Success! and Easter Break....finally!

The Phonics Egg Hunt was a success!!! Everyone did an awesome job, and it was much-less chaotic than I thought it would be, and it took about hald the time I had planned too! I will definitely be doing this again next year! The kids LOVED it and loved the treats I hid inside for them too :)  Please comment below if you tried this out! My Pinterest was blowing up after I posted it on Monday and got a ton of views, so I know someone else did it too! Please let us know how it went!

I got it to work! Here's a picture of a student looking at his clue and the egg to see if he found the right word:

In other news, the countdown to Easter break is on! Just one more school day after today and we are off for a WHOLE WEEK! When I went to school growing up, and even where I worked for the past 2 years, we only got Good Friday and Easter Monday off, but now I am so blessed to be off an entire week! With the weekend it totals to 9 days of freedom! I'm going to walk my dog, ride my bike, start training for a fun 5K race in June I'm doing (more about that later!) and repaint my bedroom! Plus, this Saturday my husband and I are FINALLY getting our new bed delivered that we ordered about 4 WEEKS AGO! I can't wait for my beautiful, queen-size sleigh bed! (We had a full size now and it's way too small!) and (of course) it's coming the same day I get to babysit my adorable 2 1/2 year old nephew. Oh well, we'll make it work! I am so excited because I haven't seen the Cubster (our nickname for him) in ages! We're gonna have fun eating fruit snacks, playing with my pup Reagan (she's so cute, I had to post a picture below!) and playing outside in the gorgeous weather! What are y'all up this weekend!? Are you off school too? Comment below and let us know!

Come on now, you have to admit shes's the cutest! :)

I also need to work on a Plant Unit I have been conjuring up in my head for the past month. Myself and the other 1st grade teacher are going to plant bean plants after we come back for break to finish our Science curriculum when we study plants. So I'm working on a Plant Observation Journal (which I need a much cuter title for) and other fun activities to integrate other content areas. I will definitely post some FREEBIES when it's finished and put the link up to my TpT store.

Well, thanks for reading and have a blessed Easter!

Tami :)

Word Work Mania!

One of my favorite parts of the Daily 5 is Word Work time! I love finding new ways for my students to practice our words and phonics sounds any time they can.  Today, we had 2 students absent, and it's Friday, so I decided to delay my math activity to Monday and break out lots of materials for the remainder of the day (which really was only a half an hour).

Some students used alphabet stamps....

I created a sheet to accompany this activity. My students were using regular computer paper or writing paper and it was such a mess! I had to create something scaffolded and more organized. This is what I came up with! [Spelling Stampers is available in my Word Work Activities packet].

Other students used bendy stix to create letters and words...

A bunch used letter tiles (their favorite!)

I found that the tiles can be noisy on their desks, so I bought felt and cut it into large squares for themt to lay them out on to reduce the noise (a little!)

Other students broke out spelling words I had used when I taught at a different school last year.

I just recently introduced these and they are becoming a fast favorite of the class! They were quite labor intensive when I first made them (printing, cutting, mounting and laminating - I'm particular!) so I'm glad they are putting them to use!

One other student broke out my latest addition to our (quite large) Word Work section... I saw this on Pinterest and modified it a tad...

Using clothespins to spell out spelling words. Another growing favorite!

Lastly, some students used puzzle pieces to spell words...

I can honestly say this was my own idea! I didn't find and adopt or modify it from anyone! It hit me one weekend when I was off scrapbooking with my mother-in-law (yes, we get along QUITE well!) Anyhow, I was just sitting there and saw her puzzle punch and it just hit me! Why not let students make spelling puzzles.  I have tons of letter stickers that are just left over, not enough to spell out one whole word any more, so I used those and lots of scrap paper to make tons of puzzle pieces! It's one of my favorite, but it's not a huge hit with the kids :(

They seem to go in waves of what they like to use during Word Work time. The bendy sticks were a hti for a while at the beginning of the year, then fizzled off and almost NO ONE used them, and now they're a hit again! Oh well. As long as they are loving to make words, I'm okay with that! I can definitely say that there is a plethera of choices in my Word Work section and my students LOVE it :)

Hope you found some new ideas!