The Connett Connection

Elkonin Cards are great for learning phonemes and segmenting and blending sounds. Students look at the card, touch each square for each sound in the word then trace the arrow as they blend the sounds to form the word that the picture represents. I have been using Elkonin cards for the last few weeks with my daughter to help strengthen some of her phonological awareness skills.  It has been a slow, uphill, road we've been walking, but she seems to be improving.  Hopefully as we keep working and focusing on the sounds themselves, she will understand more. This set of Elkonin cards has several uses: 1. Use the blank Elkonin boxes (page 3) and print out pages 4-11. Cut apart and laminate for durability. Please the picture inside the correct Elkonin box and use as you would any other Elkonin box. 2. Print out pages 12-36, cut apart an laminate for durability. Use like other Elkonin cards. 3. Print pages 4-11 and use them as a sorting activity. Sort pic...

So, how many of you have been having dreary weather?  I think the only nice day we have had all week was while I was really sick!  My daughter asked if she could go outside today and play.  It had been raining all day long.  I opened the back window and it was still raining.  There hasn't been any thunder or lightening today and since it was really a heavy mist I asked her if she wanted to play in the rain.  She immediately said, "Yes!" She ran straight to the swing and began swinging, something she has recently learned to do all on her own without a single push. Learning to swing was something she struggled with for a long time.  She was just not coordinated enough to get all the motions down.  She now loves to swing and as long as the bugs stay away, she will swing for hours! MORE WAYS TO CONNECT Teachers Pay Teachers Store Boom Store Facebook Page Hands on Activities and Crafts for Kids Facebook Group Instagram Pinterest Youtube Subscri...

Well, today, we went to Wal-Mart to pick out the paint for our rocks.  My daughter was adamant that we needed the paint with the apple on it because that is the paint that Cookie Swirl C uses in her videos.  If you have a little girl who likes shopkins, ponies or any other small toys like that or a little girl who loves to do crafty things, check out her Youtube channel.  She has fun, clean videos that my daughter loves.  My daughter has been greatly inspired by her and has even made her own videos. Anywho, back to the rocks.  I let her pick a couple of rocks to start and got her all set up with her paint. Her first layer of paint done.  She will be working on them as she wants over the next couple of days.  I will post her finished product when she is done.  Then I will post the pictures of where they rest after we scatter them around the neighborhood!  Hopefully they will brighten someones day! MORE WAYS TO CONNECT Teachers Pay Tea...

If you have been reading this blog, you would have no idea that I've been sick for a whole 5 days, right?  I love the fact that blogger lets you schedule out post.  I had several typed up and set to post so when I got sick, my blog kept on updating even though I did absolutely nothing! I am so thankful for my mom who took my two older ones so I could be miserable and not have to wrangle the two of them or risk them getting the nasty stomach bug I had.  I had to keep the baby with me as he nurses and I had no pumped milk.  Thankfully he has shown no signs of illness. Today I am finally able to be myself.  Asides from not being able to eat a great deal, I am feeling really good! I also have a reason to celebrate today.  I made my first sale in my store!  I am super excited to see that all my effort was not wasted!  It was just the thing I needed after the sickness slump I went through. See that bump?  Yep.  That represents my f...

This year, I'm planning on my daughter learning her addition facts, up to sums of 10.  If she masters that quickly we will move on to higher sums, but we will take our time. I've created this addition worksheet packet which includes 53 pages of addition problems with number bonds, pictures, number sentences, word problems and games all focused on learning sums up to 10.  The following pictures are some examples of the sheets in this packet. To get your copy of these worksheets, click HERE ! MORE WAYS TO CONNECT Teachers Pay Teachers Store Boom Store Facebook Page Hands on Activities and Crafts for Kids Facebook Group Instagram Pinterest Youtube Subscribe below to our email list for the latest blog posts, products, sales and freebies! 

Last night at church, my oldest got to paint rocks.  I'm guessing they are going to put them around town like the new Facebook rock groups do.  Well, she really wanted to make her own, so we all got ready this morning and went to find rocks we could paint. Here is us starting our walk... so much energy and enthusiasm. Our first rock!  Ok, I know it is a chunk of cement from the crumbling curb, but the kids didn't care.  I think we ended up with 20 or so rocks to paint.  As soon as I get the paint we can start decorating! We also saw this amazingly large mushroom.  It was as big around as my foot is long. Be on the lookout in a couple of days for the results of our painted rocks!  I hope they turn out exactly how my daughter is expecting! MORE WAYS TO CONNECT Teachers Pay Teachers Store Boom Store Facebook Page Hands on Activities and Crafts for Kids Facebook Group Instagram Pinterest Youtube Subscribe below to our email list for the ...

