Teaching R Blends? Fun Books to Read!

October 14, 2020

Teaching R Blends? Here are some super fun books to read to practice each sound!

These are awesome books kids enjoy that feature each blend in a natural way. I think the best way to introduce a phonics sound is to show them a word they already know that is using the sound…. especially if it’s a favorite book character or an animal or theme they know, that is definitely a wonderful way to make an instant connection for them!

I’m so excited about this book list! I’ll provide affiliate links (which means I earn commission for purchases made through the links) to books that I adore ORGANIZED BY EACH BLEND so you can easily pull out books from your library, or buy if you prefer, for when you teach each blend… woohoo!

BR

First up, BR blends! A favorite book character is an awesome way to instantly connect kids to a sound…

BR has the perfect character for that… Bruce! This book, Santa Bruce, is on My Favorite Christmas Books list so I thought I’d use this one as the example. This whole series is so cute! If you do a quick search for any of the Bruce books, they’re all so funny and you can’t help but love grumpy Bruce… like I said, I love this series.

Room on the Broom is one of the most popular Halloween books I see people constantly talking about loving and it’s one of my favorites too. It’s all about what the witch can fit on her broom so the BR-oom theme is throughout and perfect! Plus, I love her cat 🙂 This is on My Favorite Halloween Books list!

There are a ton of non-seasonal books for BR, too, but I thought I’d share those since they’re such popular ones. More BR themes you can read about: Being brave, breakfast, bridges, brontosauruses (if your kids love dinosaurs!), and there are a surprising amount of children’s books with a broccoli theme 🙂

CR

Any book about crabs is perfect! There are tons of crabs books and this cute book about a clumsy crab is great if you’ve already learned L blends so you can review CL right next to CR. If you haven’t taught L blends yet, then any other book starring a crab will do 🙂

The Very Cranky Bear is a great way to practice the word cranky! You can tell by looking at the cover for 2 seconds that he’s pretty cranky, right? It’s actually an AWESOME book for learning, introducing, and practicing Adjectives so it’s in my Fun Books for Grammar Organized by Grammar Skill list.

Another CR word that’s an adjective describing an animal is The Selfish Crocodile! This book is from the “Sharing” books section of my Best Behavior Books Organized by Behavior list, which is probably one of my favorite lists I’ve ever made! It’s a great book to teach the importance of sharing… and a CRocodile has a CR blend, of course! 🙂

You can also read any of the popular crayons books! If you have any bugs books that include crickets, that’s perfect too. Also, if any of your books feature ice cream as a theme, that’s an easily recognized CR word.

DR

I LOVE all the Do Not Bring Your Dragon books because they’re so fun for teaching etiquette for how to behave in a certain setting. This one, Do Not Bring Your Dragon to the Library, is a great one for teaching how to properly act in a library. The entire series is great! Do Not Bring Your Dragon to Recess is definitely another favorite of mine – perfect for teaching playground etiquette! I love the field trip one too…. did I mention I love the series?? 🙂 It’s just great when you can find a SILLY book with great illustrations that teaches a lesson without kids realizing it. Those are just pure gold in my opinion so I love to scoop them all up!

There are TONS of not-scary kids’ books starring dragon characters that are perfect for DR. A few of them are on my Halloween book list like Me and My Dragon if you want some more quick suggestions.

More DR themes are dragonflies, drills (construction themed books), drawing, dresses, driving (transportation books), and dreams.

FR

Freddy the Frogcaster is the cutest little weather loving frog! I absolutely LOVE this little character for teaching about weather. There is this book then also more books that each focus on specific weather topics like this next book…

Freddy the Frogcaster and the Big Blizzard is an example of cute little Freddy teaching about a specific weather topic. I love how adorably it introduces a science concept and teaches it with such a cute character within an actual story. If you’re teaching L blends too, blizzard is a great BL blend!

There are SO many frogs books so you could pack your teaching area with nonfiction frogs books with real pictures. There are also a lot of books with frog main characters for a lot more FR practice. Do a quick search for Froggy children’s books and you can see so many from the series for so many themes. I’ll show one of them in the next section 🙂

Being Frank isn’t on my behavior books list (my most popular book list) but it probably should be! It’s about a little boy named Frank who is… well, frank 🙂 He’s blunt and this book is awesome for teaching kids how to tell the truth but NOT in a way that may hurt someone’s feelings. This book is a great conversation starter for how to develop that filter.

More FR practice: Any book about friends and friendship (so many!), fruit, or fries. There are also tons of book characters with FR names.

GR

I think this is one of the very first books I thought of when I decided I wanted to make a book list for R blends. I LOVE this book and this character. If you don’t already have any of The Gruffalo books, then I think you should add this one to your collection right away! It’s such a great book! 🙂 If you like it, there are more in the series.

Just like there are many cranky and crabby animals books, there are a lot of GRUMPY ones too! Grumpy Monkey is an awesome character for teaching the GR blend! I mean, how cute is that grumpy face he makes?? As someone who sometimes gets anxious right before social events, I also really appreciate Grumpy Monkey Party Time! I especially like the message it has about how you should be yourself and say how you feel, rather than trying to impress everyone else by pretending to be someone you’re not.

Grumpy Groundhog is another darling book about a grumpy animal. The groundhog is grumpy and doesn’t want to come out of his hole on Groundhog Day. Love this one!

If your child / students love trucks, you could read Three Grumpy Trucks instead. Like I said, there are TONS of books with lovable, grumpy characters. I like reading books about grumpiness / crankiness because they’re great conversational moments you can have about how it’s okay to feel upset and how to deal with it when you do. Each book will handle it in a new way with a new theme so I honestly don’t think a teacher can have enough books to help kids develop their emotional skills. 🙂

As promised, a Froggy book! Froggy Goes to Grandma’s is great because it practices FR and GR at the same time.

