Word Way Game

It's time for Monday Made It again!

I was grocery shopping this weekend and forgot something.  I pushed my heavy, overflowing cart towards the home section and passed by this:

I don't know what came over me but a sudden urge to buy it because "I could turn it into a game!" came over me.  As I then made my way to the check-out I was already planning my new game: Word Way.

I transformed this sink mat into a game board (short vowel word families) and then made spinners to go with it.

Click here to go to my website and get a PDF of the spinners.

Kids use bouncy balls (bottom cut off) as tokens and then spin and move their way across the board making real words.

I'm excited to introduce this game this week and I hope you like enough to make it too!

Number Writing Book

I made this book to go along with learning how to correctly write numbers. Each number has a little rhyme to help kids remember the order of the strokes.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Nice-Neat-Nifty-Numbers

Cyber Monday SALE @ TPT

Head on over to TPT to check out the HUGE sale on all the great teaching materials that are offered!

Check out my store too:

My products are 10% off PLUS use the TPT Promo Code!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Mrs-Locke

Readers' Theater POSTER

Yay, we did our first foray into Readers' Theater last week!  

We started working on Monday and were ready to perform for parents on Wednesday afternoon.  Since we saw a performance of "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs" recently at the Performing Arts Center, we performed 3 versions of the Three Little Pigs:

-original version

-the Three Little Wolves

-the Three Little Turkeys

I made a poster with all the steps we go through (complete with velcro) to help guide us through the week.  

You can download it HERE.

Be a Good Writer

I'm linking up to Manic Monday Classroom Freebies to share a new writing poster I quickly whipped up on Friday because of something a colleague downloaded and of course I had to tweak it to fit my style....plus I LOVE to make things!

Making first graders cognizant of how they can improve their writing is very important and isn't rocket science.  You, their teacher, needs to be aware of the strengths and struggles in their writing and both praise and guide them along the path to becoming a good writer.

You'll find this cute poster here.

Enjoy!

Word Family Packet

T-minus 1 week until I'm back in the saddle of my 1st grade classroom!  I've really enjoyed the past 9 weeks at home with my daughter and new son, but I'm itching to get back to my new group of first graders and the classroom that I love!

Last year I learned about and tried implementing the Daily 5 in my classroom for our reading block.  It went really well and I'm going to ease into it again this year.  The "Word Work" that my students do is based on our reading curriculum's weekly word families.  I'm in the process of creating a packet for each word family that engages students in making words, spelling words, writing words, comprehending words and using words.  So I'm linking up again for Manic Monday on the Classroom Freebies blog.  Download this free packet and tell me what you think :)

Halloweeeeeeeen!

Seven weeks ago I reported back to school on the first inservice day for teachers.  I was 9 months pregnant and, oddly, felt great that day.  The next morning I woke up and went to get ready for work again when my water broke!  9 hours later I was holding my son and I haven't been back to work since.  I have about 1.5 weeks left of my maternity leave and then I'm back in the saddle again.  I'm excited and nervous and have been living in a bubble since the beginning of the school year, just staying at home taking care of my 4-year-old and new baby.

So what does this post have to do with Halloween you ask?  Well since I've been in my bubble I haven't really felt like Halloween is coming up.  But now I'm seeing pumpkins in the grocery stores and some decorations on houses in the neighborhood.  That reminded me of my Halloween packet and I wanted to jazz it up and make it even better because I'll be back in the classroom for Halloween this year.  So go on over to my TPT shop and download a preview.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Mrs-Locke