I Spy! Halloween Style!

Looking for a way to keep your kids learning and engaged amongst all of the Halloween insanity! Look no further :)!

I adore "I Spy..." games as they are such a great way to get students up and moving around the room while at the same time reviewing key learning concepts.

I recently created two different "I Spy..." games for reviewing basic math facts to use on this upcoming festive occasion!

For the primary teachers, "I Spy Addition! (Halloween Ed.)" contains 16 game cards to hang/hide around the classroom with basic addition facts up to 10. Also included is a recording sheet for students in English/Spanish to jot down the facts and their responses.

For my intermediate folk...grab a copy of "I Spy Multiplication (Halloween Ed.)". Same stuff included....but multiplication facts instead of addition!

Click on either image to grab a copy for your class to engage your candy-crazed kiddos on Halloween day!

Parent-Teacher Conference Resources

This week our building is hosting parent-teacher conferences. To help prep our new staff members we hosted a professional development session on Monday morning in which resources were shared to help them in planning for this big event!

Planning for conferences, in my opinion is the most time consuming and difficult part! The following few items are a sample of what was given to our new staff to help with this process...hopefully they will be useful for you too!

One of the items shared was this little ditty that can be sent home with students a few days before conferences for parents to fill out and return. This info. sheet is great as it gives you insight as to how the parents are feeling about their child's school year thus far, as well as alerts you to any talking points that they may be interested in touching on ahead of time.

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You can snag this handout in English/Spanish here.

At the end of our session, staff were given this planning reflection sheet that has a variety of questions to ponder in working to organize oneself for conferences.  It gets you thinking about organizing your student information and space, what you plan to send home with parents as well as how you intend to followup post-conferences!

Grab a copy for yourself or another colleague here!

Here are also some links to other resources I have come across in the past few days that I found helpful for planning created by all of you!

"123 Parent Conference with Me" - A handout for organizing student information including areas of strength/weakness created by Kinder Learning Garden.

"Parent-Teacher Conference Report" - This is another great handout created by Sprinkles to Kindergarten! for organizing student information and also includes checklists for work habits and attitudes. 

"Building Skills at Home - Parent Handouts" - These are an awesome resource to pass out to parents from Primary Junction to give them ideas of how they can be assisting their child at home in the various subject areas! While it is only in English, you could most def. pull a few of the points and translate them as needed as well!

"Student Self-Reflection" - These handouts by Lesson Plan SOS could be used pre-report card or conference time to get students to do some reflecting on their own learning! 

If you have any more bright conference planning ideas, activities, or handouts, feel free to share below so that I can keep adding to my list!

Flash Sale! Catch it before it disappears!

Congrats TpT on reaching such a milestone, and thank you for being such an amazing avenue for us teachers to buy, sell and share our products!

Spanish Apps for the Classroom (that I love!)

Over the past week I have been working with our district technology specialist to test out and review a few apps for our dual language classrooms. I thought I would share some of my favorites I have run across with some of you (and if you have any you love as well...I'd love to hear about them and add them to my list!)

So without further ado here are some...

Fonts/Graphics: Rowdy in Room 300, The Enlightened Elephant, Erin Bradley, Anita Goodwin

1) Spanish Word Wizard

I am seriously in LOVE with this app. 

I have found a variety of apps for English spelling that enable you to put in specific spelling lists for your students, but never anything in Spanish...until now! Not only that but the app already has a variety of themed and high frequency word lists in place for your students to practice from. It also includes the "Moveable Alphabet" component which enables your students to play around with letters to listen to their sounds and form syllables, words, etc. There is also a Spanish speaking voice that reads along with each letter, syllable, or word that they put together to reinforce skills each step of the way!

Here is a short video of the app in action!

The cost is $2.99, but in my opinion it is well worth it! 

