Fall Sale

I love fall. I love the cooler weather. The sweaters. The pumpkin spice latte. I love fall. I'm kicking off this fall with a brand new Teachers Notebook store and a sale on all of my educational printables! My best selling product is 50% off through the end of the week.

50% off Printable Books for Emergent Readers- Nursery Rhymes

These printable books contain 5 favorite nursery rhymes. Each book is a half sheet of paper and prints in black and white. The nursery rhymes included are Little Bo Peep, Hey Diddle Diddle, The Itsy Bitsy Spider, Little Miss Muffet, and Hickory Dickory Dock.  

These books are also available as ebooks for iphone/ iPad in full color. You can purchase those in my Teachers Notebook store as well. (20% off ebooks). Here's a preview of the one of the ebooks, the Itsy Bitsy Spider.

20% off my entire store

I've been stocking my store with several fall themed printables. Here's a peek at some of my printables for fall.

Printable Books for Early Readers: Fall Holidays

Fall Fun Word Work

You can find other products in my store like
Printable Sight Word Readers: Easy repetative books focusing on words from the preprimer list of Dolch sight words.
Math Olympic games for kids

And I have several freebies for you as well!
So grab a pumpkin spice latte and shop it up, my friends!

Happy Fall!
You can find even more fall teaching resources at this fall party:

Learning Letters with 10 Easy Letter Sorts

Sorting letters is one way to build fast visual recognition of letters. In Literacy Beginnings, by Gay Su Pinnell and Irene C. Fountas, the authors suggest that visual discrimination of letters is a key factor in early literacy learning.
"Evidence indicates that inital literacy learning is much more complex than learning the letters of the alphabet, and it is hardly a step by step process. It is a highly demanding task of visual discrimination that takes place over a period of time- the goal of which is fast letter recognition." (Source: Literacy Beginnings, pg. 184)


Try some of these quick sorts to help move your child toward the goal of fast letter recognition:
1.  Sort letters by color.

2.  Sort tall and short letters.

3.  Sort letters by curves and no curves.

4. Sort letters by slants and no slants

5.  Sort letters by sticks and no sticks.

6.  Find all of the letter (E).

7.  Find the letters that are in your name.

8.  Match upper case and lower case letters.

9.  Sort letters with tails and letters with no tails.

10. Open sort- give your child an array of letters and have them sort the letters and explain the sort.

When you sort letters with your children, you can use letters made from a variety of materials. Take a look around what you already have in your home. Do you have magnetic letters on the fridge? Are there foam letters in your bath? Do you have a few alphabet puzzles with wooden letters? Letters can even be handwritten on index cards or scraps of paper and manipulated.  If you have any of these, you are ready to begin letter sorts!

Don't forget about my fall sale at my Teachers Notebook store. 50% off best seller, 20% off entire store. Sale ends Saturday, September 29.

I'm linking this up:
The Sunday Showcase, The Learning Laboratory, Montessori Mondays, It's Playtime,  Kids Co-op

Children's Bibles Review and Giveaway

If you've read my blog much, you might have guessed that reading is a huge part of my family life! Teaching the Bible to my kids is a huge part of our every day life too. I feel like taking time to teach Bible stories and principles enriches our day. Juggling kids, school, activities, sports, homework, and family time is a lot for most families. In our home, Bible time can easily get swept under the rug. Sharing the Bible with my kids is really important, though, and I want to work to protect that time. Here are a few suggestions that I found helpful for teaching the Bible to my kids.

1. Choose a designated time of day to read the Bible with your kids. Just like brushing teeth, if you don't have set times of day for Bible reading, you may easily forget to actually do it. As your kids get older and busier, it can become even more difficult to find time for Bible reading. My sister has a great trick that she uses with her boys. She drives them to the bus stop each day and while they wait, she reads them a quick devotion. What a great way to start the day! While that time might not work for your family, try to set aside a time to share a quiet moment meditating on God's word.Your kids will begin to expect that time and they will be excited about sharing that time with you.

2. Memorize scripture verses with your kids. The Bible commands us to "hide God's word in our heart". Memorizing scripture is so important. It can also be fun if you memorize a verse for each letter of the Bible, or give a rhythm to the verse, let the child slap his legs or clap his hands as he memorizes the scripture, or sing a song to remember the verse. Also, take the time to show your child where the verses are found in the Bible so he knows it's really a verse from the Bible

3. Keep Bible study time with  kids relevant to their lives. The Bible isn't just interesting stories from history. There are stories about real life issues that will help your kids right now, today.  Are they having trouble with a friend at school? Are they anxious about a big test? Do they question their self-worth? The Bible has answers for these problems. I try to remind myself to direct my boys back to God's word. It's there that they learn they are loved with an everlasting love. The Bible is where they learn about wisdom. They learn to be understanding and forgiving towards others. I won't be able to be with my boys for the rest of their lives. Why not press into them God's word?  It can direct them as they move on someday out of my care.

