Teacher Shopping Finds w/Tickled Pink in Primary

This monthly blog post theme is right up may alley because I LOVE TO SHOP! I love scouring The Dollar Tree or the Target dollar spot for deals! Sometimes while I’m walking up and down the aisles, I see something that sparks my creativity and gives me ideas to take back to the classroom. I’ll provide direct affiliate  links to these products when possible to make your shopping a breeze!

The Target dollar spot is the BEST! Look at these drink stirrers that I found this week. These would be perfect for reading pointers!

I also came across these wipe off board games in the Target dollar spot. They have a number sense version so you can work on addition and subtraction. The other versions are for building 3-4 letter words. They come with little square tiles and a wipe off marker! I’m pretty sure I’ve seen something similar to this on Lakeshore, but for way more money!

Ikea is another great place to find good deals. We have decorated a lot of our house from there, but they have great teacher finds as well!  They are actually building an Ikea about 2 miles from my house….this is going to be bad news! I recently found this giant dice at Ikea. How fun would this be to throw in a center or use for a whole group game? If you don't have an Ikea near you, you can buy it online here. 

I found this Leaping Letters game at Kohls over Christmas and knew I had to get it for my nephew. I have seen this at Target and Amazon as well. If you love Amazon like I do, you can find the game here. This game reminds me of Perfection because you only have a certain amount of time to put all of the letters in place before they POP off. It also comes with a list of words so students can build words with these letters as well. We had fun playing this over Christmas!

This next shopping find is actually something I made while student teaching because my mentor teacher had one. All you really need is a glove, some stuffing or cotton balls, and a dowel rod. You can then make a big reading pointer! I decorated mine a bit further with a ring and a watch. J Simply, stuff the glove with cotton, put the dowel rod in the pointer finger, and then hot glue it all shut. I use this for when I read big books and it makes it easier to touch read and reach all of the words. So while you’re out and about, make sure to pick up a pair of cheap gloves.

If you’re like me, I go to school looking all cute, but then halfway through the day, I’m ready to tie my hair up. I ALWAYS have a hair tie on my wrist. I’m so used to wearing one, I forgot to take it off in my wedding! You can see it in my wedding photos. 🙈 Anyway, I have seen these hair tie bracelets on Pinterest and thought they were a great idea. I actually found them a few days ago at Charming Charlie. I LOVE that store! It has a ton of cheap accessories and better yet,  it’s all colored  coded. This is much trendier to wear than just a boring old hair tie. 😉

Finally, one of my favorite things I’ve bought is my personal laminator. I keep this at home to do small projects like this blends/digraphs chart or last minute things I make. I know many people have the Scotch laminator and I’m sure it’s amazing too, but I of course wanted to get a cute, pink one. I found this Swingline laminator and these laminating sheets on Amazon. It also comes in blue, gray, and red. 
Swingline laminator - $21.00
Swingline thermal laminating sheets (100) -$16

If you don’t have Amazon Prime yet, you may consider getting it.  I’m not much of an online shopper, but have really used Amazon Prime alot! It’s only $99 and you get FREE 2 day shipping, so this laminator came speedy quick! They have really good deals too. I’ve gotten to the point where if we are at a store, I check Amazon to see if we can get it cheaper or if the store doesn’t have our size in something. I still prefer to shop in stores, but Amazon is a great alternative. 

Whew, this was a long post! Can you tell that I love to shop? J Hopefully you’ve found some useful ideas.

The Magic of Word Study {w/ The Super Sparkly Teacher}

There is so much to cover when it comes to Word Study time in first grade… Long vowels, short vowels, r-controlled vowels, so on and so forth. I couldn’t resist sharing my teammate, Miss Gomez's, method of introducing and sharing phonics patterns week by week.

First, she introduces the pattern and posts the magnetic letters on her whiteboard (a pocket chart in the past). Then, she introduces various teeny, tiny objects (or toys) that have that sound. For instance, under the /sh/ she placed a shoe, shell, shrimp and shamrock.

She recently began putting magnets on the back of those objects and placing them under the phonics pattern. I love how excited the students get about finding objects around their own homes. They are often eager to share and donate their toys to her collection.

This is my Miss Gomez's 12^th year of teaching first grade (she's AMAZING), so she has quite a collection! I love how she teaches word study and would like to eventually adopt this practice. It’s a great way to support English learners, which make up a large portion of my classroom population. The visuals and personal connections are so impactful!

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The Magic of World Study {with Stephany from Primary Possibilities}

These are some of my favorite ways to practice words in the classroom.  They would work with anything from sight words to vocabulary words!

