Alphabet Songs

Have you heard of Have Fun Teaching? They have some terrific songs/videos for teaching letters and sight words! I stumbled upon them by chance on youtube when I was looking for educational videos to show my kinders during transitions and to get them up and dancing sometimes. One of the things I love is that the Alphabet Songs identify the letters as either consonants or vowels, which makes teaching them a lot easier! I actually had a first grader come from another school district this year and he had no clue what a vowel was! He knew the letters, he just didn't realize that some were vowels and some were consonants! Luckily our youtube access was still up so I added our letter videos back into our day as review and he caught right on! Here's the letter K video for you to check out:

Isn't it fun? There were times when the whole class would be working quietly on something and then suddenly one child would start singing an Alphabet Song and soon the whole class would join in - still working but singing a catchy little song! I love that the songs hold my students' interest so well!

I mentioned youtube access right? Well, during testing time, our youtube access is cut off! I know, how unfair, right?! We also can't watch streaming videos so all those great animal/bird cams are off limits too! It's something to do with bandwidth and our lack thereof. Well, until May 31st, Have Fun Teaching is doing a great giveaway for a free download of their alphabet songs if you post about them. This is super for me so that I can access the songs through out the year - even during testing! I wouldn't give them a plug if I didn't already like/use them, so definitely check it out and if you're a blogger you can check out the giveaway here.

Alright, on to other stuffs:

My Lazy Day today turned into a Migraine Day. Guess all that stress from the last week finally caught up to me! I spent the day mostly in bed with the covers pulled up over my eyes. Over the counter meds were not helping, but luckily I only get migraines once in a blue moon so I haven't bothered to get prescription stuff. Once the migraine left I got on the computer and finished up a few Roll & Cover games for my TPT store - I just added Fairy Tales, Nursery Rhymes and Outer Space! I will be rolling out new units for all three themes soon, so be on the lookout for freebies! It is now 4am and I am on the computer, getting caught up with blogs since I can't sleep now after being in bed all day! Since I was out in bloggy land, I found a few things you should know about:

Linky Parties! There are two book linkys out there right now and I am going to link this post up to both!


Run! Miss Nelson's Got The Camera! is having an "All Time Favorite Read Alouds" party:

and Jeannie from Kindergarten Lifestyle is having a "Picture Book Party":

I am going to feature three of my favorite authors for these linky parties:

Pretty much anything by Mo Willems is on my list of favorites - if you love Pigeon as much as I do check out my post here that links to a freebie! All of his books are great to read aloud - I particularly like the Elephant & Piggie series for helping my students read with emotion!

Judy Schachner is also at the top of my list with all of her Skippyjon Jones books! He is so funny and my ELL students love the little bits of Spanish in the stories! Check out my parting gift to my firsties this year:

Yep, each of them got an "I am Skippyjon Jones" book! I got them from Scholastic and they came in 10 packs which was great! There's a new book coming out in October too which looks like a ton of fun!

Anna Dewdney's "Llama llama" series is also fabulous - so loveable! I identify with Mama Llama so much! These books are lots of fun to read aloud too - there's always a gentle lesson that the kids pick up on easily, yet it doesn't feel as if it's being shoved down your throat or preachy. I've already pre-ordered the new one coming out in September!

Now run over and check out the parties - tons of other book ideas are flying around bloggyville! I always like to stock up during the summer so I have some new reads for Back to School!

Wait! Before you go, check out this fun giveaway too:

Lisa from Learning Is Something To Treasure is having a giveaway for two $25 TPT gift certificates! Who couldn't use that?! It ends at midnight on Saturday, so hurry over to enter!