Addict!  Check out this week's link up to get great freebies from fellow bloggers!

Here is what we have been doing this week.

I really challenged my students this week during our guided reading time with a little rhyming cvc word bingo.  Talk about challenging!  Most of my kiddos could do this without any problems and it was more challenging for them.  I have about 3 kids out of 16 who really struggled and still need work on sounding and blending.  We will be playing this more.  This is from my Thanksgiving Small Group Reading Activities pack.  Click the picture to learn more about the pack.

We have been working on our writing.  The students dictated sentences to me about leaves.  Next week I will cut up their sentences on strips of paper and give it to them to put back together.  They will glue their sentence onto a piece of paper and illustrate.  We will use our illustrated sentences to make a class book about leaves.

We also wrote about bats.  I love some of the words they gave me for this chart!  Did you know that bats have a predator other than humans?  They are called cave crickets.  They look like a granddaddy long legs to me.  When a bat smacks against a cave wall and injures itself, the cave crickets will swarm around it and eat the bat.  Interesting?  Isn't it?  I learned that on a cave tour years ago so if you ever go spelunking, beware of the cave cricket.

My lovely assistant was absent today and I had a sub assistant.  She told me at the end of the day that she was really impressed with the reading ability of my class.  She hasn't been in a kindergarten class that is reading like mine.  It made me one proud teacher!  It made me think, what am I doing that is different from the other teachers?  I know what it is.  It's a little strategy that I use daily that I learned when I taught in a Reading First school.  I still use it the first 5 minutes of every day.  I'll share more about it tomorrow. ;)

This week, I made a new listening log.  You can get it here for free!  Just click the picture below.  Happy Friday!

Thanksgiving I-Spy Freebie

I survived Halloween 2013!!!  It wasn't that bad, but I will say having parents and kids in costumes for a Halloween celebration can be hectic!  I wish I took pictures this week of some of the things we have been doing, but my phone camera doesn't seem to be working correctly so I dug out my "regular" camera and I will be back to snapping pictures next week.

This week we studied bats and spiders.  Did I tell you I have a student in my class who likes to bring me spiders!?  Ummm, your teacher hates spiders kid!  Bring me a puppy, kitten, snake, but please don't bring me a spider.

We made a can, have, are chart about bats and the students wrote a sentence using the chart.  I also gave them a little bat drawing lesson.  They think I should be an art teacher.  Lol!  I have also been told this week that I should be a music teacher.  That is more likely to happen than an art teacher.  I can read music and I do play a clarinet and an alto clarinet.  

Back to the bats.  My students learned some new vocabulary this week.  When we were creating our chart, I heard words like mammal, echolocation, and nocturnal.  Oh, this makes a teacher proud!  Let's hope those words stick.

I started working on this little freebie yesterday with the intention of posting it yesterday, but then I started watching television with the hubs so it didn't happen.  Here it is now!  Click the picture below to grab your freebie and thanks for stopping by.  Oh, by the way, I'm having a sale in both of my shops this weekend.  All items are 20% off through Monday.
Teachers Pay Teachers    Teachers Notebook 

What are topics are you studying this month?  Leave me a comment below and let me know!

Word Family Spiders

I finally took a picture with my IPhone of our word family spiders.  Ever since I updated my IPhone software, the camera only works 40% of the time.  The most annoying part is that I can no longer change songs using my car radio.  How safe is it to change your song with the phone?  It still comes through the speakers and the phone part works.  Apple, if you hear me, fix this issue ASAP or I'm switching to an Android!!!

Here is a picture of our spiders.

The -ig word family.

The -at word family.

We talked about two word families this week, -ig and -at.  I let them pick the word family and the words from the ones that we listed on the board.

If you are wondering how I explain word families, I relate it to their families.  I explain that word families end with the same letters and it's like a last name.  Just like they have a last name that tells who their family is.  Then I explain that the first letters are like a first name and they are different, just like family members have different first names.  They seems to understand and recognize word families quickly.  They also realize that they rhyme.

Tomorrow is our Halloween Celebration!  I love Halloween because of the free candy that I steal from my child my gives to me.  I am the official household candy thief!  Oh, I'm sure I'm not the only parent who does this when no one is protecting looking at the candy.

