Listening Center and Comprehension!

    One reason I am looking forward to going back to school is my new listening center! Last year, I did not have the right equipment to have one in the room, so this summer I decided that creating my own listening center was at the top of my list! I am happy and excited to say I can officially cross it off my mile long to do list! :) I saw this great idea on Pinterest ( I can't remember who created this, so if you know, please let me know because I think its pretty much genius!!) to make the listening center into a grab and take station. I blogged a few weeks ago about making my listening center bags that look like this:

Check out my earlier post to see where I got my materials for these cute little bags! 

This is what I will be putting in my bags! A book, CD player, and a clipboard with one of my response sheets! I was stoked to find the Cars CD players on Walmart.com for only $12.50! Who doesn't love the movie Cars and cheap CD players??? I also had tons of fun decorating my FREE clipboards from a teacher friend with some of my washi tape. I am OBSESSED with washi tape!! 

It all fits perfectly inside! :)  

I can't wait to introduce this portion of Daily 5 to the kids! 

Here is another snapshot of my clipboards and also three of my listening center response sheets! They are now on my TpT store. Check them out here!

My Listening Center Worksheets include 20 different forms to use with your listening centers or after a read aloud. They are easy for the students to complete on their own. The packet starts with simple draw and respond sheets and then leads to more challenging sheets with some writing involved! There are a variety of comprehension strategies included! I also included a  "5 star" rating system for the kids to rate how well they liked each book. I think the kiddos will like this part! 

Please stop by my TpT store and check out my listening center worksheets and my other products as well. I am really excited to share these sheets with you! Easily my most favorite product I created this summer! Please also check out my Instagram button on the side and follow Miss Sarahsoda for more updates on what I am doing to prepare for this fall! 

Sarah :)

Classroom Jobs and Daily 5 Year 1

    Just the other day, I shared my new classroom job and management package that is now on my TpT store. Well last night I kicked some butt and got to work! It is now ready to be displayed in my room! Yay! Here is a little sneak peek to show you what more of what you get! I love, love, LOVE the clipart from Whimsy clips! SO cute!

Please check it out here!

But my post is really about the sweet deal I found on Ikea.com! I do not have an Ikea store near me (closest one is about 2 hours), so I have to do my shopping online, most times. This year I am trying out the Daily 5 for the first time! I am a littttttttle scared! I needed something for book boxes and didn't want to spend a lot of on plastic magazine files just yet, so I typed Magazine file in the search bar and VOILA! I found these gems!

5 for $1.49! 5!!!! 

Does it get better than this?? I think not! I got 25 magazine files for just over $7. However, I would suggest going to store itself to get them, because my shipping rate was 15.00! Kind of a bummer :(, but I still ended up saving A LOT of money. I just had to share this teacher steal and deal! I just wish that there was an Ikea store that was closer! But, then again, do I? I know I would probably develop a shopping addiction that would be something awful! ;) 

Short and sweet today! Have a great day! 

Sarah :)

Word Families, Sight Words, and Crafting, Oh My!

    I have ALWAYS loved word families, they are one of my favorite things to teach the kids. We had a   lot of fun with them this past year. This weekend I made something I am SO excited to use in my classroom. Word Family Boxes! My aunt had ordered a ton of these little mint tins for a project she was working on and let me buy a few, so I decorated them with one of my favorite things  obsessions: Washi tape! It is sooooo fun and makes everything look pretty! I filled each box with some hard cardboard letter chips I found at Jo-Ann's and they fit in there perfectly! Now the kiddos can get these out during word work and practice making words. I put letters in there to make both real words and nonsense words.

    How cute is this tape y'all? FOR REAL??? I just want to put Washi tape on everything!

 Here is everything I used! I got these letter chips on sale a few weeks ago at Jo-Anns. I bought two packages and I can't wait to think of an idea for the rest of them. They are so cute and look like they will hold up really well! The stickers came from Wal-Mart and are so pretty and glittery! 

Along with sight word boxes, I was pretty busy this weekend! I found a really neat freebie from Kinder-Craze and quickly got to work on it! I love sight words (probably my first real love in the classroom!) and I love bright colors, so this idea was just too fun to pass up! 

 Maria had all of the pre-primer and primer sight words (She had other word list options available too) on an avery label template! I LOVE LABELS! This was so easy to do. I just printed the labels, slapped them on brightly colored card stock, and BAM! I now have sight word cards to work on with the kids during small group! 

Thank you Maria! Check out her blog post on Freebie-licious! 

I was busy working on some other fun things this weekend so make sure to stay tuned this week because I will be sharing them! 

Happy Monday!

