Jelly Donut Winner Announced

Kids Can Be Helpful to Others Plus a Giveaway

I am excited to share an author with you today and she's going to send one person an autographed copy of her newest book.  Will it be you?

I had the real priviledge of meeting Michigan Author Maria Dismondy 
on a couple of occasions. 

But I really got to know her better when she came to my school and presented to our students. 

 I have seen many authors speak to our students. Many are very good writers or illustrators but lack speaking skills with young children.

However, Maria can do both and she can do them both very well. She held their attention and she kept it exciting. She knows when they need a break from sitting and she continuously gets them moving. AND she can get their attention back quickly when she needs that too. 

When she asked me to help with her book tour, I was more than willing to jump right in. Her books speak volumes to kids. We all have students like the characters in her books. 

She "gets" kids. She really does.

Click HERE to see more about her tour in Michigan.

Her newest book is called The Jelly Donut Difference. 

It's all about sharing kindness with the world. 

When I read it to a class of 2nd graders, they all could see themselves or others in this book. They admitted to acting just like the characters in the book. They could laugh at them, but also realize that their actions did affect other people. Being Kind is the theme of this book and it gives great examples of how kindness does affect others. 

I read this book to them on Fat Tuesday.

It was the perfect day to read about paczki. 

(pronounced POONCH-KEY)

We then did a character study with this book. 

(I have to apologize that I spelled Doughnut wrong on this sheet! WHOOPS!)

We discussed each character and listed good and bad traits to each one. 

It was clear to these students that the characters made some changes by the end of the book. We talked about how we, too can make changes after we do something wrong.

Then to bring the story more real to them they each got to eat a paczki. We had lemon, blueberry, and strawberry. 

Most of them agreed that they were very tasty. 

If you'd like to learn more about Maria, click HERE.

 You can also watch this quick trailer about the book. 

Click HERE to download a dropbox file filled with fun activities for you to do with this book.

Click HERE if you want to order a book from Amazon.

Maria even does real and virtual school visits.

 Click HERE to find out more.

 More books by Maria Dismondy!

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How Does an Extra $25 Sound to You?

I love being a part of giveaways! 

Bringing joy to someone's life is the best! Heck, winning anything is fun, but winning $25.00 is pretty darn cool!

Here's the scoop!

The prize is:  $25 Teachers Pay Teachers Gift Card

Thanks to  Kelly Malloy (An Apple for the Teacher), for organizing this. 

Also involved in this giveaway is:   An Apple for the Teacher, Right Down the Middle with Andrea, TeachKidLearn, Patty Rutenbar, Mrs Hansens Helpfuls, Glistening Gems, and kelseynhayes.

All you have to do is enter the Rafflecopter below.  This giveaway ends 3/20/17 and is open worldwide.

Are you a Teacher Blogger or Teachers pay Teachers seller who wants to participate in giveaways like these to grow your store and social media?  Click here to find out how you can join our totally awesome group of bloggers!

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Valuable Vowel Games Can Create Superior Readers

I finished some of my vowel games that my own students love to play. They laugh, they frown, they cheer, they learn! And above all, they beg to play it again and again.

These games keep them reading new and old words and loving the special cards that make them lose, trade, or get extra cards. 

This is the Spring set.

Click on the picture above to go to my store. 

This is the Valentine set.

Click on the picture above to go to my store.

There are actually 2 games in one with each set. There is the regular vowel set that has words with  a silent e at the end. The second set is with irregular vowels like ea, oa, oo, ei, ui, ight, and many more. 

These are both on sale for just 24 hours. So grab them if you'd like a fun way for your  kiddos to learn these regular and irregular vowel words. 

And in case you're thinking ahead to next year, there is also a set for Christmas time. 

Click on the picture above to go to my store. 

Time to Improve Those Fact Family Skills With Ease

My students need practice with fact families, so I made this set for them. It's for adding and subtracting. You can get it at half off until Saturday night!  That's only $1.50!

You can put the colored copies on your document camera while you teach the strategies. They can be laminated or put in a plastic sleeve and use a marker on them. 

You can hand out the black and white copies for your students to do independent work. 

So if your students are also needing more practice in this, click HERE to get it.