January Fun and a Freebie for YOU!

If we must go back to school, I insist we go back with new Teachers Pay Teachers resources.  I insist!

If by chance you're still looking for new ideas to get you excited about the return to school, check out my new product on Teachers Pay Teachers!  Switching from first grade to Kindergarten this year has given me a unique opportunity to basically start over in my literacy centers and small groups.  I've had a blast creating new resources for my students that I can make specifically to fit their needs.  I can't wait to share the new centers with them this week!

Over 80 pages of goodies for you to share with your Kinders!  

The first activity is all about sight words.  We use Scott Foresman/Reading Street at my school, so I made sure to include some new words and review words for January based upon our reading series.  

There are two types of activities to practice sight words in this resource.  Sixteen sight words are presented over four different Sight Word Spinner activities, and then each of those words has its own Find-and-Color Sight word worksheet.  I personally like to laminate spinner activities for my kiddos.   It allows for me to cut back on paper and ink and lets them do the activity over and over... and they love using the dry erase markers.  It's a win-win!

Mitten Match is a good way to review after break, or to reinforce letter recognition for those little ones that don't quite have the confidence yet.  Students sort and match the mittens with uppercase and lowercase letters.  Included are two worksheets to practice supplying the missing uppercase or lowercase letters.

Snowball Sounds actually has two different activities, basically because I couldn't decide exactly which I liked best.  The first sort is with the entire alphabet, so students are to match the beginning sound to each letter with a letter snowball card and picture snowball card for all 26 letters.  After I made that, I started thinking about how some of my little learners still need the extra practice with just a few letters at a time.  I then created two different sorts, one for the letters Dd and Kk and one for the letters Ff and Rr.  Same concept of matching up the beginning sound with the correct letter, but this time focusing on two letters at a time!  The D, K, F, and R letter sorts also include a cut and paste worksheet for extra practice.

Winter Word Puzzles focus on building words through onset and rime.  Teachers laminate and cut apart the puzzle pieces and students then build words using the picture with the rime cards as a clue.  This center includes a recording sheet so you can monitor their word building.  I also included two cut and paste printables that can be used as a follow-up for the center or just for extra practice any time the students need it!

My kiddos this year LOVE clapping out syllables, so I had to make sure there was a syllable sort in this packet.  This activity includes snowflake cards and a sorting mat where students will decide if the word has one or two syllables.  I've also included a Snowy Syllable worksheet for extra practice.

Finally my literacy centers wrap up with Snowflake Sentence Scramblers.  This resources consists of seven different sentence scramblers where students unscramble the words to make a complete sentence, use their very best handwriting to copy the sentence, and then illustrate what the sentence says.   All sentence scramblers use sight words and really help my kiddos remember a sentence always starts with a capital letter and ends with punctuation.  I know I'll be using these to ease back into our Writer's Workshops after a long break!

As a freebie for those of you who have so kindly visited my blog, I'm sharing the first unit of Snowy Sight Words!  This includes the spinner mat and four find-and-color worksheets.   Click the picture below to download your free copies.  I'd love any feedback or for new followers on the blog and my TPT Store!  And don't forget, if you like this freebie there is plenty more in my Kindergarten January Literacy Centers Packet!

Thanks so much for sharing in my excitement over new centers!  It's the little things, right? :)

-Liz

Gobbling up some letter recognition!

Transitioning from first grade to Kindergarten has been quite the learning experience for me.  On one hand, it's an absolute blast:  I know exactly where my students need to be at the end of the year and I've found it's easier for me to differentiate because of this.  On the other hand, I find myself spending hours thumbing through other teacher blogs and TPT for new activities, lesson ideas, and small group learning games since most of my current stock is geared for first grade (seriously, what did teachers do before blogs and TPT?!).  

Recently, as I was trying to find a Thanksgiving-themed activity for small groups, I decided to tweak one of my favorite products I created a few years.  The original game practiced sight word recognition, but I changed it to focus on letter and sound recognition for my younger little ones.  I'm loving Kindergarten and all the new and exciting things I get to teach, but I still want to share some of my favorite past activities with my new students.  My kiddos have loved this game so much that even my reluctant readers are eager to come to small group!  For some groups I only use one set and focus on letter recognition, but in other groups I have the students identify the letter and the letter sound.

 I wish I had a better picture of my cards (I guess I was just too into the game!) but I've found a great way to jazz up the appeal of turned-over cards and to prevent curious eyes from trying to see through the back is to use Do-A-Dot Markers on the backs before I cut and laminate.  Easy and quick and sure beats a boring white card!  (I also bent the rules a bit and scatter the cards instead of keeping them in a stack.  Little arms can't always reach to the stack easily!)

I am so thankful for my new grade level and new blog that I want to share this activity with you!  Get your free set here! 

