DIY Teacher Mama: Felt Board

Keeping an 18 month old actively engaged without batteries and lights can be an interesting challenge now-a-days.  As an educator, I want to expose my own child to the language I know he needs to be successful.  As a mom, I want to see my little boy having fun and being creative.  Well, you know me, I searched for both and I found it...

Felt Board Fun!  

Plus, I found another awesome use for all of my clipart.

Here is what you need:

To create the board just spray the adhesive on the poster board and cover with felt.

Obviously, you will need a printer and an iron, but that should be a given. 

The fun part is picking out all of the images.  My son LOVES Sesame Street and DinoTrux so I did an image search and found some great ones.  He also loves animals, so I went through my clip art and added some of his favorite animals to the list.  

The most important thing to remember is to reverse the image so that when you iron it on everything is spelled correctly and is facing the right direction.

Once you get all of the images picked out follow the printing directions on the paper and print your heart out.  Then, all you need to do is iron, peal, and play.

My happy boy with his new characters!

I just need to whip up a second board for my classroom.  I am going to use it for story retells and story starters for my reluctant writers.  It will be the perfect tool for my ELLs to practice their speaking standards.

Happy Creating!!!

It's Time for a Review: Buddy Reading

There is something about November that causes wacky behavior and a need for review in my classroom.  This past week, we focused in on partner reading expectations.

We played "Who Wants To Be The Best Reading Buddy?"  It was my take on role playing No Way, Not Quite, and Just Right partner behavior.  I had three students come up to the front to be contestants.  I then jumped into the role of their reading buddy.
With the first contestant, I was a disaster of a partner.  I didn't look at the book, I kept saying, "This is boring", and at one point I threw the book.  The judges (the rest of the students) tried buzzing me out many times.  We then talked about everything that went wrong.
As the reading buddy to the second contestant, I actually looked at the book, but I kept telling the buddy all the words.  I interrupted her a million times, and didn't give her a chance to share.  Again, the judges made their buzzing sound and reprimanded me for being a crumby partner.
After reviewing everything I needed to change as a reading buddy, I was the perfect buddy with the last contestant.  The judges were very happy and I was impressed with their attention throughout the activity.

We created this poster as a reminder of all the expectations that we need to remember for Buddy Reading time.   You can grab a copy of this poster by clicking this link, or the picture.
Remember that it is easy to print this as a larger poster.  Just click on "Poster" on the print page, and increase the scale to 150%.  It will print onto 4 pages and you just have to tape or glue them together.

What is one Buddy Reading expectation in your classroom?

November Literacy Fun with The Ugly Pumpkin

I LOVE the fall!  I love the change of colors here in the Pacific Northwest.  I love the crisp air.  I also love reading The Ugly Pumpkin, by Dave Horowitz.  It is an adorable tale about a pumpkin that can't understand why no one will choose him to be their Halloween Jack O' Lantern.  It isn't until he stumbles upon a group of squash that he realizes who he truly is...a SQUASH.

My students always get a kick out of this squash, and love the happy ending.  I created several activities that accompany this book years ago.

I finally gave my companion pack to this book a huge overhaul!  

This pack contains:

•Pumpkin and Squash facts

•Pumpkin and Squash photographs

•Pumpkin Versus Squash Venn Diagram

•The Ugly Pumpkin rhyming activity

•The Ugly Pumpkin Figurative Language Matching activity

•The Ugly Pumpkin Story Maps
•2 templates•picture option

•answer keys provided for all activities

•Ugly Pumpkin Craftivities

Head over to my TeachersPayTeachers store to grab a copy of this fun filled pack!

What is your favorite things about this time of year?  What is your favorite fall picture book?

*this post contains Amazon affiliate links *

Student Vacations...What Do You Do?

We don't have a fall or mid-winter break.  Boo Hoo!  Because of this, I feel like parents try and take full advantage of the long holiday weekends in November and January.  Each year, I have students that vacation with their families and end up missing several days of school.  It seems harsh to send classroom, but sending nothing seems crazy to me, too.
That's why I send a vacation journal.  I have several bags prepped and ready to go.  Each bag has a journal, pencils, eraser, sharpener, and colored pencils.

I also have a note on the inside of each journal explaining the purpose of the journal.

The journal is meant to be a way for the student to create learning opportunities, while recording memories.  I always allow kiddos to share their journal when they get back.  It is so fun to hear about their favorite part of each day.

Grab this journal cover and letter here or by clicking on the above picture.

What do you do for kiddos that are going to miss school days for vacations?

Driving into Word Study

Word Study is one of my favorite times of the day.  It is that beautiful point in the day when I get to watch my students learn new words right in front of my eyes.  My kiddos are excellent at using their Good Reading Habits to work through new words, but explicit teaching of new vocabulary, on my part, is still extremely important.

I have love taking my kiddos' leveled readers and pulling specific vocabulary to not only support that current book, but to support their develop of background knowledge.  Hameray Publishing came to the rescue yet again, with their amazing books.  Big Wheels at Work has been the perfect addition to my readers' book bags.

During our sneak peek of the book, we explored the tricky words.  Throughout our small group, kiddos matched the "stretched out sounds" (word attack strategy) of each word to the correct spelling of the word.  They placed the cards in the different parking spots as they matched the up.  This activity allowed my students to use the visual representation of the sounds to practice each word.

