Winner and THE Sale

And the winner of my new Friends of Ten product is......... Karen Prince Rowland! I emailed you.

The big TpT sale is finally here! So get your shop on and start filling up your cart. My entire store will be 20% off and TpT offers an addition 10% if you enter the promo code BTS13.

Had your eye on one of my newer products?

How about one of my best sellers?

Need some items to start the year off right?

Perhaps some Common Core goodies?

I also have a ton of math games

 and book club packets.

Writing craftivities, centers, there really is something for everyone! 

Time to go browse to add more to my growing wish list. See you at the two-day sale starting this Sunday!

Last hour of Giveaway

Quick, you have one more hour to enter my Friends of Ten Giveaway! Scroll down to the rafflecopter box to enter and read about this new item if you missed my previous post.

Friends of Ten Giveaway!

I am so excited to show you what I've been busy working on. It is called Friends of Ten and I made it with my friend Lindsay! We were working on math curriculum this summer and commenting that learning the parts of ten is a core math skill that needs more attention. We wanted to make sure the partners to ten were really cemented into their young minds so we wrote an original rhyming story with our own creative number characters!

1. We will read this book to the class. We are going to print, laminate and bind into a book that can be reread later but you could also project it if you prefer.

2. We also made half sheet flashcards with just the character. We will start by randomly putting the cards up with magnets and asking volunteers to come partner up the characters to make ten. The next day we will flash the cards and ask the students to call out who the friend of ten is.

3. The students love mini-books so we created one they could reread. Coloring the characters will help ingrain the partners, plus the last page asks them to match the friends up.

4. How about a fun game to continue the practice? In Birthday Bash the students pick a birthday hat to wear and become that character. The object of the game is for students to find their friend of ten. When they find their partner,  they both check in with the teacher. If correct, the students receive a small prize (candy, sticker) and then pick new birthday hats to continue playing.  When time is called, students will be excited to share how many "friendships" they were able to make. The labels are included in the download so all you have to buy is the birthday hats at the dollar store!

5. Finally, there is a cut and glue worksheet that can be used for assessment or simply more practice.

Didn't Lindsay do a great job on the illustrations? I bet she'd get the warm fuzzies if you left her a comment.

As always, I am giving a copy away to a lucky follower. Enter below and good luck! If you have to have it NOW, click {HERE} to go to my store.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

2 Winners

Congrats to my winners!!!
Lori Raines gets a copy of Daily Editing Word Problems for the whole year

and Katie Bauter will receive my newest product The Laces Club!

 Thanks to everyone for entering!

The Laces Club and a giveaway

Do you have students who come to school in shoes they cannot tie? Are they distracted on the rug, focusing on their laces instead of your lesson? Are you and the students who can tie getting tired of tying laces for others?

I had the above problems until I created the The Laces Club!  One little boy this year was particularly inept at shoe-tying, yet he was sent every day in shoes with laces. If he was one of the kids who walked around not minding his floppy strings, perhaps things wouldn't have come to a head. BUT, this young man would ask me, other students, volunteer moms, even other teachers MULTIPLE times a day and DURING LESSONS! He just could not do ANYTHING else until his shoes were tied. I was going NUTS so even though shoe-tying is not a standard, I felt this was a life skill that needed to be addressed.

I did not spend a lot of class time but the kids were so motivated they spent their free time practicing.

What to do:

1. Demonstrate how to tie shoes (a document camera gives a nice close-up.)

2. Read the included poem together several times.

3. Explain that anyone who can show that they can tie their shoes will get a certificate to take home and a badge to put on our bulletin board display. This was a great ego boost for a few children who don't usually excel academically but were one of the first to get up on the board.

I had a shoe-tying book from when my kids were little

 but so many kids were motivated to practice I made extra practice boards.

These practice materials were available for early finishers or recess use. I was lucky enough to have parent helpers available to "test" the students who were ready. I also was often asked during recess duty. Seeing names go up motivated others to keep practicing so they could join. Club members became the experts, helping their classmates to learn. Watching them encourage each other out at recess was absolutely adorable!

My question for you is which method of shoe-tying do you use? Bunny ears or the traditional? Have you heard of the Ian knot? I found this video and showed it to my 5th grader and he thought it was SO much faster he now uses it daily!

I was thinking of making some real practice shoes available this year.  I could continue to feed my chevron addiction...

or it might be cute to match the theme if you have one.

I put these materials together for only $2.50 in my store. If you'd like to win a copy enter below.  

a Rafflecopter giveaway 
If you didn't enter my Daily Editing Word Problems giveaway it only has 2 more days so click here to go enter.