Phonics Word Searches!

Here's my latest little "labor" of love :)

I am always looking for something meaningful for my kiddos to do when they've finished their work early... so here are some word searches the correlate with our basal (StoryTown)! Included are 30 searches, one for each lesson. The searches include the week's spelling and high frequency words. Click the pic to visit my store for a free preview!

Don't teach StoryTown?? Don't worry! These are simple Word documents, and can be easily edited to fit your style! Simply delete the graphic I included (they coordinate with the stories we read each week) and rename the search to indicate the phonics chunk it reinforces! There are searches for short vowels, digraphs, etc. You name it, it's probably there (if you teach first grade, that is...!).

I hope you enjoy! Let me know if your kiddos enjoy them, too!

Thank you! And "All on the Map"

You guys are so wonderful at lifting a girl's spirits! Your comments and emails to me about my previous post really helped me know I'm not the only one out there who's so frustrated with the way teaching is heading. Some days, I am jealous of those of you who get to teach reading centers, but I don't even have that option with the way our schedule is set up. My kiddos don't go to centers, and they have no down time throughout the day when they aren't being directly instructed by a teacher. One of these days, I'll figure out a time when I can get these first graders into some fun activities where they can explore their learning a bit!! :-)

In other news... Here is the latest in my set of StoryTown activity printables! Click the pic to check out this packet that works with Lesson 6, studying the -all chunk!

Hope you all had a relaxing weekend! Have a tremendous week... may it be the best one yet! :)

Dot and Bob StoryTown pack

Here's my way of feeling productive on this Friday morning... not cleaning house or making a grocery list!! :) Instead I play around with fun fonts and graphics to create something that I hope our first graders will just love! Click on the picture to view more sample pages... Enjoy!

Get Up, Rick! Lesson 4

Here's the Lesson 4 StoryTown pack - and final pack of the weekend! Thank you to everyone who have left kind comments, even if you don't use StoryTown... be sure to send colleagues who do my way! Time to enjoy a yummy steak & potato cookout :-)

Click on the picture to view more sample pages.

Lesson 3 - Big Rigs!

So, I didn't meet my goal of getting 4 packs finished yesterday, but I finished 2 1/2! :-) Today's the day to finish the other 1 1/2... and here's one of them!  Check out my activity pack for First Grade StoryTown's lesson 3 - Big Rigs! What a fun story :-) Found some great graphics to go along with it!

Click on the picture to view some samples:

Woohoo - #2!

As much as the couch is calling me to nap on it.... I finished the Lesson 2 StoryTown activity pack. Check it out if you're interested by clicking on the picture! :)

Now... 2 more to go this afternoon! First, I think a 30-45 minute cat-nap is needed!

New StoryTown pack!

So I finally got my tush in gear this morning and have started creating more activity packs to go along with the early StoryTown lessons!! Here is Lesson 1 - Let's Tap. Click on the picture for more images and information :-)

Check back later on for more! I'm hoping for 3 more this afternoon.... *crosses fingers that blogs won't distract me too much!!*

*Free* StoryTown TpT Item!

I saw this fabulous idea earlier this year from Kathleen @ Growing Kinders... and I knew I HAD to adapt it to fit my first graders!! (Mine doesn't have all the cute graphics, tho, I kept it pretty basic this go 'round.)

Even if you don't have StoryTown, your firsties may very well still benefit from this practice. If you have kindergarten, I strongly recommend visiting Kathleen's TpT store to snag some that are appropriate for your kiddos!

If you download it, please leave me some positive feedback :-) Click the pic to get it!

New Storytown TpT Item!

One thing on my To-Do list is finished! :-) Only 73 more to go.... (it seems)

In order to make my planning of Storytown activities easier (at a glance), I created the following resource. It's a pack of 30 pages, one for each lesson. Each page has the lesson's phonics focus, spelling words, high frequency words, and vocab words! There's also an icon that coordinates with the week's Main Selection :-)

Here is a peek at a couple of pages... click on the first pic to vist my TpT store to purchase!

Now, onto the next item on the To-Do list! :-)

New TpT Item!

Here is the latest installment in my Storytown activity packs... It's for Lesson 29, Sand Castle, and it's all themed around the beach! What a fun way to learn about the long OO sound :-) Pass it along to a teacher you know that teaches with Story Town!! (This was made with purchases from tonight off of Just So Scrappy... see my post below for details about their GREAT sale!)

Blast Off!

Our Storytown lesson this week focuses on Long I words and is centered around a story called Blast Off! Here is the printable I've made for this lesson... check it out! :-)



Happy Weekend, everyone!!

New Storytown printable + Musical Picture!

As promised last night, here is a quick pic of my kiddos all ready for their dress rehearsal! Check out my cast of characters in the previous post! You can see Sleeping Beauty, Little Boy Blue, one of the 3 Little Pigs, Little Miss Muffett (with the curls), and Mother Goose (in the "Grandma" crochet sweater, according to her!). I love them :-)

**TpT freebie alert!!**
Here is the beginning stage of a project I'm working on. I'm putting together information sheets for parents/planning purposes for each Storytown lesson. So far, I have lessons 26-30 complete. I'll work on the rest as time magically appears! :-) These pages have the phonics focus, spelling words, high frequency words, and vocabulary words so that parents know what we're learning. They also have a clip art image corresponding to the lesson's Main Selection. Enjoy!

Amazing Animals (take 2...)

So, when I got to school this morning and started cutting out the activities I made last night to go with our Storytown lesson, I realized - I added the WRONG spelling/high frequency words to the papers!!! Sigh. Sooo, they are now fixed, and I've re-posted the activity to my TpT. Please take a peek!

Also, be sure to read my stance on my TpT products to the right... and email  me if you need to! :-) I'll be working on Lesson 26 later on tonight, and I'll post that, as well.

Let's Go on a Picnic!

After seeing some AWESOME ideas at other fabulous blogs (check out Teacher's Pets on the right for some fantastic links!!), I got jealous since we teach Story Town and it seems as if all the good teachers teach Reading Street. So... I got creative myself! If you use Story Town, feel free to use. And if you know of a good blog of someone who teaches with that program, pleeeeeease lead me to it! :-)  Thanks!!

Picnic Spelling Words and HFW

Help me with...Story Town!!

Okay, teacher buddies! It's time for me to ask for your help... It'll happen again, I'm sure!

At my school, we are piloting a new reading series, Harcourt's Story Town, and we're LOVING it! I am curious though... how in the world do you fit it all in during your literacy block?? We have 90 minutes for whole group literacy and then each student is in Guided Reading for 30 minutes after that. But I cannot get through the whole day's lesson for the life of me. I want to do best by my kiddos, so I need advice!

If you have faced something similar with your reading series (escpecially if it's Story Town!), please leave me a message with advice, kind words, or a good recipe that I can bake/eat while trying to figure all of this glorious stuff out!! :)

'Til the next time that I have a question that I'll need help with...