Winners, Winners, Chicken Dinners and a Freebie!

Hi all!  Thank you so much for the comments on yesterday's post.  They were so much fun to read.  I cannot believe this crazy winter that we are having. 

Amber @ Kindergarten Rocks

Ashley

and

Amber

 

Congrats ladies!  You are my lucky winners!  Check your email to find your goodies! 

 

 

Please remember that the three winter packs will be on sale for 20% off until this Friday in my TPT store!

 

 

I was home again today but not for the cold or for snow, but instead with a sick little man.  It broke my heart all day seeing him so uncomfortable and unhappy.  I did, however, love every second of the snuggle time.  :)

 

When I finally was able to get him to take a nap, I really quick put together a little rhyming activity.  For some unknown reason, my little owls still struggle with rhyming identification.  We have worked and worked and worked on it, but it still gets them every time. 

 

 

I decided to use words, instead of pictures, for this activity.  My thought was that if the owls could see the words then they could start to wrap their heads around the "whole same end sounds" part of rhyming. 

 

Click on the picture to download this freebie! 

 

~Erin



Snow and Cold, Oh My! and a Giveaway

I don't know about all of you, but Wisconsin had yet another run of terrible cold days.  I'm talking -50 windchill here people!  I have used these extra two days to cuddle up with my favorite little man, enjoy some movies, and to get some things made for the classroom. 

My little owls are definitely plugging away at their learning at this point, but I don't want those valuable foundation skills to disappear as we enter the world of challenge.  When I made some of these new activities, I kept that in mind.  It also adds for some great differentiation since I do have owls still working on getting some of these skills mastered.

I have added the following products to my TPT store and have marked them 20% off until this Friday!  Click on the images to take a look at the product descriptions.

 

Now how about a GIVEAWAY!  To help keep us all warm during this crazy winter, I will pick three different winners tomorrow to win a copy of each of my new products.  Leave a comment telling if you had a snow day or cold day this week and how you are keeping your classroom thinking "warm" thoughts!  :)  Don't forget to leave your email address as well.

 

~Erin

 

Letter Identification and a Freebie!

It is funny how each year seems to go by quicker than the previous.  With that being said, I'm in shock with the fact that our first half of the year is just days from ending.  How did that happen?

As a class this year, we talked about how far along we wanted to be with some of the basic skills.  (i.e. rote counting, letter identification, sound identification)  The owls and myself agreed that an achievable goal was to have most of us at mastery level by January.  I knew that not all of my owls would reach this goal but I loved the fact that they all wanted that challenge.  This goal has really pushed my owls that entered with few letters, sounds, and counting knowledge to work hard each day.  I am proud to say that, as of now, there are only 3 owls that cannot identify all letters, both upper and lowercase.  These owls are within 5 letters to mastery at this time. 

Seeing as this was a whole class goal and I want all my owls to feel successful, I have set aside a couple extra activities for them during workstations.  These activities are easy to prep and have allowed my owls to work independently to practice just what they needed-letter identification.  Since I know these owls are still working on mastery, I check in with them frequently and ask what letters they have found. 

In this first activity, I took a bunch of extra cubes that I had from my math center and simply wrote letters on them.  I color coded the letters in groups of three to allow the owls to focus on three letters at a time.  I also kept the letters in order to let them say the alphabet when they got "stuck." 

(Don't worry, this owl and I had a discussion about that first set of cubes. :))

 

In this second activity, I printed out the alphabet cards and laminated.  The owls then just worked on matching the upper to the lowercase.

Go ahead and click on the picture to grab your very own set.  The set includes both upper and lowercase letters!  If you download the freebie, please leave a little love in the comment section.  :)

 

 

~Erin