Needs and Wants

What does Santa need to survive in the North Pole? What does he want but can do without there? Let your kiddos decide using this fantastic set of printables!

This is a two-poster set that explains needs and wants to your little ones. I include varying versions of a printable sheet that your students can list or draw Santa's needs and wants.

This product does NOT contain any picture sorting activities.


Click HERE to go to this resource at Teachers Pay Teachers!

Teaching Phonics Sounds

Teaching every aspect of our language is made easy with the right tools. As an elementary teacher there is always some intrigue when I hear about students who cannot read because of one reason or another. I love teaching but more specifically, I love to get my kids excited and motivated to become independent readers.
It's been a while since my last post in July. I have added lots of resources to my store of late but here are the most recent ones for purchase. Click on the pictures to be taken to my TPT store.

Back to School Savings!

It back to school once again and here is a great sale for you. Go to my store at TPT for a 20% discount off! All you do is select those that you wish to purchase, enter the promo code: BTS15 for a further 10% off at checkout! Yes, you heard me correctly! That is a great big savings of 28%!
Below is a link to some of my latest back to school products that you can find in my store.

Using Technology in the Classroom

Are you using technology in the classroom or are you integrating technology? Well, depending on your response you would realize that the two are not the same. Using technology in the classroom can simply mean using technological devices for no educational purpose. However, when we integrate technology in the classroom we plan and structure student learning so that the use of these technological devices brings about purposeful learning. Technological devices and media mobile devices includes smartphones and tablets, computers, digital cameras, social media platforms and networks, software applications and the Internet.

Many teachers begin planning with the technological tool in mind as a way of integrating technology, however this is not a good way to start. As with any good lesson you should plan instruction with the student behavioral outcome in mind. What skill or behavior do I want my students to achieve? How best can I get them there? How can I get my students to achieve these objectives? How can I use technological as an instructional tool rather than a tool for content engagement? The use of technological devices must be well positioned and meaningful in your lesson so that it does not become a distraction.

I came across some ideas that I wish to share. Below is a chart from Teachbytes which offers a detailed perspective on the main differences between using technology and integrating technology.

Here are some other helpful articles and videos for you.
Enjoy!



Why Integrate Technology? from Edutopia

How to Integrate Technology? from Edutopia

What is Successful Integration? from Edutopia

Mother's May

Here is a fun and FREE Mother’s Day activity that starts early May and continues for as long as your kiddos wish to take it. Give them the opportunity to show love to their mother in whatever way they choose and record their progress for the entire month. The objective is to make mom happy and extend this honor beyond the special day. All they do is color the heart or place a tick for each day that they show their mom love. They may choose to orally describe their actions during class discussions or record it on the accompanying writing sheet.

Click HERE for further details!

What is Subitizing?

While familiarizing myself with the changes to our primary school Math curriculum I came across the term 'subitizing' in Mathematics. Naturally I had to do a little research to begin to understand what it is all about. Quite simply I came to the realization that this is nothing new. Subitizing is knowing what an amount is without counting. By simply looking at patterns or the arrangement of the shapes one can immediately tell how many there are in the set. It's like looking at the dots on a di and knowing how many there are without even counting. That is what we call 'subitizing'!

The term 'Subtizing' was coined in 1949 by Kaufman, Lord, Jensen, Reese, & Reese and Volkmann in the article entitled, 'The Discrimination of Visual Number'. In this article Subitizing is explained as the effortless and quick identification of the number of items in a set of objects (the cardinality of the set) if the set has four or fewer items. 

 

 

At a glance you are able to quickly and effortlessly tell the amount represented in each set based on the visual pattern or the spatial arrangement of the dots. However, subitizing becomes more difficult for numbers greater than four.because of the difficulties in grouping the elements.

 


In the sets above the spatial arrangement of the dots will most likely be a little more challenging for preschool kids. In that case they will either look for the familiar one-to-four arrangements or resort to one-by-one counting to solve.

I have found that the subitizing of numbers one to four is extremely important in early math literacy. As such greater attention is needed to this foundation skill and that once taught properly learning to recognize greater sets would be far easier to accomplish.


For more indepth information on the basics of subitizing go to University of Buffalo Website (PDF link).


Free Pretty Black and White Dice Clip Art Set

Free Heart Shaped Subitizing Cards

Here a Deal! There a Deal!

Here are some great deals just for you!

(This post contains affiliate links)




Education.com Membership

Get one year of unlimited access to Education.com Plus! With thousands of worksheets and activities, you'll never run out of ways to learn.


Puppy Pursuit Memory Game

Practice memory skills and pattern recognition with these cute puppy themed memory games!


Minecraft Math & Writing Units

Introduce your children to poetry and the wonder of the night sky with this relaxing bedtime adventure.


Fold & Go Castle

Encourage play time without screen time! Kids will love this sturdy wooden castle and its royalty.

R Controlled Vowels 'Clip It to Win It' Cards

Here is my latest product: R Controlled Vowels Clip It to Win It Cards. These are available at Teachers Pay Teachers. Click on the picture below to go directly to this product.

Also, meet the Syllabicating kids introductory FREEBIE for some syllabicating fun!

Educents Launch

Did you hear about Educents big launch? Yes! Educents is growing by leaps and bounds! They are opening their MARKETPLACE to teacher sellers!  What does that mean?  That means that besides the already AMAZING deals they offer on a daily basis, you can now purchase items from individual teacher sellers stores too!  Over 500 sellers are already enrolled in Educents Marketplace. Think that’s all? Not quite! You can get many of their products at amazingly low prices, that’s what we call savings!
For their grand launch several of the sellers are joining in to bring you a sneak peek of a FREE product offered in their new sale, as well as hosting a giveaway for $50 worth of Educents Credits.  You can buy a LOT of educational materials with that kind of money!  And, there are several groups of bloggers who are joining in on the LAUNCH, which means more opportunities for you to enter.