2) My First Book of Spanish Alphabets by Ilmasoft

This free app is great for the primary classroom. It includes all of the letters of the Spanish alphabet (upper and lower case) and as the students scroll over them they are read to them. They can also select the "Cante conmigo" button and sing along to the alphabet song.

Furthermore, the students can look at examples of words that begin with each of the letters, these words are read and they even hear a corresponding sound that is affiliated with the word!

3) Word Breaker- Spanish

This app is a good one for intermediate grade students. It gives your students a beginning letter and they they have 7 attempts to determine the 5 letter word that begins with that letter. It will highlight which letters are correctly placed in purple as well as which letters are part of the word but not yet correctly placed in green. Furthermore, it will indicate to the students words that do not actually exist by graying them out. It also gives the students 1 hint letter if needed! It costs $1.99.

4) Paso a Paso

This is another great primary literacy app. It includes a variety of different activities to reinforce letter sounds and syllables.

For instance, in this activity screen, the students must select the picture which begins with the letter U and drag it to the hat.

In this second activity screen, the students must count and select the number of syllables in the word.

There are a variety of other similar activities included as well! You can get the lite version of this app for free, but the full version (which I would recommend) costs $2.99.

5) Kindergarten Addition/Subtraction

These two math apps are great because they enable you to change the language in which the directions are given into Spanish. You also have the ability to set them up by student so that you can create individual settings if desired as well as usernames for each kiddo! 

Here is what the setting screen looks like:

You can also get a lite version of this app for free or the full app (either the addition of subtraction) both cost $0.99 each.

Hope you find this list useful! As I continue to find more (which I hope I do) I will try my best to share them with you all, and as I said if you have some faves, please send them my way! Sharing is caring ;)!

Hidden Treasure Tuesday #3 - Place Value Game!

I'm back with another edition of...

Today I dusted the cobwebs off of a fun little place value memory game I had created for my second graders last year as a review tool!

The game reinforces place value to the 1,000s. I used it with my students first in small group and then placed it into one of their math stations for further review. You could also have them play it in partners, send it home as a fun homework activity to play with their parents, etc. There are a variety of possibilities!

As stated above, the pack includes 4 sheets similar to those in the spread with 12 cards on each and can be used in either English or Spanish. Feel free to use all sheets or fewer with your students for a shorter game. Click on the image to take you to my store to snag your copy!

I'm gettin' married!

Well I must say I had quite the weekend! I officially gained a new title to add to my resumé- fiancé ;)!

I will admit I have nothing truly "educational" to share in this post. But I just had to share the exciting news with you all as I consider you to be friends and my blog family!

So here goes...our romantic lil' story- the short and sweet version!

On Sunday, Ryan suggested we go for a walk and picnic in the park in one of our favorite little towns. He wanted to lay our blanket down near a fountain that we love and have spent some time at in the past when we have visited! 

Before lunch, he insisted we head over to the fountain for a moment to take it in. When we got there, he took my hands, shared some amazingly, loving words, and got down on one knee!

He even had a beautiful bouquet of roses laying on one of the benches near the fountain for me!

After the excitement and display of emotions, we decided to head back to our blanket to celebrate with the picnic we had packed! A few minutes into our picnic, we received a text with a photo from one of my best friends and my parents. They had been hiding in a group of bushes right near the fountain! They heard and saw the whole thing! It was so amazing to have friends and family there to share the moment with us as well! The best part is my friend is a photographer, and Ry had her come to take photos of the whole thing for us to have! 

Thought I'd share a few with you!

She seriously documented from beginning to end...check out this stalker photo of us heading into the park!

Ry sharing the sweetest things ever! 

On the knee...

The happy couple...:)

The "bushes" crew! 

Oh...and of course...my beautiful new bling! He gets all the credit for this one. My man's got good taste! (Don't mind my half chipping nails...ugh!)

Photos Compliments of Marissa Webb.

Now let the planning commence! Anyone care to share some tips and tricks you have learned along the way! I would love any and all advice you'd care to share!

Thanks for sharing my special day with me!