Back to School Basics: Giveaway and Freebies

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Fabulous Feature Friday has arrived!  Oh... this will be a good one.

Today I'm featuring new units and back to school freebies!  Up first, the giveaway!!!  

One copy of my unit will go to both primary 

and intermediate winners!!

I created Comprehension Skill and Strategy posters to align with my content focus walls.  The focus walls include graphics rather than words for students to make connections.  I was surprise the images made such an impact on our discussions during Reader's Workshop this past school year.  I also created Reading Genre Posters with the same Chevron background.  These posters will remain on display with the essential questions for the week!  

 

**Primary Giveaway Begins Here**

Hadar Maor of Miss Kindergarten has a  first day of school keepsake to help remember the day or week of school.  

Kim Adsit and her daughter Megan Merrell created Yee Haw- Wild About Numbers.  There are games, activities, pre-made sets, and starter questions for mini-lessons on dot plates, fives frames, tens frames, rekenreks, and dominoes. All of the activities in this packet are correlated to a common core standard.

 **The Next Two Units Feature Colors**

 

You guys have no idea how much I love Kacey's work from Doodle Bugs Teaching!!!!  She recently featured her new Color Words Unit.  This 43 page file includes 11 centers!  Honestly, I have no idea how she does it all.  Have you seen her posts?  The time it takes to prepare, laminate, cut, display, photograph, watermark, and feature her work within a post is remarkable!  

A perfect compliment to Kacey's centers is a unit created by Deanna Jump. Colorful Cats Math and Literacy Fun was featured on her blog yesterday!  We all know a kid approved cat who loves wearing different colors, right?  I love this spin!!! Deanna revamped her unit and added new and creative ideas.  The emergent readers are so stinking adorable!! 

 

**The Next Four Units Feature Writing**

Erica Bohrer's Back to School Writing Prompts and Activity packet focuses on establishing classroom rules and routines. Lessons scaffold off picture books such as First Day Jitters, Know and Follow the Rules, The Little Engine that Could, Hands are Not for Hitting, Words are Not for Hurting, Listen and Learn, Mary Wore Her Red Dress, and Don't Squeal Unless It's a Big Deal.  Love these books!!!

Michelle from Fabulous in First has the cutest punctuation unit!!  In this unit your students will be introduced to the following punctuation: Periods, Commas, Question Marks and Exclamation Points. The Punctuation People will aide a reminder of the proper conventions when writing. 

I heart Deedee Wills.  She inspires me as a teacher and a woman!  Really!!  Five minutes talking with her in person and you will know why.  Read her blog and see why she soars to my hero list!!!  Deedee featured monthly writing work stations this past school year.  Each month included approximately 45 vocabulary words, different writing paper, and I Can charts to help your students work independently with themed writing work stations. Newly featured is the "Complete Set"!

** The Next Two Units Feature Common Core**

Anna Brantley of Crazy for First Grade is one of the sweetest and strongest women I know.  I am inspired by her compassion and generosity.  Anna has a brand spanking new Common Core Unit-Writing Narratives All Year Long.  This supplemental resource was designed to reinforce the Common Core narrative writing standard for first grade {W.1.3}. It includes graphic organizers that can be used for organizing ideas for any narrative, writing prompt sheets for the entire year {all major holidays, seasons, etc.}, personal and fictional narrative task cards, checklists, and reflection sheets.

**Intermediate Giveaway Begins Here**

Natalie Kay from What a Teacher Wants has worked with Rachelle to complete Common Core ELA and Math Galore {Checklists} for 3rd through 5th.   Don't you just love the cover!?!?!  Winner can choose their grade level!

Amanda Nickerson from One Extra Degree is an eloquent writer, enthusiastic teacher, and all around wonderful lady! I love the simplicity of her work stations.  Amanda's created Words Galore for students to build on skills through new spelling and vocabulary each week.

 Click Image for Amanda's Store

 Click Image for Amanda's AMAZING post!

Hope from Second Grade Shenanigans prepared a back to school unit entitled, "Go for the Gold".  Imagine the excitement as kids are reminded of the 2012 Olympics!  Get your students excited and motivated about a new school year with tons of activities to build a classroom community! 

You will have an opportunity to win a copy of the primary or intermediate copies above! The requirement for entry is to follow all stores and can be done by clicking the product images above!  One winner will be randomly selected on (TOMORROW) Saturday August 4th for the Primary Giveaway and one winner for the intermediate giveaway.  You are only permitted to leave one comment. All other comments will be deleted.  Please include an email AND which giveaway you are entering.

**Example**

I follow all stores!  

