Alphabet Road Race

There is nothing better than watching a child learn through play. Hearing children beg to play with learning games keeps me creating! One of my all time favorites is any game with matchbox cars! I particularly love using interactive mats where kids can practice letter and numeral formation while "driving" along. So. Much. Fun.

In the olden days, I made these mats with construction paper, white crayon, and lots of cutting. With my trusty clip art and fonts, now I can whip out the mats with the push of a button!

 I love technology. I have to thank KB3Teach for the fantastic Bus Route font. I requested that she create a font that would work for transportation themed mats and this amazing font surpassed all my imaginings!

I love to have materials with lots of options. I like a lot of bang for my buck :)  So, I wanted to make a large and small set of Road Race Letter Mats. 

Use Larger Mats In A Variety Of Ways

Include toy cars to practice letter formation and letter identification.

Include dry erase markers to trace the letters.

Include play dough.

Use Small Cards In A Variety Of Ways

Take with you during transitions to practice letter identification or letter sounds.

Put on a ring and students can trace with fingers, play dough, or dry erase markers.

Include large and small mats in your block center to add a literacy component!

You can pick up my Alphabet At Work pack in my TPT store. I've included both color and black and white for all of the cards, so you can use the option that works best for you!

Want more activities to use with your toy cars?  Check out ZOOM: Addition Center with Dominoes & Dice.

Use the car manipulatives provided or use toy cars. An engaging way to learn and practice addition.

There are also 2 transportation versions of an addition BUMP-like game. Roll 2 dice, find the sum, and drive your car into the parking space with the matching numeral. Get the Back To School edition here. 

 Get the fun transportation edition here!

A Few Of My Favorite Things

The holiday season is a great time to reflect on all of the wonderful things you have in your life.  Many of us are so fortunate to have a roof over our heads and food on our tables.  I feel so blessed to be able to have these things for my family.  I got together with a bunch of other bloggers to bring a huge giveaway with a ton of our favorite things. 

Before I get to the amazing giveaway, I wanted to share some things that I am so thankful for this season!  Some are silly and some are more serious, but I am thankful for all of them!!

#1- Dr. Pepper.  I am not a coffee drinker, but seriously need some caffeine in the morning.  My brain will NOT function until I have that first sip of bubbly, sweet, and almost painful burn of the carbonation.  It wakes me up in so many ways.  I love it!

#2- Every holiday season since my kids were born, we create ornaments together.  When they were little, they would get down to their diapers and get covered in tons of paint.  We've done cinnamon dough, ceramic ornaments, and foam ornaments.  It doesn't matter what type, we just love to create together.  We put on Christmas tunes and sing along, as we get messy and laugh.  It is a priceless experience that I treasure.  You can see the fun salt dough ornaments that we made here.

#3- I do love shopping, especially for teaching gems.  One of my favorite teaching idea stores is The Dollar Tree.  You cannot beat this store for wacky and wonderful teaching supplies AND the price is right!!  Here are a few of the amazing finds that I've found at the Dollar Tree: lip gloss boots (you need to check these out), fun tongs for centers, foam to create my own two sided magnets that created my subitizing freebie!  This is just a tiny fraction of the amazing deals that I find there.

#4- One of my most treasured teaching supplies is my personal laminator.  Since I started teaching, I have tried out MANY different laminators.  I have gotten really expensive types, and cheaper ones.  About 8 years ago, I decided on my favorite laminator.  It is a cheap, but wonderful power house.  I put my laminator through a lot of work and it is up to the job.  I chose to giveaway a Scotch Laminator for "A Few of Our Favorite Things Giveaway".  You can see the laminator that I will be giving away here.

I also have some of my favorite products on sale for the week of this blog hop.  They will all be 50% off!  Search my store for #myfavoritethings2014 to get all of the amazing deals. I can't wait to share these exciting surprises!!

You can scoop up:

Romp and Stompin' Letters usually $12 for ONLY $6!!

Super Hero: "Roll, Say, Keep!" Pre-Primer Dolch Sight Word Center + Extra usually $3 for ONLY $1.50!!

