Giveaway Winners!

Thank you to ALL who entered the giveaway for my recent product, 1-20 Number Match!

If you didn't win, you can still pick them up for only $3.50 at our Teachers Notebook Shop! 

Congratulations to the following 2 winners:

(I will be contacting you soon with your new 1-20 Number Match Pack!)

1-20 Number Match!

I recently released a new product called 1-20 Number Match!  I LOVE this product because it really meets so many of the Kindergarten Common Core Standards for math!!  And it's really FUN!!

Here is our printable in action...

The product can be used in two different ways:

Option #1 A simple, yet effective and fun cut and paste activity.  The printable works with number recognition, number word recognition, counting, tally marks and tracing.

Number tracing pages can be turned into a mini book for extra practice...

Option #2 Color the pages, laminate them, cut them out and add some magnets for some hand-on learning.  Use them over and over for extra practice.  Pick the numbers your students need extra practice.

This makes learning number words, tally marks and counting numbers that much more fun!

FREE Reading Bookmarks!

The school year is quickly coming to a close and this summer should be filled with lots and lots of READING!  We have some cute FREE bookmarks that the kids can color and hopefully help motivate them to read even more.  We laminated our bookmarks and we are ready for the Summer Reading Programs at our local library!

Click {HERE} to download!  I hope your kiddos enjoy these:)

Audrey was REALLY proud of her bookmarks:)  This 4 year old LOVES to color!!

Sight Word Make-a-Match!

I am absolutely THRILLED with my newest Sight Word products because Audrey LOVES them! It involves coloring, cutting and pasting.  How fun is that?  I used different fonts so that children can readily identify sight words in any context.

Pre-Primer Set
The following words are included:
a, and, away, big, blue, can, come, down, find, for, funny, go help, here, I, in, is, it, jump, little, look, make, me, my, not, one, play, red, run, said, see, the, three, to, two, up, we, where, yellow, and you.

Primer Set

The following words are included:

all, am, are, at, ate, be, black, brown, but, came, did, do, eat, four, get, good, have, he, into, like, must, new, no, now, on, our, out, please, pretty, ran, ride, saw, say, she, so, soon, that, there, they, this, too, under, want, was, well, went, what, white, who, will, with and yes.

1st Grade Set

The following words are included:

after, again, an, any, ask, as, by, could, every, fly, from, give, going, had, has, her, him, his, how, just, know, let, live, may, of, old, once, open, over, put, round, some, stop, take, thank, them, then, think, walk, were, and when.

The three packs have been bundled for a better savings {HERE}

Here is the paintable in action....

Choose the sight word sheet that you want to complete.  Color the sight words, which helps with spelling.

Cut out the sight words and match them to the correct sight word boxes...

Here is a different one that was completed..

Here is the 2nd option, which we LOVE!!  Laminate the sheets and attach magnets to the back of the large and small boxes.  This allows you to work with the set of sight words you are teaching or need to reinforce.

The different fonts make sure students can read the word in a given situation...

This would be an excellent idea for Daily 5, Literacy Centers, homework, or just some extra practice:)

Easy Art

I am so NOT artistic when it comes to drawing.  When I was teaching, I usually had to draw something on the whiteboard or the overhead projector, and I always dreaded it!  Oh boy, I thought....here comes the giggles!  So I told the kids, "You can't laugh at Mrs. Moffatt's drawings.  It is against the class rules."  But they seemed to always break those rules!!

Needless to say, I was nervous for poor Audrey!  Would she have to suffer in the hands of mother/teacher who couldn't draw?!  Poor thing!  However, I showed  told Audrey how to draw a portrait of herself and she did such a great job!  It made me realize that are it not all about the teachers skills, but rather about the opportunities to explore with new materials and TRY new things.

Here is Audrey's drawing, which we will soon be attaching a writing piece to...

She began by drawing a simple portrait of herself in pencil and then outlined it in a sharpie.

We used these beautiful oil pastels since in was a great opportunity to explore with new materials.  Crayons would work great too.

It was also a great opportunity to teach her about details.   She even added some natural highlights to her hair:)

Added some skin color...

Here is the end result!  I think these would look great hanging in a classroom or just a fun project at home!
It's just so colorful...I feel like it is a flashback to the 70's:)

If you ask me, it looks exactly like her:)

Tips for Growing Your Library!

When I was teaching, it was always a challenge to grow and maintain a great library of books.  Books are an educators BEST friend and we always want to get our hands on MORE.  I guess you can call it greed;)

Here are my 3 best tips...
#1-Local Library
Our local libraries have a program called "Friends of the Library."  As an educator and a mommy of two little readers, I LOVE the Friends of the Library program!  People donate their old books to the library and the library turns around and sell them to you and me....at a fraction of the retail price.  I usually pick up great easy readers for 25 cents!  I never pay more than 50 cents for my books!

A few library finds...

#2-Garage Sales
Summer is right around the corner and so are those garage sells!  Last summer I scored 80 Bearstein Bear books for $5!!  And to be totally honest, I don't think the little owner of these books read them more than 1-2 times!   I find that large neighborhood garage sales are the best.

