It's Skippyjon Jones Week and some Freebies on the Chalkboard!!

Happy Friday eve everyone!!! I got some exciting news today (well, exciting for me as I am a *newer* blogger and seller on TPT (Teacher Pay Teachers). Look who was on the homepage of TPT today!!

 So, back to business....WOW!! Another week of GREAT learning has gone by so let's get down to it!! This week we were immersed in short i word families. As well as learning about sequencing activities (Say WHAT?? That is such a hard skill for some of them! SO many can verbalize it but putting it to paper is a whole other story!). When we last met, I introduced my Short /i/ Adventures with Skippyjon Jones

OMG!! They are having such a blast with these centers and I have to say I fell in love with my class a little but more!!! They were so engaged and so excited about learning and they really got to the heart of learning this phonics skill. I think when I have more time (who does at this time of year??) I am going to add more pages for sequencing but for now the kids just did great with these centers. 

Here's some pictures of the "Spill the Frijoles" Center! They couldn't wait to get their hands on the frijoles!

They loved playing, "Hey Dude! Go Fish with short /i/ words"!

Tomorrow we will be working on the Kitty-Boy Fix It Sentences and making Skippyjon Jones Masks! Ole!! What a fun way to end our fun week with Skippyjon Jones!! 

If you'd like to join in on the Short /i/ Adventures with Skippyjon Jones, it is available in my store. Click on the preview picture above to take you there! It's only $5.00!!! 

Next week we will be working on Fall centers (so super excited to this as I LOVE LOVE LOVE Fall even though Fall feels like summer in FL) and I will be sharing some centers that I do with you sometime this weekend!!!

This week we also worked on subtraction sentences! Zoinks! I don't know about you but subtraction can be so hard for them. Especially when we work on key words and strategies they still struggle! We have been singing:

If you haven't played this song for your class to help teach subtraction, you are totally missing out. Other than the corny pirate voice, it really is cute and it has words like "less" and "difference"! Brilliant! The kids were getting it when I was talking about subtraction and how we always end up with less and I would sing the song and they sang right along with me! We have also been working really hard with part-part-whole mats and finding the missing parts. If you work out of enVision Math then you would be very familiar with this. Here is a quick assessment that I will be using tomorrow. It's nothing fancy, just something I whipped up to see what they knew and were applying. Click on the picture to download it:

Speaking of freebies.... we, the ladies of the Primary Chalkboard are offering you the Best Freebies we ever made!!! And who doesn't love FREE, QUALITY teaching products??? We offer you these freebies with all the love and as a show of all the great work we do! And if you are a fellow blogger of know of another great freebie, you can link up on the Chalkboard to other great freebies. Let's all share the wealth! The post will be up tomorrow so stay tuned. You can click on our Chalkboard to take you there!

Ok, well, I am off to *try* and work on lesson plans. I have them in my head but have yet to get them in lesson plan format. You, too, right?? LOL! Happy Friday tomorrow! Yay!!

Take Me Out to the Ballpark with the Cats... What???

It's Sunday again and time to get ready for another week! We are entering our 4th week as a class family and things are going great! Slooowwwlllyyy but surely we are getting into the groove of things and I am getting assessments done-- I seriously need an aide just to help get them done. Why oh why are almost all of the assessments in first grade one-on-one?? Sheesh... but we get them done!!! Thankfully I have wonderful parent volunteers who help me out and they are definitely a valuable asset in the classroom!

I was able to relax a little yesterday, which explains why I have worked my butt off this morning, but that's okay!! It was worth it! We took our boys to their first baseball game! It was for a minor league team we have called The Daytona Cubs and we could not have picked a more perfect night to go! There was a breeze and no bugs!!! 

This is why I love Florida!!!

My kids NEVER look at the camera! I don't know why and it's annoying!!! LOL!!!

It was a great night! We ate so much trash food but that's the fun part!!!!

So, onto academics because this is a teaching blog, right??? LOL!!!Yeah... so this week we will be studying short /i/ word families of -in, -it, and -iss and my favourite way to study it is through one of my favourite characters:

I love Skippyjon Jones! Hees leetle accento is the best! And I love his adventures! The kids love him! I have downloaded the stories for my iPad and I put his website (click on picture to take you there) on my student computers and we have a blast learning short /i/ sounds and  Skippyjon Jones all week!!! 

In fact, I made a fun literacy unit to go along with it!! 

We will be using these centers this week. I hope to *remember* to take pictures of them using these centers. We get so engrossed in our learning that it can be very difficult to remember! Some days it's hard enough getting to lunch on time!!! 

I will be uploading it shortly.. but in the meantime... I have a FUN FREEBIE for you!!! I actually made it last year and updated it this year with just a different font. Click on the picture to download it!! 

I hope you all have a great week!!! Love you all!!!