Happy New Year!  Let's Take a Look at my Top 5 Resources for 2016...I think you will like #1 or maybe you can use them all!

I have been on TpT since 2014 when I retired after a wonderful 30+ years teaching in my sweet primary classroom. I LOVE creating resources and did so before retirement, but NEVER sold them on TpT! Now I offer Dazzling resources, Sweet lessons and Sparkling teaching ideas for your Primary Classroom! Drum roll please! Here are my TOP 5 Best Selling Resources for 2016!  Check them out!!

#5:  Sight Word Activities for the First 100 Fry Sight Words:  Tried and True this resource will help you differentiate your kiddos' sight words to focus on what each child or your own child might needs.  Check it out HERE and let me know what you think!

#4: Sight Word Activities for the First 200 Fry Sight Words:  A continuation of great worksheets to be sure your kiddos know their sight words, but this includes all 200 words at a better price because it is a bundle! Check it out HERE and let me know what you think of this 200 word BUNDLE  

#3:  One of my Faves:  Non-Fiction Writing Response Sheets for 1st and 2nd Grade Lesson Plan included:  A fun way to introduce non-fiction text features and more. This was used in my first grade classroom for many years and the kids loved this resource.  The kiddos were engaged and enjoyed all the great ideas included to encourage thinking and working together to learn an important skill!  Here it is!  Check it out and teach your students about Non-Fiction Text Features and more!

#2:  Another Favorite:  Informational Writing Prompts: How to Writing for First and Second Grade:  This resource has 70   writing prompts to choose from to encourage fun, interesting and motivating ideas to show How to writing! Lots of fun ideas to write about and a blank sheet to write your own idea!  You will not want to miss this one! Here you go! 

And the #1 Selling resource for 2016 and actually my ALL TIME FAVORITE is...close your eyes and count to 3....1.....2....3.... Earth Day: Be a Superhero and Save the Earth...LOVE...LOVE...LOVE this.  Simply a fun writing and craft idea for Earth Day and i am adding a Power Point to learn a little about ways to save the earth this year, which you should be able to download if you already own this resource...so this is it...ENJOY and make sure you get it while it is 20% off! 

So...get over to Sunshine and Lollipops and check out the top 5 resources for 2016! 
Happy New Year...May your Year be filled with good health and happiness!

 Raising or dealing with a child who has anger issues can be a difficult job, to say the least, but these 5 effective tips will help you stay calm and give your child life long strategies to deal with the emotion of anger.
Dealing with a child who has anger issues can be a tough job, but if you are proactive, consistent, set a clear understanding and provide anger management strategies, your life will be much calmer. Believe me...it is not an easy job parenting a child...let alone a child with anger issues.  You never seem to know exactly when a meltdown might present itself, but if you follow these 5 parenting tips and give your child a "toolbox" of strategies to deal with anger, your child will become his/her best self and you will also see and feel the difference in your life. Remember the most important job you have is to raise your children to be a respectful member of society.  It is essential to provide your child with life-long strategies to deal with their emotions. So check out my most recent post from December 19th on this topic at Educents.com and see just how you can help your child deal with anger!

The most important job you have is raising your kids. Slowing down can be a difficult task in today's world, but if you try these 5 ideas, your life will begin to slow down just enough to enjoy those around you.  You will LOVE #5.
In this fast-paced world we live in, it can be so difficult to simply slow down...let alone slow down and enjoy our family.  Think about it...many of us are working (sometimes more than one job), parenting, chauffuering kids back and forth to after school activities, cooking dinner, food shopping and more. Sleep? When do we have time for that?  If you are wondering how you might slow down your pace to have more family time, then check out my latest blogpost on Educents.com and find 5 ways to do just that: Slow Down and Enjoy your Kids!
Have a child home sick and need some ideas so you can take care of your little one,but still be productive at home? Here are some ideas for YOU!  You will especially like #1!


