Alphabet Freebie

Well, we've finally gotten into the swing of things and have ventured back into our classrooms. We don't officially go back until Monday, but we just had to get started on our rooms. They are coming along, and we are looking forward to sharing pics with ya'll next week. But for now... One (of the MANY) major changes to our curriculum this year is in handwriting. For the past 10 years that we've been in the building, we have taught with D'Nealian handwriting. But now it's time for a change. Our building has gone to Handwriting Without Tears, school-wide. We've heard good things, so our fingers are crossed! We know that just about everyone out there has their own alphabet, but we haven't found one that is really perfect for us. So of course, we had to create our own. We included both long and short vowel sounds, as well as digraphs. We may add to it as the year goes on, adding some other vowel sounds, but we'll see. This is as close as we could come to fitting with our new handwriting program. We both have several alphabets up in our room, so although we are keeping up one D'Nealian, we are replacing our others. But, the best thing is... it's FREE!!! So, click on the picture below and grab yourself a copy!


Here's a preview of our alphabet.


If you are looking for more alphabet activities, make sure to check out our All About the Alphabet Pack in our store.
 

Everyone have a great weekend! We will be busy working on getting things ready to go back to school.

We Have Winners & A Pinterest Inspired Craft

Congratulations Anza #205 and Megan #52
You are the winners of our Back to School Giveaway!

Email us and let us know which email address you'd like us to send your items to! 

And now for our Pinterest inspired craft!
What do you do when you have a pile of 2X4's and 2X6's?  
Search Pinterest of course!  
We found so many cute crafty ideas, And the No Name Board definitely caught our eye! 
So Here's our version:


 Along with the scrap piece of wood, here's a picture of the others supplies we used:
Here's what we did:

*Used white primer on the wood and then covered it with white spray paint.  

*A few days later- cut letters and shapes with our Cricut.

*Glued the ribbon on using tacky glue.  

*Glued letters and shapes.

*Once ribbon, letters, and shapes were dry, hammered two sawtooth picture hangers into the back of    
  the board (top corners) 

*Several hours later- glued on clothespins.

And here it is!
With the sawtooth hangers, 
this little charm can easily be hung on a wall.  
Now when we have a worksheet without a name show up, we'll simply clip the corner to one of the clothespins and remind our kiddos to check the No Name Board!
  Halloween blocks are next on the list!
 

*HUGE* Back to School Giveaway!!!



Hello friends!!! Is this summer just flying by or what?!?! We know that many of you have already gone back to school, but we are lucky enough to still have about a week and a half left before we head back. It's been such a great summer for both of us though, that we wanted to celebrate! And wouldn't you know, some of our very FAVORITE bloggers are celebrating with us. These ladies have been so wonderful to share some great things with us, so that we can share them with two of our  fabulous followers! So, here's what you need to do. Leave a comment for each entry, and consider yourself entered! How do you enter? So glad you asked!

1. Make sure you follow our blog, and leave a comment on our blog.
2. Make sure you follow our TpT store, and leave a comment on our blog.
3. Blog about our giveaway, and leave us the link in a comment on our blog.

See, three easy ways to win! Now, for the prizes... Take a look and see all of the excellent back to school items you could win, just for reading our blog! Get ready, cause its a TRUCKLOAD!!!

From The Inspired Apple

From What the Teacher Wants

From Fun-In-First

From Crazy for First Grade

From Primary Graffiti

From Erica Bohrer's First Grade

From Teaching in High Heels

From Tales of a Teacherista

From Life In First Grade

From Fabulous in First

From Hello Literacy

From Really Roper
From Finally in First

And, from us you get all of our back to school items!








That is a total of 21 amazing Back to School items! So, from now until Monday at 7:00pm west coast time, enter to win! Don't forget your entries:

1. Make sure you follow our blog, and leave a comment on our blog.
2. Make sure you follow our TpT store, and leave a comment on our blog.
3. Blog about our giveaway, and leave us the link in a comment on our blog.

Please only 1 entry for each. We will be announcing our winners Tuesday morning, so make sure to check back! We also have a few great pinterest-inspired ideas to share with you this weekend. So if you aren't back to school quite yet, enjoy the last bit of your summer! If you are back, we hope you are having a wonderful time getting to know your new kiddos!

And thanks so much to the wonderful ladies who are participating in our giveaway!

We're Having A Sale!





We're so excited to offer you all 20% off at our TpT store August 12-13. In addition to our sale, Teachers Pay Teachers is offering you 10% off of your total by using the code BTS12 when you checkout! This is a great savings!

 Here are some of our newest products perfect for the beginning of the year!




 If you'd like to stop by and check them out, just click {HERE} and you'll go right to our store!

Back To School Literacy Unit



Hi Friends!  We are super excited because we FINALLY finished our Back To School Literacy Unit! This unit is contains activities based on the following books:
My Name Is Elizabeth! By: Annika Dunkle
First Grade, Here I Come! By: Nancy Carlson
A Fine, Fine School By: Sharon Creech

These books may also be available to check out through your local library system!

Here's a peek at what's inside!
Activities included in this unit are:

My Name Is Elizabeth!:
*Letters in name data collection and graphing 
*Here I am writing activity
*Name scavenger hunt

First Grade, Here I Come!:
*My favorite part of the day (writing about favorite part of first day in first grade)
*School item scramble - match the school item to its correct location.
*All about me star

The Night Before First Grade:
*The night before first grade writing
*Night or day action matching activity. 

A Fine, Fine School:
*Fine, fine, school game
*When I’m not at school writing
*Fine, fine school poem with a fine, fine float recipe, float recipe cards, and recipe retell activity.

If you'd like to take a look, you can find it {HERE} in our Teachers pay Teachers Store!

We'll be back in a few days with some word work ideas!
Enjoy the rest of your weekend!