Wednesday, February 19, 2014

{MARCH} Write the Room Activity

First off, WOW! I had such a huge response to my January and February ABC write the room activities! It was great! They both included capital letters and were created so that you could differentiate for all of your students whether they were writing letters independently, tracing them, or even just simply matching them!

I loved all of the feedback I got on them both. Some of your suggestions were to include a lowercase option as well. So for the month of March I have created ABC write the room to include capital letters and lowercase letters. Both have the recording pages for writing, tracing, and matching.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/March-ABC-abc-Write-The-Room-1121894
Click the picture to purchase!

Of course, this one costs a little bit more since you are getting both of the activities and I had to create double of all the parts so that there could be capitals and lowercase.


{Example of all the recording pages in color- also available in black & white}

{Example of all the alphabet cards- also available in black & white}

This is something I have every intention of continuing to do throughout the months. Whether it be letters, numbers, shapes, colors, etc. There are all types of skills that can be incorporated into the concept of hunting around the classroom--which my kiddos have loved!

This is where another suggestion of yours comes in. A few people asked if I would consider bundling these activities together. And the answer is YES! You can purchase the bundle now and then as it is added to all you have to do is download the update. As the bundle is added to, the price will be increasing. So my suggestion... buy now! :)

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Write-the-Room-Monthly-Bundle-1123174
Click the photo to purchase

Right now the bundle includes, January, February, and March. I will also continue to post them separately.

AND in addition to that, there are also black and white options for everything included in the MARCH pack! The recording sheets AND the letter cards to hide. So you will be getting:

2 different activities (ABC & abc)
3 different versions of each (writing, tracing, & matching)
2 printing options (color or black & white)

Shew, I don't think there is anything else to include now! I'm super excited to have all of these options to offer you in one item! I would love your feedback on this item! Can't wait to see if you have other suggestions for what you would like to see included in the future months. 
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Sunday, February 16, 2014

The {perfect} Student Gift- Valentine's Day

 Okay, I drafted this post FOREVER ago. In fact, I "scheduled" myself to post it on February 6th. Well between life and snow that didn't happen. I know valentine's day has come and gone, but maybe you're like me and STILL haven't passed out student valentines because of the weather!

By now I'm sure you've seen tons and tons of ideas on Pinterest for valentines day cards and gifts. Homemade cards to homemade treats. I love giving my students a little something and I love to make homemade cards for them. I've pinned tons of ideas in the last few weeks, but this one stuck with me.

http://www.u-createcrafts.com/2014/01/valentine-printable-bubbles.html
{clicking the photo will take you to U Create where you can download her freebie}

Next thing I know I'm in Micheal's shopping for floral foam and decorative sticks (that's what you call those right?) and I'm picking up the supplies to make these cards.

It helped that the valentine's day scrap booking section was 50% off too. (or maybe 40%)


I can't take credit for the idea obviously...I have to give all the credit to U Create. I did however tweak the idea to include this fun Valentine's Day scrap booking paper and made my own printable with some of my favorite fonts.



There are so many adorable ideas out there for Valentine's this year! It's so hard to pick just one. Here are some of my other favorite pins for V-day cards!

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Sunday, February 09, 2014

Hot Chocolate & Hearts {Freebie}

It may be February, but it's still cold enough to enjoy that nice big warm mug of hot chocolate!

We actually just finished our hot chocolate theme and will be starting our hearts theme this week.

If you own any of my units you've probably come across this game in one or two or them. I love doing this with my kiddos. I place the capital letter cards in a pocket chart and hide something behind them. Always something coordinating. For example, with the hot chocolate mugs, there is a marshmallow that is hiding.


I pick a card to hide the item behind and students are called up to guess where it is. Before they can check they must identify the letter to me. If they don't know the letter that's fine! It's a great way for us to get in some additional practice.

Their favorite is when one of my paras hides the item so I don't even know where it is!

I'd love to offer this fun game to you for {FREE}! Since I know you may have packed up the hot chocolate {it's okay, you can still enjoy it at home} I also have a fun one themed for the month of February! You can grab this one for free too!

The February one includes lowercase letters instead of capital letters.


Click the links below to download them & enjoy! I'd love your feedback :)


Before you go, don't forget to enter my giveaway to win a $10 gift card to TpT and hop through all the freebielicious bloggers to enter to win $10 from them too! BUT it doesn't stop there! Head to the freebielicious page to enter for a chance to win $25 and $50 to TpT! So excited to be sharing what we love with you!
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Friday, February 07, 2014

Let Me Tell You...

...why I {LOVE} Teachers Pay Teachers! Seriously. There is so much I am thankful for about this website.


As many of you know I teach special education pre-school and have students with autism. My students range in ages 2-5 (depending on their birth date when they start and end the school year) and their range in skill level is un-describable. Really. I don't think I could explain it enough for you to even fathom it without seeing it. I think that can be said for all special education classrooms. And we, as teachers, want nothing more than to adequately meet the needs of each and every single student we have.

