Baby It's REALLY Cold Outside-Freebie

In your state, 

life may be quite a bit different from ours. 

We are bracing for a storm that will be put in the books. 

They are saying, "It's one for the books!"

"We have never been this cold before!"

"We have never seen this 

much snow in one storm!"

"The store shelves are emptying!" (They are!)

I live in southwest Michigan. We get a lot of  lake effect snow from Lake Michigan. They say we could get up to 18 more inches. We already have about 10 right now. Not only will it snow, but it will be windy and that snow will drift.

Then the second part of that storm is the wind chill. They say that we could dip down to -35 to -40 degrees. Yup, you read that right, 

"minus 35 to minus 40 degrees below ZERO!"

Those temps are just too dangerous for anyone to be out in, much less have students waiting for buses or walking to school in. 

They say this could be in effect for Monday AND Tuesday. BRRRRR! That's a whole lot of cold!

(Do you sometimes wonder who "THEY" are?)

(In this case it's the weather people!)

So to help your kids keep warm, I made them some new mittens and hats!

Just kidding, I didn't make them. . . Ashley Hughes did. Do you know Ashley? She is from The School Supply Addict. She has a lot of cool clip art and papers. You should check her out sometime!

In the fall I made a nonsense word product that did very well. If you're like me, you just can not use pumpkins in the middle of the winter. So if you picked those up and don't want to use them anymore, you better grab these for free!  They'll last as long as winter lasts in your area. 

Just click on the picture above to go to my store to get yourself a set of these. Now be a good doobie and don't forget to leave me some of your thoughts! I love to hear what others think. 

Patty

Oh Pumpkin! + a FREE THINGIE

Have you ever visited Learning Ahoy? Caitlin has a great blog and some really good activities to do with your kids. She let me try out her Oh Pumpkin game. My kids LOVED. IT! It is a great practice for my educational aide to do with just a couple kids or it can be played in a small group of 4-6, too.

Click on the red links above to go to her blog and her store.

Oh Pumpkin is a game using the first 100 fry word list.  I do have some 2nd graders who don't know all of these so it's been helpful to have this set. Plus the kids that come to my RTI group are first graders who specifically need help with their sight words. 

I store this set in a little container that I found at Walmart. I had to trim Caitlin's cover down a bit so that I could see what was in the box. But it works great this way and is very easy for storage and for the kids to use.

 These pictures show my own 2nd graders playing the game.

They draw a card, if they can read it they get to keep it. If they can't read it, then they put it back into the bottom of the pile.

 If they draw a card that says "Trade Cards With Another Player," then they can trade with anyone. Usually they look for someone who has a lot more cards than they have!

If they draw a card that says, "Oh Pumpkin!" then they have to

 put ALL their cards back in the pile!

I know that you would love this game if you bought it. Plus she has other Oh Pumpkin games with different skills that your kids will like too.

If you have found it yet, don't forget to pick up my FREEBIE this week!

You can click on the picture or here to get your own free set, but PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE let me know what you think of this. . . I've had almost 300 friends grab this and only 6 took the time to say thanks!

Patty

New Improved Nonsense Words . . . and they can be yours for free!

Two days in a row that I am posting! 

Stop the presses! 

This can't be! 

But let me explain before you have heart failure.

Yesterday was a snow day. . . 

so there's more time on my hand. . .

Today is Saturday and I seemed to have gotten a lot accomplished yesterday

 so I don't feel drained to do too much today. . . . 

And. . . .

I've somehow picked up a head cold from someone, so I don't feel like doing too much activity anyway.

Dang cold! It stopped me from babysitting my granddaughter tonight because I don't want to get her sick. . . and I feel sad that my kids can't go out on a date because I'm sick. They were very good about it, and will do it some other time. 

So pity party is over now.

Yesterday I beefed up my nonsense words. I have a set that I started using with the few first graders that I work with during Reading Shuffle (RTI time). 

This new set of 66 word parts now has blends that can be put together to make words.

 They are called 

Mix & Match Nonsense Words with Blends. 

Besides using different letters, the backgrounds are also different. 

