Amazing what gets done on a break!

I have been working on this beast for two weeks now and I finally finished it! The craziness of the impending holiday and grad school threw a few road blocks my way.

I started to notice at the beginning of the year that I needed something new for my pocket chart station. I decided to make these fun phonics sorts so I could put them in the work station when we go over the phonics skill of the week. Here is a picture of my students doing the short vowels:

It is a great activity for them to sort words and to also blend and read those words and put them in their vocabulary! The unit includes seven different sorts. I based them on the phonics skills we use in our reading series, Treasures. It has short vowels, long vowels, s- blends, l- blends, r- blends, digraphs and triple consonant blends. Go check it out!

Also, first person to answer this question gets a FREE copy of this unit!

What do I do the Friday after Thanksgiving?

all over the place

I gave this post that title because seriously these pics and ideas are from one end to the next. Get ready.
First, we just finished our matter unit and ended with making ice cream...holy mess! It was fun thought, but with science experiments you never know if everything will go as planned. I had to make an extra bag for those that just could not get their own ice cream to freeze!

 We also made these adorable books from Lesson Plan SOS!

 This is a little anchor chart I made for the kiddos to remember those states of matter!

We also started reading monsters this month! I figured with October it would be perfect and I am also getting my kids ready for accelerated reader! Luckily my girl Ms. Simoneaux won Abby's Ready to Read packet and I got in on that too! With us, sharing is caring. :)
My kids just got to 15 minutes in read to self so we switch that time to the morning after morning work. Once they finish a book they have to tell me what it is about and then they can write that book down and "feed" it to their monster. Too cute!

I have one too! Only fed him one book so far! 

Last but not least, we started studying owls this week! We are using the fabulous Mrs. Jump's unit on owls. Meet Oscar and Rudy, our two visitors!

I heart them...so cute. Plus, they serve as anchor charts for our learning! We read "Owls" by Gail Gibbons, then talked about all the facts about owls and posted them here and made owl fact books.

Watching them say oviparous, is priceless.

 Also, read this poem....

Hope you enjoyed my randomness! More random anchor charts to come in the next few days!

Also if you haven't yet go enter Ms. Preppy's giveaway! It ends tomorrow!