Snowy Syllables

I am so very ready for Christmas break, but our last day is TUESDAY. I am sure that Monday and Tuesday will be the longest days eeeeeverrrrr. Monday will be chock full of Grinch themed activities. Tuesday is Polar Express Day. The kids can wear their pajamas to school. We will watch the movie and have hot chocolate. Hopefully that will give me some time to get things ready for our return in January. I just finished up a syllables center activity that we will use when we come back.Click below to download.

Hope you guys have a wonderful Christmas and a relaxing break. See you next year.

Heather

Free Christmas Sentence Scramble

Christmas is in there air. I have a tree up in my classroom with ornaments that I purchased a few years ago from Kmart that are pink erasers, pencils, apples and coffee mugs with D'nelean handwriting on them. Adorable. My kiddos have made the traditional red and green patterned chains that we have draped across the room.

This week in class we read many versions of the Gingerbread man story and compared and contrasted them. This week we are going to read Santa's Stuck and write about how to help Santa get unstuck from the chimney. It should be fun. Lots to squeeze in before the break.

I am also going to add this little activity to my centers rotation  next week. It is a Christmas themed sentence scramble activity with a recording sheet.

Click Here to Download

I hope you guys are enjoying the Christmas season as much as I am. Have a great weekend.

Heather

Even/Odd Christmas Freebie

I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving break. I have been so.incredibly.busy. I ran a Give Thanks 4 Mile Race to benefit charity on Thursday morning, had a great dinner with family, braved the crowds for Black Friday, wrapped many gifts and went to see the Muppet movie with the kids last night. I can't believe it's  already back to school tomorrow. My laundry and my blog were both sorely neglected this week. Why don't we take care of the blog thing right now, shall we?

For your downloading pleasure I have a cute little even and odd sorting activity. Students sort the ornaments by even or odd and put them on the appropriate Christmas tree. A recording sheet is included.

Click Here to Download

You guys have yourselves a great final hours of vacation.

Heather

Holiday ABC Order Freebie

 Have you guys noticed that I just LOVE Christmas? I love shopping (last night I had a dream about Black Friday) wrapping, decorating. I even decorate my classroom. So it should go without saying that I also love creating Christmas themed centers. This one is an abc order activity with a recording sheet. 

Click Here to Download Holiday ABC Order

Stocking Subtraction

I must admit, I was in a creative slump for awhile. Nothing seemed to inspire me (educationally speaking.) Then, eureka! I found the most adorable clip art (from Goodness and Fun on Etsy) and now I can't seem to stop producing printables for your downloading pleasure. Today I have stocking subtraction for you guys, but you should check back often 'cause more is on the way kids.  For this center, the kiddos have to match the stocking to the fireplace that has the correct difference written on it. I've included a recording sheet ( if you're into that kind of thing). My guys loved this one. Hope yours do too.

Click Here to Download

Christmas Spirit Freebie

I know there are still two weeks until Thanksgiving, but I have already been putting my game plan in place for Black Friday shopping. Who's with me? With fall yard work complete (thanks to the help of my indentured servants children) I am now ready to put up my Christmas tree. I am of the opinion that if I am going to go to all of the trouble to decorate, I should be able  to enjoy it as long as possible. I LOVE sitting by the tree with the fire place on sipping hot cocoa. My favorite.

To get myself in the Christmas spirit I whipped up a little addition activity with the cutest gingerbread clip art from Goodness and Fun. She is having a sale on Etsy right now; if you buy two, you get two free. Love.

Click Here to Download Gingerbread Addition Facts

Is anyone else getting into the Christmas spirit yet?

Heather

That's the Ticket!

Being a resource teacher has its benefits (for example I never have recess duty), but it also has its challenges. One of these challenges is getting students to bring in homework. It is very challenging for a first grader with a disability to take the homework back to their class, take it home, do it, bring it back to school and THEN remember to bring it back to my classroom in the morning. My first year I would spend 15 minutes a day running all around our 900 student school to try to collect the homework that I sent home with students. It became more trouble than it was worth. I was actually punishing myself. that I didn't feel that it was fair to punish these students because many of them don't have much home support.

 My second year I changed things up. I decided that I would only send homework home on Thursday nights. The homework is simple: study their spelling words and read their story for their reading test.
If they can bring back their paper signed by an adult that they did those things, they get a sticker for their sticker chart. When they earn five stickers, they get a prize out of the prize box. It has worked wonders in getting work brought back to school.

I fill my prize box with various items from the Dollar Tree, Happy Meals, candy, etc. This week I was noticing that my prize box was looking a little sparse so I decided to add some reward tickets to the box.

