Buzzing with Compound Word Free Resources and Literacy Center Activity

When I was making a new Compound Word Literacy Center activity I came across some cool websites with fun free activities and great compound word lists that you might like to checkout.

At pppst.com I found several free power point presentation links, links for student games and 6 great resources and links for teachers as well as free clip art. Just click on the picture above to check them out.

Another interactive game website can be found by clicking on the picture below. This has interactive games for all elementary grade levels.

If you are looking for a great website to find compound word lists then click HERE. I have a new free one which you can download by clicking on the picture below.

It is a perfect Literacy Center Activity to go with my New and Revised "Busy Bee" Unit designed to teach students about insects and honeybee through reading and writing activities. You can check out all the materials and get a free Picture/Fact card Activity by clicking on the picture below.

Spring is finally here and the bees will soon be busy buzzing around while you are busy with State Benchmark exams and the end of the year activities. Enjoy the free activity!  Hope you all had a wonderful Spring Break!. Thanks for all you do to make a difference for your students.

What science units do you teach?

Buzzing with Honeybee Resources and Activities

Although the calendar says that it is spring, many of you are looking at lots of snow on the ground and cold and windy weather. Let's hope that Spring is on it's way!! Of course with Spring comes beautiful flowers and busy bees. If you are looking for some great Read Aloud books about bees check out all these great books by clicking on the picture below.

Your students may want to read more about Honeybees at National Geographic for Kids.Just click on the picture below to learn interesting facts and photos about Honeybees.

Here is a great website called "Everything about" where you can access lots of information about Honeybees. Just click on the picture below.

Here is another great website where you can find lots of interesting facts and links to several websites. You can check it out by clicking on the picture below.

Last year I uploaded my unit called "Busy Bees" and have finally revised and updated it to include lots more reading and writing activities. You can check it out by clicking on the picture below. There are 2 free activity when you download the Preview file.

For all my viewers and followers here is a freebie just for you. Just click on the picture below to download your "Buzzing with "Bee" Related Compound Words" packet.

Hope spring is around the corner and watch out for those Busy Bees! Thanks for all you do to make a difference for your students.

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Are You Hopping for Some Free Easter Resources? Hop on Over to LMN Tree

Can yo believe that Easter time is upon us and those cute little bunnies will be hopping all over the place. When you see this post I will be on vacation with my family but wanted to make sure to tell you about some wonderful free resources I found that you may want to check out.

I found so many wonderful books, free games, puzzles, poems and songs, and crafts at Apples for Teachers.
How about these cute clothespin book marks!  Just click on the picture to check out all the free activities to do with your students.

How about a fun Anagram. I found this and tons of great stuff at DLTK. You can download your free copy by clicking on the picture below. If you go back to the home page you will find lots of other free activities, so hop on over!

I  also found online games, and printables at the Kids Page which you can check out by clicking on the picture below.

Are you looking for some fun Easter party ideas? You can find ideas for pre-school - elementary school ideas by clicking on the image below.

I've just completed my Easter Packet called "Easter is a Time for......" for Grades 1-2 which includes a Shared Reading Book, 3 Guided Reading Books at 1st and 2nd grade reading levels, 2 fun Poems and a fun mini book called: "Easter Egg, Easter Egg, What do you see? Students will get to design their own egg and write about it as well as 2 opinion pieces with the help of graphic organizers. There are 2 Literacy Centers: Picture/Word Match and Writing and Roll the Die and Read . You can check it out by clicking on the picture below. If you download the preview file you will get a free poem: "Bunny Hop Chant"

Of course I have a freebie for all my wonderful followers and viewers. How about a Making Words and Sentences Activity? Just click on the picture below. Your students will be hopping to do it!!!

 Have a Hopping Good Easter time with your students! Thanks for all you do to make a difference for your students.