 

Delicious Donuts: Addition to 20, Number Lines, Missing Addends, & Printables usually $7 for ONLY $3.50!!

My ABSOLUTE favorite!! Bundle of 8 Interactive Play Dough Mat Sets!!  Full Price $32, get it for $16!!

Because we value our followers and wanted to treat you to our favorite things Oprah style, we have put together the best giveaway of the season! My bloggy friends and I welcome you to the best, biggest, most cheerful event of the season:

7 winners for 7 prize packs!

Come and enter the giveaway and check out my bloggy friends' favorite things:
a Rafflecopter giveaway

An InLinkz Link-up

 

I Spy Letters: DIY Containers

I love finding new ways to interact with letters.  The "I Spy" bottle is an old stand-by, but can be used in lots of exciting ways.  Kids love the chance to spin the bottle and find hidden treasure.

I created my own "I Spy" containers with my daughter.  She wanted to be a part of the process.  We started out by getting some plastic containers from Oriental Trading.  I used two different sized containers.  One large one for home and a smaller one for traveling.  You can see the two I got here, but you can use any type of recyclable plastic bottles.

I found some Melissa & Doug alphabet beads on clearance and those became our letters for the jars.

We dye rice for our sensory tub, so she was able to choose the colors that she wanted in the containers.  She poured, I swept up the rest :)  We followed Jenn Drake's directions to dye our rice.  You can see that here.

My daughter layered letters and other interesting objects between the different colors.  I have collections of buttons, and all sorts of little objects.  She went through all of them and we identified the beginning sound of each object, as she dropped it in the jar.

 Here is the completed container.  We left about an inch and a half of empty space at the top.  This allows the objects to move freely around the jar.

I did not glue the top of my bottle, because I am using it with children in my home.  If I were in the classroom environment, I would definitely super glue the top on the container.

Here is our "I Spy:Scavenger Hunt" center.  I kept the wooden box from the Melissa & Doug beads, to contain the "I Spy" bottle.  This allows children to roll the bottle, but keeps it in a contained space.  I have a focus wand and interactive letter worksheet from my Going On a Letter Hunt pack.  This particular worksheet is focusing on the lowercase letter "c".  The letters in our bottle are all uppercase, so my daughter had to recognize the lowercase letter and identify the corresponding uppercase letter.  

She had a ball with this activity!  First, she found the letter "c" with her focus wand.  This helped her to really bring her attention to the specific letter that she needed to find.

 Then, she spun the "I Spy" bottle until she found the capital letter "C".  She immediately scooped up her focus wand and highlighted the letter "C" in the bottle.

 She completed the rest of the letter hunt.  This includes tracing the letter, writing the letter, using visual discrimination to highlight the letter, and completing a cut and paste activity.  

The cut and paste activity is differentiated.  There are two differentiated worksheets. 

In the easier version, there are less letters to cut out and students match the letters when gluing. 

In the harder version, there are more letters and students must identify and glue the correct letters in the four squares. Students must differentiate between the letters provided.

We had more fun with the "I Spy" bottle.  My daughter would find a letter and then write the letter on a dry erase board.  She also was the teacher and gave me a letter that I needed to find.  The possibilities are endless.  You can set this up as a partner station, where each student gets a chance to be teacher.  The other student needs to find the specific letter.  You can add writing the letter on dry erase boards to the activity.

We use the Going On a Letter Hunt activities in so many ways!  We use so many types of text: leveled readers, pocket chart poems, environmental print, word walls, picture books, chapter books, work sheets, posters, even words on food! My daughter LOVES them!

I created a Going On a Word Hunt series for my son.  He wanted to get in on the fun.  The beauty of these scavenger hunts is that they can be used with any text.  I hope that you found some fun ideas to use with your kids!  You can make your "I Spy" bottle with sight words, numbers, or anything your heart desires.  

 You can get them here:
Uppercase Letters
Lowercase Letters
BUNDLE: Upper and Lowercase Letters
Dolch: Pre-Primer Words
Dolch: Primer Words