I have learned a great deal over the last few days on selling and presenting my products.  I'm going to go through all my posted products and update them. I will be updating the following items: Product Covers -- I learned some tips to making better covers, so I will be going through the products and making the covers more "standoutish" and giving them all a similar look so my store looks more uniform.  I will also be adding my store logo to my cover pages.  This is called branding, and I'm told it is important so people can quickly recognize who made the product. Copyright -- I learned that placing a copyright text in my document can help several ways. One, it can help buyers remember where the product came from if others ask since all they have to do is look at the page.  Two, if someone copies your work as is, your copyright is there and it is easier to report.  I was told that one should put their copyright on each page of their document, so this will ...

Today was a great day.  We had out door fun, library fun, being girly fun... just lots of fun. First off, we had some girly fun. My daughter has been asking for me to paint her nails, so today I finally made good on my promise and painted both her finger and toe nails.  As expected, we had a fit five minutes later because one of her nails already had a chip in it and she was set on scratching all the paint off because she didn't want it anymore.   Another part of our girly morning was her Ana braids.  She insisted she wear Ana braids to our weekly story time visit at out local library.  If you are looking for something free and fun for your preschooler, just go to your local library and ask about story time.  Many of the libraries around here have age specific ones for babies, 2-3, 4-5 and some do story times for all ages.  We go to one for all ages since I have a baby, a 2 year old and a 5 year old. After story time and our routine Chic...

 I was in the middle of organizing my daughter's kindergarten curriculum and saw where I wrote down "Beginning and Ending Sounds Game."  I searched all my print outs and game bags and could not find one game that matched that theme.  I could not remember for the life of my what it was I had, or what idea I had, when I wrote that down in my plans.  So, instead of stressing over it, I made this easy matching game. Students can simply match the cards that have the same beginning and ending sound or they can play a concentration game to match the pictures with the same beginning and ending sounds. Cards Included: bat – boat vine – van sock – snake night – net rug – ring log – leg hat – heart bag – bug crab – cab This product is available in color and black and white!   To get your copy of the beginning and ending sounds matching game, click HERE ! MORE WAYS TO CONNECT Teachers Pay Teachers Store Boom Store Facebook Page Hands on Activities and ...

Another day. another product!  Well, actually I'm bringing out a product series today.  I finished all 5 parts so all five will go up and then be bundled for a discount! These are themed word cards that cover all 220 Dolch words.  The candy corn theme makes these cards a perfect addition to the fall, Halloween or Thanksgiving classroom. There are several ways to use these cards: 1.  Matching Game - Simply print the cards out twice and cut apart and laminate. 2.  Flash Cards - Just print out once and have some flash cad fun. 3.  ABC Order - Give students a set of cards and have them place the cards in ABC order.   To get your copies of the Dolch Word cards, click the appropriate links below! Dolch Pre-Primer Dolch Primer Dolch 1st Grade Dolch 2nd Grade Dolch 3rd Grade Dolch Bundle MORE WAYS TO CONNECT Teachers Pay Teachers Store Boom Store Facebook Page Hands on Activities and Crafts for Kids Facebook Group Instagram Pinterest Yout...

Rainbows and frogs... or was it a toad?  I have no earthly idea how to tell the difference.  Both of my older kids were taught a lesson last night and neither of them were planned! As we are coming home from Wednesday night church, we decided to surprise my parents with a visit.  My daughter was not happy.  She wanted to go home and make a puppet for her brother.  I told her she could after we spend a few minutes with Grandma and Granddaddy.  We were getting out of the car, my daughter refusing to budge, when I saw the rainbow.  I told my daughter that I could see a rainbow in the sky, with lots of purple.  She could not get out of the car fast enough!  This little guy was hanging out by my mom's front door.  My son was fascinated with it.  "Wus at mommy?" I told him it was a frog.  He knows frogs hop, so he wanted to make him hop.  He wanted to make him hop by scaring the little frog out of its mind by attempti...

This product is a Spider or Halloween themed center activity.  All you need to provide are the clothes pins to clip the correct beginning sounds to the spider. There are 11 different spider cards with eight pictures each, so you will need 88 clothes pins for an entire set.  You will need to label them as follows: A - 3 B - 9 C - 10 D - 3 E - 1 F - 5 G - 2 H - 7 I - 2 J - 3 K - 3 L - 6 M - 3 N - 3 P - 6 R - 2 S - 6 T - 3 U - 1 V - 4 W - 4 Y - 1 Z - 1 To get your copy of the ABC Spider Clip Cards, click HERE ! MORE WAYS TO CONNECT Teachers Pay Teachers Store Boom Store Facebook Page Hands on Activities and Crafts for Kids Facebook Group Instagram Pinterest Youtube Subscribe below to our email list for the latest blog posts, products, sales and freebies! 