Primary Graffiti (at) yahoo (dot) com

Primary Giveaway 

And the freebies...

Katie Jones has a Back to School Activities download comes with two centers to help your students get their brain turned back on during the first week of school.  

Primary Graffiti (that's me) shared Back to School Nameplates a year ago.  Numbers skip count by twos.  I will be updating them to include all numbers now that I'm moving down to Kindergarten! 

Amanda Nickerson has a fluency folder for elementary or intermediate students! It contains a Lucky Listener sheet, a resource sheet, a parent letter, a reading rubric to inform parents, and a resource sheet for students!

Mrs. Miner's Monkey Business has a unique way to welcome new students to the school year with Jitter Glitter and Parent Notes. 

Erica Bohrer has a great general information file for back to school.  This post is filled with resources!

Head Back to school with this FREE glyph from the Glyph Girls! This is an easy and super fun activity for the first few days of school. 

Rachelle Smith featured her I know my ABC's for Back to School.  This book is great for teachers or parents!

Are you looking for an easy craft to create a cute as all get out display in your room during that very first week? The Best Thing Tear Art Project might just be the Back to School ditty you are looking for! It even comes with a great little writing activity by Kelli Dolling. 

Deanna Jump has a cute freebie: Rainbow Hair Emergent Reader.  This book is based on the fun poem, Rainbow Hair. Have your littles add hair to match the text so that they can read it independently during Reader's Workshop. 

Tammy Lee created a Super FUN and CUTE way to get your kiddos working on words! You can make a "BOGGLE" board and change the letters each week. The kids make their own words using the letters that you put up on the BOGGLE board. 

Productive Pants, aka Anna Brantley, has a Making Word freebie available for download on her blog. 

Susan Moran of T.G.I.F and pal from Vegas has a cute file for you.  This little freebie is just something fun I use in my classroom to highlight our Star of the Week!

Michelle Oakes has a set of word wall cards decorated with rainbow banner, as well as the letter labels for your word wall. One page of both the word cards and letter labels is editable.

I have a fun way for kids to learn US states. This file works well with postcard exchanges too!  Link here!

Do you have a Back to School "FREEBIE" product or post you'd like to feature?  You are welcome to join my linky party here but it must be a direct link to a post on your blog or a FREEBIE product in your store!  Please follow the rules, I hate having to remove links!!

Back to School Basics: Birthday Giveaway and Freebies

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My computer has a cold and will not stay on for more than five minutes at a time.  I'm gonna keep this post short and sweet.  Please forgive me!!

Welcome back for Day 3 of Back to School Basics, a week long feature with giveaways, freebies, and linky parties!  Today I'm featuring products for birthdays!

Jack Hartmann's music makes me giggle! His CD, Every 1 Counts, has a song my primary students love.  You can preview Have a Hip-Hop Happy Birthday here.  

Birthday Giveaway...

In July 2011, I featured my file, Celebrating Yummy Birthdays.  On the first day of school, I gave each of my *then* second graders a birthday cupcake with their name and birth date.  After lunch we graphed our cupcakes and compared our data.  During the school year, we celebrate birthdays with a cupcake cone.  Link here for my picture tutorial.

Erica Bohrer likes to utilize Take-Home bags in her classroom to enhance the home-school communication.  One of her bags is a birthday take home bag.  This packet will help you make your students' birthdays as special as they are! 

Kim Adsit has a Birthdays Fun Music Book to accompany Jack Hartmann's song Birthdays. It is on his Math All Around cd. You can preview the song here.The song book is great to use as a center. Add a cd of the song to a pocket on the back of the book and children can sing the songs and follow the text in the little music book. 

Hadar Maor has a Birthday Cupcake Display too.  Hadar and I have similar products but featured very differently.  Rather than graphing the cupcakes as a display, she has cupcakes for each month and candles added to the cupcake for each birthday.  

You will have an opportunity to win each of the above copies! The requirement for entry is to follow all stores and can be done by clicking the product images above!  One winner will be randomly selected on Saturday August 4th.  You are only permitted to leave one comment. All other comments will be deleted.  Please include an email!!! 

And now the freebies...

Rachelle Smith of What the Teacher Wants featured a popular post almost 2 years ago. She featured the original birthday balloon on extra large pixie sticks.  You can read her post here.

To help celebrate the birthdays in your classroom, Jackie Cornett as offered freebie postcards! Everyone loves getting mail, right? Send your students one of these postcards on their birthday! 

Kindertrips features a cute Birthday Banner freebie in her store.  I want to create this with my cameo and hang on the classroom door.