I make these flip folders for my students at the beginning of the year.  You glue a sheet with lines (the line size and number depends on how many words you assign your students to learn each week) in a file folder.  Laminate the entire file folder and then cut two slits to make 3 flaps.  Students write the words under the first flap and then practice under each flap without looking.  

Another great way to practice words is hands on.  Kiddos love play-doh and my friend Stephanie over at Primary Possibilities has these great sight word mats.  You can pick them up HERE.

If you are looking for a fun way to get students to practice throughout the week at home, you can grab up these STAR spelling freebie.  Students choose from several options throughout the week to practice their words.    You can grab it up for FREE HERE.

Wiki Sticks are always an easy standby for word work.  Keep them in a container with a list of words and your students will always have something easy to grab up when they are finished early with another activity.

I love keeping these Word Wall cards on hand in my classroom.  There are tons of fun ways to practice sight words with different motions and voices.  You can grab them up by clicking HERE. 

What are your favorite ways to practice words in the classroom?

The Magic of Word Study & a FREEBIE {Tickled Pink in Primary}

At the beginning of the year, when we are working on letter sounds, we use these building word cards. Students fill in missing beginning, middle, or ending sounds and record the answer on the worksheet. You can find this activity here. 

Another way to work on filling in missing sounds is at our stamping center. Students LOVE using stamps! I use this center all year and just simply switch out the worksheets for the alphabet, letter sounds, CVC words, etc. You can grab a few of these stamping worksheets FREE in my TPT store here. 

I made these sound spinners so students can easily see that by substituting just 1 sound, they can make new words! I created spinner for beginning, middle, and ending sounds.  Students simply spin the wheel to show a new sound, read the word, then lift the flap to see if the picture matches the word they read. Then students will spin a new sound to make a new word! Each set of sound spinners comes with a worksheet for students to provide their answers. You can grab these sound spinners in my TPT store here. 

These CVC word cards are an easy way to help students practice building simple words. You can use magnetic letters, playdoh, dry-erase markers, etc. for added fun! You can find them in my TPT store here.

 During my small group, we use these mini cups to work on word families. I gave students a cup with a red word family on it. They then had a stack of blue letters, and put one letter in front of the word family to make a new word. Next, they could stack another blue letter on top of the other cup to make a new word. The word family cup (red) doesn't move until they've built 5 words. They can then get a new word family and start making new words. Eventually, I'll add harder word families and blend/digraphs instead of just 1 letter on the cups. 

Another way to work on word families is with these word families mats I got years ago from Lakeshore. I love that they are dry-erase and give the students a picture clue for the word family. My students really enjoy using these mats, and they seem to catch on to the idea of word families quickly. My students love to show me when they use a blend or digraph to make a bigger word. Word families are an easy way to help build student confidence in reading!

One of my students FAVORITE activities is Fluency & Fitness! I have created over 50 different sets so we can work on these for any and every skills possible. I love doing these because students can work on academics, get in some exercise for a brain break, and I don't lose any instructional time. You can find all of my Fluency & Fitness bundles here. 

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Word Work Checklists {...with Mrs.Plemons' Kindergarten}

Do you have a love hate relationship with word study in your classroom? I know I've tried a million different routines but I always struggle with figuring out how to differentiate for student needs. But then in a magically moment of wisdom I came up with a simple one page printable that saves me loads of sanity!

Truth be told I hate figuring out what to have my students do right away in the morning when they come in. I struggle with not wanting to give them busy work but still wanting to get them engaged in learning right away.  That's why I decided to create a simple word work checklist that students can do first thing in the morning when they arrive.

To differentiate these checklists, I first decide which words my students need to work on. Depending on the students' abilities and the time of year the word lists may include their name, sight words, color words, word families, spelling patterns, etc. I do hand write all of my students words on their lists each week but often I have groups of kids with the same words, so I am able to write it once then copy it for each kid to save some time.

Then when students come in for the day they grab their list and pick from 8 (or more) choices to practice their words.  They pick one choice for that morning and color it on their paper. I ask them to choose a different activity each day.  Here are 8 of the "all the time" options I have. 

Play Dough

Cubes

Whiteboards

Stickers

Rainbow Write

Stones

Magnets

Beans

I also add up to 3 additional choices each week to keep things interesting and I usually just draw/write those on the bottom quickly before copying.  Some of the other options I add include:

Alphabet Beads, Stamps, Tiles, Magic Words (write with white crayon then water color paint over), Clothespins, Squishy Bags (ziplok bags filled with hair gel, write with Q-tip), and Dot Stampers.

You can grab the FREE printable word work checklist here:

I hope you can use this idea in your classroom to help simplify your work work and cut down on the prep work you need to do!