You know it is inevitable that some time in your life, as a parent, you WILL have a child home sick just when you have a million things to do whether you work from home or not.  So now the day has come and you are sitting there with your sick little one and of course you would love to spend the afternoon relaxing alongside your child, but you need to catch-up on a ton of things. Your child is sick enough to stay home, but still seems to be raring to go like that little "Energizer Bunny"...get the picture?  So now what?  Ahhhh...well...read my complete post from December 9th on Educents.com to find out!
 Just search #8daysofchristmas in the TpT search bar and take a look at all the Frosty Dollar Deals offered by so many great TpT authors.  If you want to see the deals i have picked especially for you, then click here...you will love the variety and the savings.  Have a great winter break and a Happy 2017!
As a thank you for all your support and love this year, many of my colleagues want to say Happy Holidays and celebrate the JOY you have given us by always walking with us and beside us...I know that my shop would not be where it is today without all of YOU.  So here is the line up of great dollar deals that you can find on Sunshine and Lollipops  just search #8daysofchristmas and you will find all these joyful deals for $1.00.
Day 1, December 12th :  Winter Fun Roll and Cover Dice Games :  This fun Math game is a variety of Fact Dice Games with a Holiday and Winter theme for addition and subtraction created for first grade, but can be used as reinforcement of enrichment for other grades.

What’s Included:
Fun Addition and Subtraction Dice Games.Dice AdditionDice SubtractionAdding DoublesAdding Doubles +1Adding Doubles +2Adding 3 NumbersAdding 10Subtracting Doubles -1Subtracting 10

Day 2, December 13th:  Holidays Around the World with a Power Point Companion :  This packet of Winter Holidays Around the World can be used as an addition to an existing unit or simply by itself.  

Here’s What is Included:
  • A cover for a folder or booklet if you choose to use this in that way.
  • A summary sheet written in easier language about the following holidays: Christmas. Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, St. Lucia Day, La Befana, Diwali and Las Posadas and a craft idea for each holiday.
  • Writing response sheets for each holiday.
  • A passport and information sheets that can be used.
  • A response writing activity for children to choose a holiday that they don’t celebrate that might be fun for them.
  • A Compare and Contrast partner activity to chat about how they are alike and different in how they celebrate a holiday here in the US.
  • A newly added Power Point Companion to support the pages.
  • Fun for everyone!!!
Day 3, December 14th: First 100 Fry Words Practice:  Sight Word Practice Fun was created for Kindergarten and first grade but can easily be used as an intervention or reinforcement for sight word recognition. It contains the first 100 Sight Words. It can be used as a packet or you can run off pages by word to reinforce a particular word with which a student needs to work. It is easy to differentiate with this sight word packet! It can also be used as a homework packet.

Here's What's Included:
  • Each word is written on the top of the page and the student is asked to color the word.
  • Then the student colors the boxes that contain the designated letters to make up the word
  • Reads traces and writes the word.
  • Reads a sentence that contains the word and then circles the word in the sentence. 
  • There is also a picture to color that supports the written sentence
Day 4, December 15th:  Social Emotional Growth: All about Feelings:  This packet was created to help students express their feelings and to support or think of strategies to help children understand their feelings and why they might feel a certain way in a certain situation.

What's Included:
  • Covers if you decide to make the pages into a booklet or class book.
  • 12 pages about feelings with a blank page to add any feeling desired
  • Feelings included are: grumpy, sad, mad, frustrated,too excited, tired, embarrassed, happy, surprised and jealous.
  • Pages to go into the “Cool Down” Spot with selections of what they can do to help themselves feel better and get rid of those “muddy feelings”.
  • An original poster/poem for the “Cool Down” Spot.
  • An original poem entitled: Feelings Come and Feelings Go.
  • Various ways to present “Feeling Strips” for students to show you how they feel each day with frames and ideas as well as larger icons to use and an            example of how it might be used in the classroom.
  • Cards with ideas to calm down that can be laminated and placed into the Cool Down Area.
  • FYI... any book about feelings can be used with this resource.
Expressing feeling is such an important life skill. Let’s not forget to support this in the midst of all the academic requirements!  Enjoy!