Sarah :)

Googly Eyes 8)

Who doesn't love googly eyes? I mean the kind used for crafting of course!! ;) I know I do!! Today I spent a few hours crafting and watching some Law and Order SVU. I can't get enough of that show...IT IS SO GOOD!  I saw these sweet little guys on Pinterest and knew I just HAD to make them, with my left over popsicle sticks and washi tape! I found the googly eyes at JoAnn's.

I can't wait for the kids to use these pointers when we read or when they read by themselves! I think they will be a huge hit. This past year we just used our pointer finger. We named him Bob! ;) 

I couldn't resist putting one in my favorite book of all time ( To Kill a Mockingbird)! It looked so cute! 

Well y'all this is a late post and it is almost 5 on a Friday! Woohoo! I am spending my night crafting. I can't wait to share what I have been working on. 

Have a super weekend!!

Sarah :)

Classroom Management!

    Today I thought I would share with you what I am using to manage my classroom jobs this year. I started something similar at the end of last year, but I made some major changes to it and I am even more excited to use it!

What I do, is I choose six animals and assign one of the animals to each student. I use these animals to group the students by ability level also, so that it is easy to pull the students for small group or differentiated tasks (Bonus!! :)). The kids loved this system! Loved it so much that if I forgot to change it, I had about half of the class coming to my desk every morning to remind me to change it!

      I use the six smaller pictures to put on the kids' desks until they remember what animal they are.

I use six animals because last year I had 24 kinders. I put six kinders at 4 different tables and made sure that I had one of each animal at each table. This was so that there would be someone to fulfill each job at every table! In the case of one of the kids being absent on their day to be captain, I usually chose the quietest student or a student that I knew was really good at being a leader. Let me tell you though, the kids HATED missing school the day it was their turn to be captain. Towards the end of the year, the kids would know when it was their turn and who was going to be captain tomorrow. 

If you have a smaller class or different seating arrangement, you may not have to use all six animals and could instead use 3, 4, etc. 

Last year I hung this up in the front of the room where everyone could see it and every day I changed the animal (captain). If there were any arguments, I would tell the kids to check the sign and that always solved it! This year I added two more jobs like this, including Center Supervisors and Table Cleaners. 

This is a copy of the teacher cards that can be used to display in the front of the room.  They fit perfectly in the box on the sheet above! 

 Because not all jobs require more than one person to complete, I also created 9 more jobs to keep the other kids busy. If it is done correctly, almost all students should be able to have a job every day! I think this will be a HUGE improvement from last year, when I did not have enough to keep everyone busy and engaged. I'm hoping it will help build a stronger sense of community. Fingers Crossed!

For the other nine jobs, I plan on taking a picture of each child the first day of school and making little cards for them and putting them under the job cards they are responsible for. 

My classroom management packet can be found on my TPT store. Please stop by and check it out! Last but not least, I am now also on Instagram! Follow me at MissSarahsoda!

Have a great day! 

Sarah :)

Orientation Night! It's right around the corner!

Hey Everybody!

     As I am sure you are well aware, the school year is quickly coming upon us! If your school is like mine you probably have either an open house or orientation night before the beginning of the year. Last year I was SO nervous, but this year I am really excited to meet everyone and share what we will be doing in my room! This year I decided to make some new forms to give to parents on orientation night. I am really excited to use them! I also decided to sell them on my TpT store! You can find them here: Miss Sarahsoda

I had so much fun creating these! I am OBSESSED with Cara Carroll's fonts! They are SO SO SO fun! I just can't get enough! The same goes to Whimsy Clips' graphics. They rock, y'all! Check them both out on TpT! There is also a link to their stores in my packet! 

This here is a little sneak peek of one of my pages from my new packet! It is my favorite! I did this with my parents last year and got a lot of great responses! It was neat to read what parents thought of their children and what information they wanted to share with me. 

Please stop by more store and check out my new product! I am excited to share it with you! Please also stop by my Facebook page and give me a like! :)

Sarah :)

Happy Monday!

Happy Monday!

      I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend,  I know I sure did! This weekend my sweet boyfriend and I crossed something off our bucket list! We went on a ghost hunt!!!!!!! ( I was scared out of my mind!) We got the chance to explore one of the oldest theaters in the United States.... after hours! (We were there until 2AM!!)  It was really neat hearing all of the stories and the history of the place, but you better believe I had a death grip on my man's arm! However, even ghost hunting didn't stop me from thinking about my classroom. Obsessed??? Maybe :) 

     So as soon as I got home ( Literally! I stayed up until 4am!), I started working on my Itty Bitty Ghost unit! I am pretty excited about it! It won't be in my store for a little while, but I wanted to give you all  a little sneak peek.

