5 for Freebie Friday!

Happy Friday!

I'm linking up with Kacey for:

Throughout the week, I try to capture moments with my iphone camera...but lately? NOTHING!

Here's one measly photo:

This week was all about BUBBLES! This is the first time I've done this theme and, to be honest,  it was really serving as a bit of a break from all our polar animals. WOW - it was a huge hit! It will definitely be in the regular rotation moving forward. 

We filled out a KWL Chart (freebie!) while reading Pop! A Book About Bubbles (terrific nonfiction book). Next, we laughed and laughed with Bubble Trouble. If your students love rhymes, tongue-twisters, and an exciting plot (the cover gives a HUGE clue), this is your book! It's a new favorite of my firsties.

Then our sensory bin was full of bubble wrap (plus a few sparkly pom-poms)! Sensory overload and a lot of fun exploration.

We are also had the perfect opportunity to break out 

this throwback freebie:

There's another color option (dark red) and 28 text cards (14 short/14 long) to sort by vowel sound. We are halfway through our first introduction to long vowel teams and this "game" (actually a word sort) was the perfect warm-up (and check for understanding)!

We are getting ready for Round 3 of our STEP Testing (about a month away) and I'm hitting phonemic awareness and phonics hard with both my first graders and third graders. I've been using my STEP Progress Monitoring Toolkit and noticed that my students are really struggling with segmentation. That really surprises me! Anyway, I'd like to add MANY more picture cards to the toolkit:

If you have already purchased this packet (thank you!), please be on the lookout for the "revised" notice when I upload the additional practice cards. If you were interested in learning more, please click here to download the preview or click here to read my blogpost about it. 

UPDATE: I already uploaded 24 more picture cards - please visit your purchases page and redownload to get the extras!

I  also just finished up the coordinating phonics packet and will be posting about it soon!

Thanks for reading & have a terrific weekend!

Jen