Hop to It Blog Hop Giveaway

Easter is almost here so some of my blog buddies and I decided to do a blog hop. All you need to do is  hop from blog to blog from March 15th to March 17th to get your freebie and enter to win a basket full of lesson packets plus a $100 Teachers Notebook gift certificate.  Enter to win on each blog so you'll have a greater chance of winning.  Each blogger is donating a lesson packet for the prize basket.  Each of us will choose a winner so make sure you enter each bloggers' giveaway. The winners will get ALL the lesson packets from ALL of the bloggers. If that isn't enough, Steve, the owner of Teachers Notebook has also generously donated our grand prize which is a $100 Teachers Notebook gift certificate. Think of all the wonderful products you can buy with $100.  One lucky person will win the gift certificate. The more blogs you visit and enter, the greater your chances are that you will win.  So HOP TO IT!

Click HERE to find out more about the lesson I donated to the prize basket.

Click HERE to download my freebie.

To enter you need to follow my Teachers Notebook store and follow my Facebook page.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Now that you've entered it's time to hop to my buddies' blogs to see their great prizes and freebies.  Remember the more blogs you visit and enter on their rafflecopter, the greater your chances are of winning.

Michelle @ Teach123

Yvonne @ Mixminder

Fern @ Fern Smith's Classroom Ideas

Jennifer @ Best Practices 4 Teaching

Tessa @ Tales From Outside the Classroom

Heidi @ My (Not So) Elementary Life

Tessa @ Tales From Outside the Classroom

Alisha @ The Bubbly Blonde Teacher

Sally @ Elementary Matters

Tanja @ Journey of a Substitute Teacher

Jessica @ Mrs. Stanford's Class

Ashley @ The Teacher's Treasure Chest

Gladys @ Teaching in High Heels

The winner will be announced on our Facebook pages on Monday, March 18th.  

If you are reading this post through feed or email, click HERE to view the Rafflecopter giveaway.

Monkey Around with Math for March

I loved math when I went to school and always had great math teachers. I have spent most of my time creating ELA materials although I do have one 1st Grade math packet filled with 10 math centers to help your students become fluent with their addition and subtraction math facts from 1-20. There is one game to review all their facts for addition and subtraction from 1-10 and then 10 games which are color coded to practice the addition and subtraction for the numbers 11-20. Here is the game board for all the games.

Here is a sample of the monkey and banana cards- You don't want to turn over a banana card!!Here is a sample of the playing 11 fact cards.

Of course your students will love to win the Top Banana Award!

If you'd like to check it out and see all the materials included in this 114 page packet, just click on the picture below. I have put it on sale until March 24th when I return from my vacation.

Last year I wrote some math problem freebies for March. They are some of the first products I put in my store and they are still free and great for Grades 1-2. They are aligned with the Math CCSS. Since I love to write stories and books I really enjoyed writing word problems. You can download your free March ones by clicking on each picture below. 

So do you think I should keep writing word problems? Hope you'll leave me  your thoughts.

Thanks for all you do to make a difference for your students.

Share The Wealth Teacher Author Spotlight

Just wanted to let all my followers and viewers that today I'm being featured by John Hughes over at "An Educator's Life". On the 2nd and 4th Saturday of each month he features Teacher-Authors and on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays he "Shares the Wealth" with  a ton of wonderful freebies from some wonderful teacher-authors. You can find out all about me and get some great links to products and freebies by clicking on the button above.

Have a great weekend.
Thanks for all you do to make a difference for your students.

Where did all the Pictures Go? Lessons learned

Yesterday I lost all the photos from my blog!!!!! They are unfortunately gone forever and I am starting to add them back to my posts and have gotten as far as February 16th. I'm am definitely technology and blogger challenged and when I took my smart phone into the sprint store yesterday I got really bad advice. I wanted to get rid of all the photos on my phone so the customer service representative told me how to delete them. She asked if I had a Goggle account which I do and that I should go into Google + then  go to Photos and delete the Albums. I'm sure you are all laughing because you know about picasa and that is where all my pictures are stored which I now just deleted. So that is why you will see the image above if you go back to older posts for awhile. Good new is that if the original picture went to a link- you can still click on the image (like the one at the top) and it will take you to the correct link so you can still get all the resources and freebies, links but there won't be a picture until I can edit all the posts and add them back.

Lessons learned: Don't delete your photos albums from Google+ 

So sorry about this and hope you will bare with me while I'm editing all my blog posts. I need to find a four-leaf clover. Hope you are having a lucky day!!!!!