Shameless plea:  If you download this, could you please consider following my blog and/or store?  I'm seriously bursting with excitement in Kindergarten and would love to connect with more teachers like me!

If you're interested in working with sight words, the original Gobble, Gobble game is still in my store as well!

-Liz

BOO! Halloween Writing Freebie for YOU!

What?  Halloween is in two days?  I had no idea!

...said no teacher, ever.  For real, my kiddos are SO excited for Halloween this year!  I definitely don't want to steal their joy, but it's not like I can just stop teaching and talk about their Halloween costumes all day!

But wait!  Out of desperation, I created a quick writing prompt to get their pencils moving about what they are the most excited about this week.  I thought I'd share this with you as a freebie in case you are feeling you feel like you're starting to look an awful lot like a spooky witch - without a costume! Even my little ones who usually give a few whines about story writing have loved activity! In this download, your kiddos will have the options to write about their costumes and their thoughts on Halloween.  I've also included a few blank pages that you could choose your own writing prompt or encourage stronger writers to create their own sentences.

You can grab your copy at my TPT store here!  

-Liz

Five for Friday and School's Out! (and, of course, a freebie to celebrate!)

Whoo- hoo!  Summer break, here I am!!  First of all, I have to give a true round of applause to all of you teacher folks who faithfully blogged during your last few weeks of school.  I feel like I have been going a zillion m.p.h. for the past two weeks trying to collect all of my final grades, final projects, celebrating with a few school assemblies, field trips and end-of-the-year fun things in the classroom.  By the time I would get home, I was zapped!  So if you're one of those dedicated bloggers during EOY activities, know you are admired!

That being said, we ended our school year in such fun ways and I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to show my Top Five from this final week of school.  This group was pretty challenging, but I will definitely miss their distinct little personalities and all the major growth my babies made this year.  The last days of school this week I made sure to plan fun activities so we could enjoy our time together and end with great memories.  Here are some of the best from my highlight reel:

*Chalk pictures outside and bubbles outside:  The more outdoor activities, the better!  I picked up bubbles from the Dollar Tree and gave each of my students their own bottle.  After watching their reaction, I feel like I should inform their parents to forget the fancy iPods and Wii games...all you need is bubbles :)

*Last Day Flowers delivered from My Man.  Isn't he the sweetest? :)

(and would you look at that nearly-packed up room in the background?? I impressed myself yesterday with how quickly and efficiently I packed and cleaned!)

*Money Movie Party: The first grade team sets up a theater room and a concession room. We give all students an allowance of manipulative money that they get to put in their carefully decorated paper wallets.  Each student must purchase a movie ticket to see the movie, and then can purchase treats at the concession stand, such as popcorn, juice boxes, small cake treats, etc.  This is such a fun way to practice saving and spending money and the kiddos feel so grown up as they make their responsible choices!


*Construction Paper Sorting:  Ok, so you know how construction paper companies STILL don't understand how teachers want/need paper sorted by colors, not in a pretty rainbow pattern?  It's so frustrating trying to quickly go through packs of paper to pull out 23 sheets of red for a holiday craft, only to turn around and do it again for green.  So one of my teammates came up with a fun way to have the students help sort.  We place one sheet of paper on desks around the room, the more space between the desks, the better.  For each color represented, we have a student sit behind that paper to become the "Paper Manager".  The rest of the students are handed a random stack of assorted colors of construction paper and are released to sort each color at the correct desk.  The Paper Manager sits behind her color and carefully organizes the paper into a neat stack so that when we are all done, it's easy to store on my shelves.  In the end, I can collect a large stack of red, orange, yellow, etc., so that next year my paper is sorted and easy to grab!  It's so helpful to me and the students love having a job that truly requires little supervision and instruction from me.

*Classroom Awards:  At my school, we have an awards assembly near the end of the year.  It's special and fun, but it really only recognizes the older students in my building.  Because of that, I created my own classroom awards so that each one of my special students gets a unique award that we can celebrate in our classroom.  I had so much fun creating these!  There are 36 awards total, with one blank award included.  These are available for both First Grade and Second Grade!  Here are a few samples:

I have the First Grade Awards posted here and my Second Grade Awards posted here.  Both are free for you to have some fun in your classroom and celebrate a successful year with your little ones!

What are some of your favorite ways to celebrate the end of the school year?  I'd love to hear your ideas!  

-Liz

Favorite Spots in My Classroom and A Freebie (just because it's Monday!)

I'm linking up with Flying Into First Grade's "Let's Get Acquainted" party again!  This week's theme is to share our three favorite areas in our classrooms!

1.  My calendar board

I think this area is special to me for many reasons.  Our morning meetings are centered around this calendar board, and that is one of my favorite times with the kiddos as we share about ourselves.  As much as I love teaching, it's also so worthwhile to take a little time to truly get to know my little ones.  I also feel proud of this board because I spent a summer painting (yes painting!) all of my bulletin boards.  This bright blue took forever to go on just right, but in the end it was worth it! (can you say buh-bye to trying to make huge butcher paper fit perfectly?!)  I think having a calendar board like this one is also an excellent resource for students to use for math, science, reading and everything else!

