Book Talk Tuesday AND Two for Tuesday Linky Parties

Happy Tuesday everyone!!  Is it just me, or is the summer FLYING by??  Why can't it slow down so we can enjoy it even more?!?!

So here's what I'm doing today.  TWO different linky parties.  Is that two too many, do you think??  Let's see how this works out!!  First, I want to start with Book Talk Tuesday hosted by Mrs. Jump's Class.  I just LOVE this linky, since so very many awesomely wonderful books are being shared.  Since I missed it last week, I'm going to share two books from my classroom library today.

First, this is a book that I like to use during the beginning of the year when my kinders are learning all about what it means to be a student in our school.  It is one you may have heard of before, and may even have in your classroom.  Like usual, I got mine from Scholastic.  If you want one of your own, click on the image below to take you over to Amazon to get a copy for yourself.

This is a cutesy little story with plenty of rhyming, as well as opportunities to stop and talk about places in the school.  I enjoy the style that this story is written in.  Almost a comic book/graphic novel type style with panels of action and text.  The story starts off with students in a classroom working together to make a gingerbread man.

While we're reading, we talk about how important it is to work together to complete a task.  I also try to get them to predict the rhyming words when they are encountered.  It's a neat way to get them thinking ahead in the text to try to predict the ending of the sentence as well as the rhyming word.  I also make sure to point out the various text features as we encounter them.  On this page alone we talk about different color and size texts (like the very first sentence in red), labels (on the ingredients), and captions/speech bubbles (like the little girl with red hair).

The first few pages go through the steps needed to make a gingerbread man, and we talk about why it is important to follow the steps when you're trying to make something.  I also have them look at the pages and see if they can find any text features.

The class finished making and baking their gingerbread man and left him out to cool while they all went out to recess.  Apparently no one told the gingerbread man they were leaving, because he gets so upset at being alone he peels himself off the tray and head out in the school to find his new friends.  I take this time to talk to them about what they should do if they were ever to get lost/separated from their group (it's a good prelude to field trip safety).  At the end of the page you notice the gingerbread man gets stuck to a volleyball and goes rolling off down the hall.  Here my littles predict what part of the school he is going to visit. Some say the playground, some say the gym.

Our adventurous cookie winds up in the gym and meets the gym teacher.  The ever-observant teacher notices the cookie has hurt his toe.  I ask my kinders where in the school they would go if they got hurt and then ask them where they think the cookie is going next.

He goes to see the school nurse, of course!  That lady fixes him up with some glue and a band aid.  We compare how she fixed him to how she might help us if we got hurt or sick.  My babies are quick to point out that our Nurse Day would NOT glue their toes back on if they fell off (how cute are they??)

This page has a really awesome text feature of a blue print, which we talk about how it's like a map of the school.  Another important topic I point out on this page is that the nurse told the gingerbread man to slide down the railing of the stairs since that will be the fastest way.  At our school, we have stairs inside and out and I like to take this time to talk about how to be safe on the stairs and if sliding down the railing is a good choice or not.

Our cookie visits the art room....

And the principal's office, where he finds out his class has been missing him!  They have been looking all over the school for him, and even made 'MISSING' signs to hang up around the building.

With the help of the principal, our adventurous cookie makes it back to his classroom.  We talk about how our principals are people we can go to when we're scared or need help with a problem.

His class is so very excited  to have him back and they tell him they have made him a gingerbread desk, chair, and house to make sure he has everything he needs to be happy with them.  I talk to them about what things I have in the room to make sure they are able to be happy and able to learn.

The second book is one that I found at a little book store near me called 'Atlantic Book Sellers'.  This is a Puffin Book, and is also a lift-the-flap story.

This book, Teachers Are for Reading Stories, is another one I read during the beginning of the year.  I ask my kinders to tell me what they think teacher's are for.  There are ALWAYS some truly interesting responses to what it is they think we do all day, and at home!

The books lists and illustrates different things teachers do.  On almost every page is a flap to lift that has something else teachers do underneath.  As we read through the story we make sure to make notice of any ideas in the book that were shared by students before we read it.  They love to hear their ideas are in the book.  There are also things the teachers in the book do that I do not do, like serve snacks and juice.  We talk about which ones happen in our classroom.

What I love the most about this book is the very ending.  It talks about how teachers are for reading stories, which I make sure to mention how true that is.  I tend to go on a bit about how much I love books and why...  My absolute favorite part of this book is what story the teacher is reading.  Can you read the title??  Big Red Dragon.  How PERFECT is that??!!

Lift the flap and it shows the big red dragon.  I just love that part!!  I take this time to point out how the students are sitting when they're listening to the story and how that shows they are being respectful.

