Winner Wednesday: Awesome Dinosaurs (aw, au, al words)

Today I'm linking up with A Dab of Glue Will Do for Winner Wednesday!  It's a linky that takes place the first Wednesday of every month.  I'll choose a popular product from my TpT store and you can win it.  All you have to do it enter your name into the Rafflecopter.  
I decided to choose my Awesome Dinosaurs packet.  It's a study of aw, au and al words.

My students loved writing their spelling words on the dinosaur.

Here's what is included:

p. 1 - Cover
p. 2 - A cute picture of kittens and a dog. I show this to my students before I introduce the sound and they say "Awe!" They immediately recognize the sound of the week.

p. 3-5 - Anchor Charts 
p. 6-11 - I Have, Who Has? Game (enough cards for 24 students)
p. 12-15 - Word Hunt & Recording Sheet
p. 16-20 - Dinosaur Craft
p. 21 - 22 Printables
p. 23 Credits

You can enter the Rafflecopter below and if you don't win, the packet will be on sale through Friday for 20% off.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Be sure to check out the other items at A Dab of Glue Will Do! 

Perfect Pickles {a study of LE words}

This year I had a really sweet student in my class who loved pickles.  I was thinking about her over the weekend and this idea just popped into my head!

I'm a little sad that I won't be able to share the unit with her because I know she would get a big kick out of it.  But future classes will be happy to have something a little more exciting for our study of the -le sound.  

There's a story about Princess Nicole who lives in a castle with her poodle.  Get it??  I read it to my husband and he said I'm one step away from becoming Dr. Seuss. Haha.

When I was in elementary school, there was a teacher known as the pickle lady.  I remember leaving my first grade classroom and seeing a huge pickle coming out of her room. My friend actually got a pickle lollipop from her!  I remembering being glad I wasn't in her class because I thought she force fed you pickles everyday and I wasn't a fan back then.  I had to include a pickle survey in the packet.

You can grab Perfect Pickles HERE for 50% off until tomorrow.  If you need other items to make it to the $3 minimum TpT order, check out my $2 Deals category.

Five for Friday: 4/24/15

This post is going to be full of random tidbits from the last two weeks and it's going to be short and sweet since I have to head back up to school for bingo night.  It's also going to contain a lot of freebies to save you time and money. ;)

We've been learning about plants.  My favorite new-to-me craft has been I Love Carrots.

It's also a freebie which makes it even better. ;)

You could also use this watermelon craft during your plant unit. I'm personally saving it until our watermelon day in a few weeks.  

How adorable are these directed drawings from First Grade Blue Skies?

One of my students said his mom never believes him that he drew it.  She thinks I drew it for him and just let him color it in. You can download the instructions HERE.

My students actually cheer when I pass out these printables from Hollie Griffith.  They are great because it's interactive - they color, the unscramble words, they roll dice.

We also played this game. (Not free, but it's only $2).

I planted my garden this week!  

I planted tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and zucchini.  Fingers crossed that it grows.

Hey, Call Me Crazy

If you know me in real life, you know that I love coupons and saving money while shopping.

I've got a great deal for you!  I've bundled all of my current I Have, Who Has phonics games.

The bundled price is $11.20 but until tomorrow (4/5) at 1pm, this bundle is 50% off!

This savings is really unbelievable because the bundle is a GROWING bundle and I'll be adding more games. That means you will pay $5.60 for a year full of phonics I Have Who Has Games!!  What?!? Every time I add a game to the bundle, you'll be notified.  All you have to do is download it again and the new game will appear.  See the schedule below to know when new games will be added.

It currently includes:

R Controlled Vowels 

I Have, Who Has Game: AR Edition 

I Have, Who Has Game: OR Edition 

I Have, Who Has Game: ER, IR, UR Edition 

Vowel Digraphs & Diphthongs 

I Have, Who Has Game: EA Edition 

I Have, Who Has Game: AU, AW, AL Edition 

I Have, Who Has Game: OU, OW Edition 

I Have, Who Has Game: OI and OY Edition

Coming Soon!
Short Vowels:
Short A - May 2015
Short E - May 2015
Short I - May 2015
Short O - May 2015
Short U - May 2015
Short Vowel Review - May 2015

Long Vowels:
Long A - June 2015
Long E - June 2015
Long I - June 2015
Long O - June 2015
Long U - June 2015
Long Vowel Review - June 2015

Hard C & G - July 2015
Soft C & G - July 2015

Blends:
L blends - July 2015
R blends - July 2015
S blends - July 2015

Y as a Vowel - September 2015
Silent Letters (kn, gn, mb, wr) - September 2015

Beginning Digraphs - September 2015

Each game includes enough cards for 24 students.  If you have less than 24 students, pass out the extra cards.  My students get excited if they get two cards.

Want to try out an I Have, Who Has Game before you purchase? Download a FREE copy of I Have, Who Has Game: Middle & End Digraphs to see the quality of my work. The free version has enough cards for 20 students.

