Ouch-less Crafts for ow and ou

 Last week we made two, count 'em, one-two super cute craftivities!  Each helped students practice reading and writing ow or ou words.  Cow says, "Ow!" is part of the Working with Vowel Team OW pack.  Ouch Mouse is part of Working with Vowel Team OU and is available as a free download.

 I *LOVE* how the cows turned out!  They each have so much character.  I especially love the cow in the middle picture.  She looks like she is jumping over the moon with her ears up like that.  After the cow was cut, glued and dried the students chose 5 words with ow in them to write on the spots.  They like walking around reading the cow spots.

The students had a blast creating their Ouch Mouse!  I had the students make their own whiskers and tails.  The rest of the pieces are tracers.  (The download has all the tracers.)  Seriously, who doesn't love sticking Band-Aids all over an adorable mouse.  Most of the stories involved some amazing mouse trick in which the poor mouse failed miserably.

This mouse has lip gloss on because after the "mouse" ran to get in line she tripped and fell.  Lip gloss was the only thing that made her feel better.  Interesting...

The mouse on the left is screaming crying (to get more attention).  The creator of the mouse on the right very deviously asked, "Can we put the Band-Aids...anywhere?"  He thought a Band-Aid between the eyes was hilarious!  It is pretty funny.

I really love doing crafts with this class.  We try to do at least one on Fridays.  It's a great way to relax the brain a little after our assessments and to stir up our creative juices.  The kids are really helpful to each other sharing materials and ideas.  Now, don't get it twisted.  This does not happen too often with this class, but I love when it does.  I can really tell they are working at being kind to each other.

Again, download the free Ouch Mouse craftivity here or get the whole ou literacy center pack here.  Cow says, "Ow!" is available in my OW literacy center pack.

For the last two weeks we've been working through a new unit on the practice of science using bubbles!  Talk about good times!  I'm tweaking the unit and hope to post about it soon.

New Product: Working with Y as a Long Vowel

 I just uploaded my newest product: Working with Y as a Vowe {long e and long i}l.  It covers Common Core State Standards in Reading Foundational Skills.

The pack includes picture and word cards for 24 different words ending with y, 12 with the long e sound, 12 with the long i sound.  I use them for a "Y Sound Sort" activity during Daily 5.

 

 

Students always do the Phoneme Boxes Wednesday or Thursday to get ready for Friday's spelling test.  In the photo the student is using the Phoneme Boxes from my Working with Vowel Team OW pack.

 

Each of the 24 cards in separated into picture only and word only for use in two matching games.

As always, I included a Roll~Say~Keep game board and 48 word cards (24 y as long e, 24 y aslong i) because, who doesn't love Roll~Say~Keep?  I use this game a lot during RTI for the "other" students not being pulled for small group help.  The kids love it and get pretty competitive about reading the most words correctly.

 The pack has several assessment sheets to check for completion and practice.  The preview includes the Roll~Say~Keep game board and this cut-and-paste printable!

NEW Product - Working with Vowel Team OU and a FREEBIE Craft!

My newest TpT product is a big, old, pack of 8 literacy activities centered around vowel team ou and covering several Common Core State Standards in Reading Foundational Skills in grades K, 1 and 2.  The activities include:

• Counting syllables
• Word familes -ouse, -ouch, -our, -oud, -ound, -out
• Phoneme boxes (see this post for a photo of phoneme boxes in action)
• 2 Matching games
• Roll - Say -Keep game boards and word cards
• Let's Go to the House game board
• Word search
• Ouch Mouse craftivity and writing pages

The Ouch Mouse craft is also available for FREE!  It is a super cute mouse with "ou" words on bandages such all over her.  Students will also create a story of what happened to Ouch Mouse causing the need for so many bandages.

If you use Ouch Mouse in your class I would love to hear what interesting stories your students create for their mouse!

In honor of the newest product I'm also throwing a 20% off sale through Sunday!

FREE This Weekend ONLY

During this weekend only, download my Place Value Flash Card Sets and Activities for FREE! 

It includes all numerals, base ten representations and number words from 10-99 and 10 different recording sheets.  Depending on how you choose to use this card sets in your classroom they can cover any and all of the Common Core State Standards for Numbers and Operations in Base Ten for first grade (1.NBT).

Monday this pack will go to a the low, low price of $3.00.  But why not get it while it's free?

Five for Friday ~ April 12

What a great week!  I'm linking up with Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching for her weekly Five for Friday Linky Party.

1.  This was our first week using Math Tubs similar to the amazing Cara Carroll's.  I am loving this!  The students are having fun practicing their skills, working together (score!) and I can float so much more effectively!  We're working with place value using tens and ones.  I used activities from Erica Bohrer's 0-120 Charts and Activities and Sweet Treats Place Value (Freebie) from Rebecca Sutton (Anderton).  Students also got use the website www.reflexmath.com.

 2. A harpist and a violinist from our local symphony came to our school earlier in the week.  The kids really liked this performance.

 3. During Work on Words in Daily Five this week the students used activities from my Working with Vowel Team OW pack.  My favorite activity is the phoneme boxes.  After working with ow from 4 days, one of my darlings (finally) noticed "all the words have ow!"  Progress!

4. This week's basal story was an Eyewitness informational story about butterflies.  We also read/watched the audiobook of  A Butterfly is Patient by Dianna Hutts Aston, watched a National Geographic video clip of butterflies, made a "Can-Have-Are" tree map, colored butterflies, made a life cycle poster and a circle map of butterfly information.  The pink writing is what we already knew and the orange is some things we learned.  It was a fun week in reading and writing.

5.  Gorgeous lady bug also enjoying my Friday beverage.  Yea, Spring!

Five for Friday {April 5...or 7, whatever}

It sure was a busy week for only having 3 days with students!

 1.  We came back from Spring Break with a field trip to a local university's Eco-hike.  Great field trip!  We had beautiful weather and wonderful park rangers.  Before, during and after the trip I used several resources from K Almaraz's The COMPLETE Field Trip Companion.  It was so helpful!  I use several of her fun and creative products.

 2.  This week we read The Scarecrow's Hat by Ken Brown.  To understand how authors use text and illustrations to create characters I used a sheet from Common Core Reading: Comprehension Strategy Sheets for K-2 Fiction Standards by Jen Jones.  I cannot recommend this product enough.  I can barely wait for her to finish the Information Reading standards sheets. The Scarecrow's Hat is a good book for character development, cause and effect, sequence of events and making predictions.  It's one of my favorite books in our Text Talk program.

3.  I'm working on new literacy centers for the week after next.  Here's a sneak peak of the craft.

4. A guilty pleasure is back!  I love watching The Voice.  I got hooked the first season and just can't shake it.  Love the blind auditions, love the battle rounds, love the coaches.  Love, love, love!  Shakira is an awesome coaching edition.  Usher epitomizes the "too cool for school" attitude.  Blake Shelton is hilarious.  Oh, yes, Adam Levine is delicious.  My favorite audition so far this season is Midas Whale.

 5.  Earlier this week I had my post-observation conference with the assistant principal.  It went well and I am OK with the results.  Of course there is room for improvement.  My kids are respectful to me but not to each other.  Anyone have tips for promoting more harmonious student interactions?