Christmas in July....Brought To You By 4 Of Santa's Elves!

Merry Christmas...In July!

I am so excited to be teaming up with 3 other teacher-author-blogger buddies to bring you a fabulous day of festive fun!

Friday July 25th is...

Santa has hand selected me, Kourtney Payton of Mrs. Payton's Precious Kindergarteners, Laura Schachter of Differentiation Station Creations and Brenda Tejeda of Tejeda's Tots to head up his team of reindeer that are packing the sleigh with sweet sales, games galore, fabulous freebies and dollar deals!

I have hyperlinked their names to all of our Facebook pages!  That is where we will post the games, deal announcements, winners and more!  We will start as soon as we have our hot cocoa in the am and go all day till the candy canes are licked clean and the reindeer bells are hung back in the barn!

Here is the picture of the day's 'line up' although don't be surprised if we sneak in some extra fun!  Elves are known to be quite mischievous!

If you can't read it, or want a hard copy to print for reference, please click the picture to download it!

And I really think you should...because in addition to the menu of treats, we are delivering 4 sweet freebies- one from each elf to get the party started!!!

As you can see from the picture, all Christmas products will be 20% off all day!

Here is the link to find my Christmas goodies!  Stuff your cart with some great holiday goodies that are sure to keep your kiddies engaged and happy during the holiday season!

Each of the other elves will have their Christmas goodies on sale too, so be sure to check out each store!

And there'd be no Christmas without Rudolph, so he wanted to bring you some 'RED' hot steals!

Type rudolphredhot in the TPT search engine (or click the hyperlink) to find all the elves choices!

All day you will find these 3 products of mine marked down:

At about 10am EST (don't hold us to the times to the minute!) we are going to each post a game on our Facebook pages!

Prancer's Partner Prizes With A North Pole Number Search!

We have done a four-way switch of winter products and will be giving away each other's goodies!

Be sure to visit each of the elves pages so that you can enter on each one!

You will guess a number from 9-900 along with your email.

If you get it, or are the closest, you win the prize!

I am lucky enough to be giving away Laura's Snowballs Interactive Play Doh Mats!

It looks like 'SNOW' much fun!!!  I am ready to whip up a batch of snow and get started now!

How about some of this homemade sparkly snow dough to start?! 

Click this picture to find the recipe in case you can't wait for winter to get started using Laura's pack!

No package is complete without a tag, so we're getting ready to 'tag' up some goodies!

Around 11am EST stop by each of our pages to leave a sweet holiday message!  'Tag' a friend in your message, along with your email, and you both could win a $5 shopping spree in our stores!

This will run on each page, so be sure to enter on each for a chance to win up to $20 in free products and $20 for a friend!

What a gift right before back to school!!

Just as we are ready to feed the reindeer their yummy oats for lunch, we are going to feed your need for more holiday steals with our Dasher's Dollar Deals!

Type dasherdollar into the TPT search engine (or click the hyperlink) to find 20 products slashed down to just $1!!!

Each elf has hand selected 5 products...BUT you will need to be as quick as Santa on Christmas Eve because the dollar deals are only good for 2 hours!  (12pm-2pm EST)

From me you will find...

Blitzen wanted in on the action and he chose to STOMP out the prices on the elves' bundles!  From 4pm-6pm EST each elf will put 3-4 bundles/higher priced items on sale for 50% off!  Type blitzenbundle into the TPT search engine (or click the hyperlink) to find all the goodies!

Fly on in and grab them before they go back to full price!

This elf is treating you to...

all at 50% off!!

At some point during the day I am sending you on a few scavenger hunts!  You will be trying to find what's in Santa's Sack and some hidden holiday words!

Your hard work will pay off...each game will have winners that will leave with their stocking full!

I'll also be enlisting the help of my own two elves

 to help me pick winners with some fun naming games!

We'll end our day with a flash freebie courtesy of Vixen!

Each of the elves will post their choice of the freebie on their Facebook pages at about 8pm EST.

Since Christmas is on the 25th...we have decided to limit the downloads to '25' and/or for 25 minutes!

They will go fast!  Jump from page to page and grab your goodies!

You can always go back and leave us sweet feedback at any point via the 'Free Downloads' section under 'My Purchases' in your TPT account to show your appreciation!

At the end of our day of fun winners will be announced and we will shout...

Merry Christmas to All...and to All a Good Night!

We sure hope you enjoy the day and would love to hear your feedback on the day, goodies you grabbed, games your participated in and more!

Leave us a blog post or leave us a note on our Facebook pages!

We love hearing how our goodies will be used to sweeten the lives of children!

Well it is time for me to get Santa's milk and cookies ready!

(S)He has a very busy day tomorrow!

Until next post,

Digraph DuCK is CraCKing From His SHell!

There are so many fun projects to do in Spring...but there are also so many curriculum topics to still be covered.  I needed a 'spring-y' bit of cuteness to liven up my outside display...and that's how Digraph Duck was born!

So how did we go about making this cutie?

First I started with a duck tracer I had gotten from a colleague years ago that was used with a different type of project.  I traced it onto copy paper and typed out 'digraph duck' and glued it to the duck outline.  I copied that onto yellow paper (you could use white for white ducks or for having the children color the ducks themselves).

