Throw Back Thursday

Happy Thursday everyone!!  Tomorrow is the 4th of July already!!  Why oh why does the summer go by so much faster than the school year??  I hope that all of you fabulous educators have had some time to rest and relax!!

Today I'm going to link up with The Teaching Tribune for their Throwback Thursday, and put my own little spin on it.

The idea is to share a post from a while back, which I will do at the very end of this post.  First, I want to 'throwback' to last Monday when I shared with you how I am trying to get 100 products up in my TPT store.  I wanted to share with you my progress!!

Slowly but surely I am working towards reaching my goal!  One of the newest products I added to my store is a FREEBIE that I will be using during the beginning of the year.  It is a booklet that they can work on independently during Word Work time of our Daily 5 rotations.

This takes a wee bit of prep work to get it ready for your littles.  Print out the pages and then slice them in half.  Staple the half pages together, either in ABC order or mix them up.  There are handwriting lines on each page where my kinders can practice writing their letters.  If you don't want to handwriting lines on there, just slice them off before you assemble the booklets.

Learners need to identify the uppercase letter at the top of each page and then find the matching lowercase letter buddy.  I'm going to have my kinders use BINGO dotters to put a dot under the correct letter, but if you don't have dotters just have your littles color in the circle.  I am working on a whole set of these booklets that my kinders can work on during Word Work time of Daily 5 while I meet with other students.  So far I have uploaded the uppercase version of this book (the set up is the same but the lowercase letters are at the top and learners have to find the matching uppercase letter at the bottom), and the beginning sound version. By the end of today I will have uploaded the CVC version, and by the end of the week I'll have added the number books. {click on the image of the cover page to go to my TPT store and snap it up.}

The uppercase book is a steal for $2.00 and is up in my TPT store now.

This is a sample page from the uppercase book.  Learners look at the lowercase picture at the top and find the matching uppercase letter at the bottom.  They can practice writing the letters, or you can slice off the handwriting lines before you set the books up.

The beginning sound book is in my TPT store for $3.00.

For each vowel, I included a picture for both the long and short sounds of the vowel.  The letters are all lowercase, and in the elkonian-box-style font used in the other books.  This may help my kinders recognize the formation of the letters.

Each consonant has one picture.  The handwriting lines can be used to practice writing the letters, or can be used for students to sound out the word and write down the sounds they hear.  If you don't need to handwriting lines, just slice them off before you staple the booklets together.

As my kinders finish each booklet, they are going to keep it inside their Daily 5 book box so that they can practice reading it during Read to Self or Read to Someone Else time.

Now, I'd like to throwback to a post I wrote back in October.  We were practicing identifying character and setting in stories, and I came up with a quick activity they could complete to demonstrate their understanding of that standard.  To learn more, click the picture to take you back to that October post!!

Check back with me tomorrow for Free Font Friday!!

I'd like to leave you with an awesome linky party I happened across earlier this week hosted by Farley over at Oh Boy Fourth Grade, called 'Currently'.  She has provided a template to use for the month of July.  I've seen the 'Currently' templates on other blogs and always wondered about them, so I was super stoked when I stumbled across the blog where I could FINALLY join up with this!!  I'll make sure to include on at least once a week.  If you want to join up with this, click on Farley's blog link to go over and get a template for yourself!!

Be safe tomorrow, and don't forget that your four-legged babies tend to get scared when the fireworks go off.  Statistics say July 4th is the day when most dogs run away, so take care of your furbabies!!