What's going on this week:

Before I give you a peek into my week, I wanted to clarify something from my post yesterday. I'm not opposed to varying opinions. I think we can learn a lot from each other when we're honest and we take the time to listen. I think of the blogging community as a place I go to seek encouragement and ideas. I get negativity in the real world. I really hope I wasn't negative yesterday because that wasn't my intent to be negative or discouraging. But I chose to stop following this blogger because I have read several posts that made me feel discouraged after reading them. I don't need that so I made the choice to not expose myself to that anymore. I'm not saying anyone else has to do the same. I just was sharing what I was thinking. I hope that I didn't offend anyone because that wasn't my purpose.
Anyway, after watching Fran Kramer's presentation, I have some things I planning on trying put this week. Starting with 2 bingo games I made. My kids love bingo and I never thought about making my own. But I made one with sight words and then one with sort a word families. I'll have then to share as soon as I print them to make sure I have cards for all the words so check back.
I also want to try out here ideas about partner matching with the abc cards and putting them in alphabetical order. I found some free Valentine themed Abc cards on Growing Kinders. I just need to print them out and laminate them. We've pretty much got recognizing our alphabet down, we're still working on getting all the sounds. Today I used my sound cards and had them line up in Abc order. I also had them find sight word partners using our flashcards. I feel like I need to watch the presentation again to process more of her fantastic ideas. I am also planning on wearing a sight word necklace and having the students do a variety of activities with that. I just remembered that while I was typing this post. I need to get up and make it right now.
This week we're finishing up some winter activities that I've been wanting to do and just haven't had time. So our centers have some of the snowmen games I've bought and found for free. We're also going to read Snowballs by Lois Elhert and make those name snowmen I've seen all over the blog world and pinterest. Now that I've located my camera, I should have some pictures of these activities. I'm using quite a few games from Crystal at Kreative Kinder in her Snowmen pack. I love her units and my kids love the activities she has in them. She's also nice enough to change the sight words if you need her too. Then in our writing center we're going to work on some Valentine cards from DeeDee Wills February Writing Center pack. She's another one who I love her stuff. Those two I know when I buy something from them, I'm going to love it and use almost all the activities.
We read The Mitten a few weeks ago and my kids loved it. I've had plans to make a take home bag to go along with it since we got back to school. I finally got it done this weekend and it's going home with a student today. My kids have done a great job with these in the past and seem to love it. This bag contains the book, some retelling pieces with real pictures of animals, and a story map to complete. You can check out what I send home by clicking here. The Mitten Take home bag. If you grab it, please leave me some comment love. If you would like to adapt it for your class, let me know and I'll be glad to email it to you in a word document.
What are you up to this week in your class? I'm looking forward to doing Valentine's themed stuff the next week. We need a pick me up for this dreary but warm winter we're having.