Day 5, December 16th:  Writing Prompts and Frames...Daily Writing Activities for Journals and MORE!  These writing activities are Common Core Aligned and fun for your first graders.
What’s Included:
  • An anchor Chart On How to Spell a Word.
  • 5 small posters with words to help young writers. I can… I like…When I Grow Up I want to be…My Favorite thing to do…My Favorite Color…
  • 64 writing prompts with starter ideas with room for a picture and writing Some examples are: My favorite season, feelings: I feel sad when, A time I felt proud, My favorite day, week, month, I can, I like, What I know about________, When I grow up, How to make a ____________ and much, much, more
  • One complete page with writing lines to run off 2-sided with prompts. This way if students want to write more they can.
  • 30 cards with writing ideas, pictures and words to assist young writers. These I put in a basket or “Treasure Chest” to choose.
  • Ideas to last a LONG Time that aligned with Common Core!!  Enjoy!  Remember all these resources are $1.00 on the designated days!

These Writing frames were originally created for a student with special needs who used assistive technology. We needed to find a way for him to participate more fully in the writing program. With these frames, he was able to point to a picture to answer a question and then color it. If he was reluctant to point, we could ask him the answer by the teacher pointing and him nodding or using his computer responding yes or no. We actually used these frames for other students who were reluctant to write or had difficulty writing. It really made a difference and seemed to support each writer as needed. It solved the communication problem in the classroom and made it easier for some of these students to write.

Each page has a writing response starter and pictures to choose to answer the question or fill in the response. The child circles the picture that responds to his/her answer and then colors it. There is also a word box with words to partially represent the pictures. The students can use the word box to help them with their writing and if needed, they can circle words they might want to use in their writing.  Enjoy!!

We all know how many times a child needs to see a sight word before it is completely memorized and fluent. These practice pages will make sight word recognition fun and repetition easy as children color, cut and glue words form the bottom of each sheet to create complete sentences to read. Each sentence has the same words repeated in the same sentence 4 times, but each time the child supplies a different picture with word label to construct the sentence. This will become a growing bundle starting in 2017...so if you pick it up for a dollar, you will receive all the updates without paying any additional cost even when the price is higher as I add more activities!!  This is a goody!!!


This Classroom Behavior Management Social Stories and Skills Bundle includes 5 Social Skill stories that are sold separately in my shop. There are actually 6 resources, but one includes 2 social stories. One story is about outdoor recess and the other is about indoor recess. These resources wee especially created for a Kindergarten Special Education classroom, but can be used in any classroom from Pre-K to 2nd grade as you can discuss these stores as you read them with your entire class as a Power Point or individually on the computer and ask questions according to the needs of your class or individual students. That is the beauty of this resource. It can be used in many ways...your choice! Each of these resources have been used in classrooms with great results!!! Teachers will sometimes reread the recess stories right before going out to recess as a reminder or after a child has a meltdown due to some specific social situation.

Here are some ideas for use:

As a counseling session 
School psychology session
For English Language learners
For specific social situations
For class Meetings about a particular situation
For discussion points on behaviors
To help parents understand the behavioral expectations
For ELL parents to understand the behavioral expectations as the picture give a clear understanding.

I hope you find some resources that you can use in your classroom. Wishing you a Joyous Holiday Season and a year filled with happiness and good fortune!!!  Happy Holidays and THANK YOU!!
YOU ARE THE BEST!!!

You know how the kiddos in your classroom are before their upcoming winter break..well..here are some learning activities that will encourage fun and sneak in a bit of learning...ENJOY!

Being a teacher during the holidays is...let's just say.... tough...think about it all the kiddos are doing is thinking about the upcoming winter break.  So...to make your life a bit easier, here are some ready to print, cut, laminate or just print and use activities, ideas and lessons that you can simply have fun with while learning. You know the old saying..."when in Rome do as the Romans." Let's just say "when in a classroom full of excited students anticipating the holidays...well.... do as they do and just get excited about the holidays and sneak in a little learning!"

These resources are created for 1st grade, but they can be used as stations, breaks or review for other grades or maybe just plain FUN!!!  Happy Holidays!

  
Find my Holiday and Winter  resources  Here