4. Make Bible study time with kids engaging. There is a lot competing for our kids attention in this world. Playing a flashy video game might sound better to some kids than reading a book of thees and thous. I think it's totally important for your kids to see you reading from God's word and to hear God's word. I even think it's ok for them to hear the thees and thous. It's beautiful. But for my boys, I've found that if we stick with just reading straight from a grown up Bible, I can't keep their attention. A better way to keep my boys attention is to listen to the story on CD or watch a movie of the Bible story. It's also helpful to sometimes use a Bible that is on the child's listening comprehension level. There are several kids Bibles and even Bible apps designed specifically for kids.

The Children's Bibles is an app for iPhone or iPad that has stories that kids can read or listen to. You can even record a story. Wouldn't it be fun (and engaging) to have Grandpa reading a favorite Bible story? I know my boys would love that. You can also watch the stories as animated video. Wouldn't this be great for a long car trip? You can get this app free with three free books and 3 free sample books. If you like this app, consider rating it on iTunes.

Here's the description of the app in itunes.
The Children's Bibles contains 84 books, different well-known children’s Bible stories. They are all beautifully illustrated, in a classic naturalistic and colorful style, with sound effects and music. They are also made into movies, and you can record your own audio for reading so the child will hear the father, mother or grandparent reading the story.  These stories have already been sold, in printed form, in over 8 million copies in more than 110 languages and countries. (See the list in the App.) It is still reprinting 300,000 to 600,000 each year.
Check out the 3 free complete books and 3 free sample books. These are all stories from the Bible for different age groups from +0 to teenagers and even adults. They are faithful to the BIBLE, but shortened in some books.
Please have a look, and download this free App and look at the free books and samples.
 
Features:
•Read (you can read the stories yourself)
•Read to Me (listen to the story, while watching the pages turn)
•My Audio (record your own voice and play along with the story)
•Play movie (watch an animated video)

The publisher, Scandinavia Publishing House, also has several print books that would be great for your family's Bible reading time.
In fact, they have offered a prize pack to one reader of Ready. Set. Read! to help your family get started on your Bible reading adventure.
 Here's what's included in the prize pack.

1. Handy Bible - cost USD 12.95 

2. Comic Book Bible - cost USD 9.95 and the
3. Small Famous People of the Bible - cost USD 1.95 each 

I have a strong desire to teach my kids God's word. There is just so much competing for their attention. I asked my facebook friends for advice on this column so this is a compilation of idea from wonderful parents (moms and dads) who value spending time in God's word with their children. I don't claim to be a perfect Christian parent. It is something I struggle with and pray about often. If you have tips for teaching your kids about the Bible, I'd love to hear them!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure:

This is a sponsored post. I was given a free giveaway pack and compensated to write this post.

Mad Monday Sale

I wanted to let all my readers know that I am hosting a big sale for all members of We Teach today! If you are a we teach member, head over to the Mad Mondays Deals and Steals page to find out how to get 50% off my best selling product, Printable Books for Emergent Readers: Nursery Rhymes. You can also score some great deals on ALL of my other educational printables today.

We Teach is a forum for parents and teachers to share ideas, learn from each other, and grow as educators for our children. It is FREE to join We Teach. You can request to join here or comment below with your email address and I'll send you an invite!
We Teach offers special deals on educational products every Monday. There are also awesome groups you can join like we teach 2 year olds, we teach reading, or we teach: we're bloggers. These groups have been such an awesome support and networking system for me.
Also, if you join We Teach today, there is a new member chat tonight at 9 pm EST. So head over and meet everyone. It's super fun.

Preschool Themes: Shapes

We have been learning and reviewing shapes this week since Logan's preschool theme is shapes. I checked out a few books on shapes. We started with our featured author this month, Lois Ehlert. She has great concept books on shapes and colors. We really enjoyed Color Zoo. We also focused on books that allow us to see shapes in the world around us. We went on a hunt for shapes in our world. Finally, we wrote a shape book--- scroll down for the a free PDF template for our shape book.

Our featured author for the Virtual Book Club for kids is Lois Ehlert. Ehlert's book, Color Zoo, is great for shape activities for preschoolers.

  Color Zoo by Lois Ehlert In this story, Ehlert uses geometric shapes to form abstract animals. The pages are die cut so that when you flip through the book, each page turn reveals a different animal. The shapes used to make each animal are shown on the next page and clearly labeled. This book addresses basic shapes (square, circle, triangle, rectangle) as well as more complex shapes like octagon.

