First Year Bliss Linky!

I am taking the kiddos to the pumpkin patch today, but before I go I wanted to join a linky from Michelle aka The 3am Teacher. I LOVE her clipart and use it all the time! She is celebrating her 1 year blogiversary with some freebies and this linky!

I'm supposed to share a favorite memory from my first year of blogging. I am going to have to share 2 favorite memories (because I just can't follow rules lol):

At the very beginning of my blogging odyssey, before I even had very many followers I actually got a comment from DeeDee Wills of Mrs. Will's Kindergarten. She was the first blogger I ever followed and I LOVE all of her stuff, so to get a comment that complimented my blog name from her - wow! I was dancing a jig the rest of the day!
My ultra-favorite blogging moment though, was our OK Bloggers meet-up this summer! Only 3 of us could make it, but we had a blast!! I also got to meet Kaci from Mrs. Hoffer's Spot - she does fabulous work, she's such a kind person and she has become my blogging bestie! Here's the picture from that meet-up (and the cheesecake was awesome as well!)

Alright, I am out for now - beware, there may be pumpkin patch pictures when I come back!

Fall Break, Flash Freebie Plus CVC and CVCE!

I have been using my Fall Break to be productive - at least on the computer! I probably should have spent this time cleaning and organizing, but what fun would that be? I have to stop though because otherwise I won't have time to cut out and laminate all the goodies I've been making!

First up is a Fall Themed CVCE Word Game. According to our Scott Foresman readers (which I'm required to use) that's what's up next for my firsties! About 2/3 of my class is ready for CVCE words, so I created a game bundle for each vowel and put them altogether in one pack. This way I can start with just the long /a/ words, then move on to long /o/ etc. Once we get the hang of CVCE words I can start to mix all of them together for a real challenge! Speaking of challenges, I have a group of 4 kiddos who are way advanced - for them I included CCVE words! This way they're still practicing their long vowels, but are getting a bit of a challenge with blends and digraphs too!

Remember I said only 2/3 of my kiddos are ready for CVCE words? For the other 1/3 of my kiddos I made a similar Fall Themed CVC Word Game pack! They get pulled for small group tutoring and I know they'll love to have a new game to play with their tutor! These kiddos came to 1st grade not knowing all of their letter sounds, so I am way proud of their progress!

These games can be played in 3 different ways, so I can get my ink's worth out of them! Sometimes we play as a Memory style game where they simply try to find pairs (reading each card as they turn it over). Other times it's a Snap! game style where they pick the card from the pile and keep it if they can read it. There are some fun specialty cards for this type of play - lose a turn, give a card away, take a card, take another turn etc. The kids LOVE playing this game!  Our favorite though, is Hide N Seek! I arrange all of the cards face up on a table or in a pocket chart. Everyone hides their eyes while I hide a little card behind one of the word cards. Then they take turns guessing where the card is hiding by reading the cards. For example they might say "I think it's behind "cat"!" and so they get to turn the "cat" card over and see if it's there. They have so much fun during this game they beg me to play it! Hop over and check them out in my TPT store if you need CVC or CVCE word reinforcement!

I also made a "Five Little Bats" poem pack! My husband and daughter helped me write the poem - so this is a Knopf Family original lol! It's based on the "Five Little Pumpkins" type rhymes but with bats of course! This one gave me absolute fits while making it. I wanted to scrap the whole idea at various points, but I persevered and actually think it's a fun little pack now. I am offering it as a Flash Freebie until midnight tonight! Click the picture to grab it now!

 You'll also want to head over to Rainbows Within Reach to enter Debbie's monthly giveaway for a free set of her incredible books/cds! I was lucky enough to win and I LOVE her music! On Wednesday, at the end of the day when everyone was wound up with Fall Break excitement and all of my clasbacks were falling on deaf ears, I simply put in her "I'm Wonderful" cd and immediately all the chatter stopped because everyone was singing/doing the motions and i was able to get my planners signed in peace! The giveaway ends today so hurry!

 Oh and a special thank you to Nikki from Melonheadz! I won a giveaway for a custom Melonheadz of me and she did a fabulous job! Look how cute I am as clipart!

In the picture frame is my World of Warcraft character "Slabofbeef" - yes I am an online game geek in my "free" time!

I also got to guest post for Greg over at Smedley's Smorgasboard of Kindergarten yesterday. Head over to check it out and say hi to him. He IS the newlywed after all!

Now, a while ago I came across a "Pay It Forward" post over on The Gypsy Teacher. The first 3 commenters were supposed to get a gift and then pay it forward. Except that she had that funky comment moderation thing on where she has to approve comments before they become visible. And....I never checked back to see if I was one of the first 3 commenters. Which I was. So she emailed to let me know my gift is coming and I realized I had never actually Paid it Forward. Oh the shame! So I let her know that I had not purposefully broken the chain (by the way, I tear up just thinking about that movie!) and that I would definitely Pay it Forward today.

