The Primary Pack Appreciates...YOU!

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! I'm so excited to be teaming up with the girls from The Primary Pack to bring you this fabulous Giveaway! We really want you to know how much we appreciate you and how amazing we think you are. Teachers are the most dedicated, hard-working people around, and we want to celebrate you! So we are each giving away a gift card to one of our favorite places to shop. But we didn't stop there! We are also giving away one big GRAND PRIZE on The Primary Pack blog!

Here on my blog, I am giving away one 25.00 gift card to my favorite teacher store of all time--Lakeshore! Lakeshore has actual stores, but does tons of online business too.  You can get everything you need for back-to-school in one place!

Enter below in the Rafflecopter to win! The giveaway will run through Sunday, May 10th.

a Rafflecopter giveaway 

And now, for the GRAND PRIZE!

Over at The Primary Pack, we are giving way a 250.00 gift card to Tieks! That's right, Tieks! The most COLORFUL, comfortable, Italian leather shoes around! We know how much money you have undoubtedly put into your classroom this year for resources and supplies--so this giveaway is all about a splurge just for you! For 250.00, you can even get a fancy pair! To enter, click HERE or click on the image below!

And don't forget to visit each of our blogs for chances to win even more great prizes!

An InLinkz Link-up

Pinterest Pick 3~ May!

I am so excited to be linking up some of my super sweet bloggy friends!  I wanted to participate last month, but seriously time totally slipped away and then the night before we went live my little lady got the DREADED tummy bug!  Luckily the HUBS totally took over and we seemed to miss a direct hit.  Now we are healthy again (no jinx please) and I am ready to share some ideas for your classroom to use in May!

Pick A Polygon

On Monday, I will be teaching my firsties about polygons.  They have been loving the geometry unit that we have been working through.  However, I know from experience polygons are tricky - especially when they have to explain why it is or is not a polygon.  

After using this anchor chart to introduce the rules and some additional shape names.

I will be playing the "Pick A Polygon" game!

Onomatopoeia

We are also in the midst of teaching poetry.  It was supposed to be completed during the month of April, but between snow days and vacation, we are still plugging along.  

I found this video to intro onomatopoeia to kids!

Later, I will be having kids decorate their own papers with sound words!

End of Year Student Gifts!

I love to make end of year goodies for my firsties!  And these seem so cute - personalized too!

Thanks so much for checking out these ideas.  Want to try them out?  Please come back and tell me how they worked out!  Also, the link up will be open all month, so if you are a blogger and would like to join in - just write your own post and link it up!

An InLinkz Link-up

Stop, Swap, and Roll

Jungle Learners

I am so excited to be teaming up with Jungle Learners for the monthly Stop, Swap, and Roll product swap!  

This month I was teamed up with Mrs. Strout from Hanging Out with Mrs Strout!

Hanging Out With Mrs. Strout

It was a hard choice to make, but I fell in love with this Word Detective Pack working on the 3 sounds of /ed/.

Word Detective:  The 3 Sounds of /ed/

I used the activities in my classroom during the week before break and plan to use a few more when we get back (we have been off all this week!).  

First I printed and colored the poster.  This poster will set the stage for all of the activities to come.  I did this at home and of course, my little lady needed to get in on the picture action.  

The first activity we worked on was the fluency strips.  Students in one of my reading groups got a set of strips each and we practiced them during a group time.  I sent them off to practice on their own and they "performed" them for me the following day.  

Next, we worked on unscrambling sentences.  We complete sentence scrambles often, so this wasn't too challenging for the kids, but they were still having to work hard to figure out which sound of /ed/ was at the end of the word!

Following that, we worked on spelling the words.  We have completed activities asking kids to add the ending -ed, so this wasn't brand new.  However, when and where to add the bonus letter is still SUPER tricky for them.  

On that note we completed two word sorts...

One where students needed to sort the words by ending sound (/d/, /t/, or /ed/.

The second where students needed to sort the words by whether or not they had a bonus consonant in the middle.

Finally, I added in more fun with some BINGO!  Everyone loves some BINGO right??

Can you believe that all of this is stuffed into one complete pack?  I know!  It was amazing to use in my classroom and I know that you would love it too!

Interested in hearing about how Mrs. Strout used my phonics game pack in her room?  Head on over to her blog and read all about it!

In celebration of our super fun swap Mrs. Strout and I are placing our featured products on sale (20% off) for the WHOLE weekend!!