If you are wondering where I got the word family spider craftivity, it came from Susan Moran Jones-TGIF.  It's a freebie from her store.  Thank you Susan!

What are your plans for Halloween tomorrow?  I'm going trick-or-treating with my family.

Monday Madness and a Spider

This is my Monday Madness ramblings.  It seems Mondays are really busy days in my classroom.  I must over plan because I don't get everything finished.  I am hoping tomorrow, I will get to make these cute little word family spiders that I found here.

Sorry, I wish I had a picture to share.  I took this from the creators TPT store.  It's a freebie from Susan Moran Jones-TGIF and I can't wait to use it.  I'll will post one tomorrow after we make them.

My camera on my IPhone hasn't been working properly since I update it.  I don't know what the problem is but I hope they have an update soon to fix it.

I'm keeping this post short tonight as I am sleepy and going to bed.  I didn't realize how popular my Candy Corn Making Words activity was going to be so it is inspiring my next project.  More to come soon.

Freebie Friday!!!

It's Friday so you know what that means.  Friday freebie!  This week's freebie is a number the room activity.  My students had so much fun writing the room that I thought we would number the room next week.  I know many people do this as a center activity, but I did it whole class last week since I had two grades in my room at one time.  Yes, you heard that right.  I don't usually have two grades so luckily I had printed out a differentiated write the room activity from my new Write the Room CVC Words and Pictures pack.  It was a true lifesaver!  You can learn more about this pack by clicking the picture below.

Here's a look at the cards.  

Look how engaged everyone is!

I also received my Elf on the Shelf with the new Birthday book and outfit free!  I was one of the first so many (can't remember the number) of teachers to register on their website.  I can't wait to use this in my classroom throughout the month of December and for student birthdays!

Please excuse the bad pic, my flash would not cooperate and I usually use my IPhone.  I really need to find my camera and take it to school.

Thanks for stopping by.  You can grab your freebie by clicking the pic below.  I would love to hear from you.  Leave me a comment below and let me know what you would like me to blog about next.

Fall Trees and a Pumpkin

Today we finished up our fall trees.  We used the same pattern as our apple trees, but use red, yellow, and orange to make fall leaves.  I call up to four kids at a time to a table to paint while the rest of the class is working and playing at traditional kindergarten centers.  This is what we do the last 30 minutes of the day and it allows time to do individual assessments and to get everyone packed up to go home.

So last week we did a class pumpkin.  Every class did one and they were auctioned off at our Fall Carnival.  Well we kind of ran out of time to really spend time on our pumpkin so I thought we should do something simple.

Presenting.... Our Pumpkin

It's "pumpkin pie."

These are the things I come up with when I am under a time crunch.  Lol!  I wonder if they were able to make money off my pumpkin.  I didn't glue anything down, so they could have carved anything they wanted.  I missed out carnival because I fell asleep and woke up the next afternoon.  No kidding.  I couldn't believe that I was that tired and my son didn't bother waking me up on a Saturday.

In other news (I always wanted to say type that.), I have had this little organizer sitting on my desk and I have been wondering what I should do with it.  Any ideas?  Leave your comments below.

Friday Freebie on a Saturday

I fell asleep as soon as I got home yesterday.  I can't believe I slept that long!  I'm also excited to say that I'm a dot com now!  Check it!  Just type www.lessonplansandlollipops.com.  I think it's super cool!  I learned to follow directions and make it work too.  Well I have had a super busy week and I didn't have much to share.  Sorry about that, but next week is more promising.  Oh and my retired aide is subbing next week for my wonderful new aide.  I miss her, but she is happy in retirement land.  We still go out for dinner from time to time so it's all good. 

Today, I made a word building activity to use with my kids this week during guided reading.  I color coded each set of letter card so they are easy to sort and the kids can keep them separated easier.  I also included a work mat for them to make the words on.  This is a CVC word making activity with teacher directions.  The cards are cute little candy corn which is perfect for this time of the year.  All you have to do is print out the letter card and a work mat for each student.  Laminate and cut apart to make them last.  I like to store my letter cards sorted by color in individual baggies.  Then I put all the small baggies in a larger baggie or page protector.  I also put each of the work mats in a page protector and store everything in a 3 ring binder.  If you click the picture below, you can grab your freebie.  Before you go, leave me a comment and let me know if you would like to see more activities like this.  Thanks a bunch!