There are a lot of grandparent themed books but I think the How to Babysit a Grandma and How to Babysit a Grandpa books are some of the most popular! They’re so cute and I love How to Get Your Teacher Ready too. If you need a book series to introduce How To writing, these are great! I love any role reversal type stories and kids think they’re so silly 🙂

Little Green Donkey is such an adorable story about a donkey who is picky about what he eats and only wants to eat GReen GRass. Until he realized it’s turning him green! Lots of great GR practice!

Plus, if you have a little donkey that’s picky about what they eat… this is a great book to encourage kids to expand the variety of foods they’re willing to eat.

More GR books: Any books with a greediness theme, green, a growing theme, grubs, grasshoppers, grizzly bears, groundhogs, graduation, grain, growling animals… so many options!

PR

I already had a lot of GR books so I saved Grace for President for the PR list! This is one of my favorite books. It’s about a little girl who realizes there’s never been a girl president and decides she will be the first.

Never Let A Princess Paint with Her Unicorn! is another book in the silly series that kids love. I love how this one addresses perfectionism because, as a kid, I remember always feeling stressed if my art wasn’t “perfect” so I love the message. There are a lot of prince and princess themed books you can read to practice PR.

More great PR book themes: any insect books that include a praying mantis, pretzels, books starring a principal, books about being proud of yourself, and any books about presidents.

TR

I already shared a truck themed book so I’ll share a TRAINS book instead! There are tons of trucks and trains books, but I chose the classic The Goodnight Train for this list because I love all the adorable rhyming bedtime books in this series. You can read them in a classroom or in the middle of the day too 🙂 If you go to get it, make sure you look at the type. I prefer it as paperback rather than a board book. If your kids are really young, you may want the board version. If you love this, there’s also The Goodnight Train Rolls On! and the incredibly cute Santa and the Goodnight Train.

There are also a lot of tractor themed books! If you’re teaching about farms and farm animals, Duck on a Tractor is fun! If your kids love Duck on a Bike then this an obvious sequel to reading that. There are a lot of different tractor books – from nonfiction with real pictures of tractors to tractors as characters to saying goodnight to tractors at bedtime.

Anything trick or treating is great for TR because both words include the blend! Another favorite book from my Favorite Halloween Books list I keep mentioning is T. Rex Trick-or-Treats! I guess there are just so many blends books for October… I didn’t even mention the Frankie books which I love during the FR blends. So many great blends books to choose from in October!

There are also so many books about trees that are wonderful! You can read so many nonfiction books about trees when learning about the seasons. You can also read super sweet stories like The Wish Tree that focus on a tree. If you can’t tell by now, my favorite books are the ones that have a great message. A great book to read in the winter time (the main character encounters different winter animals) to teach about how it’s important to give and help others, as well as believing in yourself and persevering – there’s so many lessons in this one book. I also love the illustrations! You’ve probably also noticed by my recommendations that great illustrations are also important to me. 🙂

More TR ideas: Fun triceratops books or dinosaur books that include them. Treasure in pirates books, trash in books that encourage recycling, elephant trunks, telling the truth, going on trips and traveling, triangles, trying your best… to name a few! With trains, trucks, and tractors, there’s really not a shortage of TR words in books 🙂

WR

Rocket Writes a Story is about an endearing little dog named Rocket who wants to write a story. This is a great book for young little writers and how to collect words to make a great story.

You can also read about wrens (birds), wrestling, wrenches (construction books), wrapping presents, wrecking balls, and any more books about writing.

I hope you loved this list of my favorite fun books to read when you’re teaching R blends! I truly do think that having a book that focuses on a specific phonics sound makes it SO much easier to introduce and teach it. Especially with blends, the words can be hard to say, so having a favorite character or animal or word with that blend can make all the difference in helping a child hear and practice how to say it. If you loved this list and want to see more, let me know in the comments! 🙂 Thanks so much for reading!! You can check out my AWESOME LISTS page for more lists like this!

If you want to SAVE this to refer to later, here’s an image you can pin! (You can hover over it to bring up the little pinning button so you can save it onto one of your boards.)

If you want more recommendations on what to read, let me know! I have SO many fun children’s books I love for teaching R blends and, really, for teaching anything so don’t hesitate to ask!

If you want teaching resources to use while teaching R blends, I recommend:

R Blends Worksheets {NO PREP Pack} (Over 70 worksheets to practice & they’re cute!)

R Blends Reading Comprehension Passages (by Blend)

Reading Fluency PUZZLES for Each R Blend

Big Bundle of Picture Word Cards for R Blends Words

Secret Words Centers – R Blends

Hope you love those recommendations too! 🙂

Adorable Pumpkin Books for First Grade and Kindergarten

October 5, 2020

Adorable pumpkin books for first grade and kindergarten fall read alouds aren’t hard to find but some of them can surprisingly be a little scary, so I thought I would make a list of cute pumpkin books for kids! 🙂 I put affiliate links (I earn commission for sales made through the links) directly to them so you can go straight to them to check them out if you want to!

Splat the Cat and the Pumpkin-Picking Plan is just one of many Splat the Cat books that I love. Such funny stories with an adorable, lovable character that kids can laugh at while exploring topics. I love the fall imagery in this one like raking leaves and going to the pumpkin patch. The illustrations are fun and cute – it’s a great book to use as your first (or 100th) fall read aloud!

This one is another favorite of mine! Little Boo is about the cutest little pumpkin seed who wants to be scary. He keeps being told to wait and, as he’s waiting, he goes through the life cycle of a pumpkin so it is a perfect and adorable fictional story to illustrate the life cycle of a pumpkin while simply telling a cute story! I think the ending of the book is super cute & it’s a story kids can relate to… where they want to be able to do something ‘big kids’ get to do and are told to wait (and wait and wait) until they’re bigger. 🙂

I also love How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? for fall!

