Win $25 to TPT Hashtag Hunt

Image designed by: Createolux

Hey there party people!

As promised, we will be doing our first-ever HASHTAG HUNT starting Friday, February 5.  What is a hashtag hunt, you ask?  We will be hiding pieces of this cute little image on our Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter accounts, along with our website.  Each Friday, we will give you a hint on this post as to where the newest piece is.  All 4 pieces together spell out a hashtag that represents something which is very important to us as a company.  The first 4 people to post the hashtag to our FB page will win a $25 TPT gift card!  One gift card per winner.  It's that simple.  Tune in right here for the first clue on Feb 5.

This clue is lots of fun, search our website pages for Clue #1!

Clue #2 is fast so hurry and flock to our twitter page around 5 o-clock!(5:00pm EST on Feb 12)

Clue #3 is tricky to see.  Check our first Pinterest board that starts with "B!"  Hint: you may have to click on it to see it...

Clue #4 is going live.  Try our Facebook page around 8:05!(8:05pm EST on Feb 26)

Did you find them all?  WAY TO GO!  Click this post to let us know!!



Happy Hunting!

Resolution #3: Have More Fun!

So we're trucking along through January and realize...we need to have more fun!  We are serious about quality education, but we know you probably have enough seriousness in your days.  We want to bring back FUN FRIDAY.  This was a series of Friday posts we used to do with tips on fun activities you can do in your classroom.  Not only that, but we are going to play some teacher games with you on Facebook.  LIKE our page to stay updated on the new Friday games we will be rolling out starting in February.  The first is called "S.O.L. Train Swag Scavenger Hunt."  Tune in in February to see what it's all about!

Also in February, we will be doing our very first Hashtag Hunt.  More on that next week...



Have an awesome weekend and stay safe,

Start Your Year Inspired SALE!

We're excited to tell y'all that TPT is having a SALE and we have placed everything in our store on SALE! 

We wanted to share our newest winter resource! This fun center features our favorite penguin, Quality Quentin! Your kiddos will love building our Team 25 snowball sight words! There is a teacher guide included. 

 This is one of my ESOL students and he was so excited to see Quality Quentin on the cards! He placed the words in  Quentin's flipper since they were snowballs. Here he is sounding out the letters and saying the words correctly and having fun doing it:)  Win! Win!

We are so excited to share our newly revised word of the day resource! We added our Team 25 sight words to the January words. Students cut out snowball shaped words and glue them in order to make a sentence about the winter words. They also illustrate the sentence and there is a bonus question they can answer. The words that are highlighted are at the top of each page.

This kiddo has cut out his snowball words and placed them in the correct order and is ready to glue them now. I like how the students can manipulate the words and read the sentence first before it is glued.

 Then he copies and illustrates his sentence.

 Now he highlights the words that were at the top of the page. This reinforces the words that we are working on. Then he illustrates the sentence. I always love seeing the pictures!

There is also a bonus question they can do.

This great Word of the Day vocabulary game is based on winter words from our January Word of the Day calendar. It is one of our new Word of the Day Brain Bounce games to help your kiddos practice ELA skills. You can also use these word of the day cards in a word of the day center or as a Scoot game. This is a great winter activity to see how well your kiddos know their winter word of the day words.

 Our January Word of the Day Word Crumbs game is a great new brain game for your kiddos to practice looking for word chunks in January vocabulary words. This Word of the Day January game can be played alone, with a partner, or as a class. The kids have to look through all the words to find the answers for each card. I added little magnifying glasses to the center and my kiddos loved it!

This winter product is a fun, mathematical spin on the card game "War." includes 100 winter number cards that can be used for multiple purposes around your classroom. You can use them in a center or as a winter game for your kiddos. You can get this for $2!

These fun math games will get your kiddos up and moving during those cold days that y'all are stuck inside!  There are also fun manipulatives if you want to use these cards in a math center. All the games are also sold separately.

We also have large bundles that include our original songs, math games and more!

Happy Shopping!!

More YouTube Videos: Resolution #2

Hey all,

So as we mentioned last week, our first New Year's resolution is to find more ways to give back to the educational community.  One of these ways is through our Giving Back Giveaway.  We are donating 5% of our Nov, Dec, and Jan profits to the educational charity of choice for the winner of this giveaway.

Resolution #2: We want to give y'all more videos for personal use and use in your classrooms.  We know some of you would much rather watch a video than read a post or article, so we want to give you that option.  Stay tuned here, and we will post our first kid-friendly, word of the day classroom video!  We are so excited to share this with you.  There may even be a special guest...You will have to wait and see.