TpT seller, Andrea W. has a CUTE Owl Birthday Topper for a pencil.  I cannot wait to print out a set of these!!!!

Need a gift idea that won't cost a thing?  Sandy Scott has free Homework Pass for the birthday girl or boy!

My sweet friend Dana from 3rd Grade Gridiron has a Birthday Bash Multiplication Game.  And keeping with the theme of birthday games, Kathy Law, The Queen of Board Games (love her), has a Birthday Synonym Game.

Peace, Love, and Kindergarten has a big birthday freebie.  This 51 page download was a gift to teachers who attended their presentation at SPLASH conferences.  They have generously shared this math and literacy file on TpT!!

Student birthdays are such a great opportunity for you to make your students feel extra special! This pack includes a few things that can help make their day great.  Wild About Teaching features free bookmarks, Birthday Certificates, and Birthday Books in this file!

Erica Bohrer has shared many cute ideas for birthdays.  I'm gonna share two pictures from her class website...

Preparing Birthday Surprises Early

Students hold calendar date cards and stand with others celebrating birthdays the same month for a picture.  Love this!!!

Do you have a birthday "FREEBIE" product or post you'd like to feature?  You are welcome to join my linky party here but it must be a direct link to a post on your blog or a FREEBIE product in your store!  Please follow the rules, I hate having to remove links!!

Back to School Basics: Alphabet Giveaway and Freebies

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I switched alphabet and calendar days.

Sorry for any confusion this may bring! 

Welcome back for Day 3 of Back to School Basics, a week long feature with giveaways, freebies, and linky parties!  Today I'm featuring products for the Alphabet!!! There of five important components of reading instruction: phonics, phonemic awareness, reading comprehension, vocabulary instruction and fluency.  As I feature this post today, I'm aware that phonics shouldn't be taught by simply working through the alphabet from beginning to end. Letters are to be broken down in consonants and vowels. Vowels are broken down into long and short sounds. And words are taught by beginning and ending sounds. 

There are many wonderful websites, apps, and songs available for phonics and phonemic awareness instruction.  

SpellingCity featured a new app yesterday.  The app is free through Apple. Students of Premium Members can log in to the app to access their teacher's word lists and have their activities recorded. Students of Free Members can search for their teachers' lists using the Find A List feature on the app! I'm a HUGE fan of the premium membership and my kiddos LOVED the games.  I enjoyed tracking the data.  Link here for the app!

Heidi Butkus of Heidi Songs featured ABCya! on her Facebook.  Hello, ABC heaven!  There are so many games and activities.  Heidi used the Jr. Word Search to create the Sight Word Search below.  LOVE!!!

This summer I attended the I Teach K conference in Vegas.  Oh, Man!  I love Jack Hartmann.  I liked him before but to see him in action... Speechless.  I danced, laughed, and sang through both presentations.  He has a CD entitled Alphabet Zoo on his website. Link here to preview songs off this CD.

As I mentioned yesterday, I met Shari Sloane in Vegas too.  She has several CDs worth a mention.  The first is called, Singing with Shari: School is Cool.  You can preview her songs and purchase MP3 versions. Alpha songs I love from this CD are Those Sounds and Letters on a Bus.   The second CD is called, Singing with Shari: Get Set.   I love the following songs, If Your Name Has the Letter and Letter Family!

I wasn't able to take the time to search TpT for today's resources because I knew exactly which ones I wanted to feature!!!

The Lovely Kim Adsit has a fun music book made to accompany Shari Sloane's song Those Sounds (featured above). It is on her School is Cool CD. The song book is great to use as a center. Add a CD of the song to a pocket on the back of the book. Children can sing the songs and follow the text in the little music book.

 Keeping with Alphabet Centers, I just love Chicka Chicka Boom Boom mini unit by Kacey Mclendon of Doodle Bugs Teaching.  Centers created by Kacey are always engaging and kid friendly.  AND who doesn't love Chick Chick Boom Boom!?!  

 The Wildly Wonderful Mrs. Wills has a Back to School Alphabet Attribute Sort.  Deedee is the queen of work stations, differentiation, and common core.  Add these three into a file and you are sure to have students engaged in meaningful activities.  

I have a 246 page file entitled: Alphabetizer.  This file will help support young writers with handwriting practice and is differentiated to meet the needs of all young learners! Also included are color pages, word wall alpha cards, matching word wall sight word cards, beginning sound sort and more...

Deanna has a unit packed with phonemic awareness and phonics fun! Games for matching letters and sounds, rhyming, counting phonemes, where's the sound? game, Help! Shared Reading book with pages to make a class book blackline masters for an emergent reader and much more! Over 160 pages of fun.

