Cute Mother's Day Idea/Freebie

This week, my students are taking their state tests, so it's important to schedule in lots of fun activities for them (and me!) Here's a cute Mother's Day activity that they are really enjoying. They are making a portrait of their moms and using adjectives to describe them. At the beginning of the year, I have them make portraits of themselves and use adjectives to describe themselves. I actually have that as a freebie here!

Here are some pictures of their moms...

My Fun With Parts of Speech cards were very helpful to my students, because they picked out all the adjectives that they can use to describe their moms and put them in a basket for easy access.

Here is the descriptive word page I used for first and second grade.

And here is the one for kindergarten.

Just click here to download them.

In other news, don't miss out on a chance to win this really fun game! My students ask to play it every single day!

Just click here to enter my giveaway!

Fabulous Feedback Linky

I am linking up with Christina Bainbridge and showing off some fabulous feedback I have received from some loyal blog and store followers. I always read every single comment made on my blog and in my store. Although I can't always respond to them personally, please know that your comments and feedback, especially the ones that are specific and thoughtful, mean the world to me. Before I purchase a product, I always read the feedback first and I'm always grateful when people take the time to talk about what they like about a product.

Below, you will find 3 comments that made my year!

The sweet teachers who made the comments have become my friends, even though they live thousands of miles away from me. They call themselves my store stalkers, but, they are just really good teachers who are always on the lookout for new and innovative teaching ideas/products. 

Aren't we all?! 

Thanks for taking the time to read these comments. This linky has come at a really great time, because on Tuesday and Wednesday, everything in my store will be 20% off, in honor of it being Teacher Appreciation Week! And, to sweeten the deal, Teachers Pay Teachers is giving an extra 10%! Just enter this code at check out to save some more money: TAD13.

Click on the image below to check out my store!

And, now that you know that thoughtful feedback makes me smile, AND motivates me to create more, feel free to leave some! LOL!

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!

Thank you so very much for everything you do!

Character Education

I love teaching character education. Learning how to be a good citizen, and to be responsible, and trustworthy, is just as important as learning how to read and write. Every month, I nominate a student in my class to be the Kid of Character winner. He or she is honored with a certificate at a monthly assembly.

The character trait for May is citizenship and this is the last month for me to pick a winner for this school year. The other day, I looked at all my students who haven't won a certificate this year and decided that I cannot possibly choose just one of them to win. They are ALL great citizens! The good news is, each month, my students nominate someone who they think best exemplifies that character trait, and the three children with the most votes, get their name written on the board, under the person who I chose. Although they don't get honored at the assembly, they are still honored and recognized in the classroom by their peers and by me.

Well, this month, I decided that I am NOT choosing the student who will be honored at the assembly. I just can't make that decision! I told my students that they are all going to fill out a ballot and nominate someone who THEY think should be the BIG winner. Not only will they tell me who should win, but they'll also tell me why they should win. Then, we'll count the ballots and the person with the most votes will be the BIG winner. In the event of a tie, we will put all the ballots in a hat and choose one.

This is the nomination ballot...

This is my ticket out of making a very tough decision! I am offering it to you just in case you want to do the same thing in your classroom. As a matter of fact, I made one for every character trait in my Character Trait Posters and Monthly Writing Activities pack. This way, next year, I don't have to make these tough decisions if I don't want to.

You can read my blog post on character education here. If you already purchased my pack, you can download it again and get all the nomination ballots. If not, you can still get the citizenship ballot by clicking here and clicking on download preview.

Mother's Day Book

My students just completed the cutest Mother's Day Book! It was created by Lidia, from Kinder Alphabet.

I saw it and immediately fell in love with it! I love how each writing page comes with it's own graphic organizer. My students are used to planning before they write, so I knew this book was right up my alley. I also seized this opportunity to teach my first graders how to use commas correctly, because each page in the book has them writing four things about their mom. 

Here's the pretty cover...

Some of the graphic organizers...

And some of the writing pages...

I can't begin to tell you how much my students enjoyed making these books. And, I'm positive their parents will LOVE reading them. What a great keepsake!

If you need a really cute book for Mother's Day, I highly recommend this one for kindergartners and first graders.

Lidia is also a very talented clip art artist and created all the clip art in these books. 

Click the image below for a FREEBIE!

Click her button below to see her clip art store.

I LOVE her work!

Fun With Parts of Speech

This week, I introduced a new visual display in my classroom and it was a total hit!

This eye-catching display contains tons and tons of picture/word cards. 

The cards are all nouns, verbs, and adjectives. As a writing teacher, I am pretty familiar with all the words young writers love to write and I used all of those words and more. 

There are 270 nouns, 66 verbs, and 66 adjectives. Obviously, they don't all fit in my pocket chart, so I put the rest in labeled bins for my students to use.

This second grader wanted to spell the word library in her story today, 

so she grabbed the card and took it back to her seat during writer's workshop.

This kindergartner used the vacation card to help her write a 3 page story!

These cards not only helped my students spell the words properly, but they also helped them replace boring verbs with more exciting ones, and to add more adjectives into their writing. One child replaced ran with dashed and was very pleased with himself. 

In this pack, I also included 11 different worksheets about nouns, verbs, and adjectives so you can use the cards at stations during the year. You can put out just noun, verb, or adjective cards for the children to work with, or, you can put out a mix of all three and have the children sort them. Then, they can use one of the recording sheets so you can check for mastery. Since there are so many different cards, you can put out new ones all year long.

If you make two sets of the cards, students can also play memory. You can even hang the cards around the room and have the students write the room, finding each part of speech.

As you can see, there are many, many ways to use these cards. Not only do they serve many purposes, but, if I do say so myself, they make a stunning display, with all the brightly colored backgrounds and adorable images. 

My students really enjoyed using the cards and they are looking forward to going through all of them during the next several days. I told them that when they finish their station work or when they have any down time, they can look through the bins and practice writing the words on boards, so they can familiarize themselves with all the words. They are so excited to do that. We had indoor recess today, and some of my first graders took a bunch and played school with each other. It was adorable to watch them act just like me!

Please note that these cards have been updated!

If you are interested in setting up a display like mine, just click here to see this product in my store. I hope you love it as much as I do!

End of the Year Activities

I still have quite a few school days left, but I know that many of you are starting your final countdown. Last year, I put together some fun end of the year activities and it was one of my top sellers. Here is my post from last year. Recently, I updated the pack and I thought I'd share it with you today, in case you need some fun activities for the final weeks of school.

Here's what you'll find in this pack...

If you purchased this pack last year, please download it again so you can get the updates.

If not, please click here to see it in my store!

I'm linking this post to Mrs. Wheeler's linky!

Orange 'ya glad it's a Blog Hop?

I am so excited to be part of a Florida Bloggers blog hop!

I am the...

First, I have a fun product to show off today.

Break the Code is an exciting way for children to practice sentence writing, grammar, conventions, and answering questions properly. Students decode sentences and respond to them. They are all questions that need to be answered. Teaching children to include part of the question in their answer is always a challenge, and these fun sheets will give your students plenty of practice, all the while being as creative as they want. In addition to my Spring themed Break the Code, I also have an End of the Year version, and Fall and Winter versions. All versions come with an answer key.

Here is a completed Break the Code from my

 End of the Year pack.

For today's blog hop, I made an ocean themed Break the Code for you to enjoy.

Just click here to get your copy!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoy your gift!

If you do, please comment here or at my store. 

I love to read ALL comments!

Your next stop is Leslie, from First Grade Flip Flops. 

Just click on her button below to see what goodies she has for you!

If you'd like to start at the beginning of the hop, you can head over to Tamera's blog by clicking on the button below.