Since you've read this far through my extra long make-up post, I wanted to make sure you got a FREEBIE for your efforts!!  (and my post isn't quite done yet...)  I know that the book above can be tricky to find.  I couldn't find it on Amazon, but I did not check anywhere else.  I wanted to create a freebie that could be used with this book or one similar to it.  It is a simple response sheet where littles can write and illustrate about what they think a teacher is for.

DON'T FORGET to go back to Mrs. Jump's Class to follow all of the other links from the rest of the Book Talk Tuesday bloggers!!

For the final part of my post today, I'll be linking up with The Teaching Tribune for their Two for Tuesday linky party.

This linky is all about sharing two products at 50% off all day on Tuesdays.  To kick off my participation in this linky, I chose activities that I plan on using in the first few weeks of school this year.  For TODAY ONLY, I am listing them at half-off their regular price.

First up, one of my newest creations.  This is an ABC packet of activities that I am going to use for homework packets in this upcoming year.  I will have my littles use these pages to create an ABC binder that they can keep in their book boxes and refer to during their Read to Self or Read to Someone Else time.

This packet is 50% off for TODAY ONLY, which makes the packet an amazing $1.75 today!!  Even more awesome, the additional licenses are only $0.88!!!  You can get a copy for your entire team for LESS THAN $5!!  That's an amazing deal!!

Second, I have one of my very newest creations.  It is a great Write the Room activity to use during the beginning of the year when students are learning how to work independently during Daily 5 (language arts) and Daily 4 (math) rotations.

For today only, this awesome Write the Room product is on sale for $1.50, which makes the additional license only 0.75!!!  This could be a GREAT beginning of the year gift for your team mates!!

Don't forget to link back to The Teaching Tribune to see what other products are being offered at 50% OFF today ONLY!!

The Final Countdown

Happy Monday!!  Today starts our countdown to the last day of school!!  We have just ten more days of school this year!  If you're like me and live anywhere in the Northeastern part of the United States, you will have a few snow days to make up.  For us, it was a whole extra week tacked on to the end of the year, besides the various days during the year we lost (professional development days or Spring Break time).  I am going to try my hardest to keep my littles enthusiastic and engaged for these last two weeks (not to mention, myself!!)  In order to help with that, I am going to use an AWESOME freebie that my friend Jennie D. over at J.D's Rockin' Readers came up with.  It's called The Final Countdown (anybody else flashback to the Europe song too??) and you can grab it for FREE at her TPT store! {click on the title above or the picture below to go grab a copy for yourself}

I can't wait to start using this little gem with my kinders!!  Jennie, the lucky duck, only has 5 days of school left.  However, she made this packet for ten days so it's PERFECT for me to use these last two weeks of school.  Here's how she does it (included in the packet):

I can't wait to try out all of her awesome suggestions, each one is a perfect opportunity to add a little fun to our end of the year activities!  I'm a really big fan of the 'Take a Book Outside to Read' option, and when that one gets chosen I'm going to let my kinders take out their Daily 5 Book Boxes and practice Read to Self or Read to Someone.  They are going to LOVE to do that outside!!

Tomorrow is our school-wide, all day long Green School Celebration (check my post Wednesday to here all about how we are a Maryland Green School AND a Maryland Bay-Wise School!!) so I think I may have to 'facilimanipulate' their choice tomorrow so I can make sure it's something we can fit into our day.  Jennie also included a few blank cards in this freebie that you can use to fill in your own idea.  I think I'm going to swap out her 'Chew Gum in Class' card for one I make myself.  Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE to be able to use this one in my room.  But honestly, I'd be worried my kinders would swallow the gum (even if I reminded them not to).  So I think I'm going to swap that one out for a 'Eat a Freezie-Pop Outside' card.  Whatever day this card is picked, we'll eat a freezie-pop outside after playing at recess to help us cool down.  I will post about our special countdown activity each day for the last two weeks of school!!

Don't forget that tomorrow, and every Tuesday after that, starts the LINKY party for Book Talk Tuesday hosted by Mrs. Deanna Jump!  Check back with me to learn about how I'm going to tackle Book Talk Tuesdays!!  I hope to give you a FREEBIE or two as well on some of these Tuesdays.

Hope you have a great week, and I hope you are starting your end of year countdown!! If your year is already over, I'm super jealous so happy for you!!  ;-)

Book Talk Tuesday

I am SO EXCITED I just had to share my news with you!!  If you are even just a tiny little bit familiar with the Early Education bloggers and TPT-sellers, then you have heard of the amazing Mrs. Deanna Jump.  Her blog, Mrs. Jump's Class, is one of the very first blogs I ever read and followed.  She also inspired me to get involved with creating activities for TPT after I saw her on The Steve Harvey Show one day. 

