October Winner Wednesday

The first Wedenesday of every month is set aside as Winner Wednesday. What's that you might ask! It's a fabulous linky where participating bloggers select one of their best teaching products and offer it as a one day only giveaway.

So, are you ready to  win a fun, engaging, and totally useful bundle of three ELA activities for older elementary students just in time for the months of October and November, activities that will help them practice forming plurals using seasonal themed words? Just enter the Rafflecopter at the bottom of this post and if your name is pulled, you will receive this...

Fall Plurals ZAP!

Halloween Plurals ZAP!
Thanksgiving Plurals ZAP!

ZAP is such a fun game to begin with that no matter what skill you practice your students are engaged and learning! My kiddos beg to play ZAP and we're talking practicing parts of speech, recognizing contractions, identifying clauses and types of sentences... not your typical begged for material! ZAP is so popular with my students that I have more than 80 games available in my store, all of which I've played with my students over the past few years. If you are not familiar with how to play ZAP, please visit this blog post to learn more. 

Let's take a closer look at the fall plurals ZAP! game.

Here you can see what the pieces are like. ZAP! is basically a print and go activity. Print the file pages, cut them apart, and PLAY! You can laminate the pieces for durability, but I find that it is not necessary. The strips hold-up well enough when just printed on heavier weight paper. The only real preparation involved is finding a container in which to place the skill strips. I use Pringle's cans (my students and fellow faculty  members save them for me so I have an endless supply... thank goodness), but even a brown lunch bag works for ZAP!

In this pic you see the dreaded ZAP! strips. Pull one of these, and well.... you're ZAPPED! Play for twenty minutes, play for ten. Play as a whole class, play in a small group. My kiddos LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this game! 

It's fast-paced, fun, and engaging, and the best part is that ZAP provides tremendous practice for those skills that you used to use drill-em and kill-em worksheets for.

Click on the links above to read more about each individual ZAP game and see a few more pics. If you would like to own these three engaging games just enter the Rafflecopter below for your chance to be my Wednesday Winner! But hurry, you only have until midnight tonight to enter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

September Winner Wednesday, All About Johnny

The first Wedenesday of every month is set aside as Winner Wednesday. What's that you might ask! It's a fabulous linky where participating bloggers select one of their best teaching products and offer it as a one day only giveaway.

So, are you ready to  win a fun, engaging, and totally useful bundle of three ELA activities for older elementary students just in time for Johnny Appleseed Day on September 26th? Just enter the Rafflecopter at the bottom of this post and if your name is pulled, you will receive this...

Johnny Appleseed ELA Bundle of Three Activities

Here's what you will find inside this bundle. You do have to supply a container, and there is some assembly, mostly cutting and taping.

Let's look at each activity a little closer.

First the Mystery Picture...

The mystery picture consists of a grid of 121 squares in which is written a word(s). Your students follow the coloring key at the bottom of the paper to color in each square. This particular mystery pictures provides students practice with six of the eight parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions. As they color the picture is revealed. This happens to be a picture of Johnny Appleseed with his tin pot hat, standing next to an apple tree.

The ZAP Game...

ZAP is such a fun game to begin with that no matter what skill you practice your students are engaged and learning! If you are not familiar with how to play ZAP, please visit this blog post to learn more. This ZAP game asks your students to distinguish between fact and opinion statements. Don't want to play a game? Use the game cards as task cards in a literacy center. QR Code answers are included on each strip, making them self-checking in a center.

The last item is a set of Task Cards...

Task cards are my go-to activity. I could probably use them every day for every skill if I could. They are so versatile... from a literacy center to a game of Scoot, from a game to an assessment tool... task cards will go the mile for you! This set is designed to give your students practice writing sentences correctly. Intentional  mistakes in grammar, usage, spelling, and punctuation have been placed in each card's sentence. Students are asked to revise and edit the sentences until they are free of mistakes. Once again these cards may be used in a literacy center and since they also contain QR Code answers they are self-checking. A traditional answer key is also provided. Don't forget task cards can be used in many ways... try a Scatter or Scavenger Hunt! Students LOVE to get out of their seats to do work.

Sound like a bundle that you would enjoy adding to your classroom? Just enter the Rafflecopter below for a chance to receive it FREE! Don't delay! The giveaway lasts only for today, Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2016.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Be sure to stop by A Dab of Glue Will Do You or Sara J Creations for more Winner Wednesday blog posts. From there you will be able to enter additional Winner Wednesday giveaways. Good luck!

Winner Wednesday

The first Wednesday of every month is set aside for WINNER WEDNESDAY!

Are you ready to WIN a brand new ENGAGING and USEFUL product?

Just fill out the Rafflecopter at the bottom of this post. If your name is selected as the winner, you will receive....