Only, I am switching it up. The Post Office and I are not friends. I never manage to get there before closing, even on Saturdays. Things that need to get mailed tend to sit in my car for a week or two before actually getting into the postman's hands. So, I am switching it so that the first 3 commenters who promise to pay it forward will get their choice of something I can creat for them! This way I can email it to you as son as its done and not have to worry about making a trip to the P.O.! Now, of course you may choose to do the same OR mail a package - your choice if you're one of the first 3!  So here goes:

Pay it Forward

The first three people that comment on this post will get a gift from my TPT store.  All you have to do is follow the rules below.

1. Within a month, I will create something unique to share with the first 3 people that comment on this specific post - just tell me a skill, subject or type of file that you would like to receive (ir "I need a game for blends." or "My kiddos need more practice with number sense.")
2. ...but, in order for your present to arrive, you must play along. Spread the love on YOUR own blog promising to send a little something special to the first three that comment on your post.
3. You get 72 hours (that's 3 days) to re-post this SAME post, or I'll have to move on to the next person.
4. PLEASE, only comment if you are willing to pay it forward.

So, if you are interested, comment away! Please include the following in your comment:

Name
Blog address
E-mail address  A skill or subject you'd like me to create a custom unit  for!

It occurs to me that this post needs closure: "Today we learned about new CVC and CVCE word game packs, a Flash Freebie for "Five Little Bats", a great giveaway from Rainbows Within Reach, what Jennifer looks like as clipart AND a Pay it Forward opportunity! Have a great day!"

Spiders, Graphing and a Freebie!

Yeeehhhhhaaaaaaa! It is Fall Break! That means 5 days of nonstop house cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, and entertaining my own 4 kiddos. Wait....ummm can we go back to school please? I'm pretty sure that's less work!

Honestly though, I'm glad of the breather - a chance to get caught up and relax before the long haul to Christmas. I even left most of my work at school (and I'm going to mightily resist the temptation to go in this weekend!).  I did stay late to decorate my classroom tree to set the scene for my Colorful Spiders unit that we'll be doing the rest of the month:

 Yes, that is glow in the dark webbing....why yes, we might be doing some black light activities! The kids will be so thrilled with what's in store for them!

Poor Max got stuck in the web. That was my daughter's addition to the tree - I bet my kiddos will think it's hilarious! There are a few more spiders and webs adorning our classroom now, but I'll save those for another day when I share some of the cute learning activities and crafts we'll be doing!

I wanted to share a a little graphing freebie with you today. I do a lot of graphing with my kiddos - we do one pretty much every morning during calendar time. Sometimes we just sort our class in different ways - like favorite ice cream flavor, how many pets we have, hair color, shirt color etc, and then just fill out a graph on my big chart paper, but my kiddos really love doing my Roll & Graphs. It's hilarious because they will start rooting for a particular image and really get excited when it's "winning" (getting rolled the most times). I use these in my math work stations too, but I introduce the concept whole group during calendar time so everyone understands what to do.

Here's how I do it whole group: I always print out my cube on cardstock and tape it together (I have different sized images in my packs because I know some people have picture cubes that they want to insert the images into or want to print onto labels to make more durable wooden cubes etc but I love the cardstock cubes personally):

I use my Elmo to project the dice onto the Smartboard so the whole group can see and follow along. My kiddos all have their own dry erase boards (I use a timer to time us as we hand them out and then collect them afterwards, we can get all 26 handed out and everyone ready to go in under 2 minutes!) and they use them to work on when we're sitting at carpet. Here's a picture of them doing a dice addition activity - it's the same setup as we use when graphing:

One student comes up to roll the dice and then fill out the graph or write the addition problem on the board. Everyone else follows along - either by writing the addition sentence and solving it on their board, or by filling out their own graph with crayons.Once our graph is finished we discuss the More Than, Less Than page, and complete the Addition worksheet together as well.

Every time we do it the graph comes out differently. We just keep rolling until one image has been rolled 10 times. This means that we can use the laminated pages an unlimited number of times! Each time we do the addition page we use the numbers from the graph, so as the graph changes daily, so do our addition sentences!

Once we've gotten the hang of filling in the graph by rolling the dice I can move the Roll & Graph activity into work stations to be worked on in pairs or small groups or even independently. This means that for the rest of the year I have a ready made work station activity that the kiddos love that focuses on addition, graphing and number sense all in one! I just switch out the particular Roll & Graph for another that matches our theme or time of year. For instance, since we just got finished with our Apple unit this Apple Kids Roll & Graph will be retired to the Apple Unit tub until next year and a different one will take its place! Still the same skills, but my students are once again highly motivated because of the new images!

Here's a Color Bats Roll & Graph freebie for you! We're going to be throwing in some bats and owls in with our spiders, plus some of my little ones still need some color word reinforcement, so I decided to combine color words, bats and graphing all together in one activity! I hope your kiddos enjoy this activity as much as mine do! Just  click the picture to grab it for free in my TPT store!