Workin' Hard on the Weekend

After passing out at 9:30 on a Friday night, I've managed to work on school related stuff all weekend.  We have our accreditation team coming this week and I wanted to make sure that my room looked amazing and everything was super organized for the week.  It was really telling that there were still three teachers left on my floor when I left at 6:30pm Friday.  (This never happens.) I went back for a few hours on Saturday.  As I was leaving around 4pm, three teachers were coming in to work.  If they would have been there earlier, I probably would have stayed longer!  

My students are head over heels in love with "I Have, Who Has?" games.  I made a set for r-controlled vowels.  

It includes three different games - one for /ar/, /or/ and one for the sounds of /er/, /ir/, /ur/

My class really loves unicorns this year.  The girls gasped when someone read "I have core. Who has unicorn?"  

I also made sure to read Uni the Unicorn for a lesson introduction.  It's a sweet story - I highly recommend it!

I finished up my literacy centers for the beginning of March.  I don't really do anything Dr. Seuss related and skip straight to St. Patrick's Day.

It has five centers that cover synonyms, present and past tense verbs, long and short vowels, r-controlled vowels, and making sentences.

Both are on sale (50% off) for the first 24 hours.  (Click on any of the above pictures directly to the item you want.) Make sure you follow my TPT store and Instagram (polkadotfirsties) so you can see when I upload things.

Want to check out the quality of my centers?  Look at Category Sort: March Edition.  It's a freebie!

Bossy AR & President's Day Freebies

I've been in such a rut planning my Reader's Workshop block.  There is just so much to squeeze in!  The last few weeks I definitely have fallen into handing out way more printables instead of creating engaging activities.

All of the sudden the creating bug hit me.  (On a Friday night!)  Our phonics skill for next week is r-controlled vowels, specifically /ar/ words.  We've all seen the pirate activities (and I'm still going to do a few of those), but a story about Karate Karmen popped into my head.

I also made an "I Have, Who Has?" game and a Word Hunt plus a few pages of printables.

Every time I add a new item to my store, it will be 50% off for the first 24 hours!  Right now Bossy /AR/ {Games, Posters, & Printables} is only $2!! It'll stay that way until I get up tomorrow morning.

Be sure to follow my TPT store, so you are notified when I add something new.  I'll also post on Instagram (user name: polkadotfirsties).

*******
How many of you have President's Day off?  I was so surprised to find that not all teachers have the day off tomorrow.  I'm sorry!!!  I'm already dreading the month of March because we don't get a single day off. 

A few years ago, I created an free Presidential ABC order.  Click the picture or link at the bottom of the picture to download.

Download.

I also made 3 Presidential posters and posted them for free in my TPT store.  They included George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama.

Five for Friday: 2/13/15

I haven't linked up with anything in a long time and I thought this was the perfect week to get back into the swing of things! 

My favorite holiday to celebrate at school is Valentine's Day.  There's not an official party.  We just pass out our Valentine's and eat a special snack.  

All the girls flocked to this little boy's Valentine box.  The shiny, fake diamond lured them in! Haha.  It starts young!

The added benefit is sometimes you end up with really neat gifts!

Backing up to earlier in the week, we studied ending digraphs.  

This year, my students love the "I Have, Who Has?" game. I had to whip up one for middle/ending digraphs.

Go to my TPT store to download it for free!

Do you have a subscription to Brainpop, Jr?  They have the best videos to introduce a topic!  They are short and engaging.

We watched two videos for George Washington Carver and Harriet Tubman before making our crafts.

I let the students complete their Venn Diagrams on their own.  I read through them to make sure they understood the concept.

Um, he compared Harriet's head injury to his busted lip. Way to make Social Studies more entertaining!

It's that time of year when the students are comfortable and love to talk to their friends about anything and everything.  Rainbows, unicorns, marshmallows....anything except work related tasks.

It was getting a little out of hand, so I had to use one of my favorite tricks in the book.

The Blurt Chart.

Each student gets 3 blurts a day.  If they lose all of their blurts, they get a number written in their binder (which correspond to "I was talking too much.")

Student 2 has permanently lost her blurts because she moved.  I didn't want a chart that said 1, 3, 4, etc. 

If they keep all of their blurts, they earn a Star Dollar (part of my class reward).  They will do anything for a Star Dollar!

Well, most of them....Here's how my chart looked after Monday.  This wasn't the best day, but we had much better days the rest of the week.

It's a great visual reminder.  Once they lose all of their blurts, they have to move their clip down on the clip chart.  It also helps me track how many time they talk during the day.

{This is not my original idea.  I found it on Pinterest way back when in 2011.}

I've started posting a little more on Instagram and I'm looking to follow new people!  Leave me your Instagram name!

Click the Instagram photo above to follow me on Instagram or look me up via polkadotfirsties.

Be sure to checkout Doodlebug's linky party for more great ideas!