A new thing I'm going to start to do with this blog is to showcase my daughter's artwork.  She draws and creates art everyday and I feel so horrible when I have to get rid of some of it.  So, now I've decided to photograph her best work and show it off so that I can look back and see it.  It makes her excited when she knows I want to show off her work. This latest one I found taped to my kitchen cabinet. She decided to decorate my cabinets! She drew herself and her oldest brother.  I told her she did an excellent job depicting her brother's curly headed mess! She has been watching a lot of "How to Draw" videos and this is one the drawings she made based on a "How to Draw Lemonade" video. This picture is an Easter Book she created.  She "reads" it all the time, each time making up a different story. I'm not exactly sure what this is supposed to be.  I know the purple and pink things in the middle are ornaments.  ...

I have another new product up in the store: Dab a Sum addition pages!  These pages focus on sums up to 10. Each page shows 5 sums and the student must dab the problems with the color that matches the sum shown! To get your copy of the Dab a Sum pages, click HERE !!

My daughter loves the "Dab A" whatever sheets.  When she sees one in her packet of school work she gets excited and asks to do those first.  I have just finished a new packet of these sheets just for the numbers 1-20. My daughter loves using her colored counters to mark the right spaces and comes to get me right away when she is finished.  She always has a huge smile on her face when she shows me her finished paper. Each page features five numbers that are color coded for easy instructions. Some pages simply focus on finding the numbers.  Other pages focus recognizing base ten blocks, tally marks, place value, ten frames, dice and number words.  There are several ways you can use these sheets: 1.  Use dab it markers to actually dab the right color on the number. 2.  Use crayons or markers to color the appropriate color. 3.  Laminate pages and use colored counters to cover the spots with the appropriate color. To get your copy of the...

I don't normally worry about back to school themed items because we are doing year round schooling.  Yep, year round.  I found that when we took breaks, even just two or three days, my daughter did not want to get back into the school routine.  It is much easier when she knows it is school time verses her getting upset because she didn't know we were going to do school today. Our rule is if daddy is home, there is no school, unless she requests to do school, which she has a few times.  They do not get to see him much, just an hour in the evenings, so if he has a day off work I let the kids spend as much time with them as they want. We also take sick days, or special days when we have visitors and such.  I aim for 180 days per year, or an average of 15 days a month.  If we don't quite get 180, I am not going to stress it as long as we learn the material we needed to learn for that year. Right now, for the Pre-K year, we must do every weekday between now ...

I have been trying hard to finish planning my daughter's kindergarten.  I have a lot of lesson plans written out and now I'm trying to organize it into days of school, making packets for each days lessons complete with all the print outs and games needed for that day. That way, when it comes to prepping each days work, all I do is grab that folder.  Well, as I was going through my language plans I  noticed that I made one more day than I had activities for teaching my daughter ending sounds, so I decided to just make the missing worksheet myself.  Since it is a lone worksheet, I have set it up as a freebie in my store! Above is what the worksheet looks like.  Very simple and hopefully a good assessment for when my daughter gets to it.  I am also working on an ending sounds game for her, so when that is ready, I'll post it here too! To get your FREE copy of the ending sounds worksheet, click HERE !

Well, I have 67 followers on my shop.  I can see hitting 100 soon!  I plan to hold a flash freebie when I hit the 100 mark!  I am letting my followers choose the freebie, so if you want to get in on the action, just head on over to my store and follow me.  Then, look through my products and add the ones you like to your wish list.  The product that appears on the most wish lists will be my flash freebie!  I will send an email to all my followers 24 hours before the sale starts so that no one will miss it!  I will also post here on the blog. To access my store, click HERE !  

I had these finished before we left on vacation but just did not have time to get them up in my shop.  Between packing and taking care of three kids, it just did not happen. Well, now that we are home, I got them all spruced up and got them posted! Above is an example of one of the clip strip sheets for addition.  Simply print out on card stock and laminate for durability.  Then use a sharpy to label numbers 1-10 on clothes pins (you will need 2 sets of clothes pins per set of 16 cards). Students will clip the clothes pin with the correct sum on top of the problem (see below). The number clip strips are for numbers 1-10.  One set of these clip strips include matching the numbers to themselves in number form and the other set of strips show the numbers as dice, tally marks, base ten blocks and ten frames. The addition clip strips are available in color and in black and white! To get your copy of the addition clip strips, click HERE ! To get your cop...

So, it has been about a week since I posted anything.  We have been on vacation., our first vacation in years.  This was our first real family vacation since having kids.  We rented a house in the mountains and just enjoyed the Smokeys.  I'll share just a few pictures with you from our trip: We visited the Oconaluftee Indian Village in Cherokee, NC.  We learned all about life for the Indians and how they make their various crafts.  My favorite part of this was being able to stay and watch the traditional dances (pictured above).  They even had an audience participation part at the end and my niece, oldest son and myself all went and danced. The next day, we took a trip on the Great Smokey Mountain Railway.  My oldest son LOVED the train ride.  He loves trains anyways, thanks to Thomas the train.  He thought he was riding Thomas the train the whole time.  He hardly once left the window. On another day, we drove on the Sky...