Hadar Maor from Miss Kindergarten has introduced the easiest crafts you will ever make!  There are no templates for these crafts! Each craft has a list of materials and dimensions.  Each letter has a fun and easy craft to go along with it. Your students can practice tracing the letter and reading the word on each page! They will also get to practice their fine motor skills with simple cutting and practice using those glue sticks correctly!

Tammy Lee from Live Love Laugh Kindergarten has the ABC's of Kindergarten.  This editable file is perfect to hand out at the beginning of the year.  Tammy listed examples and ideas for each letter. The great thing is, you can choose as many or as few as you want. You can type in your classroom procedures and expectations easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Katie King from Queen of the 1st grade Jungle featured her Classroom Decor pack with some of the cutest Alpha Cards EVER!!  This pack does feature number cards, table numbers, supply labels, days of the week, bin labels. 

Erica Bohrer has one of the top selling items on TpT for the past few weeks and she offered complements to this decor pack today.  The download contains 360 words. This packet contains 204 words from Fry's high frequency list, these are high frequency sight words.

The lovely and very talented Ginger Snaps has created The Cursive Corral for my intermediate peeps!  You are going to be stunned by any and everything she creates.  I encourage you to visit her blog and clipart shop.

My sweet friend Mary Lirette has a smoking product.  She has gone out and captured pictures of various Environmental Print.  Matter of fact, she captured several shots for each letter of the Alphabet.  She has provided the posters in both manuscript and D'Nealian.  You can find several other Environmental Print Freebies on her blog by linking here!

You will have an opportunity to win each of the above copies! The requirement for entry is to follow all stores and can be done by clicking the product images above!  One winner will be randomly selected on Saturday August 4th.  You are only permitted to leave one comment. All other comments will be deleted.  Please include an email!!!

 Are you ready for the freebies???

A good friend of mine, Kathleen Pedersen of Growing Kinders has been hosting ABC Come Learn with Me.  She has wonderful ideas, big freebies, and meaningful post.  I encourage you to check out her blog and follow her ABC segments here.

Dr. Jean and Mary Anson of Sharing Kindergarten have teamed up to bring you several projects.  You can check out one of the collaborations here.  Another collaboration has produced a file to align with Dr. Jean's ABC Cheers.  You can pick up this freebie here.

Mrs. Wills from Mrs. Wills Kindergarten created an ABC Fluency Book.  Deedee states, "At the beginning of each year I make a fluency book for my students.  This is a great way to teach and reinforce concepts of print AND letter sound association." As Deedee teaches the letters and sounds, the students color the letter in their book. Click here for this fantastic freebie.

Doodles and Kreations' new Spanish alphabet charts will make learning the alphabet easy and fun for students. The colored version may be used as games in small groups, literacy centers and posted around the room for added reinforcement. The black and white copy may be colored by the student and sent home for additional practice. Check out Doodles and Kreations' matching games and activities. Scoop up your Spanish charts here.

Kim Adsit of Kindergal and Kim Adsit Resources has several ABC downloads available on her website.  You can pick up ABC Book Pages, an intervention strategy for helping children who do not know their alphabet.  Also available are Playdough ABC for letter practice.  Grab your copies here and don't forget to stay a little while.  She has wonderful free downloads for back to school!!!

TpT seller, Erin Winn has a cute ABC Dictionary for students to log new and interesting words from A to Z!  Click here.

I have a pinterest board filled with ABC freebies.  Be aware... not all files on this board is free.  I'm a pinterest addict and need interventions.  You can check out my ABC board here.

Do you have a Alphabet "FREEBIE" product you'd like to feature?  You are welcome to join my linky party here but it must be a direct link to a post on your blog or a FREEBIE product in your store!  Please follow the rules, I hate having to remove links!!

Back to School Basics: Calendar Giveaway and Freebies

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I switched alphabet and calendar days.

Sorry for any confusion this may bring!! 

Welcome back for Day 2 of Back to School Basics, a week long feature with giveaways, freebies, and linky parties!  Today I'm featuring products for Calendars!!!  I use the calendar to keep track of time for appointments such as parent conferences, meetings, birthdays, celebrations, and holidays!  For young learners, time beyond several weeks to a month is a hard concept to grasp.  So why do we focus on the calendar?  Calendar time can develop and foster math skills for primary concepts with repetition through instruction.

As a member of the leadership team for mathematics, I conducted math focus walks for our School Improvement Plan.  During my walk, I was able to see calendar routines, math focus walls, math word walls, benchmarks and essential questions posted.  This unique experience provided me with the inside on how different classrooms and different grade levels teach calendar routines.  