There are several cute little lessons in this book so it’s a wonderful read aloud for a couple reasons. A little boy who is the smallest kid in his class doesn’t have a guess when his teacher brings 3 pumpkins to school and asks how many seeds the students think are in each one. It has a sweet don’t make assumptions based on what someone/something looks like message and also introduces pumpkin seeds and counting big numbers. It would be an awesome book to read right before cutting open a pumpkin with your kids and counting how many seeds it has.

You probably already have this super popular book about a square pumpkin but I am still going to include it because it’s one of my favorites and maybe there are people who haven’t heard of it! It has such a sweet message. It’s also so easy to find activities for since so many teachers read it to their students. Square pumpkin crafts are an adorable, easy activity to do after reading, for example.

How cute is this little toy of the square pumpkin I found while finding a link to the book for you? I didn’t know this existed – so cute!! There is also a movie that I didn’t know about too!

Another pumpkin who is a little bit different is Stumpkin! This cute little pumpkin watches all the other pumpkins with stems get picked. This is a great one to add to your pumpkin book shelf if you don’t have it already!

I love Froggy books so, of course, I wanted to include Froggy Picks a Pumpkin as one of my pumpkin books for first grade or kindergarten! 🙂

Another cute character I love is Rocket! Rocket and the Perfect Pumpkin is a book some first graders will be able to read themselves so if you’re looking for a reader, this is a cute one.

I wanted to make sure I included a book with real pictures for those of you who want to teach kids about the life cycle of a pumpkin. I chose this one because I love the vivid photographs in it. They’re great to illustrate to little kids what each stage actually looks. If you have a nonfiction book with real life pictures that you love, I’d love to hear about it!

Did I include your favorite pumpkin book?? Which one is your favorite? If I didn’t include it, tell me what your favorite story is below! I would love to add to my favorite pumpkin books and it’ll help everyone else who reads this to find more books too! 🙂

I hope you enjoyed this list of pumpkin books for first grade and kindergarten!

For a lot more fun book lists, lists of teacher tools, and more helpful lists for teachers and parents, check out my AWESOME LISTS page for some quick links. Enjoy!!

– Teachers Love Lists

Teacher Must Have: Automatic 3 Hole Puncher

September 30, 2020

An absolute teacher must have is an automatic 3 hole puncher. Yes, automatic! As in, it punches the holes for you! You don’t have to push down! 🙂 🙂 Literally just hold the papers in it and it punches 3 holes in them. It can do up to 20 pages at a time so I can do huge stacks of papers really quickly without tiring out my hand or worrying about hurting the hole punch.

I cannot believe I went years without knowing this existed when I discovered it a few years ago. I am constantly needing to 3 hole punch papers for binders so it’s super convenient. Especially at the beginning of the year, this saves me so much time. I’m providing links directly to it so you can find the exact one that I have quickly – they’re technically affiliate links which means I earn commission on sales made through the link – but that doesn’t affect my recommendation… I love this awesome teacher tool!

I actually loved this automatic 3 hole punch so much that I bought a 2nd one so I could have one in 2 different places. 🙂 It is amazing how a simple invention you didn’t even know you needed can make constantly handling and organizing lots of papers so much easier.

Having an automatic 3 hole puncher is also great for things like making student books!

You can 3 hole punch their papers for the book project SO quickly. Quickly punch a stack of the papers for the books for each student. Then, have them work on the pages individually. When they’re all done, they put the pages in order to make their book. Then, have them take a little string of colorful yarn to make little ties in each of the 3 holes. This creates such cute books!

Anyway, I love my automatic 3 hole punch and wanted to tell you about it! I used to fight with my manual one all the time. I eventually got a nicer one that could handle more pages but it still got tiring to clamp it down all the time and I just always felt like I wasn’t aligning the 3 holes exactly or they’d rip when I pulled it out… it was a random source of frustration I didn’t realize there was a solution for, so maybe it can be one for you too! 🙂

If you want to see more recommendations of mine, check out my AWESOME LISTS page! You can also find several ways to follow along with Teachers Love Lists on the right side of this page if you scroll through it. Thanks so much for reading!

Best Glue Sticks for Crafts

September 13, 2020

I love doing paper crafts! The best glue sticks for crafts that I have found are the super simple purple ones for kids that are often in the back to school supplies section. They’re great for students in the classroom, kids at home… and well, adults at home too 🙂

They are the best, in my opinion, because you can see exactly where you put the glue and how much you put. When you roll it on, it’s purple but then it dries clear so you can see where the glue is while you’re working but not see it in your final product. Perfect for making sure you or kids don’t use too much glue. I hate when papers feel soggy from too much glue & I feel like that happens so much less with these.

They are GREAT for kids doing notebook activities, cutting and pasting worksheets, writing crafts, any paper crafts in general… but I totally use them as an adult too! 🙂 I found direct links to them for your convenience – these are affiliate links which means I earn commission on sales made through the links – it doesn’t cost you anything extra but I thought I’d let you know. It also doesn’t change my opinion.. I love these! 🙂

This pack of glue sticks is the type that I personally buy. I usually buy them in smaller packs like these throughout the year as I need them in the 2nd half of the year. Sometimes I buy the 2 packs if I need them quickly and want only a couple.

If you are buying them for a classroom, I totally recommend this box of 30 glue sticks!! It is an awesome way to get a bunch of them. I highly recommend using black permanent markers to write students’ names or student numbers on each one so it’s theirs. They will probably take A LOT better care of making sure the glue stick’s cap is on tight if they know that one is theirs. In my opinion, they’ll take a lot better care of it if they know they only get 1 to use and take care of. 🙂

If you want to use regular glue bottles, I recommend these. Glue bottles and sticks are one of those teaching supplies I am very specific in what brands I use because there is a noticeable difference in quality, in my opinion. I’ve always loved these glue bottles.

