Phonics Activity Cards

My son is in first grade this year and we have been working on learning to read words with blends, digraphs, and all of the long vowel spellings. I wanted to make an activity that would be a fun way for him to practice the spellings. These cards can be used in a few different ways. Here are some pictures of how my son and I used them. I cut out the cards and laminated them.

Then I used a 1 inch square punch to make a hole underneath the picture and word. Find 1 inch square punch here. Each word is missing a short vowel, long vowel, blend, or digraph. You can place the card on a piece of paper or white board and write the missing sounds in the hole. Below are a few examples of the different kinds of cards.

The pack has short vowel, blends, digraphs, silent E, and long vowel team cards for students to practice with. You could place the full page in a sheet protector and have students write the missing sounds in the box with a dry erase marker. You could also cut the cards out, laminate them but not punch out the square and have students write the missing sound with a dry erase marker.

Valentine Crayons

This year my friend and I decided to make Valentine's for our kids to take to school. We decided to make heart shaped crayons. We had some trouble finding the molds for the smaller crayons and finally settled on a bigger mold from Wal-Mart. We loved the way that the crayons came out! They are really smooth and shiny!

We used blue, gray, black, and white crayons for the boy valentines. We were going for Star Wars like colors since all the boys are into that right now. We used pink, purple, and white crayons for the girl valentines. I made a card for the background, which you can get in my Teachers Pay Teachers store for free. There is a card with the blue colors, pink colors, and rainbow colors.

How to Make Heart Shaped Crayons

Step 1 - Peel the crayons you are going to use

Step 2 - Break the crayons into small pieces

Step 3 - Place them into your silicon heart shaped mold

Step 4 - Bake for 15-20 minutes on 250 degrees until the crayons are melted

Step 5 - Let crayons cool, pop them out, and stick them to your cards

Teacher Week - 5 Facts About Me

I am excited to participate in Teacher Week 2015! Starting off the week is.....

Here are my 5 fun facts!

1. I am now the mother of 2 beautiful children! My little girl was born in May and is absolutely the sweetest baby in the world! She sleeps through the night and is full of smiles for her mommy, daddy, and big brother. My son just adores his baby sister and showers her with love everyday!

2. I am married to a race car driver! We have been married for almost 10 years and I will say that it is a good thing I like the race track because we have spent A LOT of time there over the years! :)

3. I have spent almost every summer of my life on a small lake in Michigan. My grandparents built a cottage there when my dad was little and it has been my family's favorite hang out ever since! It is the most amazing place....relaxing and beautiful! One of the reasons I became a teacher was because I could not imagine NOT spending every summer in Michigan! :)

4. For the first time in 11 years....I am starting out the school year NOT in the classroom! I will be staying home this year with my baby girl and although it is the strangest thing to not be teaching I am loving my time at home. Last week, I even volunteered in my son's classroom which was a first time experience for me!

5. I opened my own private school for kindergarten and first grade students a few years ago. We were open for two years. It was an exciting and amazing journey and definitely a dream come true for me to create a everything from the classroom to the curriculum.....but in the long run it was a job that took me away from my family way too much. Deciding to close it was a really hard decision but it was definitely an adventure!

Phonemic Awareness - Phoneme Discrimination

After being a kindergarten teacher, you come to realize the importance of Phonemic Awareness in a child's education. What is Phonemic Awareness? Phonemic Awareness is not phonics. Phonemic Awareness is the ability to listen for, identify, and manipulate the individual phonemes in words.

Children need to be able to identify the sounds in words that are spoken not words that they see on a page. For example, if I were to ask a child what the initial sound in the word cat is, they would be able to tell me that it is /c/. They need to be able to do this with initial, medial, and final sounds. Once they have mastered this skill, they would move on to manipulating the sounds in words. For example, I would say the word is cat, change /c/ to /b/, what is the new word? Again they need to be able to do this with initial, medial, and final sounds. 

This first Phonemic Awareness pack that I have created has an activity that can be used everyday to help students master this first skill of Phonemic Awareness which is Phoneme Discrimination. There are word lists provided for initial, medial, and final sounds in words. Every day you choose a new sound to focus on. You tell the students that they will be listening for a specific sound as you read off a list of words. When they hear the specific sound they will give some type of signal such as touching their head to let you know that they heard it. This activity can be done in a whole group or small group setting and can be done very quickly. It is great for the beginning of the year and is very beneficial to helping students with their phonemic awareness instruction. See the word lists below. I printed the lists out on different colored paper for initial, short vowel medial, long vowel medial, and final sounds. Then I punched holes in the lists and added a ring to make them easy to use.

I also included worksheets in this pack for students to practice the skill independently. See an example of one of the worksheets below. There are assessment pages that you can use with students as well for a pre-assessment, post assessment, and reassess if they were struggling after first instruction.

There are also a few pictures cards in the pack to provide additional support to students who initially may struggle with the concept. You could use the picture cards as seen below to have students find the two pictures that have the same initial sound or they could try to find the one that does not have the same initial sound.

