Pirate Literacy Centers and Snowy Ice Cream

Hi Friends!
We're in another deep freeze in my neck of the woods.  School was canceled again this past Friday and the weather isn't looking too promising for the beginning of this week.  I like snow, I love a white Christmas but I'm kind of over it…bring on the spring!  A nice warm spring!

A few weeks ago I posted my Pirate Literacy Centers in my TPT shop.  I was in need of some simple activities that my children could do in small groups while I was testing so I whipped a few up for us.  We were supposed to work on them this past week, but we only had 1 3/4 days of school…so they're now laminated and ready to go for this week.  I thought I'd give you a close up look at them so you know what we'll be working on.

Pirate Punctuation
The children will match the sentence to the correct punctuation.

Pirate Contractions
The children will match the cards to build contractions.

Pirate ABC Order
The children will will use the three sets of cards and put them in ABC order.

A Treasure of Compound Words
The children will match the cards to build compound words.

Pirate Rhymes
The children will match the words that rhyme.

Noun and Verb Sort
The children will sort the cards by nouns and verbs.

 They're pretty basic because I wanted the children to be able complete them with little help from me since I'll be testing each of them 1:1.  Each activity has a worksheet for the children to record their answers…and I can hold them accountable for their work.  
Click here to find my Pirate Literacy Centers in my TPT shop.

Being snowed in, has given my plenty of time to get lost on Pinterest…did you see this one?

I thought I better try it out on my own first...

and it's pretty tasty!  

The recipe above made about 2 cups of ice cream.  If we ever get back to school, I think I want to make this with my first graders.  They'll love making their own snow ice ream!

Keep warm!

Well, hello!

I know…I've been missing in action again!  I'd love to promise you that I'll be more consistent…but I think I just get so wrapped up in school life that my little blog gets put on the back burner.  I've not even had time to blog stalk like I used to…ugh! 

I'll try to be a better blogger though…I'll really, really try!

I have been creating a few things for my little old TPT shop in the past few weeks.  If you follow me there, you've probably "felt" me blowing the dust off of it recently and opening up the doors again.

Our Student-Led Conferences will be in a few short weeks and I wanted a book study that my children could complete on their own and then share it with their families at conferences.  A few years ago I purchased a class set of Jan Brett's The Mitten from Scholastic.  They were like $1 a piece at the time…wish I could find that deal again!  We'll use this book for a whole class read aloud and then the children will each have their own copy to use to help them complete the book study.

Click here to see this unit in my TPT shop!

We're in need of a little extra help with contractions, so I created a simple matching activity for the children to use to practice on their own or with a friend or two.

Click here to see this unit in my TPT shop!

Our school mascot is a pirate and it's our annual Pride Week this week.  It's a week that we celebrate the pride we have in our school, district-wide. We've been reading Peter Pan but we're also going to be reading a few more fun pirate stories.  One of my favorites is Tough Boris by Mem Fox.  I like to use this book to introduce adjectives to my children so I whipped up a little activity for us to complete together.

Click here to see this unit in my TPT shop!

It's also "testing season" for us and I'm in need of some literacy activities that the children can complete independently while I'm doing one-on-one assessments.  There are 6 literacy centers in this packet that will serve as a review and/or extra practice for us!

Click here to see this unit in my TPT shop!

And since I've been MIA for several months, I'm going to hold a quick flash sale in my shop for today, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day!  Everything is 20% off for the rest of today!

Here's hoping your 2014 is off to a wonderful start and that hopefully,  I can get back into the swing of things again in blogland!

Take care!