If you are going to use glue bottles with kids, this book about using too much glue is super fun to read! It is from my huge list of behavior books organized by behavior that is awesome for both teachers parents to read books that teach specific character skills 🙂 I think it’s fun to read even if you use glue sticks instead of bottles.. it’s a silly book that I find fun in general!

I hope this was helpful for you in finding the best glue sticks for crafts projects! Check out my AWESOME LISTS page to see more of my recommendations, book lists, and more fun & helpful lists for teachers and parents! You can also look for ways to follow my blog on the right side of this page if you liked this and want more. Have fun crafting!! 🙂

Best Browser Extensions for Teachers

June 29, 2020

The best browser extensions for teachers are the ones that save you time or money – right? Here is a list of my favorite currently free browser extensions you can use to do that! 🙂

Best Browser Extensions for Teachers

1. The Pinning button!

You probably already have this one but if you don’t, the pinning button is AWESOME! It goes into your little bar at the top of your browser and, any time you click on it, it’ll bring up the pictures from the page you’re on that you can pin! SO helpful for saving cute teaching ideas on blogs! It immediately creates a pin for that picture that links back to the page you’re on so that you can save it for later. Just like if you were on the actual site pinning, it’ll ask you which of your boards you want to put it on and let you write (or rewrite) a description if you want! 🙂

You can get it for your browser here!

For my browser, it literally took 1 click to get it on there and start pinning! 🙂 I love it because I constantly see fun ideas I want to save the pictures of and I LOVE that it links back to the article or blog post so that I can also click it to read it if I want. Someone using their pinning button and you clicking on that pin might even be how you got here if you’re coming from a pin! 🙂

Just make sure it’s a blog where they want you to pin their ideas – often blogs will encourage this and even tell you pins to pin…. which I’ll probably do at the bottom of this post. 🙂 I like to provide a pin friendly image on each post so people can save it if they want to read it later, since that’s what I personally do… and I use that button!

It’s super helpful for saving visual teaching ideas, but you can also use it for your personal boards – if you see a cute outfit you like or even if you see a cute puppy you want to save 🙂

By the way, some of these links may be affiliate links which means I get a commission if you use the links.

2. Grammar Check

You probably already have this extension for your browser but if not, click the picture below to get it!

Click that and you can install it super easy so it checks your grammar when you’re writing emails to parents, colleagues (administration!), and anyone else that you’re writing to as a teaching professional. It can save you from some super embarrassing typos!

I’m not using it right now because I am writing very casually ~~write now~~ right now (lol) because I like to talk to you like I would talk to a friend when I am writing blog posts. However, if I want to make sure I am sounding professional, I will definitely check my grammar and this tool makes it so easy. It is SO handy to have when you want to ensure that you sound professional. A lot of browsers already check spelling but will miss awkward grammar errors. Anyway! I definitely recommend that one if you don’t already have it installed.

3. How to Manage All Your Browser Tabs Filled With Ideas

Do you ever get so excited reading articles and blog posts that you keep opening them into new tabs? Now, all of a sudden, you have 50 tabs open and both you and your computer feel overwhelmed. I do that aaaaall the time. So I am OBSESSED with Onetab. I literally use it every single day. Remember all those cute teaching ideas and articles we were talking about wanting to save? Yeah, I used to be known to have 843,587,435 tabs open at any given time. Then I discovered this amazing tool. You click on it and it takes all the tabs you have open and puts them into its page AND SAVES THEM! So cool!

It saves them as a link with the title of the link for you to click on if you want to go right back to it. You can change this in settings, I believe, but my settings are that it removes the link from my list when I click on it. Therefore, it clears it out itself once I go back to it and click on it.

I love this feature because typically you would have to save a link then delete it if you don’t want it anymore. This basically makes it like a live to do list for me. I save links for later and when I click on them to read them, they open them then when I click out of them when I am done, they are off my “To Read” list, basically.

Each time you use it, it saves the tabs you have open into a group for that particular saving of your tabs.

One cool thing is that it will let you name that group if you want to. Let’s say you were looking up teaching digraphs ideas and you had 10 different blog posts up for the topic. You can click the extension button and it’ll put them in a list of titles so you don’t have to have them all open. You can click out of it and read them later, some other day, but collect them now as you find them. This is a common way I use it too.

You can use it to open a lot of tabs as you’re reading then collapse them all into your list. Then, click on one at a time to open and read them, so your computer has them organized and ready for you. (I do that a lot because my computer goes slow if I have a lot of tabs open).

You can also open the tabs you want for a particular topic and name them “Digraphs Ideas” and keep it as a reference. I also do this often. It is so handy. I have thousands of tabs over the years saved! Here’s a trick: use CTRL + F (or whatever your computer’s equivalent is to search for a word) and find any tab/link you’ve saved easily, even from years ago.

For example, I have a big list of links to books I want to buy and read. I opened them all in a new tab then clicked the button to save them in a list. Then, when I want a new book, I go to that list and click on the title I want to go back to. I save so much in mine and use it as one big list of lists…. I love lists, remember? 🙂

Those are ways that I use it but I’m sure you could find your own ways to use it too! You can drag links from one list of links to another, rename lists, etc. if you’re a super organized person. You can also expand all the links in a list in 1 click to open them all back up again all at once, which is a cool feature.

I find it most handy for when I am super into reading about something then I hop off the computer to eat dinner or let the dog out. I can quickly close (and save) all my tabs so I can come back to them if I want. You can right click on the little icon any time to bring up all your saved tabs. I love it!

You can use this for any reading you do online, but I think it’s especially helpful for teachers when you’re trying to plan, hence why it’s on this list. 🙂

Okay I rambled about that one for quite awhile. This blog post is getting long so I will stop to post it here before I start rambling again and need to turn on my grammar check 😉 That really is a helpful one, make sure you go back up if you forgot to install that one! Scroll back up to #2 on the list if you’re scrolling up. Hint: You can hit “Home” on your keyboard to go up to the top of any page when you’re on your computer.. or at least mine does that. I love keyboard shortcuts – I think that might be my next list post because I use so many of them to save time while on the computer.