I also traced the beak and feet onto copy paper and copied them onto orange (salmon I believe is the technical color name!) paper.  Again- you could choose to do white and have students color/paint them orange.

I made a large egg shape on paper and then made various crack lines through it.  I copied those on white paper and was all ready to go!

We have been working on digraph sorts all week, so our chart is basically full of our digraph images at this point!

We are working solely on initial sounds of sh, th, wh and ch and the ending sound of ck.

Our chart was on display and many of them referenced it for the project.

I had them:

1. Write their name in the large 'crack' area

2. Pick a digraph from each category to write in a piece of the shell.  They were also invited to try and illustrate it.

3. Cut out all the pieces

4. Glue the duck to manila paper, attach his beak/feet and give him a face 

5. Glue the large cracked piece to the bottom and then scatter all the other pieces around to show that he craCKed out and THrew his SHell everyWHere...be sure to WatCH Out!

Many of them used the chart to help them spell the words.  I also had them circle the digraph in each word.

Assembling the duck!

Attaching all the pieces of shell!

This was my model one- but I told them to try and think of different digraphs than Mrs. Drake used!

Now we have a 'spring'-tastic display of digraph learning and fun!

I love how some of the ducks even threw the pick shell in excitement to crack out!

For children that needed a bit more guidance and support, we had them tell us the digraph they wanted and then they wrote the digraph and we wrote the rest of the word with yellow highlighter for them to trace.

Would you like to give Digraph Duck a try in your classroom?

Here is the link to the templates.  For some reason the feet/beak did not scan well, so you may have to cut/trace to make your own 'cleaner' tracer before copying for yourself.

The images in the pocket chart are a combination of pictures from my two digraph read the room sets:

           

Next week we'll be doing the spring bunny read the room and the week we return from Spring Break we'll do the gumball version.  They will be familiar with the words used in each set from all our sorts this week!

Also in our line-up for centers next week will be Find My Basket sorting center for digraphs!

For this one there will be baskets for the 5 digraphs we have been working with and 45 eggs to sort!  They will also fill in the b&w printable as a center extension activity!  How 'Egg'-citing and a true meaningful learning experience!  Some of them spied me cutting out the eggs today during snack and are already intrigued!

So with all this digraph and spring fun, I needed a poem to go along too!

So I wrote this one to the tune of Camptown Races (Do, Da, Do, Da Day Song)

And thanks to Educlips these cute pics to match the poem!

And I uploaded both to Google Docs so that you can use them as well!

My homework directions are in both English and Spanish because I have a lot of ESL children in my class, but feel free to cut that part off if you do not need it!

I'd love for one of my Blog Lovin' fans to win one of the sets mentioned above!

Click to follow me on Blog Lovin' (black box towards the top of the post on the right hand side) and then leave me a blog post comment with the name you used to follow me, your email and your choice of spring bunny read the room, gumball read the room or find my basket digraph packs!

I will pick a winner on Sunday 4/6/14!

Happy Digraph Fun!

Until next post,

Year-Round Resources from Top Teachers Blog Hop

Are you looking for year round resources for 1st and 2nd grades?  Then this is the bundle for you!

I am super excited to be a part of the ‘Best Sellers’ bundle with Educents! Your students are in for a tasty treat with my ‘We Scream for Ice Cream…Digraphs!’ pack! An interactive and hands-on center, your students will build cones for the following digraphs- sh, th, wh, ch and ck- using 72 picture cards! Both initial and ending sound digraph pictures are included- perfect for differentiation and skill building! 15 Black and white printables are also included as center extension activities- both programmed and blank so that you can best meet the needs of your students! Use this pack as you introduce digraphs, during for practice, and/or at the end of your unit of study for review and reinforcement! I can ensure….after they use this center, your students will be ‘screaming’ for more!

There are many other products in our bundle to get your kids learning!  

Centers, printables, vocabulary, book studies, interactive notebooking and so much more!

But that's not all!   Since you found my post, I would like to give you a chance to win something extra for free!  Please follow me on TpT, Facebook, Tweet about the bundle on Educents, or post about the bundle on your blog and enter to win my Elf Mega Pack!  Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Here's your next stop on the Hop!  Stop by to see what products and giveaway's the other amazing teachers have!

Teaching in Progress

The deal won't last long so head over now!

Educents Bundle

Black Friday Comes Early!

Educents has announced that their Black Friday sale has started early!  

And I am THRILLED to announce that my 'We Scream for Ice Cream...Digraphs' pack is part of an amazing bundle of 'Best Sellers'!  21 products, totally over 950 pages, and valued at $115, can be yours for only $23!  Why not treat yourself and students to a tasty helping of learning and fun!

Click to view the pack and read about all the 'ingredients' in the pack!

This is My 'We Scream For Ice Cream..Digraphs' pack that is part of the pack and has 46 4.0 ratings! 

It is definitely a tasty addition to digraph learning and fun!  

Everyone loves ice cream and it can be used all year long!

And while we are talking about sales....

stay tuned for details on other site-wide sales that will be starting soon!