Words Where? and a Wonderful Wednesday

I'm in such a good mood today for many reasons! First off, the sun is shining!!! And to think, we had snow yesterday morning; crazy Oregon weather!

Things are moving so fast for me! 200 + followers...wow. Thank you all so much! Love my bloggy buddies!
I also have sold a few of my Sentence Sensation packets. You don't know how thrilled I am!!!  I'd love feedback on my store/products please!

And yesterday I was contacted by a company, wanted to pay  me to put a small one line link ad in my blog! If you would have told me that someone would pay me for advertising when I started my blog, I would have laughed. I'm still in amazement over how my little blog has grown and in May will be my 1 year blogiversary!

Ok, so onto some teachery stuff! Speaking of word walls the other day, I remembered a word 'wall' that the kiddos absolutely loved. It was on the ceiling! Each word was from the 'no excuse' list and each word was printed on a star. The teacher tacked them to the ceiling (or you could tape).

Then it became a game. The class was divided into two groups. One person in one group had a flashlight and went against another person from the other group who also had a flashlight. The teacher turns off the lights and picks a word from the ceiling. The first kiddo to put their light on the word wins. You could give points or just have it for fun. Then they pass their flashlight on to the next person. The kids loved it and had fun learning.

You could do this for sight words, no excuse words, or vocabulary you are learning about in a unit. So many possibilities! Or if you have a few extra minutes in a day, great way to sneak in extra learning!

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Fun Letter Poster Idea

One of the things I love most about being a sub is seeing so many ideas in the classroom. I swear I'm always writing stuff down on papers or copying a worksheet or taking pictures so that I have this all down when I get my forever home someday :)

It's also one of the reasons my teacher friends like me (not the only reason, but one of the reasons lol) because they are always on the look out for new ideas and I see so many and in different districts too. That's part of the reason why I love having a blog so I can see others ideas and share ideas with all of you wonderful teachers too!

Last week I was in kinder for three days in two different classes, but since they were at the same school, they were working on the same stuff and I loved what I saw. (Remember the snarler kid? I'm in his class tomorrow *sigh*)

A lot of the kiddos were having trouble pronouncing and seperating the difference of the letter 'b' and the letter 'v'. So the teachers made these adorable and simple  posters (you could do them for any/all letters!)

Forgive my phone again, but it came out pretty well! So on the letter 'b' there is beach ball, banana, butterfly, bus, ballerina, binoculars, bicycle and balloons.  "V" has van, vase, violet, vacation, veternarion, veil, and violin.

 

I was going to save this for another post but decided it was too cute to wait and you could do it now for Thanksgiving, but the teacher also had a "words we use" spot.

This is obviously for Halloween and the words that the kids might frequently use for writing. Oh my goodness I am SO going to do this or something similar. I know I saw something like this in a blog the other day where the teacher put the words/pics at her writing station, but I love this on the wall so that all the kids can see and it adds color.

Hope you all enjoy these and get inspired by these. I know I do !

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Always thinking like a teacher

Even though I don't have my own classroom, I'm always thinking like a teacher. I'll be at the store and see someething and think, "Oh! That would make a great __________ for the class" or "that would be perfect for __________".  

I do sometimes get asked by teachers for ideas since I work  in several schools and 2 different school districts. My non-teacher friends always joke around how I'm 'such a teacher' or 'there goes the teacher' lol. I don't mind, I take it as a compliment.


So it's no surprise when I'm sitting at my dad's desk (most likely the last time ever, see retirement blog) and I ask him what he's taking home or what he's leaving and I spot his rolodex and I thought of a brilliant idea. I asked him if he was taking it and he said, "It's all yours!"

So my idea is this.....the Rolodex already has the alphabet in it for sorting names...and it has a lot of spots for cards, so why not make it a sight word/vocab wheel of fun? So for the  younger grades, put sight words...plus it'll be in alphabetical order, or better yet, have the kiddos put them in the slots to work on order. For the older kids, they can put vocabulary words on a card, maybe draw a picture on the back or something, and then tada! You have a wheel of vocab/sight words and you know the kids will have fun turning the wheel to find a word :)  This could probably even be used for word work (Daily 5!) 

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