Anyway, I plan on putting more of my favorite browser extensions here in this post, so you can PIN this picture with your handy new pinning extension (see what I did there?) to remember to come back to this post later! 🙂

Best Browser Extensions for Teachers

Really, though, try out your new extension! You don’t have to actually pin anything to try it out. Click the little icon and it’ll bring up the pictures from the page you’re reading.

You can try it on this page but, since there is only 1 image to pin, it’ll probably choose that one for you automatically. So let’s try a more fun one!

Here’s a fun blog post example with a lot of pictures to use as an example:

Sight Words Sentences Centers and Fun Ideas

Okay, so when you go to this post, click on the little pinning icon you installed. See how it brings up all of the pictures from that post?? How fun is that!!

Click on any one of them to choose it to pin and it’ll bring up your list of boards. Again, you don’t have to actually pin it – I just wanted to show you how to do it! 🙂 If you choose a board of yours to pin it to, simply hover and click to pin it. You can repeat that to save multiple images from the same blog post if you ever want to. I do that sometimes if I like multiple pictures from the same post and want to save them as visual ideas. Otherwise, I might pin one just so I have it saved to go back and read/look at later. Sometimes I use it to save pictures from a site simply because I think they’re pretty/cool/funny.

As I said, I plan to add more browser extensions to this list. There are so many awesome ones if you haven’t explored extensions before. Think of something that would save you time while you’re online…. looking for the best coupons (there are extensions that do that for you), need to translate something quickly (there are extensions for that), quickly convert a website you’re reading into a PDF to save (yep, one for that too)…. really, anything, there is probably an extension for it. Just make sure it is from a legitimate and trusted company. I always try to be super careful with anything I put onto my computer, including extensions, so I wanted to make sure to mention that so you keep that in mind.

Oooh I want to also tell you –

Another browser extension I use constantly is the one for shopping using Rakuten!

It goes in the corner and will let you know when you’re online shopping if a site is giving cash back for shopping using them. It also often applies the best coupons for me automatically rather than me having to look for codes myself. I pretty much always click it before making any online purchases and have received what I consider to be a lot of money back through them. It literally deposits it in my account each month (if I’ve used it) and feels like free money 🙂

So let’s say I was looking at cute shirts from a store I like online. I’ll click on it in the corner and it shows me right there in the corner if that site is, let’s say, currently giving 7% back on your purchase. If I click on it and activate it, then it activates that. It’s so quick and easy and I’ve actually used it a lot.

I often wait until my favorite stores are doing 10% back (or more) sometimes in order to buy things because it just feels like soo much free money to me when I can get 10% back. Plus if I can combine that with a coupon, WOOHOO! I enjoy finding ways to save money like that, though, so if you’re also like that, then I think you’ll love this extension!

It can come way in handy when you’re buying items for back to school especially! Wait until your favorite office supply stores and other stores offer higher percentages and then do your bulk shopping of teaching supplies. Not all stores participate but so many of the ones I shop at do. I feel like it really adds up and is a nice little extra deposit in your account just for shopping which you were doing anyway. Not using it, to me, feels like having a coupon available and skipping it. Anyway! I thought I had added all I wanted to this list but then remembered that one that I have used so many times. It’s definitely one of my favorites!

Thank you for reading! I have a lot more fun lists if you want to look around!

Some of my favorites to get you started are:

Best Classroom Management Books – Organized BY BEHAVIOR

Must Have Classroom Tools

P.S. If there are any browser extensions you love that I didn’t mention, feel free to mention them below in the comments! I love to discover new ones! You can also just say hi too – I love hearing from you and knowing someone actually reads these ramblings of mine, ha 🙂

Christmas Books for Kids 2021 Ultimate List

December 14, 2019

Christmas Books for Kids 2021 Ultimate List… are you ready? These are my absolute favorite children’s books to read aloud in December!

I had so much fun compiling this list and can’t wait to share it with you! On Wednesday, I shared my favorite 18 Gingerbread Man Books (mostly fun twists on the original story). Yesterday I shared my favorite Pirate Christmas Books and I have a lot more of these Christmas books lists to share with you this weekend and week!

I provided the links for you to see them directly on Amazon if you want to check them out – some links are affiliate links which means I get commission if you buy from the links, it’s no extra cost for you but I just wanted to let you know!

Mooseltoe is one of my favorite Christmas books to read aloud. Kids love this silly book and I do too!

Olive, the other reindeer is an adorable story about a dog who thinks she is a reindeer. If you don’t have this one, definitely check it out. It’s an instant favorite!

Another cute reindeer book is The Great Reindeer Rebellion. Santa’s reindeer go on strike and he tries to audition other animals for the job. Adorable illustrations and great rhyming – this one is so fun to read aloud.

Snowmen at Christmas is part of the amazing Snowmen at Night series that kids just adore. The illustrations are so beautiful and engaging.

How Santa Got His Job is another great one!

If you do a gingerbread unit or your kids love gingerbread man stories, The Gingerbread Man Loose at Christmas is an awesome one to add to your collection! It is such a fun twist on the classic story.

This book is included in my big list of my favorite Gingerbread Man Books 🙂

Is there anything cuter than this pug? He’s an elf this time in Pig the Elf! Hilarious as always and amazing illustrations that will have your kids giggling right away! If you haven’t read any of the books in this series, check them out – so fun.

I love all the night before Christmas books and you probably already have one so I wanted to share this super fun twist on them… A Pirate’s Night Before Christmas! Exciting and playful rhyming make this so great to read aloud. Love it!

This is included in my favorite Pirate Christmas Books list!