Raise your hand if you have heard of anchor charts? It seems everywhere that you turn in the education world there is a picture of, an article about, or teacher testimonial regarding this oft discussed instructional aid. They are wonderful! I have used them (just called them teaching charts) for nearly all 37 years of teaching. I have a HUGE collection of pins of anchor charts. You're welcome to peruse and repin from my awesome board!

The problem with anchor charts, at least for my students and me, is that my kiddos just don't stay in one classroom. We are departmentalized in grs. 5+. Since I teach the language arts skills, much of my content is that which our students need to carry over into all their subjects: writing process, writing traits, conventions of writing, etc. It is not practical to send anchor charts from room to room with the students nor to duplicate them to hang in multiple rooms. The content area teachers have enough charts of their own let alone displaying mine as well.

What is practical, however, is giving each student a mini-anchor chart to take with him/her! The photos below show you what these mini-charts are like and how to assemble them. Minimal supplies are needed, students can assemble them themselves with a little instruction and guidance. All you as teacher need to do is select the chart to use and print enough copies. Students supply a pencil, glue, scissors, and tape (optional). You can read more about these fun instructional aids and see a listing of all the mini-charts available HERE. There is even a customizable chart included so you can create your own!

So, are you intrigued by these little gems? Would you like a set of your own? Just enter the Rafflecopter before midnight tonight, Aug. 3, 2016, and you could own your own mini-anchor charts to use with your intermediate/middle grades students. I will send the winner their packet of mini anchor charts early on Thursday.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Be sure to hop on over to A Dab of Glue Will Do You or Sara J Creations to read more Winner Wednesday posts and enter to win more WINNING teaching products!

July Winner Wednesday

Today I'm joining Sara J Creations and A Dab of Glue Will Do for their fabulous monthly linky Winner Wednesday. This month for Winner Wednesday you have the opportunity to win my Back to School ELA Bundle, a packet of SIX upper elementary/middle school activities.

Are you looking for FUN and ENGAGING Back to School themed ELA activities to review or introduce key language arts concepts? Look no further! This bundle contains SIX products to help your intermediate students practice identifying parts of speech and kinds of sentences, as well as recognizing fragments, sentences, and run-ons. Included are THREE Zap! games, TWO Mystery Pictures, and ONE pack of Scoot cards. Each item is available separately in my TpT store as well as in this bundle.

First up are three Back to School Zap games... Not sure what ZAP is? Click HERE to read more about it and how it is played. Would you believe that there are nearly EIGHTY Zap games in my TpT Store?

Back to School Zap! Fragments, Run-ons, and Sentences
     Zap is a fun and engaging game to help your students practice mundane skills. This Zap game provides practice with identifying groups of words as either a sentence fragment, as a run-on sentence, or as a complete sentence. Simply click on the product link to read more about it.

Back to School Zap! Kinds of Sentences 
    This Zap game gives students practice with identifying sentences as being declarative, interrogative, imperative, or exclamatory.

Back to School Zap! Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, and Adverbs
     Learning and identifying the parts of speech can be a real drudge! Zap makes learning this skill FUN!

Also included in the Back to School Bundle are TWO Mystery Pictures. So, what's a mystery picture? Following a key, students match a word's part of speech with its representative color by shading in squares to reveal a mystery picture. The coloring sheet can be projected on a whiteboard for whole group instruction/participation or printed for individual use. This activity aligns with Common Core Standard ELA L.1.

Mystery Picture Schoolhouse
     The parts of speech practiced in this picture are nouns, verbs, adjectives, and conjunctions.

Mystery Picture Apple
     This mystery picture is a bit more challenging than the schoolhouse. With this activity, students practice nearly all of the parts of speech: nouns, vers, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, and interjections.

The last item included in the Back to School Bundle is a scoot game. Basically this is a set of typical task cards; I just designate the pack as a scoot game. GAME sounds so much more inviting than TASK. If you're not sure how to play scoot,you can download the directions HERE along with a set of cards for a math game. You can see my students playing a scoot game in the following video. It's not the one in the bundle, but you get a feel for the activity. Notice how quiet engaged they are.



Back to School Scoot Revising Sentences
     This set of task cards provides practice for students with editing and revising sentences that have a back to school theme. 

On each card is a sentence laced with mistakes in spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and/or usage. Students  must write the sentence correctly on their papers before scooting to the next card. What's really fun is that each of the 24 cards contains a QR code; students can use the cards independently, checking their answers.

There you have it! This bundle is PERFECT for those first weeks back to school when upper elementary and middle school students need a refresher on basic skills. Are you ready to take a chance on winning this terrific teaching item? Enter the giveaway in the Rafflecopter below. But hurry! You only have today, Wednesday, to enter! 


a Rafflecopter giveaway

When you're finished entering my giveaway, be sure to hop on over to Sara J Creations or A Dab of Glue Will Do to enter more Winner Wednesday giveaways.