2.  "Watch Us Grow" board:

My classroom door is settled back into a nice little nook and I can decorate both sides of my "doorway".  My mom also happens to be a first grade teacher (I swear, teaching is genetic!) and I always admired this idea that she does every year with her classroom.  Each month, I pose the kiddos to take a class photo and display them as we go through the school year, with the month written at the bottom.  It's so fun to be able to see how the kiddos change from August to May!  They also feel quite grown up when they look back on how many teeth they have lost since then and how awesome their newest haircuts look now :)

3.  My Art Museum

While this may not be anything I created personally, it is one of my favorite parts of my classroom.  Whenever I'm feeing low or stressed, at some point in the day I can't help but catch one of these lovelies out of the corner of my eye and I remember why I do my job each day.  I think it's easy to sometimes get caught up in the overload of Common Core/Report Cards/IEP Meetings/Parent Conferences and while we don't forget why we teach, we may not see as much of the joy as we'd like.  These pieces of art bring me joy :)

Aaaaaand here is your freebie!

Just a simple addition dice roll, but prettied up for spring!  Students roll a die (or two dice, or my personal favorite, the double-die) and create an addition problem to write in the boxes.  Students may then count up the dots, use their number lines or mental math to solve.  For a challenge, I have my kiddos roll the die twice to get one addend (EX: Student rolls a five and then a four.  She writes nine in the first box).  This helps them practice more math facts up to adding 12.  You can print these out as worksheets, or you can put laminate them or put them in a page protector for the students to use over and over with dry erase markers.  Click the image to download!

Have a favorite spot in your classroom you want to share?  Link up here! Don't forget to follow or comment on the last two bloggers!  Enjoyed my freebie?  Let me know!  I love to hear from other teachers!

-Liz

Springing Into Math Centers and a Freebie!

As I write this, a nasty cold front is heading my way.  Like it's so nasty, that we are going from short sleeves and sandals today to coats and boots tomorrow.  However, I refuse to let winter crush my springtime spirits by sharing my latest Springtime Math Activities! 

Sorts, whether the word or number kind, are so student-friendly.  I can easily see if they understand the concept without having to spend a lot of time giving instructions.  

I loved creating this Rainbow Fact Families sort!  I think it turned out to be quite cute and it can be used with the number cards to place on the mats as a sort OR you can laminate the Rainbow Fact Family mat and have the students simply write the numbers with a dry erase marker before recording them on the worksheet.

My students this year often need reinforcement with number order, so I like using "greater than/less than" activities to help them to recognize numbers and understand the value of numbers in the tens and ones places. 

 

Ah, I feel spring coming back to me through these math activities!  To download previews or snag the whole activity pack, visit my TPT store.  For just a little fun spring math practice, here is a Missing Number Addition worksheet!  Click the image to download for your own springtime kiddos :)

-Liz

Something nEW... and a freebie :)

WhEW!  Something nEW was dUE to be created!  Haha, ok, forgive my attempt to play on the -ew,   -ue, and -ui sounds, but that's what my latest creation is all about!  Let me introduce to you The Clue Crew.

I love having posters like these back by my literacy table.  I hang them up for the week we are focusing on the new sounds for student reference.  Not only do the students have constant exposure, but they start making connections to the posters with what they read.  (Hey! Blew has the -ew sound like Drew!)

My students and I both enjoy word sorts.   I try to do a word sort in each literacy unit so students know what to do during their center rotations without a lot of instruction.  The exposure to so many words with our letters/sounds of the week is awesome!

Recording sheets are a lifesaver for me this year.  I'd like to say I have time to monitor students during centers in between each small group to assess their knowledge, but the truth is that with my larger class size this year I just can't get to all my little ones every day.  By using recording sheets, I can see the students I was unable to observe outside of small groups and check to see how they are understanding the concepts.

Write the Room and Memory Game both have cuuuute cards to go with them.  Both of these activities are perfect for my classroom.  I like to get my students out of their seats and have time to assess while not doing direct instruction, so Write the Room is perfect about halfway through the week.  I can stick close to my little guys that need more instruction, but still see how all the other students are doing easily.

My kiddos love - and I mean LOVE - Memory Games.  I often use this in small group, during after-school tutoring, and as an activity students can do when they finish work early.  I tell ya, when they play Memory I don't have any arguments, poor behavior, or loud voices!  The students enjoy the game and I enjoy the positive learning aspect.  This classic game is definitely a keeper.

I had so much fun making this literacy unit and am more than happy to share a few freebies!  The worksheets featured below are differentiated and you can have them both!  Just click to download :)  For the full unit, please visit my TPT store!