Santa’s Sleigh is on its Way to Texas is one of those Christmas books for kids you can get for YOUR STATE – so cool! 🙂 They also have them for some cities like Philadelphia, for example! So whether you live in Colorado or California, Oregon or Ohio, find your state’s book. Kids think it is the coolest thing!

You can also look for your town or state in the Santa is Coming to Indiana type books too!

There are so many more books like these for different cities and states, sometimes even smaller cities! To find yours, I recommend using the drop down box to filter by Books then try searching Santa [your state]. For example, if you live in Ohio, type in Santa Ohio and you get multiple options for fun books for your area 🙂

Santa Bruce is such an adorable Bruce book! Bruce is back again and this time it’s for Christmas 🙂

Santa’s Stuck is a popular read aloud for kindergarten and first grade kids! Santa has a few too many cookies and treats and gets stuck in the chimney in this hilarious little book.

How to Catch an Elf is such a fun story and a great way to practice how to writing after reading! Kids have so much fun coming up with their own plans!

Another great book to spark imagination is The 12 Sleighs of Christmas. The elves have to scramble to fix Santa’s sleigh before Christmas. They have a build off and they come up with such fun and clever inventions!

Have your kids been asking you how many days until Christmas since, like, July? 🙂 How Many Sleeps ’til Christmas? pokes fun of that a little in this adorable story about a little bear who wants to know how many sleeps he has to do until it’s Christmas. A great story to read the week before Christmas!

Speaking of asking how many days until Christmas, let’s talk about the ridiculously cute How Many Quacks till Christmas? book. All the animals on the farm want to know how long until Christmas. From the moment the little piglets ask how many oinks there are until Christmas, your kids will be hooked. It’s SUCH an adorable farm themed book with even more adorable illustrations.

Even More Christmas Books for Kids

Want even more Christmas books for your bookshelf? These are great books with characters kids know and love from all their other books!

After you figure out how many oinks until Christmas, have even more Christmas on the farm fun with Click, Clack, Ho! Ho! Ho!

I love Splat! A fun one to add to your collection of Splat books is Merry Christmas, Splat! This silly kitty is one of my favorite book characters.

I also love Froggy books so I definitely wanted to include Froggy’s Best Christmas 🙂

The Not Very Merry Pout-Pout Fish is also a popular bookshelf choice. It actually has a great message too!

How Do Dinosaurs Say Merry Christmas is a fantastic book if your kids love dinosaurs! Or if they love the rest of the How Do Dinosaurs books. 🙂

and, of course, If You Take a Mouse to the Movies! These are always fun to read aloud. They’re simple, cute, and easy to add to your bin of books to read.

I hope you enjoyed this list of Christmas books!

There are so many great ones but these are some of my favorites. I didn’t include some of the super classic Christmas stories because I figure you probably already have them and wanted to introduce you to new and fun ones! I also apologize if I used the word fun 500 times. Can’t help it – reading Christmas books is FUN! 🙂

I have SO many more book lists coming so please keep checking back for new lists 🙂 If you want to save this one for later, hover over the image below and click the red “Save” button in the corner to save it to your boards.

So what are YOUR favorite Christmas books for kids? Please tell me in the comments! 🙂

Pirate Christmas Books for Kids

December 13, 2019

Pirate Christmas Books are SO yo ho ho much fun for kids! Here is a list of my favorites. Whether your kids love pirates or you simply want more silly and fun books to read aloud in December, this list is for you!

This is part of a series of my favorite Christmas books I have been sharing! Today’s theme is Pirate Christmas Books!

A Pirate’s Night Before Christmas is probably my favorite on the list. Great, fun illustrations and I Love the clever rhymes. I personally think it’s funny and so much fun to read aloud. Even if you’re not a pirate voice kind of person, it’s hard to not read it that way with the adorable rhymes. Such a fun twist on the classic story. I definitely recommend this one!

A Pirate’s Twelve Days of Christmas – another fun twist on a classic written by the same author. Again, such fun illustrations! You might find yourself singing each time you say the last line 🙂

The Gingerbread Pirates is another favorite Christmas book of mine! This actually might be my favorite on this list. It is so much fun and it has awesome illustrations. SO much fun to read aloud. You’ll probably find yourself reading it even when it’s not Christmas time. It’s actually on my big list of 18 Gingerbread Man Books that I recommend – check out that list too if you haven’t!

If You Ever Want to Bring a Pirate to Meet Santa, Don’t! – This book is hilarious! If you can’t tell by now, great illustrations are important to me and this one has fantastic ones too!

Captain Bling’s Christmas Plunder – This is SUCH a sweet book! Super cute illustrations too. It’s another fun pirate twist on the night before story. I love that it has a great message too – I absolutely love the ending! This is definitely one of my favorites. I know I already said the first book on this list was my favorite but I think it actually might be this one. They’re both wonderful! Honestly, I love all the books on this list so much that they’re each my favorite as I read them. 🙂

I hope you enjoyed this short list! Yes, there are more pirate Christmas books for kids out there but I only recommend books I know and love and these are my favorites!

Just because a pirate Christmas book isn’t on this list doesn’t mean it’s not awesome. It may just be that I haven’t read it. 🙂 Is there a pirate Christmas book you love that you want me to add to the list? Tell me below!

Yo ho ho and Merry Christmas!!

I made this pic for you if you want to save this for later. Simply hover over the picture below and click “Save” to save it 🙂

Pirate Christmas Books

18 Gingerbread Man Books (Giant List of Picture Books)

December 11, 2019

Giant list of Gingerbread Man books to read aloud that are so cute and fun!

Gingerbread Man books are one of my favorite picture books themes to read aloud! It is such a fun story with many different versions that tell the classic story in so many unique ways. Plus, kids love them and they’re so fun to read to them! 🙂

Quick note: This Gingerbread Man books list is the 1st part of a huge winter and Christmas book list series to show you all my favorite December and January books!