I checked her blog today, and found out that she is hosting a linky party called 'Book Talk Tuesdays' where she has invited bloggers to link up and talk about a different book every Tuesday.  It can be any book from any genre that we choose, and in the comments section there are already many teachers who have promised to link up.  I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before, but I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE books.  Some may even say I have an obsession or an addiction, and I would have to agree with them.  I just can't seem to help myself from adding to my collection every year!!  So this linky party is PERFECT for me!!  I cannot wait to get started!  I've already been thinking about which books I want to talk about each Tuesday.  This is an awesome opportunity to learn about book choices, as well as getting me to go through my vast collection.  I hope you can either join up to share about your favorite books, or follow along each Tuesday as we discuss different books!!

Make sure to follow the link back to her blog (click on the picture above) and learn all about her 'Book Talk Tuesdays' and the other amazing bloggers and educators that are linking up for this literature extravaganza!! 

Substitute Time

It's Tuesday, and it's REALLY cold where I am this morning!  Thought for sure we would have a delay, but this is the second day in a row we've shown up on time for school!  Hopefully my littles all wear their winter jackets!

Tomorrow I have a doctor's appointment, so I will have a substitute in my room.  Whenever I have a sub I like to leave some sort of writing prompt that the students can use to respond to a story as well as practice sounding out their responses.  For tomorrow I'm having my sub read one of Karma Wilson's books, Bear Snores On.  I LOVE the simple text and the awesome onomatopoeia that she uses.  Like most of my classroom books, I got my copy from Scholastic.  You probably already have this book, but just in case you don't here's the link to Amazon.

In my room we have been working really hard on learning the 5 Main Parts of a sentence, as stated through the 'Sentence FUNdamentals' program my district is using.  We have been working on making sure our sentences start with a capital, end with punctuation, have a noun and a verb, and make sense.  After listening to this story they are going to write about what they would do to try and wake up Bear.  They have to remember to have their sentence start with a capital letter, have punctuation at the end, contain a noun and a verb, and it must make sense.  They are going to work on this with the sub tomorrow, and we will discuss their writing when I come back on Thursday (I'll share some pics of my faves).  In case you ever need a super-quick and easy activity for a substitute, you can grab the simple writing prompt I made for my sub to use.

I hope this little freebie can come in handy for you!  Have a Terrific Tuesday!!

First Five-Day Week!

Happy Monday fellow bloggers and blog hoppers!  Today is the first day in two weeks that we have reported to school on time!!  Crazy weather we're having in my neck of the woods!  The forecast isn't calling for any more snow this week, so there is a chance that we will have our first five-day week since 2014 started!  I won't know how to act!!

In my district, we have started working with a program called 'Sentence FUNdamentals', where students learn about the 5 main parts of a sentence.  They are learning that all sentences must start with a capital letter, end with punctuation, contain a verb and a noun, and they have to make sense.  We have been working hard on learning about nouns and verbs.  The littles in my room seem to be understanding what a verb is more so than what a noun is.  We're doing a review today on verbs, and discussing how they are actions words, or words that we can DO.  We have been reading stories and identifying the verbs in them, and then showing those verbs using our bodies.  We have been reading stories all about the weather, and today we are reading the story Little Snowflake's BIG Adventure by Steve Metzger.  I got mine through Scholastic, but you can follow the link to Amazon.

We will be identifying the verbs in this story as we read it, and acting out the ones we can.  After reading, the students are going to work on a writing prompt where they have to write about an adventure they would take with the snowflake and they have to use a verb in their sentences.  Here's the writing prompt we're going to use, if you can use it please feel free to grab it!

I hope you all have a great week, and I'm gonna try to get used to being here for 5 whole days!!

Crayon Box That Talked

Happy Tuesday!!  One of my littles told me that Tuesdays are 'Taco Tuesdays', so make sure to enjoy a taco tonight!!  :-)


During the first marking period at our school we are learning all about rules, routines, feelings, and how to be a good friend.  One of my favorite books to read during this unit is The Crayon Box That Talked by Shane Derolf and Michael Letzig.  Besides talking about how to be a good friend, we use this book to address the Common Core Standard K.RL.3 - With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story.

I got this book through Scholastic, but if you don't have one click on the image to link up to Amazon to get your own!!


I whipped up a quick response sheet for my littles to draw the two main characters of this story, the crayons and the little girl.  They are also going to attempt to write the labels for the characters.  Here's the freebie if you'd like to try this activity with your class!

Hope that you have a wonderful day!!!  :-)