Thursday, July 18, 2013

  
 Free!  You will want to make sure you get your copy.  Zoo phoneme segmenting puzzle cards. These will help students learn the phonemic awareness skill of segmenting and blending phonemes using a hands-on approach.  For your copy, go to teacherspayteachers.com  Then type in Shelley Brown in the search and you will find it there as a free download.  Please enjoy.  I would also love your feedback.   If you like these, check out the ant food phoneme puzzle card set. These make a great literacy center.  They are also so cute and fun!  I look forward to hearing from you.  God Bless!
Please leave a comment! :)

Happy Teaching!

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

     Grrrrreatt!  These are great!!!!  With PBIS our school is going with a tiger, and/or jungle theme.  We are the Tigers too!  SO, I've been busy planning my classroom decor around our school colors and a tiger theme.  Check this out, I love how they turned out.  


This will be the notebook cover and the cover to my Professional Development folder and my students' Tiger Folders.  I love it!



 Nameplates for desks!  So cute!!


My Word wall topper, and I have started reorganizing my whole classroom so that I can have an interactive word wall in my classroom this year.  The last two years I have had one in the hallway and that just didn't work out as well as I would have hoped.  So this year, I am fixing that!  It is hard to see, but the tiger is trimmed in purple paw prints.  I love it!  It is also available at my TpT store for only $1.50.  God bless and happy teaching!

Sincerely,

Shelley Brown 

Monday, July 15, 2013

Phoneme Segmenting Puzzles


     They are here!!!  Finally they have been added to my Tpt store.  If you do not have these in your classroom, you will want them.  I love my set and my Kindergartners do too!  The printables come in both black and white, and a color version.  I know for me, ink is expensive and sometimes I would rather just color it myself than spend the extra money for colored ink.  The puzzles come in cards with dotted lines to show you where to cut.  You just print them out on card stock, color if needed, or use the color version.  Then cut out on the lines and laminate.  Students will then use the puzzles to segment the sounds in the word puzzles.  Each puzzle has the same amount of pieces as sounds.  For example, the apple puzzle has three pieces, one for each sound in the word.  Students will say /a//p//l/, and then blend the word back together as they touch each piece of the puzzle, saying each sound, and then say apple, and count the sounds saying 3.  I love these.  These really help the student who struggles to hear the different sounds in the words and gives them a little structure, or a starting point.  If they understand that each puzzle has the same number of sounds, then they already know that apple has 3 sounds, and then can focus on identifying the three sounds they hear.  They can also begin with the puzzle with only two sounds, and gradually move up as they get better with the skill.  Also, there is an assessment sheet called, "How Many Sounds, " attached.  I love this to quickly assess student progress with the skill, or to quickly see if they can transfer their new knowledge of the skill without the cards (the structure) and allows for them to quickly mentally practice what they were doing before with the puzzles.  This page can also be laminated or reproduced to also use as an extended activity or another center. Easily differentiated for students who are at different learning levels. I would recommend that you sandwich sized baggies to keep each separate puzzle in so students do not get them mixed up.  I just teach my students how to use them, and put them away before they get out a different one, and so far that has worked well.   I love mine and hope you love yours too!  Also, aren't they cute?  I would love to hear some feedback!!  I am making other themes, and they will be available soon.  God bless and happy teaching!!

Sincerely,


Shelley

Sunday, July 14, 2013




         Finally, some of my summer projects are ready.  I've opened a TPT store and I am very excited.  Here is one of the games, and there is actually many ways to use it.  Suggestions on how to play the game and how to easily differentiate to meet the needs of all of your students using the game is all ready and comes with the download.  The game includes numbers 1-10 and then 11-20.  You can make up enough for every student to have a game board, or play partners, or for small groups.  This makes an awesome workstation activity or to do for morning work as they are waiting for the bell.  Just download and copy on card stock, and then laminate for durability.  Good luck and happy teaching!  I have a lot more ant themed activities coming.  I will be using the ant themed activities at the beginning of the school year to teach common core objectives and all the activities will go along with an ant farm. With the ant themed activities and games I have made up, I will be using the ant them to teach with literature that is fiction, informational text, and poetry. I have made up printables for reader's theatre, and shared reading.  I have games to practice letter recognition, lots of stuff.  Also, a must have are the phonemic segmenting cards. A must for every classroom! All of this will be up and ready very soon, so be sure to check back in for more ideas.  I also have a free down load for some printable worksheets that  go with the ant theme to look for words that begin with an a like in ant, or have n in the middle, or to find words that have a t at the end.  Also, located at my Tpt store, and that is a freebie!  Actually, I will have several freebies!  So be sure not to miss out!

Happy teaching!


Shelley



 

Wednesday, July 10, 2013


      Summer Time Excitement


      I trust you are having an awesome summer.  I hope so anyway!  This has been a very important summer for my family.  Our youngest graduated from high school in May and is leaving to go away to college very soon.  With her being our youngest it makes it so much harder and even though you raise them to be independent and go after their dreams, we are going to miss her, and are not looking forward to an empty house without our kiddos.  Life is about change though, right?  We just have to embrace it.  I've been busy with some summer tutoring, lots of family have been down to visit this summer and we have thoroughly enjoyed that.  I've actually spent quite a bit of time in my classroom this summer. I just keep finding a need to go back, maybe you do that too?  I've been working to get all of my books grouped and arranged so that my Kindergartners will have easy access. I want to arrange them in a way that makes them easily available and yet also addresses the interests and needs of my students. Right now I am thinking all the Arthur books are together, all the bug nonfiction are together, all the dinosaurs, etc.  Also I want them to be grouped so that I can easily teach using different genres, and easily pull a book to focus on meeting the goal of 50% of the read-alouds being fiction and 50% of the read-alouds being informational text.  I received some new books at the end of last year, and I wanted time to read them and start developing text specific questions and activities to go with them.  It's important that questions are not all of a generic nature, but specific to the text and really allow for discussion, allowing students to really think about the story, what they have read, vocabulary, and meaning.
    This summer I have also spent time developing activities to help my students master the common core standards. I am sure you have too.   I am excited about what I've come up with and look forward to sharing it with you very soon.  I am excited, mostly because there are so many different ways to use it to meet the specific needs of students.  That is what I love about creating my own stuff.  The store bought materials can be great, but when I make it myself it is so much more flexible and allows for easy differentiating.  
     Enjoy your summer and remember to take time to take care of you!!  August will be here before we know it.  I plan to go back into the classroom on July 23rd, to get my room ready.  Check back to see what I am planning for classroom design this year.  I am hoping it turns out great!  I would also love to see what you are doing in your classroom.  In the mean time, maybe I'll catch you on the river!!



Happy teaching!