These are some of the picture cards included.

Children need to master these phonemic awareness skills before they can become successful readers! :)

Back to School Sale

Teachers Pay Teachers is having another back to school sale for one day only! Be sure to check it out tomorrow. My store is also on sale for an additional 20%! Happy Shopping! :)

Back to School Sentence Builder Worksheets

I just posted some Back to School Sentence Builder Worksheets. They are FREE for a limited time! :)  This pack contains 12 sentence builder worksheets with sight words and a Back to School theme. These worksheets help students form a sentence and teach them to always put a capital letter at the beginning and a period at the end. These worksheets encourage students to start reading simple sight word sentences and give them the confidence that they will learn how to read! :) Don't forget to leave feedback and like my store for more flash freebies!

Back to School Freebie

I am feeling a little strange today as many of my friends and former coworkers are back to school today and I am NOT! Starting my first school year as a stay at home mom and not a teacher...crazy! I am definitely missing some of that back to school excitement today where everything is new and you have those dreams and ideas of all the stuff that you are going to do differently this year! :) Wishing everyone a wonderful first day of school! Here is a little Back to School freebie.....a gift tag that you could attach to a new teacher gift, fellow teacher gift, or new student gift!

New job......Mommy!

Lots of changes this summer as I start a new role of......stay-at-home mom. I have had many job changes over the last few years from public school kindergarten teacher to private school business owner and lastly to public school literacy specialist. It has been work, work, work and now I am looking forward to taking the time to just be a mom and a wife!

A few weeks ago we welcomed a baby girl into our family. My son was so excited to become a big brother. While getting ready to leave for the hospital the night before she was born, he was running up and down the halls saying that "this was the best night ever".

With this new little girl and big brother off to 1st grade in the fall, I am looking forward to learning how to be a stay-at-home mom and working on my other passion - creating things for Teachers Pay Teachers and sharing the journey on this blog! :)

February Worksheets

February is here already! I can hardly believe it! All of the kids are making so much progress but I will have to admit that it is our transitional kindergarteners that are impressing me the most. They have all started to blend words, write simple sentences, and are doing the same math as the kinders! So amazing….I am excited to see all that they accomplish in kindergarten! :)

Everyone is getting ready for the Winter Olympics to start and I am ready to share some new worksheets that I have made for the month of February! The worksheets meet the 1st grade common core standards but would be a nice challenge for advanced kindergarten students. Be sure to check them out in my TPT store! :)

Love the cute clipart from Melonheadz!

What student doesn't need more story problem practice? ;)

Word Family Fluency Passages

Last year I started writing these silly little fluency passages that would give my students practice at reading our CVC spelling words. I only wanted sight words and CVC or CCVC which limited my ability to create quality stories but I wasn't really concerned with that. I just needed simple, easy stories so my students could gain confidence as brand NEW readers.

I originally listed these passages for sale on TPT with my spelling word pack but then thought that people may just be looking for stories just like I was. Recently my fluency pack has become my best selling item on TPT! :) It was definitely unexpected to see this item shoot to the top but very cool at the same time! :)

I continue to update the file as I write new passages so for anyone who purchases it - don't forget to check back and download the new file! :)

Christmas Wish List Freebie

Here is a Freebie that you can use with kids to write a letter to Santa!

Teachers Pay Teachers Cyber Sale

Tomorrow starts a two day cyber sale on Teachers Pay Teachers! I am also throwing a 20% sale on top of the Teachers Pay Teachers sale so be sure to check out my store!

Click on the Happy Holidays image below to go straight there!

Winter Worksheets for 1st Grade

I have been working hard on some new worksheets for my 1st grade students! They are all aligned to the common core and have a cute winter theme! I just wish it was December already so that we could start using them in class. Hope you enjoy these worksheets as much as I enjoyed making them! :)

Five for Friday

I am fairly new to blogging but am ready to try Five for Friday! It is such a great idea and I have seen so many great posts from other teachers!

Yay! Its Friday…. and tomorrow I am getting my hair cut! 

Hopefully some what like the picture above! :)

My first grade winter worksheets are done! So excited….I feel like these are the best worksheets that I have made!

I have recently become a big fan of quote collecting on Pinterest….probably not the best way to spend free time! :/

Finished off our first season of soccer with a pizza party and a trophy!

One week until my husband and I get a fun filled weekend getaway to Vegas! It has been a whole year since we have been able to do that so we are very excited! :)

Things I Love About Halloween!

Halloween is such a fun time for kids! They spend months talking about the costumes and the candy! :) Here are some of my favorite pics from Halloween this year!

Some of the boys from Kids Night Out in battle! :)

Disneyland….Halloween Style!

Some party favors made by a parent! Juice boxes decorated with duck tape!

My favorite transformer and cave girl!

You know what I love more than crayons? Halloween Themed CRAYONS! 

Super cute art work!

More art work!