There are three sources in which I've stalked for years!  Mrs. Nelson provides a wonderful visual of what skills are taught and when she teaches them throughout the school year. Link here to view her scope and sequence!

My sweet Vegas friend, Shari Sloane of kidscount1234.com always does a wonderful job at teaching concepts with materials you can find in any classroom.  She provides her kiddos with concrete applications to math concepts and provides teachers with free reproducibles for Calendar Journals.  Don't you love free?!?

Mrs. Meacham is a hero of mine.  When I started teaching, I was glued to her website for personal support.  WARNING... you must allow at least 30 minutes to scan her website.  You'll need at least a week to read all her content. Topics include Calendar Smartboard, Calendar Wall, Calendar Binders, Calendar Folders, Calendar Journals, and Calendar Songs.  Ready to be amazed?  Link here!

As a looping primary teacher, I'm constantly looking for ways to engage students with new concepts as we grow together on our journey to second grade.  After searching through Teachers Pay Teachers, I found more than 3,500 files and more than 550 of those files are FREE! 

I'd like to feature a few paid products...

Kathleen Pedersen of Growing Kinders has one of the best products I've seen this year!  I scooped up these bad boys quick.  Aligned to common core, the golden words, her calendar routines are a perfect fit for any classroom.  Kathleen provides programmable pages to continue skills for kids or classes needing additional practice!  My heart flutters!!!

 AND

Kim Adsit and Shari Sloane, two powerful presenters, teamed up to create The Student Calendar Book.  This 108 page file doesn't just include student pages but also includes directions, questions, and extension activities to align.

I may be a little biased here but I HEART this next product.  This summer I worked to revise my Year-round Calendar with Seasonal Prompts. I provided monthly headers and calendar date cards, but what makes this product stand out from other calendar units are the seasonal prompts.  Each month features 24 prompts to promote listening and speaking skills...COMMON CORE!  

Sample Prompts

I created this next file for K/1 classrooms.  I know the seasonal calendar prompts are a hit with my kiddos.  They were always so eager to see what the next prompt would say!  I want to tap into this excitement with my newest product.  I uploaded Calendar Fun with Prompts tonight and I'm so excited.  

My file includes three different sets of calendar cards: bird cages, dinosaurs, and zoo animals. I included three graphics for each theme. You can mix and match the graphics to create patterns. Also included are prompts for beginning reading, short vowels, long vowels, about me story starters, nursery rhymes/fairy tales, and beginning math. You'll find links to editable files embedded throughout the document to add names for birthdays, holidays, or even your own prompts! 

Sample Prompts

You will have an opportunity to win each of the above copies! The requirement for entry is to follow all stores and can be done by clicking the product images above!  One winner will be randomly selected on Saturday August 4th.  You are only permitted to leave one comment. All other comments will be deleted.  Please include an email!!!

Now for the freebies...

Deanna Jump has update this file for the 2012-2013 school year.  This is a free Monthly Planning Calendar. It includes inspirational quotes and a place to keep track of important dates.

Leslie from Kindergarten Works also has a 2012-2013 calendar.  Seeing similar products but how differently they can turn out show why we need an open marketplace like TpT around.  

AND

Jodi from Fun in First Grade created her calendar with Thistlegirl graphics.  I love these graphics.  You can find a free download located on her fabulous blog!

Erin from Eberhart's Explorers has a student calendar journal page that has been floating around pinterest for a hot minute.  I love the simplicity of this page!

For my Intermediate Teachers...

Stephanie from Teaching in Room 6 has a student calendar journal page that has also made its rounds on pinterest.  I'm so excited to feature a calendar post for big kids too!

Kacey from Doodle Bugs Teaching has offered monthly calendar freebies for the past year.  She has provided the latest in cute clipart and generous with timely post!  I'm linking her free label from her store.  This will include a few additional files other than calendars but we love free, right?!?

And Technology Lovers...

Denise from Sunny Days in Second Grade has themed activities which include days of the week, base ten blocks, skip counting, counting money, expanded form, patterning, time and estimating. File also includes new "math blast" pages with interactive practice and relevant links to online game sites. You can easily edit the file to meet the needs of your students. 

My sweet friend Rachelle from What a Teacher Wants has been pumping out freebies for years.  If you haven't already read her post and downloaded all her fantastic freebies, you'll want to link now!   Her title makes me think... Sid the Science Kid!

Do you have a Calendar "FREEBIE" product you'd like to feature?  You are welcome to join my linky party here but it must be a direct link to a post on your blog or a FREEBIE product in your store!  Please follow the rules, I hate having to remove links!!!