Product Swappy Love!

SO excited to be participating in 2013's first Product Swap!  Here's some background on what the Product Swap is all about!  The amazing Jessica Stanford thought up this brilliant idea for bloggers to pair up with other bloggers around the world and review each other's product! In the process, you get to know each other a little better and you get an amazing product to use with your kiddies in your classroom! :)

  

Meet my partner -- Ellen! 

(ELLEN! I hope you're not mad I shared your adorable picture!)

She is a 1st/2nd grade split teacher from Michigan!  This is her ninth year teaching in her very own classroom and she subbed for a while before that.  She is super sweet and a cat lover (but I try not to hold that against her, lol!).  Ellen has lots of cute ocean themed (and more!) things on her blog and her TPT store -- One of which I'm THRILLED to be reviewing today! :)  You HAVE to check her out -- CLICK HERE to see her blog and CLICK HERE to see her TPT store! :)  

Today I'm going to tell you a little bit about one of her products.  It's called Ocean Phrase Fluency: Fry Words 1-300.  When I got this cute little item in my email, I couldn't WAIT to get it laminated and cut out.  I knew it would be PERFECT for my literacy centers.  I use it in my Fluency center and my kids stinkin' love it. 

This game is modeled after the ever-popular "Bang!" type games -- only it's way more adorable.  It comes with fluency phrases on ocean themed cards and four Shark! cards. I tried the game out with MY babies before I took it to school for my second graders! Enjoy the pictures.

 You place the cut and laminated cards into a container of sorts and students will take turns drawing a card from the container. 

 They read their card out loud and if they read it correctly, they get to keep it! If they need help reading it, they have to put it back in the container.  Burt and Willow are doing GREAT! :)

But, watch out for those pesky sharks! If you draw a Shark! card then you (appropriately so) put all your cards back in the container!  Ahhh, MANNNNN!

The student with the most cards at the end is the "winner".  But we're all winners when we're learning sight words... am I right?! ;)

You guys, I haven't told you the best part about this product.  Ellen took the time to DIFFERENTIATE this product!  She offers the same game three different ways... for Fry Words 1-100, 100-200, and 200-300!  This is *PERFECT* for my classroom.  Let's be real... my kids do NOT all read at the same level!   I can just set all three versions in my literacy center and label them for the appropriate groups as they rotate through! The pictures from this review came from Fry Words 200-300.

I LOVE the varying levels... this way lower level readers and high flyers get to play the same game and both find rigor and success! :)

So there you have it! Brody, Willow, Burton, and I all give this game 10 gold stars, 2 thumbs up, an A+ (okay, am I taking it too far?)  I will be using this game in my fluency center many times throughout the rest of the year! It will be fun to see my lower readers advance through the different levels!

If you'd like to check out this product for yourself, you can check it out at Ellen's Store! Click here to get a glimpse! :)