Find her pack HERE.

My game pack can be found HERE. 

I also decided to put my MEGA game bundle for firsties on sale too!  This pack includes the nk and ng games and whole lot more!!  Find it HERE!

Want to try your luck?  Mrs. Strout has been sweet enough to let me give away one of her -ed packs!  Enter below!  Winner will be chosen on 4/28 (probably in the evening) and the product will be emailed to you!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Want to see some more product swap reviews?  

Scavenger Hunt Fun

Keri from Enchanted Kinder Garden is celebrating her 3rd Blogiversary! We're having a scavenger hunt on our blogs in celebration.

Ready to play? Here's how this works:

All you have to do is be a super detective, find the letters, and unscramble the words. Enter the words in the rafflecopter below to enter for extra entries. You may also enter by following our pages. There will be THREE winners. Up for grabs is a $50 TPT gift certificate, a $25 TPT gift certificate, and a $10 TPT gift certificate. We've all got hidden clues (letters) hiding on our blogs. You can find the clues over at Enchanted Kinder Garden.  After you've found the first set of clues, unscramble them and enter it into the rafflecopter below. Then, start on the next set of clues for your next chance to win! There are three hunts that you can find. The scavenger hunt gives you MORE entries for more chances to win! HAPPY HUNTING!

You're looking for letters like this:

Get started at Enchanted Kinder Garden 

a Rafflecopter giveaway 

What is the BIG seller news??? Educents Storefronts are HERE!!!

Have you been seeing teasers like this one?

Or this one?

Or even this one?

Want to know what it's all about?  I am so excited to be working with a new storefront - EDUCENTS!

Many of you may know Educents as a deal based website.  I used to explain it to people like Groupon for teachers/homeschoolers/parents.  Well now they have expended to selling downloadable products too!  I was lucky enough to get in to be one of their first 250 storefronts and the kick off is TODAY!!!

Check out my storefront HERE!  Please...Pretty please follow me!  And make sure you check out my freebie (HERE).  This is a Forever Freebie and best of all - and Educents only freebie.  You will not find it anywhere else!

I have made an amazing guided reading lesson planner (great for K-2) and it can be yours free!  Find it here!

Also, to continue to tempt you to visit my new store, I have teamed up with Educents to offer you a chance to win.  Enter below...

Educents Marketplace $50 in Edubucks Giveaway #2 - First Grade Stores

Then hop on over to some more grade 1 Educents sellers and follow them too and grab those freebies!!

An InLinkz Link-up

A Spring in Our Step!

I am SO excited about collaborating with some truly AMAZING bloggers again to start getting excited about the SPRING!  I'm not sure where you live, but where I live we have set snowfall records with over 110 inches of snow!  Temps have yet to go much above 40 and usually by now we are seeing 50s and 60s.  If ever there was a time to get excited about spring, it's now!

Just a few weeks ago, I announced that I was expecting my second child in August!  We were over the moon about the news of course, but just this week we found out the baby is a boy!  Our family will be complete!  Addison is truly excited to become a big sister to baby TJ!

Easter is coming and while I know that not all of you celebrate, I think some of these cutesy crafts we made will make you think of spring!

Bunny Crossing Sign

Spring Centerpiece

Clothespin Butterfly Treats

Salt Dough Eggs

As spring begins, I always start to fast forward to the summer, but this spring I am trying to stop and smell the flowers for bit too! Of course there are things that I wish I had taught or handled differently, but I am working on thinking positively as to what has gone well.  And one thing that has been a huge blessing to me as a teacher is TPT.  Yes, as a seller I have benefited, but I am referring more to how I have benefitted as a teacher.  Whenever I have begun a new unit there are resources to supplement the materials I have.  Just today as I plan to begin a unit on poetry I have NEVER taught before I spent time on Pinterest and TPT finding some AMAZING resources that will in the end save me time and money!  And best of all my first graders will have the benefit of the learning!

Here is spring in Eastern Massachusetts!  

See I wasn't kidding about all of the snow!  

Certainly not looking so springy....

Teaching your kiddos about saving the Earth?  Here is a response pack for use after reading any biography about Rachel Carson - the author of Silent Spring and the woman to get the "save the Earth" ball rolling.  She work tirelessly in the 60's to help control pesticides.  

Rachel Carson Reader Response Pack

Looking to practice some math facts with a quick match up activity!

Spring Math Fact Match-Up

a Rafflecopter giveaway

An InLinkz Link-up