A Time Capsule of Teacher Goodies

Have you ever found money in your pocket or purse before?  It's so exciting, right?  Well, I felt that way today when I decided to go through the archives... a.k.a. a Rubbermaid tote from my Title I days.  It was akin to opening a time capsule, especially considering how much I have grown as a teacher since I worked with the little ones.  I don't think I've opened it in at least five years, so I had no idea what I would find in there. I wasn't sure if I could use anything with my current kiddos, but there were a few surprises.   I love shopping at my own house!  Most of it will be going back into storage since I won't exactly be working on phonemic awareness or the alphabet with my third graders.  :)

I pulled out these alphabet cards.  Truthfully, they aren't fancy or necessarily cute.  I acquired a stack of old discarded text books in college, and so I cut photos out of one of the textbooks to make these.  I used them for a bean bag toss game, because there were firsties in my Title rotation that didn't know their letters and sounds yet!  I think I may have posted about it once already.  Basically, the kids threw a bean bag at an alphabet grid formed by the cards, and they had to say the sound of each letter.  When they got better at sounds, we worked on initial sounds, medial sounds, and ending sounds.  This is so simple and versatile, so before it went back in the archives, I snapped a photo to share with all of my early primary bloggy buddies.  Someday, I really want to teach first grade.  I LOVE third grade, but first grade has my heart.  Truly.  :)

I also found a stack of cards I made with word strips and the same discarded text books.  If I were to do this now, I would totally glue cute clip art onto the strips.  Mine look a little sad.  At any rate, I used these strips to work on CVC words, and initial/medial/final phonemes.  I know I mentioned this one before too, but here's a close up at the cards without dry-erase marker all over the place!  :)

I was super excited to find my old Tic-Tac-Toe Word Work envelope.  The kiddos used to build real and nonsense CVC words using magnetic letters, and it was always a HUGE hit with the kids.  Plus it's easy to manage and organize too!  If you're interested, I've typed up teacher directions, student directions (to glue to an envelope), and I've put together a new & improved recording sheet.  You can snag this simple center at my TpT store. 

I'm not going to lie.  I was super excited to find a stack of stencils, more alphabet stamps and a bag full of letter shaped cookie cutters to use with Play-Doh.  I will be adding those to my existing word work centers on Tuesday, for sure!  I thought I left all of this at my old school, so you can imagine how excited I was to find everything today!  Yay! :)

Let's see.  Other than that, I ran around a bit with my hubs, cleaned house a bit, and tried to tackle part of the paper mountain that I found on my desk on Friday when I returned to school.  :)  I had my kiddos work on the I LOVE ME adjective activity by the Lesson Plan S.O.S. ladies while I was out, and they turned out so cute! Take a looksie! I also found a cute little note buried in the stack.  :)  By the way, third grade Reading Street teachers, this activity was a wonderful way to celebrate Valentine's Day and kick off Unit 4 since it's all about being unique!  :)