If you love this list, check back because I plan on posting a new book list EVERY DAY – or possibly every other day – let’s be real, it’s December 🙂 – for the next few days. Woohoo! Let’s get started!

Here is a list of my favorite unique twists on The Gingerbread Man story!

The Gingerbread Loose in the School is such a fun one! I love the illustrations and cute rhyming throughout the book. Easily one of my favorites!

Since that one was such a hit, The Gingerbread Man Loose at Christmas is obviously a favorite too! I love the message of showing appreciation for the people in the community and spreading holiday cheer. Adorable!

I LOVE this one! Tough Cookie is about a cookie that is sad when he realizes he doesn’t taste very good. I love when books have a sweet message and a fun ending… and this book has just that! I really recommend this one for your holiday books collection if you don’t have it.

Do your kids love pirates? If so, The Gingerbread Pirates is a fun book that combines Christmas and pirates… how awesome is that?! Great illustrations too!

The Gingerbread Man 2: What Happened Later is a super cute sequel to the story we all know. It follows the fox who becomes a baker of gingerbread men 🙂 I love when books kids already know follow another character as the main character.

We had pirate gingerbread characters… now it’s time for ninjas! The Ninjabread Man is such a fun one! I love all the different ninja animals illustrations in this adorable story. Great one to add to your collection.

The Gingerbread Boy is a cute story about a New York couple that don’t have children yet so they bake a gingerbread boy who escapes and runs through the city. Really fun illustrations!

The Gingerbread Girl Goes Animal Crackers is really fun to read during snack time! Hide a box of animal crackers behind your easel or wherever you’re reading. When the little girl gets animal crackers for her birthday, bring your box out to share!

The Library Gingerbread Man is a really cute story to add to your Gingerbread Man bookshelf! Especially because he lives on library bookshelves 🙂 Sorry, I’m so cheesy and I couldn’t help it. If your school’s (or your child’s school’s) librarian doesn’t have this book, it’d be such a lovely surprise to give to them! It’s fun for everyone to read though.

Love this adorable cowboy and desert themed Gingerbread Man book. The Gingerbread Cowboy is so engaging and has amazing vocabulary! It’s such a fun one and your kids will probably ask you to read it again and again.

The Gingerbread Man Loose at the Zoo is another from the wonderful series I talked about at the beginning of this list. It’s full of riddles and zoo animals and fun!

The Gingerbread Man Loose on the Fire Truck is also part of that series and is a great book to add to your read alouds. Also, if you learn about firefighters and community helpers, this is a great review of that vocabulary.

I love The Gingerbread Kid Goes to School because he hops out of the principal’s lunch and runs all through the school as people try to catch him. It’s technically a reader but the illustrations and story are so cute that it is a fun one to read aloud!

And, of course, for the classic…

The Gingerbread Man by Gail Yerrill 🙂

Want even more Gingerbread Man books? Here are some more for your shelf!

I don’t have all of these ones below but I thought I’d include them for those of you who do an entire gingerbread theme in your classroom or have your own kids that can’t get enough gingerbread man stories. 🙂

This is a really cute The Gingerbread Man!

I love The Gingerbread Man! 🙂

Ten Tiny Gingerbread Men is a cute one for younger kids to practice counting when reading it to them.

Okay, last one in the list! I wanted to end this list with a super cute and clever book – Catch that Cookie! SUCH a fun one!

I hope you have enjoyed reading this list of Gingerbread Man books as much as I enjoyed writing it!

If you need a fun and easy writing template to use for your gingerbread unit, this Gingerbread Man Writing Craft template is adorable and only a dollar! 🙂

You can easily print it and immediately have it as a cute writing activity to go along with your gingerbread unit.

I absolutely love children’s books. It is so much fun to share my favorites with you. I have a ton of lists on this site if you want more recommendations! Go to my Awesome Lists page for a big list of my lists… can you tell I like lists? 🙂

I have so many more fun December and January books lists coming so please check back each day this month to see the new lists! You can also “like” my Teachers Love Lists Facebook page to see when I post new lists!

Here are some of the posts I have so far:

Christmas Books for Kids ULTIMATE LIST

Pirate Christmas Books (yes, pirates!)

I created this image for you to pin if you want to save this to reference later. All you do is hover over the picture below and hit “Save” to save it to one of your boards 🙂

Thank you so much for stopping by! 🙂

Is your favorite on the list? Did I miss an awesome one? Did you discover new ones for your bookshelf? I would love to hear from you below!

Bulletin Board Borders Storage Ideas

November 29, 2019

Bulletin board borders storage ideas are something I searched for a few times when I was trying to figure out how to organize all my borders and I kept coming up with the same results. Then, I just happened to see this AMAZING pocket chart while walking around a teacher supply store a few years ago and immediately fell in love.

Bulletin board borders storage ideas that make organizing all your borders so easy and quick!

I was hesitant to believe it actually worked or would save space. When I think of pocket charts, I think of them taking up a decent chunk of space. However, this amazing one FOLDS up so it’s only one pocket thick so you can make it SO small and thin and tuck it anywhere!

This post has affiliate links to the pocket chart I use which means I get commission if you purchase through the link – I don’t care if you do or don’t – but I wanted to be transparent and let you know 🙂

The one I’ve been using and loving is this Border Storage Pocket Chart!

All you do is put your bulletin board borders in each of the pockets (I put several different border sets in each pocket as you can see here) and then roll it up and it’s TINY! It folds up to the size of only 1 pocket!

The best part about it is your borders are kept perfectly STRAIGHT. Before I had this amazing border organization masterpiece, I was rolling my borders in a roll then clipping them with a binder clip. That was not very space saving or quick to do, but what I disliked most about it was my borders were all curled when I unrolled them which made putting them up on the wall frustrating. Maybe that’s just me, but it bothered me so I absolutely love that this stores them flat. Plus those rolls took up space and didn’t look very pretty – I had to just shove them in a cabinet.

