Where Have I Been? What Was I Doing?

Hi friends!  Wow!  I can't believe it's been almost 3 years since my last post!  Time really flies! But I have been very busy doing lots of different things in my life! During that time period, I had another child, a little boy who is now almost 4 years old.  

LOL Read Aloud Teacher in Richmond, VA reading to low-income kids.

My husband opened a local nonprofit in Richmond, VA, called Love of Learning where volunteers provide read alouds to low-income kids living in shelters and subsidized housing complexes throughout Central Virginia. This has been an amazing experience and has brought so much joy to so many children! 

Visit our website to learn more about what we do or how you can help!

One of my passions is creating things digitally!  I did not go to school to learn about computers or digital creations, however, I have found much joy in creating things, especially for my students. 

Since the outbreak of Covid19, I decided to polish up some of my products of TpT and finalize some other activities I've created over the past several years to post.  You can get my newest products on sale for the next few days. Or just visit to see what might help you during this time of being out of school. 

I completed the last three months of my On/Off Addition games so this bundle is now complete!  If you have already purchased, no need to buy again! Just click on "My Purchases" and re-download to get all of the games! :)

If there is something you'd like for your students, please reach out and let me know! I'm happy to see if I can create it for you! Until next time - stay safe and healthy! 

What We've Been Up to and {Product Updates}!

So, here's a few things we have done the last couple of days.

Here is my practicum student giving a lesson on then/now with venn diagram sorting.

This is a sorting page with letters p and j.  The students sort pictures and then write the letter with Fundations lines. 

This child is working on some of my Sight Word Practice pages. 

Here the kiddos are making numbers with their base ten blocks. It was our first experience with them. 

And finally, this is a whole group math lesson I did during my enrichment time on Tuesday. We learned what base ten blocks were and what they are used for. I gave them about 5 minutes on the timer to "play" with them and then we would work with them to help learn our math concepts. Overall, this worked very well. They loved making numbers. I showed them on the brightlinks and they made the number with their manipulatives. I then used manipulatives on the brightlinks to show the "answer." It was a lot of fun!!

I also just wanted to let you know that I have made a few updates to the following products. Please go back and re-download if you have already purchased. More sight word practice will be coming over the weekend (I hope!).

I have updated the recording page for the pumpkin puzzles 1-10.  And I also added a recording page for the pumpkin puzzles 11-20 (in case you wanted to use only have of the set at at a time).

And for this pack, I have added 18 more words which means 18 more pages!!!!  If you haven't gotten it yet, go get it now for half off (originally $3.00).  If you have gotten it, be sure to re-download for the updates!!  

Hope you are having a nice week!!

More Sight Word Practice

My kiddos need a lot of practice with sight words.  We have been using my Sight Word Practice sheets this week.  I was talking to a colleague the other day and we thought about how we could use the sight words in sentences too.  Thus, my new product is born.  I plan to use these in a center but will do a few of them whole group first.  

I included the cover, one example and then a view of all the sentences in the pack (thus far).    Click the title page to head to my store.  It's only $1.50 right now.  As I add more pages I will increase the price.  If you get it now, you can download the updates for FREE!!!
I discussed with a different colleague about our "routine" day.  My thoughts are...in order to be better readers and writers....we just need to practice reading and writing.  Yes, in kindergarten they need a lot of modeling and some work with activities like you see above.  However, for the most part, the kids just need time to work on their writing and practice reading books (both familiar and unfamiliar).  
Well, I did this today.  We still had "centers" but the kids practiced their writing (like a mini writer's workshop) at one center, practiced reading at one center, did a phonics game on the computer and worked on sight words at the last center.  One of my sweet students (who came to me knowing 0 letters and letter sounds), was able to write the sentence he wanted to during his writing center.  He drew his detailed picture and then asked for help to stretch out the words.  As I guided him, he was able to recognize each letter (based on the sounds I was making) and was able to write them correctly.  
I give a lot of credit to Fundations!!!  This is a program that our county has purchased from Wilson.  We are teaching to fidelity.  And I truly believe that the everyday repetition of this program has helped my little guy be able to actually write a (legible) sentence about his picture only after 10 weeks of school.  
I don't know about your thoughts, but I think that is really impressive!!!!  

Word walls

In any classroom, I try to include as many words as possible for my students to refer to when writing. The pictures show my sight word wall and my math word wall. The sight word wall has word cards on magnets which are placed on my whiteboard. The math word wall is stapled on a bulletin board covered with green paper. I found these great math cards on www.teacherspayteachers.com. I will look for the direct seller and post it later.