$100 Winner

Thank you SO much to everyone that entered my giveaway - they are always so much fun, I only wish that everyone could win.

The Rafflecopter has selected Lisa Richling from Learning is Somthing to Treasure, to win!! Congratulations! Lisa - if you need some inspiration for where to go shopping in the sale, look no further than all the fabulous stores that have linked up HERE

If you have not linked up yet, please feel free to link up your store if its on sale Mon-Tue!

100 Reasons You Should Be Ready to Win!

Have you heard?  There is a HUGE sale happening at TpT, very soon!

On Cyber Monday (December 2 and December 3, 2013) Teachers Pay Teachers is offering an additional 10% off sale prices offered by individual stores. 

Many sellers are offering 20% off on those days, and with the additional 10% off, teachers can save 28% in all. 

I am offering 20% off at my 

Teaching Resource Store

AND

Graphics/Clipart Store

I LOVE these sale days! And to celebrate, I want to give BACK to one of my fabulous blog followers!

As you will have noticed, I have been busily revising my '100 Sight Words' series for the last few months now! I just added a new file to the growing collection! So why not give away a

 $100 voucher 

to celebrate! Perfect timing for the lucky winner to SPEND up big ANYWHERE on TpT during the sale day. This rafflecopter will finish on Monday, so you will have all Tuesday to browse, shop and save! 

You can snag this FREE resource to help your students learn 100 sight words AND enter the draw to win $100 in FREE TpT resources, simply by leaving feedback!

If you can't get enough of '100' check out these two products of mine, and take advantage of 28% off on MOnday and Tuesday!

100 Sight Words Ultimate Pack

100 Scrappy Kids Clip Art

Good luck in the giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

If you are a fellow TpT seller, I would LOVE you to add a link to your store IF you have your store on 20% off for the Mon-Tue sales also! 

Christmas Print and Play

Do you like a worksheet or 23? 

These are much more than worksheets! They are 'print and play' worksheets. Each worksheet features a 'game' component, making them much more interactive than the regular on-paper activity in the classroom!

The worksheets in this pack, have an additional level of interactivity, in that some of them are to be used by pairs of students. They can 'race' each other as they complete the worksheet together. Yes.... a good discussion about HEALTHY competition is probably needed for SOME students. I have never had an issue with this sort of thing in the classroom, as I play LOTS of games, and my students quickly realise that if they don't win today, they most probably will tomorrow! I model how and encourage my students to congratulate their peers for winning and trying hard. If you reinforce it enough, it WILL become part of your classroom culture, I promise! 

For these activities, you need only the worksheet, a paper clip and some pens, crayons or pencils! There are 6 different game variations in this packet, to help you cover a big range of learning abilities. 

I've picked one to show you today - 'Beat the Reindeer #2'. This worksheet has a double spinner. Students play this one on their own and the aim is to 'beat' the reindeer featured on the worksheet in a grid.

Students spin. If they land on the reindeer, they must shade ONE complete section of the grid.

As they spin the number sections, they ADD the two numbers (inner circle + outer circle) and write the SUM in one square on the game board. 

They keep spinning, writing or shading. If they manage to get numbers written in each square before the reindeer is fully shaded, they have won. If the reindeer gets shaded, they have been 'beaten' by him! 

This reindeer worksheet is also provided in a version that encourages simple number recognition, in case you have students that are not up to addition yet!

All 23 of my print and play worksheets can be found in this file, in my TpT store, at 50% for the next 24 hours.

And I would love you to try this one for FREE! Click to grab it from Google Drive! 

Thank you so much for stopping by today! 

Torn Paper Santa - Zero Prep Art for Kids

Christmas falls just after the end of our school year in Australia. By December our stores are running low and we are very busy trying to get the classroom packed up and keep the children happy and settled. 

This torn paper Santa will make a perfect project for this time of year. You can use up excess paper scraps AND it is virtually zero prep!

I love torn paper projects, and the soft lines that are created by paper tearing.

A great idea, if you have the space in your room, is to keep tubs to store offcuts and scraps of paper from other projects throughout the year. Dedicate a different tub to each colour - then you will always have a go-to resource for days when you need to whip up and artwork! Once you teach your students some basic paper craft techniques, including paper tearing, they will gradually be able to create entire projects quite independently.

For this Santa, you will simply need red paper, buff (or brown) paper, black paper and white. You will also need a glue stick per child and a blue or black background piece. Sit your students down and tell them that they will be completing a torn paper artwork.

If you have not done many torn paper projects, it may be surprisingly challenging AND daunting for your students - especially the ones that like things to be precise. Explain that the aim of torn paper projects is that each artwork looks different and that the shapes are not exact. 

Demonstrate to your students how to tear paper. What!!? Yes, some students will need this explicit instruction, as they may not have had good experiences in tearing paper before. Show them how to place their index finger and thumb on either side of the line to be torn. Tell them that they must only tear the area between their thumbs. Show how to keep moving the fingers to develop a shape. If the fingers are moved too far away, they will lose control of the tearing line. Tell them to keep their fingers close to the space to be torn.

A few demonstrations of what happens when they tear from one corner right across the page, always gets a few giggles and is a good visual example of what will happen if  they move too fast. Perhaps have a 'tearing party' and get your students to practice tearing little white bits for the beard and hair - these pieces can be any shape and it will be a good place to start to get the fingers warmed up! 