Thanks for all you do to make a difference for your students.

St. Patrick's Day: Free Resources, Books, and Activities

I can tell you that today I didn't have the luck of the Irish. Unfortunately all my blog pictures are gone forever and somehow I will try over the next month to redo all my posts and add the pictures back. I hope you will bare with me.Hopefully you won't have any problems viewing these.

I've put together some great resources for St. Patrick's Day and always like to start with great books. I have to say that my favorite book is "Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato". If you click on the picture below you will see a great list to chose from.

Of course there is always Scholastic that has all your st. Patrick's Day need that you can access by clicking on the picture below. There are lots of materials for all elementary grades to be found.

For those of you looking for some great crafts to make with your students, games and history about St. Patrick's Day and fun facts, you should visit Kid Connect by clicking on the picture below.

For those just looking for fun crafts to make then click on the one below to get complete instructions.

Did you know that March is Irish-American Heritage Month? I revised my St. Patrick's Day Unit to include reading and writing activities about Ireland and it's national symbols. I've included my own Shared Reading Book, Picture/Fact  Reading Cards about Irish-Americans and Ireland's National Symbols, 2 Reading Texts and Comprehension Questions about Ireland and St. Patrick's Day at the 2nd and 3rd Grade levels and Map Activities and a Subject Poem about Leprechauns. Students will write a Country Report about Ireland, A Persuasive letter to a Leprechaun and a Subject poem about Ireland. There are also 4 writing prompts to include Informative text and Opinion Pieces.If you download the Preview File you will get a free activity.
Just click on the picture below to see all the materials in the unit and get a free activity.

I also have a freebie for all my wonderful followers and viewers. I had a lot of great feedback from my Presidents Day Noun Sort so I made one to go with my Celebrating Ireland and St. Patrick's Day. You can download your freebie by clicking on the picture below.

Hope you all have the luck of the Irish and find some fun free resources for you to use with your students.
Thanks for all you do to make a difference for your students.
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Vocabulary Matters: Wrapping it Up

I have thoroughly enjoyed bringing you some wonderful strategies over the last 8 weeks. Most of these strategies have been for the primary grades. Below is chart of the complete components of Effective Vocabulary Instruction. The components covered were Incidental Vocabulary Instruction during Read Alouds and Independent Reading and Intentional Vocabulary Teaching: Rich and Robust Instruction of the Tier 2 Words in Texts.

According to Edgar Dale (1965) there are 4 levels of a person's word knowledge:

1. has never seen or heard the word before
2. has seen or heard the word before, but doesn't know what the word means
3. vaguely knows the meaning of the word: can associate it with a concept or context
4. knows the word well, can explain it and use it

As unfamiliar words are encountered repeatedly over time, word knowledge grows and the words move from level 1 to level 4.

What researchers, such as Hart and Risley (1995), have found is that there is a significant vocabulary gap of children from disadvantaged homes of about 1,000 words before they enter Kindergarten. Without intervention this gap grows even larger as students progress through school. Even with teaching at least 2 new root words a day from Kindergarten through 2nd grade by the end of 2nd grade the average student will have learned 6,020 root words and those in the bottom 25% will have learned 4,168 new root words. In order to close that vocabulary gap  these students will need to learn 3 to 4 new root words per day (Biemiller 2003). 

We know that understanding word meanings is key and essential to comprehension. How important is it to find 10-15 minutes a day to devote to Specific Vocabulary Instruction? I know it was for me. Whether you add a few extra minutes to your Read Alouds or find a creative way to use time before or after  lunch, or at the end of the day before going home, I hope you will try at least one of these strategies before the end of the school year. I hope you will leave your feedback about this Vocabulary Matters Series below and if you feel that reexamining it again in the fall along with the final component: Word Learning Strategies  would be valuable to you please let me know. If you have missed any of the first 7 parts here are the links.

                                              Part 7

                                              Part 6

                                              Part 5

                                              Part 4

                                              Part 3
                                              Part 2
                                              Part 1
You can download a free copy of the Wrap Up by clicking HERE.
Thanks for all you do to make a difference for your students.