Makeover Madness {Week 1 TPT Seller Challenge}

I'm so excited to be joining up with the TPT Seller Challenge sponsored by Sparkling in Second and a few other bloggers! I'm officially on summer vacation as of today. I finished my cums, turned in my keys, and said goodbye to my principal who has been very nice to work for these last few years. She's retiring just in time to have her first grandchild be born. The end of this year marks the end of 2 years with the same incredible group of kids- I looped up to 2nd with my firsties from last year. They were one of the very best classes I've ever had and I will miss them so very much. You know when you have that group where all the kids become friends, get along, and support each other? It was just what teaching should be. 

This challenge came along at the perfect time to get me blogging again now that I have more time. The first of four challenges is this week and the challenge is to makeover a TPT item in your store.

I chose to makeover the covers of my best-selling product and the freebie that goes with it. I also changed the fonts some. This is my best-seller, a phonics packet where kids write the missing beginning sound then have to read the word and draw a picture of it. There are also word searches that go with each vowel sound. But looking at it today I thought EEK! did I really have the cover looking like that? Oh my! It really needed a modern makeover!

What I like most about this is that kids can't write the wrong beginning sound (which makes it super easy to spell the word) but the work comes when they have to be able to read the word to draw the picture. Each page has kids reading words with a different long vowel sound. It looks like this

The short vowel companion is a freebie in my TPT store. I revamped the cover for it too. It looks similar so teachers would know they go together.

 This shows what the pages inside this packet look like.

I'm so excited to see what the next challenge is! I hope you'll join up or follow along for the fun. Thanks for popping by!

12

New Write, Read, Draw & a Christmas Freebie

How was your Thanksgiving? Ours was wonderful. Time with family and lots of delicious food! We got back home late yesterday and I've been working on some school things today. I've got a couple new creations to share.

First, a companion to my best selling product Read, Write, Draw with Long Vowels words. I created a very similar pack that covers words with initial consonant R, L, and S blends. It's available in both my TPT and TN stores.

What's included looks like this

What I like about using these worksheets with my students is that they HAVE TO read the words in order to draw the pictures. They also enjoy drawing the pictures instead of just writing the letters. Sometimes, however, I can't quite tell what if the picture matches the word so I have asked many times "How does that (your picture) show that word?" Almost every time the student can explain the picture so that I know they could actually read the word. I'm looking forward to using these as a review this week with my 2nd graders.

Also, here's a Christmas freebie you can grab in my TPT store

There are 1 syllable long vowel word cards that students sort like this (the pic shows the short vowel set, but this works the same way). There are also 20 2-syllable words for higher firsties or 2nd graders.

 Students choose 2 words from each vowel to write and draw a picture of. I've kind of got that "drawing a picture" theme going today, don't I?

 This activity follows another freebie, my Short Vowel Word Sort Activity. It's free too and now with an updated cover. Wow, I looked at the old cover the other day and thought, "I did that?" It seriously needed updating.

As I'm writing this post I can't wait to do some cyber shopping tomorrow! My teacher wish list is long and I'm ready to shop! My TPT and TN stores will be discounted for the next 2 days. Have fun with your shopping! Remember the promo code tptcyber to save 28%.

Thank you to Michelle for that cute sale button!

1

Long Vowel Word Work

Happy Friday! Boy am I glad it's Friday. I'm ready for a week off and some time to catch up, blogstalk (which I haven't done quite a while), and visit with family. The kids in my class seemed ready for a break too. They're starting to argue like brothers and sisters! Despite that, they are a really fabulous group. They love Daily 5 and are quite disappointed when they don't get to do Read to Self. Before each reading group the kids choose what Daily 5 they're going to do and head off to that activity. Before I was even finished checking in with everyone, one of the girls already had her beanbag on the rug and was reading a book. I looked her and was a little jealous. I wanted to be lounging in a beanbag reading a book too. 

Instead, I got to reading groups. Don't get me wrong, that's not a complaint. These kids are improving so much and they're all so motivated. One of my higher reading groups is currently working on decoding long vowel words. So I gave them the first page from my Write, Read, Draw packet as their word work activity for Daily 5 yesterday. It looks like this

This wonderful group of such sweet kids went straight to work. Pretty soon one of them came to me and asked how to draw a picture of the word shake. I just said, "Think about it." It turns out that it sounded like a strawberry milkshake to her. She also drew a spikey haired Jake and a coiled up snake.

When I asked how the first picture showed "late" this student said it was a picture of a girl running down the hallway holding her backpack. I never thought I could draw very well so as long as they can tell me what they intended and I can tell what they meant, then it's usually ok with me.

What I like about these pages is that the kids have to read the words and sometimes really think about what the words mean in order to draw the pictures. The packet is my newest creation and is just like my short vowel packet (which you can download free HERE). The difference is that the long vowel packet also has word searches which use some of the words the kids write, read, and draw. 

The whole packet contains one Write, Read, Draw sheet for each long vowel and one half-page word search for each vowel. Just an FYI that 2 of the word family sheets were previously freebies on my blog. I've added the word searches and the other 3 vowel sheets and put them altogether. You can check it out more by clicking HERE.

I hope you had a wonderful week! I'm looking forward to getting back to some blogstalking tomorrow.  Have a great weekend!

2

My New TPT Store!

If you're reading this, thanks for stopping by! I'm so excited to have opened my new TPT store! And a little nervous, I must say. So far it's very small. There's this new item and a my Write, Read, Draw short vowel freebie that seemed very popular.

My first "for sale" product is something I really wanted for my classroom- Traceable Handwriting Practice Cards. For a long time my students have used some Math Their Way number tracing cards at the beginning of each year. They've been great for Math Work Stations. Now that we're doing

Daily 5 I've been looking for beginning of the year things for Work on Words. These will be useful for everyone but especially good for my little ones who cannot read yet and don't know all their letters and sounds. Once they're laminated kids can use dry erase markers to trace letters. Each letter has a green dot to show where to begin.

Here's what they look like

Just click on the picture to get them for your classroom.

I've spent a long time getting these ready and I'm thrilled to finally share them with you! Thanks also to  two special bloggers, Jessica from Tales of a First Grade Teacher and Barbara from
Grade ONEderful for support and encouragement to get this going.

It would make this teacher super happy if you would follow my store, pin this, put it on instagram, etc. I'd love to hear from you too!

Have a spectacular day! Thanks for checking out my new creation.

10

Word Work Freebies

It's 2013! And since I chose "creative" as my one little word, here's the first step toward that goal. These are 5 short vowel word work sheets. I call them Write, Read, Draw. First students write the beginning sound, read the word, and then draw a picture of the word.

I first posted one of these last February for long e. You can get it {HERE}. In December I posted another one on long A and you can get that {HERE}. That one's actually my second most-viewed post. So it's probably about time I finish up some more of these.

This is the short vowel pack. Just click on the picture and leave a comment, please, if you download it.  I hope you find it useful. I used it as review for my students and they really enjoyed it. Some of the words are a little tricky to draw pictures of, but 13 of my 21 students are EL kiddos and with some thought, they figured out a picture they could draw. If I see a picture and I can't tell how it shows the word, I'll ask them. Usually they reach for the eraser immediately (and I try to ask questions of their correct answers too, really I do!). I have to assure them that I just want to hear how they think their picture shows the word. It's fun to listen to their reasons for some of the pictures! They almost always make sense with the word.

Before I go, here's a picture of our little Stevie. He went back to the vet for a steroid shot today to hopefully, hopefully, stop this allergic reaction he's having. He says "thanks" for wishing him well.

Have a wonderful day!

9