                        

Here is a sneak peek of my cover page and a writing template! At our ghost investigation, we talked about taking a ghost home to help clean the house ( Who's with me??)  and that got me thinking about having a ghost as a pet! I am excited to try it out with my kids this year! I will post more about it when it is up and running in my TpT store.  Last, but certainly not least, here is a picture from this weekend of my man and I. If you can't tell, we are feeling lucky that we made it out alive! ;)

Stay tuned! I have more things to share with you this week. Please also check out and like my new Facebook page: Miss Sarahsoda!!! 

Talk to you soon! :)

I JUST COULDN'T WAIT!

Hey everybody!

     So I mentioned yesterday that I had something I was just DYING to share with you! Well here it is! My new snack box storage boxes for flash cards! I got these little gems from Dollar Tree. They look like they are going to work great!  The lids snap on to prevent a spill and come in super fun colors! I also have some soap boxes I found at a teacher garage sale that I will be using, but these snack boxes were just too cute! As you can see, I slapped a label on them with their mailbox number in case they get lost or dropped in the classroom. I used mailbox numbers so that I would not have to relabel every year!

    Inside of the soapboxes I have already loaded the first set of flashcards to go home for the year: letters! Once the students have mastered their letters (upper and lower), I will send home another set of flash cards. I am working on getting my entire flash card package together to put in my TpT store.

Yesterday, I put my addition and subtraction flash cards up in my TpT store as a freebie for a limited time!  You can find them here: Addition and Subtraction Flash Cards. 

If you are a member of Bloglovin, please follow me! 

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/12570085/?claim=r82kes3ybg4">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Have a fantastic weekend! 

Sarah :)

Freebie!

Hey Y'all!

    I just wanted to pop in and share my new TPT product! This summer I have been working on flash cards for kids to take home and keep in their book bags for nightly practice. This past year I tried sight words on a ring, but I had lots of kiddos lose them or forget to keep them in their book bag! We do occasionally get the flash cards out at school, so it is important that the kids bring them every day. I was looking for a new way to do flash cards and  I have a new idea that I am super excited about! However, I am not going to share that today because I want to dedicate an entire post to it! :) So without further ado, here are my addition and subtraction flash cards: Addition and Subtraction Flashcards. I have a lot of flash cards made up, but I wanted to share these first!

The link above will take you to my TPT store, so please download and send me some feedback! I would love to hear from ya!  I had my flash cards copied on colored card stock at Staples because I had a 50% off coupon and it was so cheap! Plus it was brightly colored card stock!!!!! Can you beat that!?!? ( I think not!)

I will be posting soon on how I am storing these wonderful flash cards soon. I AM SO EXCITED TO SHOW YOU!

Sarah :)

Happy Tuesday!

Hey All!

       Today I am working hard on getting some things ready for the new school year and by working hard, I mean doing school stuff and getting sucked into a Law and Order SVU marathon (YAY!). I just wanted to share one of my recent projects that I have completed! I am excited about it. :)

    I have seen this little project on Pinterest, but decided to put my own little spin on it and I created the game "POP!". Using water bottle caps, I put both capital and lowercase letters on each lid. Then, using Coke caps, I wrote the word "pop!" on each lid. The kids will have all of the lids in one box. Then, closing their eyes, they will reach in and pull out one lid. If they get a lid with a letter they have to name the letter to keep their lid. If the player gets a lid that says "pop!" they have to put one of their lids back in the box. Play continues until all the bottle caps are gone. This game will be played with letter sounds too. I think they will have fun with this! I am excited to use it.

I am playing around with a water mark for my pictures, so you might see it changing the next few posts. I just can't decide!!! Plus, it's super fun to keep creating them! 

Well back to work and SVU for me! 

Happy Tuesday!

Sarah :)

A sweet little find and a fun little project :)

Hey all,

Soooooo I'm late on posting this but I think you will like it. Last post I mentioned I would be sharing my favorite project so far this summer. I love it!!!

This is how I will be doing my bucket filling this year. I am so excited because it will take up WAY WAY WAY less room. Yay! I am also excited because it was on sale at Jo-Anns for 17$! Woot! I plan on using buttons as my fillers.

Part two of my project is this lovely frame here, from Hobby Lobby. Our school wide theme this year is  carnival and I created this little picture using my Martha Stewart app for the Ipad. So fun! 

Last, but not least, I have to share the SWEET, SWEET find my boyfriend's mom found for me. Two bookcases for only 15$! Hip Hip Hooray! :)

I'll be sharing more soon! :)

Sarah