In addition to my special education students I have two typically developing peers in my classroom to act as social and behavioral role model students.. I like to plan meaningful activities for them as well.

When I write my lesson plans, I feel like I'm writing plans for each individual student. With the exception of our greeting time and our large group time, each student is planned for individually on my lesson plans with their own section.

And depending on the student group, sometimes, they are planned for individually during greeting and large group depending on whether or not they have the pre-requisite skills to attend to these carpet time activities. 

This level of need for differentiation has led me to include a large variety of activities in the units and such that I create for TpT, but sometimes, when I'm writing my plans for the week, it's nice to know that I can turn to Teachers Pay Teachers to find activities to help me meet the needs of all my students.

What a {HUGE} time saver!

And it's nice to know that I am providing quality materials and products for my students. I use a lot of TpT resources from other sellers for my typical peers and my students who are beyond letter recognition and working on letter sounds. 


Can you guess who's product that is?! {Thank You Annie Moffatt!}

To share my appreciation for TpT with you, I want to give you a chance to win a $10 TpT gift card from me! Use it anyway you like; cllip art, fonts, products.! I'm happy to share with you something that I love so much and that I know is invaluable to you too. It's so great to be a teacher helping other teachers!

You can enter the Rafflecopter below & then you'll want to make sure to hop on! All the authors of Freebielicious are giving you the chance to win a $10 gift card from them! 


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Hop on over to Kristen at A Day in First Grade to find out why she {LOVES} TpT!


A Day in First Grade
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Monday, February 03, 2014

Val-Pals {Valentine's Day with Staff}

Raise your hand if your school has a sunshine committee, or some group that "spreads sunshine". Yes, I thought there were quite a few of you. The names for these groups vary, but I've come to the consensus that almost every school has something similiar.

Our sunshine committee tries to plan 1-2 events a month to bring staff together either at work or outside of work. Mostly outside of work, however, val-pals are a great in school activity!


I can't take credit for this idea at all, in fact, I'm sure it's all over pinterest. We did this last year, before I was "in charge" and it was popular.

Those interested in participating will put their name on a slip of paper in the jar. After everyone has a chance to put their name in, they will draw a name. That is their val-pal for the week! This person should stay a secret!


This is my mock-up of the set up. I didn't want to take actual photos in our teacher's lounge. That is where I will be setting this up. The Valentine corn is just an extra to get their attention!
 
Monday - Thursday you will give something small to your val-pal, typically under $5, and then on the last day, a Friday, you reveal who you are to your val-pal and do a little bit of a larger gift, something under $10.


We're also planning a "Things I Love" party for the end of the month. This is such a huge hit we often do more than one of these a year and simply change the theme!

Is your staff planning something  fun and festive for Valentine's Day or the month of February? I'd love to hear your ideas!
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Saturday, February 01, 2014

Write the Room {Pre-School Style!} & A TOUCHDOWN Sale!

Calling all pre-school teachers!

I just love the write the room game. I love that it gets the students up and moving around (which they certainly need) and that they have so much fun learning. As a special education pre-school teacher I can't say that I have any students working on sight words at the moment, but we are working on letter recognition.

I have students who can copy words/letters for writing.

I have students who can trace.

I have students who HATE to write.

I have students who love letters, but developmentally, aren't writing or tracing independently.

This set of ABC Write the Room can address all of those students. I have blank pages for those who are writing. I have pages with tracing letters for those who can trace (& hate writing), and I have matching pages for those who love letters, but aren't yet writers.


I laminated my pages before putting them on clip boards. This is how I target those who hate to write. Give them an Expo marker and they magically change how they feel about it. I have one student that it's tooth and nail with just to get her to trace all of the letters in her name. I laminated our sign-in pages and added some Expo markers and she did it complaint free! (We'll work on transferring that attitude to paper and pencil in the future)


Then I hid the alphabet cards around the classroom. As they find the letters, they write them down, or they trace them. I created this activity with one student in mind, but knew as soon as she started playing the game I'd have a few others that wanted to play too.


For the ABC "Match the Room" I made these different shaped cards to hang up. They have the large letter at the top that then I can tape up places, but have the small velcro letter at the bottom that the child will pull off and match up. You could use just these cards to meet the needs of all of the students playing the game, since the letter is at the top for the students recording them.


This item is available in my TpT store if it's something you'd like to use in your classroom!


http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/January-ABC-Write-the-Room-1091061

Or, if you have wrapped up your winter themed units/activities, you can purchase the February ABC Write the Room! This one is also capital letters.


http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/February-ABC-Write-the-Room-1091194

AND if this is something you'd like to add to your (probably already full) shopping cart, then you'll love to hear that I am having a SALE! 20% off of my store FEBRUARY 2nd!


..and all of the other ladies from Freebielicious are having a sale too! Better start shopping!

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