Swap, Share, Give: A blog linky from Down Under!

I'm super excited to be a part of an awesome product swap linky and GIVEAWAY!, brought to you by a bunch of very talented Aussie bloggers that I am very lucky to call friends! 

At the bottom of this post you'll find a link up featuring everyone who participated in the swap... do yourself a favour and make sure to read all the product reviews because I know you will find a few that you must have for your classroom. :)  To make it even better, enter the giveaway for your chance to win ALL of the products that we have swapped!

I was very, very lucky to have been paired up with the amazingly talented Mel who is the creative mind behind From the Pond as well as Graphics from the Pond... honestly, she is a one stop shop for classroom resources or graphics to create your own.  I literally felt stressed choosing a product from her store, there were so many great ones that I didn't know what to choose!  I finally decided on her Sentence Maker pack!

This product immediately appealed to me for a number of reasons:

1. I teach Prep (Kindergarten), and the confidence my kidlets have with writing can sometimes be very low.  This pack lets them experience success every time!

2. By using either the cut & paste, copy or write versions of each worksheet you can scaffold children towards independent writing.  No more throwing them in the deep end!

3. Each sentence reinforces sight word recognition... bonus!

4.  Same task, 3 ways = easy differentiation!

5. As soon as I saw the pages in this pack I knew they would be perfect for my Writing Corner.  A few of my kidlets are desperate to spend time there independently working on some writing, but they just don't have the skills necessary to successfully write a sentence (or more) by themselves.  As soon as Mel sent me this pack I printed a bunch of the pages and popped them in my Writing Corner... instant hit = happy teacher!

Because this was a new format for my kidlets, I introduced it in Literacy small groups.  Each 'team' completed the task based on their own ability levels.  Some cut and glued, some traced, some copied!  I only had to explain the task once, which was a bonus. :)  We worked on the 'I see a mouse' sentence, because that fit perfectly with the sight words we learned this week!

I love that there's a bit of cutting practise involved in this task... my kidlets this year need it!

Assembling sentences is very serious business! 

Holding your breath and wearing funny glasses while tracing sentences is not necessary, but does make it more fun. :)  And yes, we are working on this poppet's pencil grip.

I am so glad that I got a chance to use this product in my classroom, because now I'm not sure how I ever went without it!  Keep an eye on Mel's store because a little birdie tells me that there's plans for a few Sentence Maker packs with different themes - but I bet I snap them up before you do!!

Because Aussies are such kind and caring folk, we thought it might be nice to share with you a freebie or two that you could use in your classroom.  I'm going to share 2, one from me and one from my product swap buddy!

If you've read any of my previous posts, you'll know that I am a huge fan of sensory play experiences for kidlets.  I put together a collection of my favourite recipes for easy and fun sensory play in the classroom.  Perfect to give to parent helpers to make at home, or for your own easy reference.  Simply print and pop in a display folder!

Click here to grab it for free!

Match Me! is a freebie that I use in my classroom all the time!  Mel provides ideas in the product pages... but most recently I used the cards as an awesome whole class activity.  

I shuffled the numeral, dot and word cards and handed them out to my kidlets.  They then had to silently organise themselves in to groups of 3 according to the number they had. Of course, as I was handing the cards out I made sure that each child had a card they could decode.  This task was perfect for a group of cherubs who struggle with a) keeping quiet and b) being problem solvers. :)

OK, now time for the giveaway!!  For a chance to win Mel's Sentence Maker pack, leave a comment on this post!  I'll choose a random winner.  Easy peasy.  Even easier - for a chance to win ALL of the packs featured inn this linky, enter the Rafflecopter below. :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Not sure about you, but I'm off to check out all of the other bloggers who have linked up to share about some awesome products.  I hope you find lots that you can use in your classroom! :)

Lauren

An InLinkz Link-up