After we read a few shape books, we wrote a shape book. I created a template for this book by writing one sentence on each page,  "I see a circle. I see a triangle." etc. We used glue to draw the shape named on each page and then we placed small pieces of string over the glue to form the shape. I found the idea for this project at Hubbard's Cupboard but since there wasn't a template, I decided to make my own. I also wanted to incorporate sight words that we are working on like 'see' as well as early literacy skills of reading a sentence left to right. The booklet template  is available for FREE in my brand new Teacher's Notebook Store!

If your child is not ready to draw the shapes, you could draw the shape in gray crayon first and then allow your child to trace over the shape with glue. If you are making these for an entire classroom that needs support, you might want to draw in the shapes before making the copies-- just a timesaving tip!
Another way to use this template would be to cut or tear objects that illustrate shapes from a magazine and glue the pictures to the pages.
It's a lot of fun for kids to read the shape book that they have written!

Here are some other shape books we love:
Round is a Mooncake: A Book of Shapes by Roseanne Thong Shapes are shown through illustrations of objects from traditional and modern Asian culture.
Mouse Shapes by Ellen Stoll Walsh This story which is similar to Walsh's earlier book, Mouse Paint, uses mice to teach basic shapes. In this story, the mice are once more hiding from the cat, but they use shapes to build object to distract the cat. Very clever mice, very clever story. I like that it takes the story beyond labeling shapes and shows how shapes can be made and how ordinary objects are composed of shapes.
In a side note, my four year old's preschool teacher read this to him and he came home eager to tell me his teacher had read him a story about mice but not the one we had read. We have the book, Mouse Paint. I was so excited that he could make that text to text connection!
When a Line Bends A Shape Begins by Rhonda Growler Green is a good shape book to grow with your child. This book covers the basic shapes and the more complex shapes. It also showcases shapes that are easy to detect as well as shapes that are more difficult to locate in the pictures. The text is an enjoyable and memorable rhyme.
Tana Hoban is generally my go-to author when teaching shapes. Her books range from black and white board books for babies to books that teach basic shapes to books that feature three dimensional shapes.

Here are a few of our favorite books for basic shapes:
Shapes, Shapes, Shapes by Tana Hoban
-Round and Round and Round by Tana Hoban
-So Many Circles, So Many Squares by Tana Hoban


What are your favorite concept books about shapes for preschoolers?

Here's Where I am Sharing:

It's Playtime,  Kids Co-op, What My Child is Reading, The Sunday Showcase, The Learning Laboratory, Book Sharing Monday, Hey Mom! Look What I Did, Kids Get Crafty, We Teach

Book Activity: Nuts to You

Welcome to the September edition of the Virtual Book Club for Kids! If you want more information on the VBC, check out my introductory post. Anyone is welcome to join us each month as we team up with a group of bloggers to study favorite authors. For the month of September, we are focusing on book activities to accompany books by Lois Ehlert.
Lois Ehlert is one of our favorite authors. In the past, I've shared her books Growing Vegetable Soup, Planting a Rainbow, and Leaf Man. This month, I decided to choose the book "Nuts to You". This is a perfect book for the month of September.
Nuts to You by Lois Ehlert is the narrative of a young child who observes a mischievious squirrel. The squirrel breaks into the child's home and the youngster has to lure the squirrel out of the home. The young narrator calls out "Nuts to You!" as he/she knocks nuts on the sidewalk. The squirrel leaves the home but the child keeps more nuts tucked in a pocket just in case...

In our neck of the woods, there are squirrels everywhere. We basically live in the trees. Our house sits on the top of our wooded lot which drops down into a large forest. Squirrels scamper up the tree near our deck grabbing at our bird feeder and saying hello. We do more squirrel watching than bird watching!
Nuts to You by Lois Ehlert provided the perfect time to talk about squirrel habits. We began by reading the book while we munched on this nutty snack. (I found this idea on Pinterest. Where else?) You can make these edible acorns by topping donut holes with nutella and covering with chocolate jimmies.

After tasting a few "acorns", we tried painting with nuts. We dipped a variety of sizes of nuts into paint, placed them in shoe boxes with paper inside, and shook. We watched the squirrels outside to see if they could hear our nuts or maybe even smell them. One squirrel did stop by the back door!

Finally, we took a walk through our neighborhood. We looked for squirrels and acorns. We found piles of cracked nuts on retaining walls and we guessed that squirrels had been there. We even took our fall scavenger hunt cards along to see if we could find any other evidences of fall. (It's still a little early so we'll probably go out later in the season with these cards too). The boys found nuts and loudly yelled, "Nuts to you!" The neighbors now think know we are crazy.