Also I often have extra small pieces of border I cut off the ends sometimes when I’m trying to fit borders on a board so this lets you simply put those in the pocket with the rest instead of trying to clip them on the inside of the roll. I don’t feel like rolling them up really kept them protected either. Plus the clip sometimes left indentations I didn’t like right in the middle of the borders. So I absolutely love how this keeps them protected in the pockets.. and also not dusty 🙂

Anyway, I absolutely love this thing so I was excited to show it to you. I put all of my borders in it then fold it up into one little strip and shove it between my filing cabinet and desk. Yes, it actually fits in that tiny slot! 🙂

This shows it unfolded but you can find pictures of it folded up too to show you what it looks like.

Any time I want to get out a new border, I simply grab it and unstrap it. It folds out into the pretty display of all my borders, like I showed in the 1st picture in this post, so I can pick the border I want to use. It makes doing a new bulletin board so much more fun to be able to see them all displayed and pick the one I want. Before, when I was rolling them, I would have to think of the one I wanted first then rummage through to find the roll by looking at each one and pulling out each roll I had thrown into the back of a cabinet.

This way, it’s more creative and fun and sometimes I get bulletin board ideas simply looking at my pretty display of them 🙂 I can also pick out 1 piece of each bulletin border really easily to put it next to what I want to display and see if it goes together nicely. So easy to take out and put back.

I hope you love it if you get it!

If you have any fun ideas for how you store your bulletin board pieces, let me know below!

For actual pieces like letters, I put them in sheet protectors in binders so I can quickly find the letter sets I want. There’s an extra tip for you 🙂 For a tutorial on how to make your own bulletin board letters, check out DIY Classroom Decor Bulletin Board Letters

This was shown in my Classroom Must Haves list – you can check out that list if you want to see other things I love and recommend.

I really enjoy making lists so if you are in the mood to browse fun teacher lists (or want to save the page for later), here is a big list of the lists from this page 🙂

AWESOME LISTS

Here are a couple lists I’ve made to get you started:

Classroom Management Books Organized BY BEHAVIOR

Giant List of Classroom Jobs

Thank you so much for stopping by!

If you want to save this post to read again later, you can hover over this picture below and use the red “Save” button to pin it! 🙂

Bulletin board border storage solution! This amazing pocket chart holds all of your borders so you don't have to roll them up and clip them or shove them in a cabinet. It folds up and holds so many borders!

Fastener Tape – Teacher Supplies List Must Haves

October 21, 2019

Fastener tape is one of the first items I want to show you for my Teacher Supplies List Must Haves series!

I absolutely LOVE fastener tape! It makes it so easy to create reusable centers and activities that you make once and then can use year after year and is something that I think every teacher should have in their toolbox!

Here is exactly where you can get it on Amazon! I’m an affiliate which means I get commission for purchases made through the link. I only recommend things I absolutely love but I wanted to be super transparent (like regular tape, lol) and let you know! 🙂

You can click here or on the picture to check it out on Amazon 🙂

It comes in a roll of tape and is super easy to use. If you want to see one example of a way to use it, check out this post on Fact Fluency in First Grade. Scroll until you see the red paper that says “Fact Fluency.”

That section shows how you can take any cut and paste worksheet and turn it into a fun, interactive center. Once you make them, they’re so easy to pull out for centers year after year. I LOVE making math cut and pastes into centers especially, but you can do it for any cutting and pasting activity that you have. Seasonal ones are super fun to make, as well as phonics, grammar, or any subject. It’s such an easy way to make what starts out as a worksheet A LOT more fun!

Important tips when Buying:

– COLOR: Check to make sure you buy the color you want! I prefer the clear so you can see through it. If you look at the red Fact Fluency center mat again, you can see how you can see through it in order to see the answer key. This makes clean up soo much easier because kids can see exactly where to put the piece back which is awesome! I also often see the tape in black so look at the picture to make sure it’s the color you want.

– WIDTH: Check the width of it. They can come in very different widths. For making activities, I like 3/4 inch (0.75). I think anything between half an inch and an inch is great for making activities.

* Think about how you want to use them and what size/color would work best for you. I put links to the ones I like but you might like a different one! There are several different brands that make really high quality fastener tape and dots 🙂

Speaking of dots! If you don’t want to cut pieces to the exact size you want, or think you’ll always want about the same size, they come in fastener DOTS too. The dots are so cool! I love using them as well… especially for square cut and paste activities that have decent size pieces:

Important Tips when Creating Activities:

– Laminate the page OR use heavy duty sheet protectors. You can make these super easily with sheet protectors but definitely make sure the ones you’re using are labeled “heavy duty” so it doesn’t tear when kids take the pieces on and off.

– Each piece has 2 sides: what I call the “scratchy” side and the “fuzzy” side. I always put the fuzzy side on the mat and the scratchy side on the back of the piece. That way, it doesn’t scratch your other papers if you stack them, store them in a file, etc. Plus, the “scratchy” side is clearer so it’s easier to see through for putting pieces back.

For more creation tips, the Fact Fluency post that I keep mentioning has much more thorough instructions with pictures. That post may have been what brought you here, though! If that’s the case, peek around here if you want! 🙂 I share a ton of lists of teacher tools, supplies, book lists, and other random lists like classroom jobs, themes, teaching interview questions, all sorts of things. I love sharing ideas and especially making lists! 🙂

Feel free to ask me any questions you have below – I am happy to help!

For more fun lists, check out the page that has all of my lists on this blog organized by category:

AWESOME LISTS

A few favorite ones to get you started are:

Classroom Management Books Organized BY BEHAVIOR

Giant List of Classroom Jobs

Thank you so much for stopping by! Feel free to follow me on Facebook if you want to follow along. You can also go directly to teacherslovelists.com to see if I have any new posts. I have a lot of posts planned out to post this month and next month. I appreciate you reading all the way to this point if you did! 🙂

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