Five for Friday 2/26/16

It was finally a full week of school for me!!!!  It has either been a 2 hour delay or no school at least one day in the week for the past 2-3 weeks.  So this week was long....yet rewarding because I feel like we accomplished a lot of learning!!!!  I'm linking up with Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching to share what we have done this week!  Enjoy!! 1.  We have been busy playing our word work games this week.  I have given my kiddos a lot of choice and they seem to enjoy that part of it!

2.  I recently purchased Deedee Wills's Math Work Stations - Black and White Bundle.  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!   They are so easy to just print, cut and laminate to add to a station.  She also makes each month consistent with the previous so there isn't a whole lot of reteaching the skills - the pictures and themes change.  My kinders thrive with predictability!!

3.  We have been working with word families over the last several weeks.  Each week has a different word family sort (I follow the Words their Way philosophy) and the students complete daily activities to practice spelling and looking at the patterns in the words.  At the end of the week, I give them this quick "assessment" to see if they were able to grasp that set of word families.  This is very helpful especially when the students are working with the short i and short e sounds.   

4.  Our reading centers work has changed just slightly.  It was very overwhelming to see so many students struggling to get their work finished - and I'm not a huge fan of "worksheets" anyway!  So.......now that my kiddos can read - we have fully adopted the Daily 5 and the kids are thriving on the fact that they get to choose and be responsible for their learning.  

5.  This week was the 100th day of school!  We had lots of fun activities to help us celebrate!



Now head over to see what everyone else was up to this week!

Check out this App!

Several weeks ago, I saw another blogger had reviewed this app.  It seemed perfect for my kinders - especially at the beginning of the school year!  So I wrote to Hamaguchi and asked if I could check it out and write a review.  Well....here it is....

The graphics are great!  There are several different games they can play to help with listening skills.  This task simply asks for them to pick the ball that has black stripes (for example).  

This game asks that they choose the character that is happy or mad and the student would click the right picture.  

This game lists words in order that the students then have to select in that order.  

Once they select the correct answer, it highlights the pictures they choose.  

This next game is a sequence of events - like in a story.  The kids listen to each page and as the words are finishing the page turns on its own (see picture below).

At the end of the story, they have comprehension questions like, which character wanted to get ice cream or where did the story take place?

Overall, I really liked the picture quality of the graphics in this app.  I also felt like the skills the students were being asked to practice were spot on for following directions.  

If you're interested in this app...you can find it here:

It's Currently.....February!!

Listening: My 5 year old is taking a mental break and watching her favorite show before we start back in with "homework" again.

Loving: So we have President's Day off as a holiday.  If we miss any days this week, that is a make up day.  So.......I want snow....but next week - after we already get the holiday!   :)   And it looks like we could get some more snow next Tuesday......we shall see....

Thinking: I have some great product ideas - even things I want to use in my classroom - but I just cannot find the time to get any of it done!

Wanting: I have been so tired lately!  I am wanting to spend 24 hours in my bed without any other responsibilities (like not taking care of my family or cooking supper or making lunches or making coffee, etc).

Needing: I really need to clean the kitchen - like unload and reload the dishwasher...... I'm hoping it will get done at some point before bedtime!

Swooning: I LOVE crab meat!  I make a great cold crab dip - it has a good bit of cayenne in it so the spice is awesome!  Here's the recipe I like to use: Appetizing Cold Crab Dip 

You can go to Farley's blog to see what other teacher bloggers are up to in February!

Product Updates

I just wanted to let everyone know that I have been hard at work on updating my older products, as well as, creating new ones!  

I just finished updating my Place Value Memory pack which now includes number cards 1-100 and place value cards 1-100.  Now you can pick and choose which numbers you want your students to work on and makes it a product that most all elementary grades could use!  Click the picture to find it in my TpT store.

I am hard at work on a Spring Math Stations pack and the Math and Literacy Pack - Spring Edition!  I'd love to hear from you.  Are there specific math concepts that you are working on that I could incorporate for you?  Leave a comment below and I'll do my best!