Students then drove their monster trucks into the parking spots of each tricky word found throughout the book.  They loved being able to "drive" into each word thus practicing each word again.  

You can grab this parking lot and sound matching cards here.  

As you can see, I love working on words with my kiddos.  Do you love working on words with your students?  What is your favorite time of day teaching your students?

Game Time with Blends

Word Study is one of my favorite times of the day.  I love listening to my kiddos practicing and learning new words.  It is one of the times throughout the day that I feel like light bulbs are lighting up all over the place.  One of our favorite games during Word Study is Roll Read (Color/Write).   See it in action below...  

My kiddos get so excited when we study new words because they know they will get to play Roll Read.  I have short and long vowels, as well as blends in my TPT store.  You can grab all three in a bundle for a fabulously discounted price.

Building Connections Within Readers

When teaching students the importance of understanding their reading, lessons on making connections must take place.  As an adult reader, we constantly connect what we are reading to real-life events and topics.  These connections are what allow our brains to store the newly read information for immediate and future use.  How do we get young readers to do they same thing?
First off, as parents and educators we need to make sure that these readers are exposed to rich text, meaningful stories, and all around interesting topics.  I have found that Hameray Publishing offers a wide range of books that cover these three needs.  My students and I love that their books contain real photographs and cover interesting topics.

Second, we need a variety of books to support the strategy of making connections.  By reading nonfiction text and comparing it to the author's message/moral of the story in fables, young readers are able to grow their reading minds.  The connections that they are able to make between nonfiction and fiction helps to build the bridge to successful comprehension.  I feel that too often young readers focus only on text-to-self connections and the text-to-world connections fall to the wayside.  It is these text-to-world connections that strengthen our language skills and understanding of the world. 

The Fables and Nonfiction sets, from Hameray Publishing, are an incredible resource to use when teaching students about text-to-world, as well as text-to-text connections.  My kiddos not only love the nonfiction component, but they thoroughly enjoy discussing the moral of each fable.

What is your favorite resource for teaching connections?

Sparking Student Motivation with QR Codes

While many teacher have been using QR codes for awhile now, I was hesitant to jump on the bandwagon.  I was fearful that they wouldn't work, cause more of a problem than be helpful, and take away from the learning itself.  I don't know what changed my mind, but I am grateful for it.
QR codes have transformed both literacy and math centers in my classroom.

 Students use codes during their listening center.  Each code links to a different story that is read to them via YouTube with Safe Share.  I purchased these amazing book codes from Lawen Christianson.

 Students also use QR codes to self check some of their centers.  Here students worked on determining if numbers were in the correct order.  They recorded their answers and then checked their work using the QR codes.

Here is another literacy center where students used picture cards to determine which short vowel category each picture fit in.  They recorded each word in the proper group.  Last, they checked their answers using the short vowel QR code.

I am amazed by how engaged my kiddos are.  Of course there were a couple of hiccups, one of the iPads kept dropping off the WiFi, a couple students needed a bit more guidance, but overall the outcome has been AMAZING!  If you have the technology available, I highly recommend using QR codes in your classroom.

How do/would you use QR codes with your students?

Be sure to swing over to Head Over Heals for Teaching to see what other teachers are doing to Spark Student Motivation.

Don't forget to head over to Instagram for a chance to win my favorite things giveaway!

"I can write on the table?"

"You sure can!"
I loved the cheers I heard the first time I let my students write on their tables with dry erase markers.  Their motivation to accept and complete their task hit an all time high.  Check out how I "Sparked my students' motivation" with today's link up.

I first saw this idea flying around Pinterest and knew I needed to try it out.  Our first go at it was with one of our book searches/hunts.  My students do book searches regularly, typically while recording into their journals.  After learning a phonics skill or spelling pattern, I send my kiddos off to find those examples throughout their books.  Here is a book search while writing on our tables in action:

Students hunt through all of the books in their bookbags searching for the learned skill.

This activity is automatically differentiated since the books in each student's bookbag are "Just Right."  As students are hunting, I work my way through the class checking-in on findings and taking anecdotal notes.  I love taking a snapshot of a student's word list and discussing it with them during individual conferences or small group time.  

We also write on our desks to practice math skills.

Another time is during small group.  I find this so much easier to manage with the limited space I have.

I bet a bunch of you are wondering how well the marker wipes off.  My kiddos use old (but clean) socks to erase their work.  Then, at the end of the day we do a quick baby wipe or Lysol wipe and the tables are new again!

Do you let students write on their desks?  How do you Spark Motivation?

Mo Willems Author Study - Part 1

Teaching through author studies keeps my teacher heart beating.
Here is a little background...
I use our district adopted basal, StoryTown, to pace my reading/writing strategies and phonics skills.  I then find the corresponding CCSS.  Once I have my teaching points, I choose the author we will focus on.
Throughout the month of January, we worked on expression, speech bubbles, developing characters, retells, and so much more through Mo Willems' books.

We practiced speech bubble with Piggie and Gerald.

One huge focus was on character development.  We created these anchor charts to help with describing three of Mo's characters.

One of our art projects were these adorable Piggie and Gerald hats, which we wore for our Readers' Theater performances (more to come and these).

One of my favorite activities had students practicing expression as they pleaded to Stay Up Late.

Be sure to check back for part 2 of our Mo Willems' author study.