What does the C say?

Hey friends!! I hope y'all are doing well. I've been very busy taking care of the baby and my crazy, active toddler. Let me tell you ladies...it is a J-O-B. I cannot believe how fast the day goes because we just don't stop!  

I've been trying to love on my toddler and keep him busy. We've been doing some activities from my alphabet packs and he is just soaking it up!!

Isn't he sooo precious!!? I'm pretty sure he is a little toddler genius, he's getting his letters and sounds down no problem. We need to start working on number sense, shapes and colors soon. 

Here's his little wrist in one of my alphabet bracelets. Sorry the picture came out blurry! You can grab the letter C bracelets for free here.

Getting stuff done around here is taking me waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay longer than it used to...but hopefully it'll get easier as the boys get a little older. I have managed to finish units N-Q and I've posted the growing bundle. Right now it is only $10 and the price will grow as I add units to it. 

On a side note...my 8 week old has slept through the night the past two nights in a row! And I'm so excited about that I'm throwing a sale in my store all weekend. Everything is 20% off until Sunday night!! You never realize how much you miss sleep until you don't have it anymore!! :) 

Alright I'm off to being unit R. Have a great weekend y'all!!

Unit N Freebie!

Hey Y'all! It certainly takes me much longer to get things done around here with two babies...CRRRRAZY! Thanks to some help from my bestie Hannah and my in-laws I was able to finish unit N of my alphabet pack. Unit N is the first unit in the second half of the pack. So like Unit A, I'll be posting this unit for free. As of now you can only get unit N on my blog, eventually it will make its way to TpT but for now it's just for my readers. :) 

Here's a peak at what's inside:

Alphabet Cards:

ABC Book Page and Practice Page:

Letter Sort:

Practice Pages:

Little N Book:

Play Doh Mats:

And much more! You can download the file in two parts. Part one here and part two here. In a week or so I'll be posting the growing bundle for units N-Z at a very low price. As I add units the price will increase, so if you're interested in this bundle make sure you buy it early to save money. 

Also, don't forget to enter my FarFaria reading app give away for iPod or Android. You can enter the give away here. Have a great Thursday!

Centers Sunday #9 {Free K-2 Centers}

Hi friends!! I'm bringing you a special edition of Centers Sunday today. I had some special requests to create reading passages. I haven't written too many passages but I actually enjoyed creating these and I am excited because I can use them with my second grade group on Monday! Yay! :)

I created passages for first and second grade that are St. Patrick's day themed. For kinder, I created an emergent reader booklet. Here we go:

Kinder

To make the booklets just print, cut in half and staple on the left. You can pick this file up here.

First Grade

I know with primary students it is very hard to get them to refer back to the text when answering questions. It definitely takes some practice. With this passage I specifically asked students to go back to the passage to highlight their answer and then circle the answer. You can have students use highlighters, markers or crayons to find their answer in the text. You can pick the file up here. This passage is written at a Lexile level of 250. 

For second grade I created a passage at a Lexile level of 450.The students follow the same procedure as the first grade passage. They read the passage, read the questions, highlight where they found their answer and circle their answer choice.

You can pick the second grade file up here.

I hope y'all can use these in your classrooms this week! The rest of my day Sunday I will spend at church, at a St. Patrick's Day party and then home to work on the finishing touches of Jackson's fundraiser! I'm hoping to get the fundraiser active by Monday! :) Have a great week!!

Centers Sunday #8 {Hello Spring!}

Hello friends! I hope y'all are having a fabulous weekend and if you are on spring break, I hope it's a great one so far!! :) I'm so excited to bring you 3 new centers with a spring theme. I know it's technically still winter but I am SO over winter, I'm sure most of y'all are too. 

Today we have 3 literacy centers: long vowels, sight words and affixes.

For kinder:

For this activity students sort the pictures according to their long vowel sound. They can sort on their desks or in a pocket chart. I've included two recording sheets: one with the word and one with the picture. :) You can pick this file up here.


For first grade:

This is a sight word game where students play in partners. The set of cards includes the Dolch First Grade sight word set and a blank page to add your own words. You can pick this file up here.

For second grade:

Students sort the cards according to whether they have prefixes or suffixes and record. Easy peasy! :) You can pick this file up here.

I hope you find these centers useful in your classroom or at home with your kiddos!! Tomorrow I'm going to post about a REALLY awesome opportunity for teacher bloggers and teachers. Make sure you come back tomorrow to hear all about it!

Favorite Reading Strategies Linky Party! {Reading Inventory Freebie!}

Hey Y'all! I'm linking up with The Primary Chalkboard to bring you one of my favorite reading tips for primary kiddos. When I moved from kindergarten to second grade I was a little overwhelmed at the thought of teaching such "big" kids. I quickly found out that they are not that "big" and that guided reading really doesn't look all that much different.

Because I was the inclusion teacher I had kids all over the guided reading spectrum. Literally from the pre-K/K level to U/V. Not kidding. How in the world was I going to differentiate across 5 grade levels?! Well I will say The CAFE book and my Daily Five routines really helped. In addition, I got REALLY good at creating differentiated material.

Here's a little something I whipped up for the beginning of the year. During the first week of school I gave all of my students a reading inventory. I wanted to know more about them as a reader to help guide my instruction. I don't have pictures saved of their responses but I do have the reading inventory. I jazzed it up a little for y'all, I hope you like it! :)

Like I said before, I was the inclusion classroom so I created many differentiated activities. There are two reading inventories below. The first one can be copied front and back. It is for younger students or students who need a little extra support. 

This back page gave me some clues about their interests.

For higher students I created an inventory that looked like this:

Notice the question about reading difficulties is geared more towards comprehension rather than decoding on the second reading inventory. I found a lot of my higher readers needed comprehension work during guided reading. They were the kids who could read anything you put in front of them but because of their age/schema, couldn't tell you what it was all about. If you would like to use this reading inventory you can pick it up here. 

What's great about this inventory is that it gives you some insight on your students' attitudes towards reading as well as strategies they already use. You can use this inventory several times throughout the year to guide your instruction. 

I hope y'all enjoyed this little snippet. Head back to The Primary Chalkboard for some more reading strategies!

Tutoring Printables & Facebook Freebies

Hello everyone! I hope y'all are enjoying your weekend. This weekend I am dedicating totally to work...sounds like a bummer but good thing I love what I do!! :) I usually work during the weekdays like normal people but Jackson has been sick so I've been on mommy duty all day every day. 

I did have time to meet with my tutoring groups this week. With my nephew we worked on sight words and CVC words. I made him some simple sight word puzzles for review. He's only 3 so the more simple the better! These puzzles might work for you either as a small group game or send home enrichment. You can pick them up here. Most of the words are taken from the Dolch Preprimer word list. I'll be adding to them as we work through the list. I cannot offer you a blank copy because it breaks the copyright policy of the clip art designer who created the puzzles. Sorry! 

With my kinders we also reviewed sight words. We used my February sight word pages.

With my second graders we reviewed based words and inflectional endings. I created an assessment page for them. You can pick the page up here.

I've also added two new Facebook Fans Freebies. You can pick them up on my Facebook page.

Now the rest of the weekend is seriously devoted to finishing my 2nd grade social studies notebook project. It is a huge undertaking and I cannot wait to get it posted! Thank God Jackson's God parents are going to take care of him today so Mommy can work and Daddy can get in the yard. Woo hoo! :) Funny the things you get excited about once you've become a parent! HA! Enjoy your weekend and make sure to come back tomorrow for Centers Sunday #6!