Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Wordless Wednesday: What Would You Do??

http://secondgradesugarandspice.blogspot.com/2014/06/wordless-wednesday-june-25th-my-new-bff.html

I am linking up with Christina from Sugar and Spice for one of the best linkys ever:  


What would you do if your husband came home and told you he wanted to move to Chicago?? 
( True story friends!!)  

Also does anyone know where we are in the pictures above??  
(1st person to guess correctly can have a free product of their choice from my store.)

Saturday, June 21, 2014

Phonics Friday is Back!! (Five for Friday Phonics edition)

Okay friends.  Are you ready for it?? 
  Phonics Friday is baaaack! (on Saturday)


I am a Pinterest addict and I have pinned so many great phonics freebies.  For my 1st Phonics Friday of the summer, I thought I would share a few of my favorite phonics pin freebies. 



I love using visuals to teach so these charts are perfect to use with my primary students because they provide visual cues for each sound.  This freebie is from the lovely Haley O'Connor of My Silly Firsties.  Click the link below to snag it for yourself.


My Silly Firsties

Alphabet, Blends, Digraphs, and Tricky Vowels 




The suffix ED is a tricky one to teach because it has not one sound but three!!  I love these posters from Lori Rosenberg of Teaching with Love and Laughter.  This freebie has a poster for each -ed sound with three examples with accompanying picture cues.

Photobucket 
 


I love when teachers connect concepts to things that the students can relate to and enjoy.  Jennifer Knopf  from Herding Kats in Kindergarten created this adorable activity to reinforce digraphs.  The Fox Says Digraphs is a write the room activity that uses picture clues to accompany words such as thread that contain a digraph. Kids love this not only because it is fun but also because it connects to the song What does the Fox Say?



The Fox Says Digraphs



Changing and deleting sounds is a skill that can be difficult for kids to grasp.  I love the way that Jodi Southard from Fun in First Grade introduced this concept to her firsties.  She used the idea of stairs and on each step a sound was changed to form a new word.


Photobucket

Jodi created a template so you could easily do this activity with your kiddos!  This freebie includes a page that includes short vowel word families and also a blank template that allows teachers to add their own words!  Yay!

Word Stairs




For number 5-- I thought I would include a pin that was geared a little bit more toward intermediate kiddos.   Prefixes and Suffixes are difficult concepts for so kiddos to master.  Amy Lemmons from Step into Second Grade created this great freebie that allows students in interact with prefixes and suffixes in a variety of ways such as sorting and a flap book.








Look for Phonics Friday next week!  If all goes well it should arrive on Friday not Saturday.  I am also linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday to share my five random phonics finds.  Feel free to link up and share five random things about your week.

http://doodlebugsteaching.blogspot.com/2014/06/five-for-friday-linky-party-june-20th.html


Until next time,

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Wordless Wednesday.....How Many?

http://secondgradesugarandspice.blogspot.com/2014/06/wordless-wednesday-june-11th-almost-in.html
Finally got my classroom packed up for our move:)
How many boxes would it take to pack your classroom?

Monday, June 2, 2014

It's Farley Time and some news!




Another school year has come to a close!  I can't believe that I have been teaching 14 years already.  This year has been a challenging one to say the least.  

My hubby decided last June to interview for a position at Groupon.  He was super pumped about the opportunity but unfortunately the job was located in Chicago.  Since he is super gifted at what he does he of course got the job.  

Since the school year had just started, I stayed in Ohio to finish out the year and my husband moved to the city.  I know.......very fun.....

So my poor little blog has been very neglected this year unfortunately:(  But I decided to start the summer off right!  By doing a blog post and a Farley link up.


LISTENING:  My son is currently into watching Mickey on Netflix.  I must say I do enjoy Mickey more than Busytown Mysteries.

LOVING:  My niece is visiting for the week and my kids are so happy!!  I love it when my kids are happy.  The bonus for me is that she is helping me pack up my classroom while my daughter finishes out school.

THINKING:  WE NEED A HOME!  My husband and I are trying to find a place to rent in the Chicago area.  I think that we have narrowed it down to the Naperville area.  He goes out with the realtor again on Wednesday.

WANTING:  I am in the middle of packing up 14 years of teaching and it is a total bummer.  Don't worry I am getting rid of stuff and I am not keeping anything that I haven't used recently.  I am totally done with paper files.  I recycled my last few today.  I am looking forward to getting my classroom completed so that I can focus on packing up my house.

NEEDING:  I need to complete the final steps so that I can legally teach in Illinois.  I have three tests scheduled for June.  The first one is on Thursday.  Fingers crossed that I pass:)  I really need to be able to get a job:)

Well that's all for tonight folks!!  I need to get some studying in for my exam on Thursday!!  I look forward to reading some Farely posts and catching up with the land of blogging.



Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Wordless Wednesday......The Ball Pit!

http://secondgradesugarandspice.blogspot.com/


Do you do any sensory activities in your classroom?  
Share your favorite:)

Sunday, April 13, 2014

A Product Swap: Firstie Style

 The last couple weeks, I was lucky enough to participate in my first ever product swap!   I was even more excited about it because I got to join some of my blogging buddies in this adventure. I was even luckier because  got to preview not one but two excellent products !! 


 The first product was created by Cassie from Adventures in Teaching.    A special thank you goes out to Cassie from Adventures in Teaching for organizing this fun event!!

Adventures in Teaching

As an interventionist, I teach a lot of phonics and I love me some word families.  I wait until about January to introduce word families in Kindergarten.  I teach the kids that words are like families.  They can LOOK the same and SOUND the same just like family members do.  I am always looking for ways to reinforce my students word family knowledge.  Cassie's Word Family Fun was a perfect fit!!  My students were able to independently show what they knew about the OT word family and had fun in the process.

Word Family Fun- CVC

First the students used a paper clip and a pencil as a spinner to create real and nonsense words.  They would take whatever letter the clip landed on and add it to OT so if for example if they landed on n they would write not.



After the kiddos complete their list then they have to go back and determine which words are real and which words are nonsense.  The kids practiced tapping, blending, and reading!!  I loved it.  My at risk kiddos need as much practice as they can get.




 When they got to the bottom of the page.  They had to use those reading skills again to match the word to the correct picture.  I will be honest.  My kids needed a little help with this part.  We are still working on the "reading directions" part.


 One the back of the sheet the students got to add the beginning sound to OT.


At the bottom of the sheet the kids had to come up with their own OT words.  This is not an easy skill for my at risk kinders but we are working on it.

  
Another bonus is the product has adorable graphics that the students can color if time is available.

The next product that I tried out was created by Allison Cummings from A First Grade Teacher.

A First Grade Teacher 

With spring testing right around the corner this pack was just what I needed to reinforce my kiddos nonsense word fluency.

A Little Nonsense Word Cards Set One

Here is a peek at the nonsense word cards included in the pack.

 A Little Nonsense Word Cards Set One 

My kids had a ton of fun practicing with these cards.  I would pass out all the cards to the kids and then set my timer for a minute.  We would then go around the table and each student would read a card.  When the timer goes off we count the number of cards the kids were able to read during the minute.  This helps with fluency and the kids really like to see if they can increase their speed and read more cards than the day before.

A special bonus for all you lovely people out there is that these products could also be yours.  You could also win all the products from the SWAP!  YAY!


a Rafflecopter giveaway