Summer Storm

Oh my! 

While I'm enjoying the summer, I certainly did not enjoy the storm that rolled in on Sunday night.

This is what it looked like.

With a crash and bang, our power went out.  

And stayed out. 

 For 27 hours.

Thankfully we have a generator that kept our fridge going.

Not everyone is back up and running yet.  Some people will be in the dark for another night.

We were lucky.

Other than losing part of a dead tree at the bottom of our yard, we didn't have any damage.

Our neighbour was not so lucky.

He lost most of his barn.

So wherever you are, I hope you are having a safe summer.

Don't forget to stock up on some great deals in the back to school sale

and hopefully tomorrow will be back to normal.

Fun-day Sunday - "I have / who has" game

It's Fun-day Sunday and I'm so excited about today's game.

I'm teaming up with my friends from Freebielicious to bring you game of "I have / Who has".

To start the game at the beginning, click on the picture below.

If you have come from KinderGlynn, then you guessed right.

I have an interactive calendar book that even children with little fine motor or verbal skills can use.

I love my calendar book and I have found that the math skills of my students have improved immensely since implementing them.

You can find my post about the interactive part here,

and the printable part here.

Here is an example of the same activity being done by a child with and without the ability to print.

All three parts of my calendar book are available in this bundle.

And everything, including my yearlong calendar is on sale.

Now for my fun fact.

It's my house.

It was the original one room schoolhouse of our little community.

Of course it doesn't look like this anymore,

but I think it's cool that a teacher still lives in it.'

Now for your next mystery Freebielicious blogger in the hop.

Can you guess who this is?

Once you think you know, click on the picture below to find out if you are right.

Interactive Books - The Enormous Turnip

I'm so excited that I finally finished my newest interactive book.

"The Enormous Turnip" was a favourite of my students this past year.

We even did it as a play for the parents at the end of the year.

When I saw this beautiful clip art, I just knew I had to make it into an interactive book.

There are 6 books in total.  Two of the books just have the story, one more detailed than the other.  I read the detailed one to the children a few times.  The top edge of the book is cut out to reveal a new character each time you turn the page.  When the children know the story, I switch to the simple book, which is easy enough for the children to read themselves.

The next two books have movable words.  The first book allows the children to put the name of the character on the correct page.  The other book has the children working on the word "pulled".

This is my favourite book.  As the story is read, the children find the correct character and put them on the story board.

The last book has the children adding the whole sentence to the correct page of the story.

All 6 books, along with flash cards are on sale for 1/2 price until tomorrow.

Freebie Friday - Back to school poem

For your freebie this week, I thought I would give you something for your first day of school.

This is such a cute poem and all you have to do is add hand prints.

This year, I changed the frame and added a page for kindergarten, pre-school and grade one.

Enjoy.

Work Station Wednesday - Calendar book printables

Work Station Wednesday is here and I wanted to highlight the printable portion of my calendar book. Last week was the interactive calendar book for my students that don't have the ability to print on these pages. 

I will often mix and match the pages between the two, depending on the skills of my students.

This is the calendar page.  At the beginning of the month we trace the month name. 

Each day we trace the number of the day.  I also have a calendar that just has the first and last number on it.  The rest is blank so that my printers can have practice printing the numbers without the dots.

We then do one row of tracing.  At the beginning of the year we start with simple lines.

And then move on to uppercase letters, lowercase letters and then numbers. 

We check the weather and fill in our weather graph.  At the end of the month we analyze it.

At the beginning of the year we colour in one square for each day we are in school.  When we get to 100 we have a party.

After our 100th day, we change to tally's and put one line for each day until the end of the year.  As we fill in each box, we count by 5's.

The kids love the domino page.  I usually add this page later in the year.  I pull a domino out of a bag and hide one side.  I have the children count the dots and copy them on their page.  We repeat for the other side.  I then have them put the matching numbers for the equation on the right.  They then add them up.

This is another page I add later in the year, once the children are better at printing.

I have a large pocket chart clock on the wall.  I put a time on it and the children find the matching clock and colour it in.  As the children get better, I have a page that is missing the hands and the children have to print them in.  I also have one with the missing digital time and they have to print it in.  When they are good at that, we move on the 1/2 hour.

Subitizing is also something we work on.  I show the children a card with dots and have them colour in the matching number. 

I pick a shape each day and have the children colour in the one I call.  Once they are good at that, I add more shapes of different sizes.  I then have them colour in the "big circle", etc.  Once they have mastered 2D shapes, we move on to 3D shapes.

Patterns are the last thing we work on .  At the beginning of the year we work on AB patterns and then work on more complicated ones as the year progresses.