It's October!!! Let the Multiplication Games Begin!

I am so excited that it is October. It is my favorite month of the year, not only because it's my birth month (Go Scorpios) but, also because the slight chill in the air, the smell of smoke from burning leaves, the feel of my favorite boots, and the snugglly forgiveness that comes from big sweaters.

I am happy to add one more reason to love this month. I also love October because of the cute games and materials I was able to create for all my teacher friends!

The teachers I work with are working on 3.OA.1-5, which focus on multiplication and division skills. These games have students replacing missing dividends and divisors, solving arrays, matching multiplication facts, and other skills to improve their fluency in multiplication and division. I have created this cute set of games to encourage students to practice these skills.

Take a peek at the covers as the games will be uploaded  in my store tomorrow!

These will definitely be treats for your students! No tricks, I promise ;)

A sneak peek of Bats in the Belfry

Your kids will love these tricks

The Mummy is on the loose and needs your division skills to return to the pyramid. 

Can you be the first one to the belfry?

There are 6 games total. I hope they will be a useful addition to your classroom this month!
As always, let me know what you think!

Too Cute Tuesday

My TCT Award (Too Cute Tuesday)  goes (and will probably always go) to my beautiful little Naya. :)

Wordium: A sight word review game your students will love!!!

Do you have a Wordium? I bet you don't because it's a brand new game created to help reinforce students mastery of Fry's 1000 sight words.

Wordium is an interactive game designed to reinforce students word recognition and spelling skills of Fry's 1000 words.

A sight word game for up to six players.

Objective: To reinforce students mastery of Fry’s Sight Words

Goal: The first player to complete their Wordium card wins.

Assembly:

-Cut out the individual player cards. Players will use these cards to keep track of their wordiums.

-Cut out all of the wordium game cards and place on designated spaces.

-To minimize cheating, designate a special marker or stamp to mark wordiums.

Instructions:

-The player will the highest roll should go first.

-Each player should roll the dice to determine which card to pull.

-Play continues until one player has marked off all the available spaces on their wordium card.

Feel free to use this activity with guided reading centers, individual work, small group tutoring or remediation. Students love this game and it offers constant reinforcement of sight word mastery.

I hope your students love this mastery game as much as mine do. Check out my TPT and Teacher's notebook stores to see more Wordium Games and Fry Words aligned materials.

 

A super bundle of ALL FOUR LEVELS of the Wordium for the whole group :)
Wordium Super Bundle!!!! 

A super bundle of ALL FOUR LEVELS of the Fry Words Vocabulary Warm Up GameFry Word Aligned Games

A Game Pack of Fry Word Aligned Games (Words 1-125)
Game Pack Bundle - Level 1

Fry's Sight Words Freebie!

Students love playing games. I love students learning from games. I love it so much that I created Fry Words Vocabulary Warm Up Folders, which are designed to help struggling readers master their sight words through small group tutoring and game play. In the non-profit I work for, many of the students read below their grade level and struggle with word recognition. I developed these materials as a way to supplement my program's resources, create continued accountability into which words students know, and to share resources with others who have students with the same struggles.

Below is an example of what the FREE sample looks like.

This folder contains:

o        1 lists of Fry Materials (words 1-25)

o      A list of 25 vocabulary words from Fry’s Word List per folder

o        A specific game with the words for that level

o        Student test page of the 25 words

o        Pre-Test/Post-Test and Assessment sheets of the 25 words

o        Blank activity cards in page protectors to be used with dry erase markers

o        5 pages of the vocabulary focus words of the week with example sentences

The best part of the files are the games! Each game is tailored to the specific words of the level. So not only do you get materials to print to assess student mastery, but you also get games that students can use to reinforce their thinking.

Classroom Use Ideas

o        Remediation

o        Guided Reading Centers

o        Vocabulary Centers

o        Partner Work

Below is an example of the wonderful games you can play

The only thing you need to play are game pieces and some may require the use of a die.

If you like what you see, head over to my store for the FREE sample of Fry Words. I know you'll be glad you did. :)

Fry Words Vocabulary Warm - Up

As always, let me know what you think and if you found it to be helpful!

Having a Fear

Hi All!

It has been a long time since I posted but I have been facing a tremendous problem.

I have been working on a set of games since April and for the life of me, I couldn't finish.

I put working on the lists on my to do lists over and over again. I set deadline after deadline. I felt the guilt time after time as I continued to not finish, procrastinate, and not finish the games. When I would work, I would work on it piece by piece and spend too much time formatting or adding detail.

I could argue that I was pregnant and working all the way up to my due date (I could have waited for the two extra weeks it took her to come) and that was the reason.

I could have argued that I had a job, then a newborn, then family, and finally trainings for work, which distracted me from my task and occupied my time.

In truth, it was fear. It was fear about the quality of my products. Fear about the content. Fear about the reception. Fear about the criticism. Fear of failure.

This week, I decided to conquer that fear. Instead of clocking in and working from home (while on maternity leave -sigh-), I decided to take this week to complete this task and free myself from this burden and this guilt. Slowly, I completed the different levels of the games, compressed the folders, learned how to turn a pdf to a jpg, and saved all the files to their respective folders.

And then the moment came. It was time to upload the materials. I'll admit that I did spend another 3 hours this morning updated my teacher store and making new banners for my site. (Side note --> go to  Teacher Blogging Basics for tips and tricks. Her site is amazing!) While these things are helpful and necessary, I know them for what they are, another distraction tactic.

After it is all said and done, I took a deep breath and began to upload my work.

And it was...easy. It was effortless. It literally took me 10 minutes to upload all of the information. I felt so free. And so silly. All of the worry and anxiety over posting these materials seemed like such a waste of my time and of my life. With each subsequent material, I felt freer and it became so much faster the more levels I uploaded. All told, I completed over 1200 pages of work and material in about 15 hours of work. I literally spent over a hundred hours during this time worrying, thinking, tweaking, and living in guilt over these resources. That is way too much of my time spent living in fear and not living with joy.

The simple moral of the story is that I can't let fear and procrastination stop me from sharing my resources and sharing my gifts with the world. I have to push through these challenges and continue to do what I do best. I hope all of these efforts will be helpful to you and your students :)

Have you ever struggled with fear surrounding your materials? Please share how you dealt with it and any tips you have :)

Freebie: Math Ten Squares

Hi All!!!

While the beautiful spring weather is be hidden behind clouds, I have a free ray of sunshine in the form of Math Ten Frames. 

Hurry and download if you are finding that your kinders and firsties are struggling with the concept of adding to ten. This is one of the first units I have ever created, so I would appreciate any feedback or advice you would have.