Word of the Day Bundles

We are so thrilled to tell y'all that we have combined all of our monthly Word of the Day calendars into one large Bundle, and our Brain Bounce games into a large Bundle!  You will get a year's worth of vocabulary in one Big Pack.  That is 366 words that your kiddos can learn!  We are offering these Bundles 20% off on Labor Day.  Just click on the pictures below to purchase.  

This is a sample of our September Calendar.  Each of the calendars has a vocabulary word on it as well as a pattern that will build each day for the kiddos to figure out.  Each student can have their own smaller black and white version of the calendar.  Also included is a teacher's guide for the whole group calendar time, a teacher's guide on how to use the student calendars, a definition sheet for all the words and a journal sheet for the kiddos to complete on each word.

If you want to just purchase our September Calendar to see if this is a product that you want to use in your classrooms, just click on the picture below to purchase.

 My students love to share what they write in their calendar notebooks!

 I will put the word of the day in Quality Quentin's flippers because he is our classroom mascot and my kiddos get a kick out of seeing Quentin with the new word each day



I found a couple more of my kiddos'

journal entries of their calendar words.  I just love seeing these!

This is where my student is showing me the words she wants to use for her Calendar Story for the month of May.  I have them  choose 5 words that go together and write a story. These words help give my students confidence in their writing, so they are learning new vocabulary as well as becoming great little writers!

These are just a couple of the calendar stories at the beginning of the year.

 These last 2 samples of writing are from the end of the school year and I wanted y'all to notice how much the writing improved.  Some of my students even chose more than 5 words to use.   Wow!  I was so proud of my kiddos!!:)

 I would staple all their stories for the month into a class book.  They took turns illustrating them.  My  kiddos love to go back and reread these stories throughout the year and the good thing about that is these calendar words are always being reinforced for them.

Our Brain Bounce games are vocabulary games that are based on our Word of the Day Calendars.  They are task cards that ask questions about the vocabulary words. Also included are a teacher's guide, Brain Bounce directions, Scoot Game Directions, recording sheet and an answer key.  My kiddos love playing these games!  I have students asking me,"Can we play again?'  right after the game is done.

These are just a few samples of the questions for the month of September.

These Brain Bounce cards are a few from February.  We try to make the cards fun for each month:)


If y'all just want to purchase Brain Bounce Cards for September, just click on the picture below:

 Sometimes I like to tape the task cards around the room for my students to complete.  I will let them clip the recording sheet on a clipboard and they love that!  I don't know why kids just seem to love to use clipboards:)  I also let them use the student calendar from our Word of the day Calendar Sets, not included in the Brain Bounce.

 I give my kiddos time to use their calendars to study together before we play the game or use the Brain Bounce cards.

 This is one of my sweet little ESL students answering his question for the Brain Bounce Game.  My ESL teacher was helping me the day we were playing and she said,"This game and your Word of the Day calendars are so great for my ESOL students because they are being introduced to so much vocabulary in a fun way."  Yay!  I was very pleased to hear those words!:)




We hope that you will give these Word of the Day Products a try and see how much it will help increase your student's vocabulary as well as their writing skills.  We know we have seen so much growth in our students!:)

Remember 20% off of our entire store on Labor Day!

We hope y'all have an awesome School Year!

Cooking up a Great Year!

 We have teamed up with 24 other great teachers to bring y'all some great ideas to help you have a successful year!  We hope you enjoy them!

Our tip to having a great year is to have weekly class meetings.  We sit in a circle and pass around our  class mascot, Quality Quentin.  The student who is holding Quentin talks and everyone else listens.  We start the year singing our Quality Student song so we can discuss what a quality student is.  Then we start our meetings by saying,"My name is... and a quality student...  My kiddos usually say things from the song.  Then as the year progresses, we get into what is happening in the classroom and how we can help each other to be quality students.

You can get the song in our dollar store: Just click the picture to purchase.

I found these great books to use to teach your kiddos about fruits and vegetables.  I love Rah Rah Radishes because it has vibrant photographs of vegetables.  The kids love the fun rhymes and they are introduced to new vegetables, like bok choy and poblano.

Y'all might also want to check out her website for some more of her great books and ideas!

http://www.aprilsayre.com

After you have read these books and discussed fruits and vegetables, you could  ask parents to send in samples of the real ones for your kiddos to taste.  You could also have plastic ones for them to sort in grocery bags labeled "fruits" and "vegetables"

We have created this sample for your kiddos to use in a center.  Just click on the picture to download from our store.  There are 8 photographic cards to sort onto a fruit or vegetable bag.  You can have them place the cards on the bags or use the bags as headers and have them place the cards under the bags.  We would greatly appreciate a nice comment when y'all download it.  Thank you so much!

If you like it and want to check out the full pack of 24 cards,teacher guide,sorting bags,color sorting cards, graph,question sheet and answer key for questions, click on this picture:

We hope y'all were able to get some helpful tips for a successful year and we wish y'all all the best this school year!  

Now for the prizes!:)   Good Luck!

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Diggin' Series HUGE GIVEAWAY!Lots of Prizes!

Are you ready?

 We could hardly wait to end our Diggin’ Series with the BEST giveaway of the season!

Just in case you didn't hear these are our awesome prizes:

Come and join us, as  this is our way to THANK YOU for all your support and friendship!

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Teacher Craft Giveaway!

We are so excited to be a part of such crafty and creative teachers!  We know ya'll are going to see some awesome products!  We already have so enjoy!

For those who haven't met our classroom mascot, this is Quality Quentin.  He helps students to be quality students.  Our students get to take turns taking him home.  

They write about Quentin's time at their homes.

The students love reading about their time with Quentin!

 This is the book that we read on the first day of school.  It is about Quentin's first day, and how he is scared to go to school until Mama Penguin teaches him a song about being a quality student.


Then the students write what a quality student does.

 This was written by an ESL student who didn't know much English, but after a few weeks singing the"Quality Student Song" could tell me things from the song for his page for the book.  He is so cute!  He said that he was dancing to the song:)

Y'all can get this in our dollar store if you are interested.

This is the book that we read.  We have it 50% off during the hop.  The Quality Student song is included.

These are a free download if you want to use them.  We just print them in grayscale.  My kiddos love earning them and going to our little "store"  which is just a drawer.  They earn them for being "quality students"  This has replaced our behavior chart-no more changing signs:)  It has worked great for us and it is so easy!

Our kiddos are so proud of using their Quentin Dollars that they earned.  One of my sweet kiddos actually took out a loan for Quentin Dollars to buy her brother a birthday present:)

This is also a free download of a paper Quentin puppet and a pocket chart poem about behavior.  We would really appreciate a nice comment at our store if ya'll do download our freebies.  Thanks!  You will get store credit to use toward future purchases when you leave comments:)

Now that y'all have met Quality Quentin, we want to give this puppet away.  Our kiddos just love him so we hope yours will too!:)

A few qualifiers for the giveaway:  The winner must be a classroom or homeschool teacher.  The winner must live in the contiguous US (because of shipping).  The winner must contact me within 3 days with your mailing information.  I will also be verifying all entries.  Thanks so much for entering the giveaway!    


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And the Winner is Sarah Bush!








Follow to see what my friend Laura is giving away!