Here is a little information about my FREEBIE that is exclusively found for FREE at my store at EDUCENTS! 

This is a set of 7 posters that explains in simple terms the parts of a story. These posters can be used as anchor charts to get students to recall the main story elements.The elements explained includes:SettingCharacterProblemSolutionAuthorIllustratorThese posters are a fantastic way to introduce your kiddos to the ideas that make up a story and best of all they are FREE!
After you check out my Educents store (and FREEBIE), be sure to check out some of the other stores listed below too.  And, of course, make sure to enter for your chance to win $50 in Educents credits too.

Educents Marketplace $50 in Edubucks Giveaway #5 - Kindergarten Stores

Here's a linky of a lot more stores at EDUCENTS!

An InLinkz Link-up

Editable End of Year Class Rewards

Editable End of Year Class Rewards: Motivate and inspire your kids to work hard and learn well with these fantastic end of year class awards! Your kiddos will feel special even if they did not achieve the honour roll that many yearn for! With these awards they will all feel appreciated and experience that sense of accomplishment in the little things that often go unnoticed! These beautiful, kid-friendly themed awards can be used at the end of the year or all year round. Also included is a budding reward template for those who have not ‘blossomed’ but shows a lot of promise!
Included in this pack are two editable versions; pdf and powerpoint versions. Personalize each award with your children's names to make it an awesome experience for them.


Here are a few of the awards included in this resource:


 GENERAL AWARDS
Sunshine Smiler Award
School Attendance
Blissful Manners
Good Friend
Awesome Achiever
Incredible Growth
Handy Helper
Creative Problem Solver
Super Citizen
Inquisitive Learner
Thorough Thinker
Enthusiastic Participant
Collaborative Kid
Persistent Pupil
Attentive Listener

 

 Click HERE to get more details!

Teachers are Heroes!

 

Do you think that teachers are heroes? Well, I believe that we are! We do so many things for our students and they love us for it too! I'm sure that you can think of one of those acts that you had done to make sure your kiddos were safe and sound, ready to take on the mantle of learning comfortably. Our role must not be slighted or glanced over as insignificant because it is isn't.  

Teachers Pay Teachers is honoring our teachers on February 25th with a sitewide sale with their 'Teachers are Heroes' campaign and I am joining them in this venture. On that day all of my products would be on sale at 20% discount. PLUS with the promo code HEROES you get an additional 10% off at checkout. Isn't that amazing! 

So come celebrate our heroic teachers with  this great opportunity to get my fantastic products on sale storewide!

Click the image below to go straight to my TPT store. 

Instant Sight Words

 Looking for sight word printables? Then you have come to the right space. I just created a super pack of great ideas for your sight word focus. This pack has the first one hundred words of Dr. Fry's instant words that children encounter in their reading. I put in a lot of work into this and I am so happy with what I came up with! Over 200 pages just for you!

This pack contains:

First Hundred Word List
Word Wheels
Word Wall Words
Molding Mats
Center Word Cards
Phrases and Sentences
Picture Nouns List
Picture Nouns Cards
Word and Picture Matching Cards
I Know My Fry Words Booklet
I Know My Picture Nouns Sets 1-5

 If you are interested then click the picture above to be taken to my TPT store.

Book Hospital

It is always heart breaking to throw away old books to make way for new ones. Over the years I have kept repairing titles to get just a little more life out of them. I am not as fortunate as many so I hold on to what I have simply because replacements are not forthcoming, unless I spend my own money on new ones (sometimes). So, for this new year I'm really going to have to throw away the worn out ones, especially those that my students have used so much that pages are missing.

Here's one of my favorites that I could not bear to throw away. With a little glue and tape it's going to be a-okay for my budding readers.

My Blogging Resolutions for 2015

Image Courtesy Flickr user Edmund Gall

Happy New Year!!! Wow! It's another year and it is time for self-reflection and setting goals for a better year. It is the time for making changes to practices that either didn't work well or simply just was not used. For the past year blogging for me was not a major priority because of the countless assignments for my Masters Degree in Education. Well, I thought about my lack of vigor and decided that for this new year 2015 I am going to make a greater effort to blog, at least once a month, until I am finished studying come July. No more product promos (fewer :)) no more blog lags! Purely helpful teaching ideas and meaningful content! I'm going to make it a monthly feature with pictures of my day-to-day experiences as a Caribbean teacher. I just started exploring more of the social media like Twitter and Instagram, so I know that I am on the right path.

So have you thought about your own priorities and planned a way of getting things done a little better this time around? You just need to shuffle and juggle your time, at least for the first month or so before you can get things settled. Good luck!!:)

Picture Sequencing Cards

This resource is the perfect addition to your writing and literacy centers. This is a set of 27 THREE-framed story cards for your students to arrange in sequential order. Each story set is COLOR-coded to facilitate easy ordering. The set includes:

27 three-frame story cards
1 blank set
1 three-framed mat
2 Story Sequencing writing sheets ( formatted with frame labels 1-2-3 and first-the-last)
2 Event Sequencing writing sheets (formatted with frame labels 1-2-3 and first-then-last)

Take a look at the sample activity below:

This set was created for students to practice the comprehension skill of sequencing. I recommended that you use these frames to support your teaching after the concept has been taught. Teacher guidance goes a long way in getting students to make sense of what they are viewing and in making meaningful connections.


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If you are interested in this resource click HERE to go to this product for purchase.