I picked up the cute daisy backgrounds from Michelle at the 3AM Teacher 

(Pssst. . . it's her birthday today. . .wouldn't it be great if everyone in the blogging world 

stopped in and wished her a Happy Birthday? She's only 34! What a youngster!)

If you'd like this same set, all you have to do is sign up for her newsletter and 

you'll be able to get them for free! 

Yup, that's right, I said FREE!

One more thing, I just noticed that I made it over 360 followers! I think that is so stinkin great! And in honor 

of that nice round number, I'd like to have a mini give away. 

I have a lucky number that I always use for everything. The first person to guess my lucky number will receive this set above for free! And if there is more than one person to guess that same lucky number, then I will give them this set also. . . Get your thinking on . . .  What could it be?

(Don't forget to leave me your email address so I can send this to you).

Would you like a hint? 

hmmmmmm. . . . well it's between 0 and 20. 

That makes it much easier. . . right!

Get ready, get set, . . . start guessing!

                 Patty

Nonsense words Revisited

A few days ago I posted about some nonsense word cards that I made up. I wanted to talk about them again because I have really seen the value of them recently.

I meet with 15 first graders 4 days a week during our RTI time or MTSS time. We have found out recently that our students are lacking the skill to work with nonsense words. So each day I split this group in half and work with these cards. They each get about 9 or 10 cards. I ask them to mix and match the words to make as many different words as they can. Then they take all their cards and slide them to the right and start all over again with 9 or 10 new cards and many new nonsense words. I know this sound simple. . . but it really has been fun for them and helps them zoom in on those beginning sounds and be more sure of themselves with the vowel sounds.

Our testing now asks the students to be able to say the whole nonsense word instead of segmenting it first then saying it. . . A weird thing to me, because isn't that the way we began teaching them in Kindergarten? And now they want to take the segmenting away! 

I know, I know, I get it. . . they want them to be fluent. . . . and with these cards, they ARE making good progress. Seriously!

So today to help with that fluency, I asked them to use their left hand and wave it in the air over the word like a SWOOSH to show the blending of the word parts. . . . ya. . . ya. . . I know. . . it's corny. . . 

BUT it worked!  SWOOSH! nid. . . . SWOOSH! dep . . . . .SWOOSH! bul and on and on!

So if you're needing some extra practice with these nonsense words come and see me! I'm happy to show you how to get them. Just click right here and you'll magically be at my store. They're only $2.00 and there are about 66 cards to mix and match to make up words. 

P.S. I also had a couple kids play around with making two syllable words like  t-as-ip    or 
w-in-id. It was rather comical!

And don't forget. . . 

TOMORROW IS FRIDAY ALL DAY LONG! 


Patty

Nonsense Word Practice and Valentine Jokes plus a giveaway!

Hello Everyone,

 I've been busy digging up old files and trying to update some things I made last year before I had a store.

Since Valentine's Day is fast approaching, and you just may want to get some things around well before it gets here so you can work on them, I decided to post some to my store today.

First I like to put jokes up through out the year on the kid's lockers.

They love to read, and who doesn't like to read a good joke. I consider it a good thing if a child reads a joke and can laugh at it too! That tells me they have good comprehension skills.

These jokes are perfect for 2nd graders. But your better readers in first grade or even 3rd and up would like them.  You can see more about them here.

Just copy them, laminate them, then cut them up. Tape the color heart on top of the black and white one at the top of the heart. Tape them to the lockers or anywhere they can be seen by the kids.

 Students read the joke, and lift it up to read the answer.

Then sit back and wait for them to come and tell you the funny ones!

Another activity that I'm posting is to practice with contractions. I know that this is nothing new. But with the Valentine theme, it fits this time of year and is cutsy to look at as they practice matching the boy with two words with the girl holding the contraction that matches.  You can pick these up here. 

Both of the these two are made using the clip art and fonts from DJ Inkers.

And finally I am teaching some first graders to practice making nonsense words. So I made up this set of cards to do just that! The students will mix these all up then try to make as many different nonsense words as they can. You can see these here.

If you're still here, I'd like to give 5 of these away. Leave me a comment, and tell me which one would be best for you. Leave me your email address. I will pick 5 winners tomorrow night. Good luck! I hope  you win!

Patty