David Shannon Author Study

Every May, my class does a David Shannon Author Study because I adore David Shannon almost as much as my students do.

Before the Common Core rolled out, I felt my kids needed to learn about stories and gain reading comprehension skills to be successful in 1st grade. Hence, we learned through the fun and inspiring David Shannon books.

Now that the Common Core is here, this unit ties in perfectly to what K teachers should be teaching. Before, this was an intro to first grade, now it is a culminating review of Kindergarten.

The first week we covered the No, David books. They are always a hit and easy reads for my kids.

This week, we used other books by David Shannon. After each book, we add a page to our David Shannon Author Study book we are creating.

We had to make David from these books because art always makes the books more meaningful and memorable to the student.

We use the book Alice the Fairy to review how important pictures are to a book.

Here are some of my kiddos and their fantastic work!

No! She is not a real fairy because she turns off the lights when she said she was invisible.

And here is an Alice on my kiddos made!

These always make me smile!

 We also read the book Too Many Toys, which features Spencer.

We adore him because he runs around in his space helmet the whole book!

Here is what Spencer looks like.

 We also identified the problem in this book and then thought of three ways to solve it. Some of the ways were realistic and some of them were so funny!

Problem- Spencer has too many toys. Solutions are 1. Put his toys away.2. Give them to someone else 3. Have a yard sale.

And on Friday, we read the book A Bad Case of the Stripes.

We talked about the main event in the story and how it was resolved. My kids could write about it or draw a picture about it.

ME-She became her room. R- She ate some lima beans and she liked them.

ME-She had stripes on her skin. R- The old lady gave lima beans to the girl!

 I can't wait until Monday when we do Good Boy,  Fergus!

 

If you are interested in the Author Study or Art Projects, click on the following pictures:

Freebielicious has a Sweet Giveaway!

We at Freebielicious are so excited to announce teaming up with A+ Teacher Images (the greatest t-shirt company for teachers and more, in case you haven't heard of them!). We all received the fanciest custom designed t-shirt we've ever owned AND now we can give a t-shirt of the winner's choice from each of our individual blogs.

Here is a link to A+ Teacher Images webpage!

Here we all are.. in our amazing T's!

We love these t-shirts because it represents friendships, fun, and business relations (oh wait and STYLE, of course!) all in one "blinging" design.  Where else could you get all that from one t-shirt?  A special thanks goes out to Doug from A+ Images.  He worked with us to make just the right shirt to represent our company and is still giving us a shirt to give one lucky winner for each of our blogs!

Image GREAT shirts like this for your grade level or even class!!!

We have made this giveaway super easy for you to have almost 50 chances to win one of 23 t-shirts.  It is a blog hop, so you can enter as many or as few giveaways you would like!  The contest begins Saturday, May 18th, at 8:00 a.m. EST and ends on Sunday, May 19th, at 12:00 a.m. EST.  Winners will be announced on the following Monday.  Easy peasy, lemon-squeezy!  Start by entering my giveaway here:

a Rafflecopter giveaway Next, you will head over to my friend Donna's blog Kinderglynn and enter there and keep going until your fingers are too tired to hit click (that is how simple we made it for you!).

If you don't win one of the giveaways, but you see a shirt that you really just have to have, they are offering our Freebilicious followers 20% off orders of $20 or more by using the code: FREE20 Enjoy!!

Go to our Freebielicious Facebook page and like us so you never miss a freebie or giveaway like this one!

Bigger and Badder...

 I updated my Old Lady Shell Lit pack a few weeks ago but I forgot to tell you guys about it. I added a TON of new materials and made it even more fun. BEST yet... I didn't change the price. If you already bought it, you can re-download it for free by going under my purchases.

Here is a peek at my bigger and better unit.

here on TpT, here on TN

I know this unit is going to save you a TON of time and help support learning while having fun!

I added this sequencing sheet to the DOWNLOAD PREVIEW in TpT.
You can grab it now.

Now, off to work on my End of the Year Slideshow~

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Mother's Day HOORAY

Happy {Late} Mother's Day!

I hope all the mommies of the world enjoyed the one day a year they get to honor them.

I can't say moms get the day off, because... moms never get time off!

I always read this fun book to my class, Fancy Nancy's Marvelous Mother's Day Brunch.

  And we go over our 4 Mother's Day Rules.

1. Moms get to sleep in. You can not wake her up.

2. You bring your mom breakfast in bed. It can be simple so you can do it by yourself or Daddy can help.

3. Mom can not work. If you see her going ANYTHING like work, you have to take over for her. This includes laundry, vacuuming, dishes, etc. If you don't know how to do it, Daddy can help.

4. You have to follow directions the first time ALL day, even if you don't want to. You also have to get along with other ALL DAY. No sibling arguments.

I love using this book since it covers so many of my Mother's Day rules in it. Plus, this book is easy to read and so much fun!

Each year we grow flowers for our moms for Mother's Day. It is the perfect timing to do plant units then grow the plants for weeks and weeks. BUT... everything worked against me this year.

We usually grow some plants for our moms... but they didn't grow big enough to be used.

I went to buy the pots I always use, but the store was sold out.

I had to get plastic black pots instead. {Yeah, they were twice as much.}

I had no idea what to do with these containers... but I had my Facebook followers help!

My kids used their finger prints to create polka dot the containers. 

{Then my hubs sealed them with a clear coat since I can't bc I am preggo.}

I stuffed each pot with tissue paper and topped them with tootsie rolls. 

