Clouds...and writing

Because I'm on a roll. One of my teachers is reading the book It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles Green Shaw this coming week. I lent her cloud cards and offered her a copy of a writing activity I had done in the past. We made wonderful class books with the children drawing pictures of what they too thought they saw in the clouds. Unfortunately I couldn't find my paper copies, and my electronic copy had apparently become corrupted.

I always think creating these new worksheets will take less time than they do, especially when working with Microsoft Paint. My drawings always take longer because I get so fussy. I'm not terribly thrilled with the outcome, but I'm trying to learn to "let it go" and not be such a perfectionist.

In the end, I created six pages suitable for a class book or for individual worksheets. Five of the pages have cloud shape the student can identify, the sixth page is blank for their own creative drawing opportunity. Each of the five pages has two formats, complete the sentence and a blank line for their own interpretative writing. I also added in vocabulary pocket chart words to help with spelling.

This is a free TPT download, so pop over and grab the download. I'll include my standard plea for feedback. Enjoy!

Autumn Activity Pack

While I should have been doing school work, I added another freebie to my TPT store this evening instead. Oh well. I like sharing. Let me know what you think, and if you do download this, or any, activity pack please remember to leave feedback. Your comments will help me improve what I share.

This is one of the pages from the activity pack.

The pack also includes a leaf graphing activity, a pattern activity and an apple race game. The leaf activity is a good extension to Lois Ehlert's Leaf Man, while the apple race game ties nicely with Ten Red Apples by Pat Hutchins. Of course, these are only two of the books in my library that I read, you may have other favorites. The Autumn Roll and Color and the patterning activity were added into the pack, simply because.

To grab the Fall Activity Pack- Freebie visit my TPT Store. Enjoy!

Teachers Pay Teachers

This past summer I had finger surgery which did not allow me to enjoy my usual summer pastimes, consequently, I spent quite a bit of time creating new materials for my library program. After sharing these I received lots of encouragement and coaxing from my colleagues and I've opened a Teachers Pay Teachers store and placed a few items on my site. Hopefully the extra time I've invested will be worth it and others will find the materials useful which will encourage me to create even more.

If you have a few minutes and are so inclined, take a look, I'd love to hear your feedback. What do you love, what do you wish I would have included, what could you live without. Thanks

Interactive Bulletin Boards

As I've mentioned, the reading board happens to be directly across from a much used rest stop. I often see the students reading the various book covers posted, but I want something more. I'd like them to be a bit more engaged, have some real conversations about what they are reading. Call be crazy!

With that, I decided I'd have a new theme to this year's bulletin boards. Each board must be interactive in some way. My "welcome back" board tied into our summer reading Superhero theme and asks students to find their superhero name. While not leading to deep rigorous discussion, I'm certain it will be fun.

The inspiration for the board came from a few different Pinterest finds. The Cityscape idea from this backdrop idea, Skippyjon Jones and the slogan from this Pin (I found additional characters to fill the board), and the idea for the Superhero name came from this Pin. When I decided to add it to the board, I didn't like the flavor aspect of the last name. I did some searching for "What's your superhero name" and found a few more examples. I wanted a list was elementary school friendly so I did some blending to create my custom list.