Click Here

For one of the tickets allows the student and a friend of their choice to eat lunch in my classroom. They can also choose to watch Disney Channel on the classroom television. The other ticket gives the child the choice to pick a song for the class to do during our morning music time. I am ALWAYS getting requests for certain songs. Now I can tell the class that they can pick a song ticket from the prize box if they would like to choose what song we do. The part is that these tickets don't cost me a thing!

That's all for now. I have a big weekend of relaxing ahead of me. Hope you guys get a little too.

Heather

Powerpoint Tutorial

I  have had a few requests for PowerPoint tutorials, so I thought I would put this out there for anyone who is interested. PowerPoint is very similar to Word. The main functions that I use are almost identical to Word. Here are my main tips for creating a document in word.

 Any text that you write must be in a text box, however it makes the box invisible by default which is WAY better than Word. Saves time.

This part is important, so listen up ladies. The program calls your pages slides. On the left side of the page it shows the slides that you have made. My favorite feature is the duplicate slide button. If you are making an activity with multiple pages that are similar (like my pumpkin place value), this is where the program is GREAT.

 I made my first pages of pumpkins and made a text box with a letter for each pumpkin. Then I went to the picture of the slide that I wanted to duplicate on the left side of the page. I right clicked and then choose duplicate slide. I did that two time and had all of my pages. BAM! Then I wanted to change the letters on the second and third pages, so I clicked on the text box on each pumpkin and changed the letter. Took less than 5 minutes. No joke.

Hope this little tutorial helps you guys get started. If you have any more questions, give me a shout.

Pumpkin Place Value

Who else feels like they are behind? Thank goodness it is fall break. Although I will not be getting much of a break, I am getting some much needed time to catch up on everything (including that giant mountain of laundry in my basement.)

 Fall break has also given me the time I needed to finish the pumpkin place value activity that  I have been working on. It is  a nice reinforcement activity or center that can be used through November. I have included a recording sheet for independent practice. Enjoy. 

Click Here to Download Pumpkin Place Value

Powerpoint Love (and a freebie)

I am so totally in love with Powerpoint. For so long I have been fighting with Word to make my activities. So much easier with PP. It's like it instinctively knows what I want to do and makes it easier. Which is why I whipped up this little pumpkin alphabet activity in no.time.flat. Seriously. Hope you guys can use.

 Pumpkin ABC

 P.S. I plan on posting a pumpkin place value center later this week. Have a good one guys.

I Have PMS (initial sound sort freebie)

Okay. So maybe that didn't come out quite right. What I mean to say is that I have an initial sound sort that focuses on the letters p, m and s. I meant to post this last week but I have been SO busy.

My senior daughter is keeping me on my toes. This week was  College Go Week here in Indiana, so we have been filling out college applications as well as picking out senior pictures. Check out a couple of my favorites.

So between all of this senior stuff and training for my mini-marathon,  I have been doing some serious blog neglecting. But I am back on the wagon and ready to share a freebie with you guys.This initial sound sort includes a header card, nine sorting cards and a recording sheet.

S, M, P Initial Sound Sort

Speaking of freebies, I am now a contributor for a brand new blog called Classroom Freebies that features ALL FREEBIE. Check it out.

New Blog Button

 

Here is my new blog button. Here is the code if you would like to post it on your blog. 

<a href="http://differentiationstation.blogspot.com"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6RUhtArYQ79nw93p5vNQpXXm1lvPykNr3AKdhyVIcSs8ajzpjwDI8bgKfjZI9kGctjhFKmAicL_5pi9Mir9HAQrGbkncxSPjGGeb5ATOc27DpBrbtFrgKT3_KJ7RiUTmVfsDk-dIAJa0/s1600/Differentiation_Station_Button.png"/></a>


More on this tomorrow. I am soooooo tired. Nighty night blog land.

Versatile Blogger Award

I want to give a big thank you to sweet Dana of 3rd Grade Gridiron for giving me the Versatile Blogger Award. If you haven't checked out her blog, head on over and see what great freebies and ideas she has.

 

Okay, so now seven things that you probably didn't know about me.

1. I just finished my first 5k race yesterday, and boy am I sore. I have been training for two months, but racing is very different. I am likely going to begin training for the Disney Princess Mini Marathon in February. I need some fantastic motivation to go running in the winter. 

2. I hate winter. 

3. I just kicked a terrible addiction to Coke Zero. For years it was all I drank. Ever. Now it is mostly water. On Friday afternoons I will splurge in order to get that extra kick to finish my Friday afternoon school tasks. 

4. I hate being outdoors. I like to be somewhere with an internet connection. 

5. I am good friends with my husband's ex-wife. It is not as weird as it sounds, and it sure makes soccer games and birthday parties much more enjoyable. 

6. I love to organize, but I hate to clean. 

7.I love taking naps. Is napping counted as a hobby?

I have been sooooo busy you guys. I haven't had time to check my home email in almost a week. I have a freebie that I would like to post for Friday, so check back tomorrow.

Heather