A sweet reader helped with with the saying "To the best "roll" model of all... Happy Mother's Day!"

I also spend an hour or so baking three kinds of muffins for my sweet school Mothers!

All my moms were beyond sweet and even took care of my little babies that didn't have a mom to come. It warmed my heart to see these sweet moms taking care of babies like they were their own. 

{Not that I was surprised... that is exactly what moms do for any child!}

We topped the morning off with our homemade Mother's Day Movie that was a HUGE hit.

I wish I could show it to you guys as well! 

PRECIOUS doesn't begin to describe how sweet it was.

My Mother's Day gift was awesome!

My sweet hubs got me my newest trash book, the newest Sookie Stackshouse book called Dead Ever After. This is the series True Blood is based from. Good Job baby! I will read it as soon as post planning is over.

What did you get for Mother's Day?

Center Saturday

Hello all.

Here are my weekly work centers from this past week while we learned about

Remember to look at the border color on each picture and match it to the description below.

Yellow- Math-I made this shell math game a few years ago. Each shell has a fact family on it... but it is missing the addition or subtraction sign. My kids have to fill in which sign is being done for each equation. It is a great way to make the students think about the problem and what is happening with the numbers. I have found that very often, my kids DON'T LOOK at the sign, but just do the equation.

Orange- writing-We worked on paragraph writing using this Ocean Write Me Three sheet. My kids are incredible writers this year, and I really think these sheets are a HUGE reason why. I want my students connect their sentences together. After we did this writing activity, I gave my students a blank writing page. Each one was able to write THREE sentences about the ocean and none of them said, "I like..." or "I see..."

Red- Reading- I gave my kids a "cold read" book and asked them to read it to me. I love this time of year, because they ROCKED it.

Purple- Phonics- We sorted -or and -ar words on these mats.

Blue- Unit- We matched the insect bodies to the heads to make addition problems. The hard part was... there were 50 problems to do and most of them had solutions for over 10.

Green- Unit- We worked on our Mother's Day gifts this week using Hadar's Mother Day Purse. Again, my good readers and writer did this purse almost completely by themselves! WOO HOO!

They turned out super cute and I am sure my moms are going to love it. 

I was also able to finish my students' Mother Day Slideshow last night. I pulled my kids into another room during centers to record them talking about their mothers. Then we did a group song from Dr. Jean called A Box for Mommy. Then in 5 minutes, I uploaded the videos and used my Mother's Day Slideshow set to make a MovieMaker version to show for our Muffins with Mom on Monday am. I am so glad I made this pack because it worked awesome for me!

I hope all the mothers out there have a fantastic Mother's Day tomorrow. I will be celebrating with a new nephew who was born yesterday! I have to run my sister errands to help her out for her and her baby's Mother's Day homecoming!

Here... There... and Reading EVERYWHERE.

I love working with my kinders this time of year. They are reading everything... and I mean everything. I looked around the room at Daily 5 today and I almost cried... it is crazy how much they know. 

Can I brag???  I have 3 kids that know almost 400 fry sight words. And some of those words are super hard! America, oil, certain... those are some of the words they know!

I keep instant data on my kids using their sight word booklets. I use different color markers to keep track of what they know and when. If I have to use this info in an RTI chart, it is ready. Additionally, I can see their gains over periods of time. This helps when I set them sight word goals. 

I have a sight word system that works great for me. I have a basket I use for assessments. This is what it looks like and everything that is in it. 

I use the index cards to make flashcards to send home or to put in book boxes. I also have fun stickers that we use on a chart by a treasure chest. If my kids learn 20 words on a list, they get to add a sticker to the chart and get a treasure from the chest. I also keep a list for JUST ME in this basket. They have their own at home and in their book baskets for Daily 5.

I also keep these sight word packs handy. When a students needs help with a particular word, I pull out the worksheet they need from these packs to help them. They love it.

grab it here on TpT

I print out the cards to send home with parents. I use the worksheets in the classroom. I also use the sensory cards during our hands on phonics time. They also work great at center time. 

If you need the other lists, you can grab them here as well. 

Next year, we are starting with the Dolch words and then moving on to the Fry words.

{I better start working on that pack!}

What word list do you follow? What words do your students really struggle with?
Leave me some comments below and I will give away a few of the List 3 pack this weekend!

I Appreiciate YOU!

It is that time of year again...

You are super stressed out, planning time is almost non existent, your to-do list is piling up AND you have a limited number of days with your students to get it all done.

Well, I get it! AND I appreciate you!

I have complete respect for each and every teacher. I know how many of you spend your own time and money looking for new and creative ways to inspire learning in your classroom.

So... on May 7-8th... please take up to 28% off my TpT store using the code TAD13. 

I always suggest getting those "big" items now while they are cheaper.

I just redid my David Shannon Author Study, which I do every year at the end of the year.

And my sight word packs!

And I bundled them all together!

And def pick up my Laura Numeroff Bundle... it is 7 book units in one!

Last, as the year wraps up, you will need my Mother's Day Slideshow pack and my Digital Scrapbook Slideshow. They will save you so much time now when you time is so precious! 

I have so many items I am ready to buy myself!

I have a few go-to sellers I love!

Crystal from Kreative in Kinder

Tammy from Live Laugh Love Kindergarten

just redid her Letter Land Pack

 Caitlin from Kindergarten Smiles

and Marsha from Differentiated Kindergarten. 

has a new Diggy Dinosaurs Math Stations set!