#3 Tickets (Tip for Teachers)
When I transferred schools because I started job-sharing, I left my collection of books to the teacher at my old school.  Silly, I know!  I was tired, VERY pregnant and just wanted to start my summer vacation.  Well, needless to say, I needed a new library...and FAST!

Here is how I grew my library of 15 books into 300+ books in a matter of a couple of weeks.

I asked the kids if they had any library books at home that they no longer read.  IF IT WAS OKAY WITH THEIR PARENTS, they could donate the books to our class library.  In exchange, I would give them 2 tickets. We would use these tickets in a drawing for prizes at the end of the week.

WOW!

They came to school with bags of books!  The books ranged from Kindergarten to 8th grade, which was perfect for meeting the various reading levels in my classroom!

Can you imagine how many books you could collect in 5 years??  In retrospect, I probably should have sent home a letter to the parents first;)

Reading in a basket is normal...right?

Do you have any tips?

Maria over at Kinder-Craze also posted on used book sales today...so head on over to see her ideas, too!

Ready2Read Level 2 Unit 9

Unit 9 of our Ready2Read Level 2 is officially finished in The Moffatt Girls Household!  With only 1 unit left in Level 2, I am blown away with Audrey's reading progress!  Her fluency is outstanding, which has really helped her focus more on comprehension when reading chapter books.  The more fluent a child is with his/her decoding skills, the more they are able to focus on understanding the text at a deeper level.

If you are new to the Ready2Read program, you can read the information page for Level 1 {HERE}.

You can also see the information page for Level 2 {HERE}.

Level 2 Theme: Word Family Fair

Unit 9 Sight Words: pretty, so, ran, what, but

Unit 9 Word Families: -ose and -ight

Unit 9 continues to work with the long vowel, silent e combo with the -ose word family.  The free units for helping with this phonics rule can be seen in Unit 1.

Download Unit 9 {HERE}.

Color by Number Sight Words
I find this to be a great way to introduce our lessons...

Sight Word Song

(will be posted soon!  Forgot to take a picture!)  

Sight Word Circles
Begin by tracing the words inside the circles...


Color the sight word balloons accordingly...


Laminate and cut out...

Look at all of those sight word balloons!!  This is such a fantastic SIGHT!

Audrey continues to practice reading specific colored balloons to increase speed and fluency.  

Sight Word Decorating (Cherrio Mats)
We have used a lot of different things to decorate our sight words, but this week we kept it very simple!   Audrey used markers and cheerios...that's it:)

Color by Word Family
Another favorite coloring activity:)

Color by Sight Word
These pages are always FUN for Audrey!!  Learning sight word AND coloring??  Can it get much better?
We also have a complete packet available {HERE}.

Sentence Strip Review
Audrey loves to play the sentence strip review game (for the primer sight words and new word families).  She tries to find the word before I do!   This game really help students to focus on search for sight words and identifying them quickly!

Read it, Trace it, Paste it

Painting and tracing with watercolors is still a favorite...


Of course the traceable words need to match the boxed words...

Break the Sight Word Code
What will the sentence say?  Audrey always wonders what will be discovered with the Break the Sigh Word Code...

Mini-Mini Books
Cut out the mini-mini books and read them..

Practice again for fluency...

Word Family Word Sort
This weeks word sort with our two word families had Audrey building a farm!  The farm was complete with a barn, farmers, a sun, trees and animals.  But here was one word family farm that had more...

Play Dough Mats
Making letters out of play dough and then turning them into words is a great way for kids to get some hands-on interaction with making words.  Activities like this really make it stick!

Audrey used the big ice cream cone from the Word Family Fair wall to help write down the words for each word family...

Word Slides
I couldn't pass up these scrabble tiles for our word slides!  Audrey like them too and wanted to make her words look exactly like the scrabble letters:)  Seeing the word, saying the word and writing the word are great ways to reinforce a learning experience.

Roll-A-Word Family
This is another fun game that helps children practice word families!  This week we practiced using the word in a sentence before coloring the word. 

Sight Word Graphing
(Various levels are available on our Teachers Notebook Store)
We LOVE our sight word graphing!!  This week Audrey used markers instead of crayons...

Each word gets a separate color.  The words are in various fonts to help children be able to recognize words in different fonts.

Tic-Tac-Toe Word Families (-ose and -ight)
Here is our Tic-Tac-ight and -ose word families!  When you take a game and turn it into learning...you have a very happy little learner!  In fact, that big smile is there because she realized that she just won this game!  You can play this gave over and over!

Blends and Digraphs Sheet









Cut out the worksheet and turn it into a little mini dictionary book:)

Lemonade Blends and Digraphs
We continue to add so many new blends and digraphs to our lemonade cups!  With 20 lemonade blends/digraphs, Audrey's fluency continues to progress at a rapid pace.  Plus, it is just such a fun way to learn new words!

Word Family Fair Wall
These HUGE ice cream cones are the newest addition to our Word Family Fair wall!  

OVERVIEW

Will be posted tomorrow:)

Download Unit 9 {HERE}