Saturday Five for Friday + a little bit more

It's Friday, er Saturday, and time for five random things from my week!  I really enjoy this linky from Doodle Bugs ~ it's fun to see what other teachers have been up to all week.

1.   Apple Tree with ~am family words.  I found that Sharpie marker comes off of laminated things with rubbing alcohol.  My Kinders had fun blending words using apples "picked" from our tree.

2.  Sharing our writing on the Elmo.  We wrote about apple things we like to eat in our journals.  The kids LOVE to have their work displayed on the white board for all to see (and, it is a great motivator for kiddos who don't like to add a lot of details).

 Check out the great kindergarten spelling!  This little girl likes to eat a "krml apl!"

3.  Third grade book buddies.  Each Wednesday one of the third grade classes comes to our room to read to the Kinders.  It's a win-win activity.  My kiddos get a chance to listen to reading, and the third graders get a chance to practice fluency.  Plus, it's lots of fun!

5. My newest product:  Pumpkin Patch Literacy Activities.   Included are five complete literacy centers and sound boxes for guided reading groups.   Check it out in my Teachers pay Teachers store.  (On sale until October 1, 2013!)

And, now for the little bit more:

My daughter, Gabrielle, has a new blog (The 219) that needs some followers.  Her new blog features style, healthy living, and home inspiration.  As a shameless plug for her blog, I am going to give away my new Pumpkin Patch Literacy Activities set to  two lucky followers.

Click on the pictures to see her posts. 
 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Literacy Stations & Happy Birthday to Me!

This has been a busy, busy week.  I really do want to try to post more than once (and not cheat by posting twice in a day and pre-dating a post to make it look like it was written earlier than it really was...).  Well, anyway, here are some of the Literacy Stations my little cuties did this past week.

The following two stations are from Kindergarten Smiles.  I just love her products!

 Writing Station

 Mrs. S.'s Station

Word Work Station

I forgot to take a picture of the alphabet game some kiddos played, but I was able to find this picture of it on the internet.  The kids loved it!  

Happy Birthday to me!  I had a great day - my daughter Sarah had us over for dinner and family fun.  Here are a few pics of my happy day.

 Isabella is "reading" to cousin Amelia while Olivia looks on.

 Olivia!

 Isabella helps me to blow out the candle on my delicious cupcake made by Gabrielle.

 I was so excited to get this chicken sweater!  I had it in my hand last week when I was at the J Crew Factory store, but didn't get it because it didn't really match the skirt I purchased that day.  (It will be perfect with several skirts I already own.)

 Close up of the chicken cuteness.

I also got this antique milk glass rooster. 

This Week's Literacy Stations & a Little Bit More

I really do want to post more than once a week, but here I am linking up with Five for Friday with my only post for the week.  Not that there's anything wrong with that... (Seinfeld reference)  I do have to say that this is one of my favorite linkies.  I really enjoy reading everyone's random posts! 

This week seemed to last f-o-r-e-v-e-r.  I've been on meds for sinus & ear infections this week.  As any teacher knows, being sick adds another ~ not so fun ~ dimension to the classroom.  Anyway, here are my five:

1. Literacy Stations for this week.  We spent a lot of time this week working on the alphabet & sight words.

 Playdoh letters

 Alphabet Arcs

 Lakeshore Learning file folder activities (not pictured is a worksheet from Teacher's Helper)

 Sight word spelling with magnet letters

Listening Station

2. Pete the Cat.  My Kinders LOVE Pete!  We read books, and watched them on You Tube.  It's so cute when they sing along! Some of the little cuties really get into it!  *smile*  Here are some cute Petes wearing some rockin' shoes!

3. Chevron Daily Schedule Cards by Kinder Cakes.  My talented daughter. Sarah, made these cute schedule cards.  I have them mounted on polka dot ribbon with Velcro.  The kiddos can tell at a glance what we are doing, and how many activities are left in the day.

4. Minnie Mouse ~ I mean Amelia Grace.  I love her little smile!

5. All About Numbers posters are now available for purchase!  Please click HERE to buy.  Today I forgot to silence my phone and finally heard the CA-CHING of a sale on Teachers pay Teachers!  Around 8:00 this morning the TpT app informed me that I had a sale!  So, if you are reading, Thank you for buying my Decomposing Dinos game!  (As exciting as it is to hear the ca-ching, I really do need to remember to put my phone on silent for the school day...)

Monday Made It, a Winner & a Freebie

I was excited when I checked 4th Grade Frolics and found that Monday Made It was back.

 Here is a sample of my newest product that I have in the works.  Our corporation wants primary teachers to display numbers & number words, ten frames, number bonds & the "story" of numbers.  I wanted to  make something cute that wouldn't take up a ton of space.  Look for it in my TpT store in a couple of days.

 

If you've been following my blog, you know that our  little bitty apple trees gave us a bountiful harvest.  Here's hubby making his second apple pie! 

 I had hoped to link up the pictures of the teeny tiny christening gown earlier, and now I have my chance to show it off!  Click HERE to see the original post.

And, we have a winner!  Congratulations to Breanne S.  You have won all 42 of my current paid items in my TpT store and a 2014 Chevron Life Planner from Kinder Cakes

And, now for the Freebie!  Here is a number bond set you can use on your focus wall or in a math center.

 Head over to Lucky to Be in First to find some more fabulous freebies!

                                           

Saturday's Five for Friday

Once again, I'm a little late for my Five for Friday post.  Keeping up with my blog is a little like keeping up with the newspaper.  I usually read the news a day late, and do the puzzles on Saturday and Sunday during the school year.  At least my well informed hubby keeps me up to date on stuff that happens around the world.

So, without further ado, here are my five:

1.  For the last week and a half, my little cuties have been practicing working in their stations tubs.  I made chart for the anchor wall (note to self: take a picture of it) that details how to work in small groups or with a partner.  It is quite similar to the D5 I-Chart in its wording.  For these practice sessions, I placed pre-k (pssst, don't tell the kiddos) activities from The Mailbox into each tub.  Because they were preschool activities, the kids could be successful working independently without having difficulty with the task.  The purpose of these practice sessions was to learn to work in small groups.  And, I am pleased to report that they did a great job!  We start the real deal on Monday!

2.  We learned how to use our Writing Binders this week.  They will be part of our D5 "Work on Writing" once we get to that part of the D5 program.  I figured it would be good to let them practice using the binders with simple pages (these are letter pages from Jolly Phonics).  Everyone was really excited to get to use a binder.  It's funny how little things like that can be exciting when you are 5 or 6!

3.  We worked diligently on identifying, writing, and counting groups of objects to five this week.  The Kinders had fun rainbow writing their numbers with my Little Bird's Count & Write activity.

 Click HERE to purchase.  

4.  Our ever-changing Focus Wall.  I hang materials that we use in lessons each week so that the kiddos can "play" with them.  During our developmental centers time, students enjoy using pointers to interact with the material hanging on display.  They know that they cannot remove items (except the straws in the place value pocket chart if they wish to count them - they just cannot change how many there are  ~ we use this for our day counting activity).  It's so cute to see them play teacher!  (Do I really sound like that!?!?)  The skills cards clipped here and there satisfy our district's requirement of posting weekly objective.

Click HERE to purchase.

5.  My horse loving girls.  

 Emily & Amelia with Emily's faithful old Arabian, "Mystery."  PS Happy Birthday, Emily!

 Isabella taking her first riding lesson. 

 (She's going to be in her first horse show next week!  Lead line class, of course.)

Olivia watching the horses as Papa feeds them.  She's one today ~ it won't be long before she's on a pony!  (Yep, she was born on Aunt Emily's birthday last year!)