Feel free to leave suggestions for videos in the comments.  We want to provide you with resources that are ready for you to use in the classroom!

Thanks and have a great weekend,

Word of the Day January Books

Hey Teacher Friends and Parent Teachers!

Just wanted to drop in quickly and let you know about our awesome new Word of the Day books for January!  These are so much more than books y'all.  It is a whole different approach to reading.
 We involve the children in singing, text analysis, and other fun activities to keep them engaged in the reading process.  We combine several methods to make sure each kiddo is actively learning.  RIGHT NOW, you can get our entire Word of the Day Growing Bundle for only $3.  It will total 5 books by the end of the month.  Click below to check it out:

Here are some pictures of Pam's kids using the book in action:

Here's a link to some of these out of the box ideas for reading

If you're not looking for the whole bundle, and just want a taste, here is our New Year book.  Just click the image below:

Our books are perfect for this alternative approach to reading because they have 3 key components: They are paper copies that can be circled, highlighted, written on, they are based on songs that aid with the word recognition, and they are centered on our Word of the Day calendars which teach a different vocabulary word each day.  Pam tells me all the time about the connections her students make with these words and it's incredible to listen to!  

The second book this week will be on Martin Luther King Jr.

The second book has been posted!:)

Have a great day and happy reading!

Giving Back Giveaway: Resolution #1

Holidays are a time for giving, loving, and appreciating all that life has offered you throughout the year.  It is a time when many are feeling more charitable due to the holiday spirit.  According to the Digital Giving Index provided by networkforgood.org, people gave an average of $229 on December 31, and $104 the rest of the year.  31% of donations in 2014 were given in the month of December.  Obviously this giving is awesome, but we would like to lead the charge in continuing this generous spirit following the holidays.

We are going to be doing a very unique, never-before attempted giveaway that focuses on giving back.  The winner will choose his or her favorite education-related charity and we will contribute 5% of our November, December, and January earnings to the charity.  While the giveaway is in progress, we will be offering up fun ideas to get your students involved in giving back this 2016.  The giveaway starts Monday along with our first giving back tip!  Feel free to share with us on Twitter, FB, or on this post ways that you would like to "give back."  Don't forget to tag your idea with #givingback2016.  Can't wait to read your ideas!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Giving Back in the Classroom

Start small: Give your kiddos a homework assignment or class project to do individually or as a group.  They can choose a community service to perform over the course of a month and share their experience with the class.  Give them the option of doing the presentation orally, through an art project, poster presentation, or however they desire.  This will make the experience longer lasting and more relevant for them.  Here is a short list of ideas.  Many of these are directed at older students, but can be adapted for younger students.  They may even come up with awesome ideas on their own!

Get everyone involved: Once you've given your kiddos a small scale community service opportunity, try something as a class.  Involve your students in the brainstorming process and see what they would like to do.  More ideas here.

Turn it into a project: Either as a class or in groups, have students document their experience.  The skills involved in setting up a Project Based Learning experience include: complex reading, writing, critical thinking, strategic thinking and more.  Students have to communicate via professional emails.  They have to do research on the service they've decided to provide.  They have to plan when and where this will take place based on the resources they have at hand.  This is an awesome way to get involved in the community and have real world Literacy experiences.  Though the article that inspired this is directed at high school students, it's possible for younger students as well.  They may just need more guidance.

Please please don't hesitate to share your experiences through Twitter via #givingback2016 or on our blog.  We would love to see real life application and how it's working!

Good luck, and happy servicing!

Stock photos courtesy of bigstockphoto.com

Word of the Day Brain Bounce Games-Over 50% off!

You can get the entire bundle at over 50% discount when you buy this bundle! Just click on the picture to check it out:)  These Vocabulary games ask questions about monthly vocabulary. Y'all can also use the cards as read around the room cards, or as a center or as discussion cards about the subject you might be studying. You will get all 12 games for a great price for a limited time!

We would love you to follow our new Educents store so you will be notified of all our new products and sales. Our entire store is on SALE right now!

This is our Brain Bounce game that has task cards that ask questions about our January Calendar words. My kiddos love playing this game because they like to break into teams to play.

This is what the task cards look like.

This is my awesome ELL teacher! She is asking one of her ELL students a question from our bounce game. She said that these Word of the Day products have helped her students to understand content area vocabulary.

We have also used these cards as a read around the room activity.

Here are a few pictures of the game cards.

We hope you will check the games out while they are on SALE! Our kiddos love playing these games. The cards also generate some good discussions:)


HAPPY NEW YEAR!