Nuts to You is written as a narrative story. At the end of the book, Lois Ehlert includes several expository paragraphs sharing facts about squirrels. This could provide older readers an opportunity to compare narrative and expository writing. They could even observe squirrels or another animal and create their own narratives and expository writings. I think this would make such a great mentor text!

Now it is your chance to share your ideas. Here are the rules for linking up.

1. Link up only posts inspired by Lois Ehlert that share children's book inspired crafts, activities, recipes, etc. Any other posts will be deleted.
2. Visit other blog posts on the linky and comment on or share the ones you love!
3. Grab the button and share it on your post if you'd like.

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Learning Colors with Fall Books

With all of the leaves changing color, fall is a perfect time to teach preschoolers colors. It's also a great time to teach early readers to be able to recognize color words.  For many children, color words are some of the first words they add to their reading and writing vocabulary. In our house, we have a two year old who is learning to identify and name colors. We also have a four year old who is beginning to notice color words in print. Every morning while he is coloring, I hear him trying to decode the words that are on his crayons. It cracks me up when he spends forever trying to figure out the brand name of the crayon!
While these books aren't about fall (you can find a great set of books about fall here), they will help you enjoy learning about the colors of fall.


Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do You See? is a classic introduction to color words. Each page in this book features a single animal with one color word. The repetative text makes it easy for children to join in. The simple text makes this a great first choice for children who are learning to locate color words within text. 

Freight train by  Donald Crews is the perfect introduction to color words for any train lover. This story uses 6 basic colors plus gray to build a train. (fyi- where we live, kids are expected to know the color gray on the pre-kindergarten assessment). As the train moves down the tracks, over a tressle, through tunnels, and past buildings, the colors blur to form a rainbow train. This book introduces train vocabulary as well as color words. It is a Caledcott Honor book.

How do Dinosaurs Learn Their Colors? by Jane Yolen if your child is more of a dinosaur lover, try this book to introduce your little learner to color words.  This story is part of the "How do dinosaurs..." series by Jane Yolen. This particular book has a less sophisticated plot but it's simple text makes it a great choice for children who are learning to read color words. There is just one dinosaur on each page and the dinosaur has something of a given color-- a purple towel for example. The text of the color word matches the color-- so purple is written purple. This gives the children a little extra support.


Where is the green sheep? by Mem Fox
This story focuses not only on colors but also on opposites, spatial relationships, and descriptive language. Children will have the opportunity to practice several color words, though, as they look for the green sheep with in the pages of red sheep, blue sheep, and also near and far sheep. Children will be amused by bath sheep or band sheep. I love how Mem Fox can take simple preschool concepts, make them so engaging and throw in a little humor to make kids fall in love with her writing. My boys have requested this one  A LOT!

The Deep Blue Sea: A Book of Colors by Audrey Wood This book gradually zooms in on a rock on a tiny island and introduces one new tropical item at a time to the scene. It also introduces a new color word each time. One thing I enjoy about this book, is that it fits in all the colors of the rainbow and gray and white! This is a cummulative story so the constant repeating while encourage children to join the story.


My crayons talk by Patricia Hubbard
This book was a favorite when my oldest son was a baby. He loved the rhyming verses and the repetative sounds. The large pictures involving many colors were engaging too. Now that he is four, I've reintroduced the book and he still love the story of a "talking" crayon box.  Twelve colors are introduced as a girl draws a picture for each one. I like that this book introduces some different sets of colors like silver and brown.  Those colors often get left out of books about rainbow colors... but they never get left out of a box of crayons!



 Mis colores, mi mundo = My colors, my world by Maya Christina Gonzalez
This lovely book is written in Spanish and English which gives children an opportunity to practice color words in both languages. In this story, a little girl explores colors in a dusty southwestern desert. Even though much of her world is covered by sand, she looks hard to discover hidden colors like the hot pink sky at sunset.


Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh is a fun look at how colors are made. The book starts with three white mice on white paper without any color. Gradually, the mice take a dip into pots of paint, covering themselves and spilling paint onto the paper. The colorful mice then get mixed up in the pools of paint, showing us what happens when colors like blue and yellow mix.  The book also has a fun ending that is great for helping children to learn to infer.

Want more learning colors fun? 

Color Learning writing activity for preschoolers- early readers.

Book Making Activity: Color Words


Here's a fun color activity for any age!

Active Learning: Color Squirt

Here's a priced lesson in my Tpt store for teaching children to read and write color words.

Word Work Activities for Fall

I'm sharing this week:

The Sunday Showcase, The Learning Laboratory, Made by Little Hands Monday, Montessori Mondays,  Book Sharing Monday, Hey Mom! Look What I Did, Kids Get Crafty, It's Playtime, stART, Thrifty Thursday,  Kids Co-op, What My Child is Reading,