Once students are confident in tearing paper, simply guide them through the shapes they will need. Start with a round face, add a triangle for the body and two curved rectangles for arms. The hat could be tricky - an easy option is to tear a curved triangle, or make an oval and a curved rectangle for the end that hangs down. Simply add each part separately. Ask students to tear a small circle for the end of the hat and glue little white pieces down for the beard and snow. Students can crayon the face details on!

As students finish their artwork, and need to wait for other class members still busy, they can find a partner and have a game of Santa Race and Trace!

Students can take turns at spinning and writing numerals to try to score 5 in a row to win. You can find this FREE worksheet in my TpT store. It is a sample out of an upcoming packet I am working on! Find it by clicking on the image below.

Easy to prepare, students can use a paper clip and pencil to spin! 

Each student writes in a different colour, so you can easily see who owns each number!

If you would like more Santa ideas, check out my newly revised Santa Fun Pack at TpT!

Thank you so much for stopping by today!

Fish Frenzy - Trading for Tens

This adorable 'Fish Feeding Frenzy' game caught my eye this morning. My friend Tania, over at Mrs Poultney's Ponderings has listed it for FREE in her TpT store!

It caught my eye as I played something very similar with one of my targeted number groups yesterday at school, but I have to say, this one looks SO MUCH more fun!

Suffice it to say, I have printed copies of these boards and have them all ready for next week - thanks Tania!

It is so simple to prepare - just print the game boards (colour available also), add 2 dice and some MAB blocks. All set. The game itself is very straight-forward in its concept. Your little learners will stay focused on the central skill within the game, and still have lots of fun 'feeding their fish'. Perfect!

Head over to TpT to grab this fun game now, and please leave Tania some sweet feedback for sharing her hard work! 

Have a great day!

A Festive Spelling Word Activity

How has your week been? We are all sorts-of-crazy busy here in Australia. It is dangerously close to the end of the school year and summer is just a couple of weeks away! Most teachers will have finished there end-of-year assessments, be madly rehearsing for concerts and presentation day ceremonies. They are most likely planning to do some fun, yet educational Christmas-sy activities with their students. 

Do you need a very-easy-to-organize spelling of sight word activity for your class or small groups this week? This one will double-up as an help you decorate the room for Christmas. 

Students write a sight word or spelling-list word on strips of paper and use them to create paper chains. 

Simply provide them with a list of words, red and green paper strips, black markers, tape and Christmas stickers. Once completed, you can hang these around the classroom!

You can also download this FREE blackline worksheet to keep your clever ones busy AND revising their spelling or sight words. They can create a word search using any list of words, and then pass it to a friend to find them all! Click on the image below to download from Google Drive.

I used a border from my 3rd 'Edge It' border collections to make this worksheet. It is 50% off for 1 more day, if you are interested! 

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Fun Homework for Kindergarten!

This packet came about because I wanted to create something for my daughter to work on now that she is ready to learn to spell sight words more accurately. I needed something that could be easy to implement while I was in the kitchen preparing our dinner. We find this a good time for her to do her daily reader and also to chat about her day at school. I am usually peeling vegetables or chopping something, and for some reason, probably because I am finally standing relatively still, we have found it a very useful pocket of time. 

The refrigerator in my house is somewhat of a central meeting place of sorts. Not only has little man Sam just become keenly interested with its contents, but my daughter has long adored displaying her drawings and paper creations on it. From when she was around 3 years old, I made it an important part of her life to have her work displayed and talked about. Not only is it a great way to enrich language, but I think it really helped with her understanding of reading and writing. We would point to and talk about all her drawings to anyone and everyone that came in the house. She gradually learnt to do this herself - and now at age 6 she still proudly show Grandma and Grandpa what her newest addition to the fridge is all about. In a very natural way she learnt that her written work, both pictures and her first attempts at writing, had meaning. REAL meaning. She developed language, memory, recall, communication skills and most importantly FELT what it was to be literate.

I have two sides covered in drawings, painting, certificates, photos, school reminders and magnetic letters. The other side featured little invitations, notes, phone numbers etc that I have jotted down on little bits of paper. Once a fortnight, I do like to do a sweep and tidy it up, but it quickly becomes a giant white hub of communication again quite quickly!

So what better way to help us both focus on some sight word spelling practice than to use a place that is already working so well for us - the fridge!

This packet has 35 pages, each featuring 2 or 3 sight words for the week. Students will undertake each activity on the worksheet, on each night Mon-Thurs. 

After pointing to each work and reading it, students can shade in the day to show that it has been completed. 

Your students can then BUILD each word, one at a time, with magnetic letters in the work space provided. 

Similar to my Spin and Trace worksheets that I made a few years ago, students can spin a word and a colour to practice writing the words!

The spinners on these sheets are 'double' spinners so your students will only have to spin once. They look at the colour and word combination. 

And write 5 words each night on their worksheet.

It should only take a few minutes each night to complete this homework - perfect for Kindergarten and busy families! If you would like to try these homework sheets, I have listed the set at TpT for 50% off for the first 24 hours! Find it by clicking on the image below:

If you have our Ultimate Pack of Sight Word Activities, I have already added this to the bundle, so please visit your 'My Purchases' tab in your TpT account, and download this new addition!

If you have not seen or entered the HUGE giveaway over at Blog Hoppin' blog, you should check it out! It looks amazing. I have everything possible crossed to win - hurry you only have a day left to enter!