This week I had 13 of my sweet friends staying at my house for the Teachers Pay Teachers conference, and we had a blast!! Some of my friends went home on Friday morning so the rest of us decided to hit the Dollar Tree to see what we could find!! We decided to do our very first Facebook live video and share what we found. Many of you asked us to do a follow-up blog post so you could grab the pictures of our ideas, so we decided to do a blog hop. Be sure and visit all five blogs to see all 15 ... continue reading...
Search Results for: label/Dollar tree
How to Make a Palm Tree
Happy Summer Friends! Last Friday was our last day of school and like all of you I'm already thinking about next year. :) I brought home my palm trees because they were getting a little raggedy and they needed a makeover. So I thought I'd take step by step pictures for those of you on how to make a palm tree. To start you will need: an umbrella (I used my husband's golf umbrella because I wanted the tree to be pretty big)...SHHH don't tell him! carpet roll approx. 20 paper grocery ... continue reading...
How to Start Teaching Writer’s Workshop in Kindergarten & First Grade
Do you struggle with how to get started? Writer's Workshop in kindergarten and first grade classrooms is one of the most powerful components. In Writing Workshop in kindergarten and first grade, students are encoding words that come from their thoughts and feelings, which is a much easier skill than decoding. Successful writers become successful readers! So, how do you get started? The answer is simple. Just jump right in!! I usually start at the beginning of the ... continue reading...
Palm Tree Directions
I'm working on answering the questions that I've been asked. Several of you have asked how I make the palm trees that are in my room. If you click on the picture you can download the directions. I have to say that they are SUPER easy to make and I Love how they look in my room. In this tree you will notice our friend Stretchy the snake. He watches the kids during Reader's and Writer's Workshop to make sure they are sssssssstretching their words! :) You can take a tour of my classroom by ... continue reading...
Phoneme Segmentation! Make and Take Freebie and Book Talk Tuesday
Segmenting words is an important skill that we work on throughout the year. Kids need a variety of hands on ways to work on this skill in order to make it more concrete. We use a variety of manipulatives to work on phoneme segmentation. Building words with unifix cubes as we say each sound, stretching the words with a slinky, sliding a pony bead for each sound and using our stretchy the word stretcher (as seen above). To make the word stretchers you need the template (below) ... continue reading...
Insects Eric Carle style!
We read Eric Carle's series of insect books and then we made our own Eric Carle inspired insects. This is what we started with. The papers were made by painting with bubble wrap, sponges, circle paint brushes and those soft body wash thingies. (not the technical term...but shoot! I can't remember what they're called. You can buy them at the Dollar Tree and then come on a little rope. ) I LOVE how the kids know how to use squares, rectangles and their creativity ... continue reading...
What are the other kids doing? Literacy Centers POST TWO with Freebies!
click on the picture above to download the large icon Freebies. Each day this week I will share you with you some of the things we do in each center. The activities above will be included in Alphapalooza 2 which will be posted this week! Any flashcards that you have are perfect for matching games. These flashcards can be used for a variety of purposes in a variety of ways. Have them match ... continue reading...
Christmas Fun: Sneak Peak!
I just finished my Christmas unit and uploaded it to Teachers Pay Teachers. Here are a few pictures from the unit. An original story that I wrote. The story can be printed out and used for Shared Reading or you can use it on your Smartboard or projector. Santa craft and two writing activities...create a list for Santa or write him a letter. Decorate a Christmas tree and then count, graph and record what is on the tree. Here's the description from Teachers Pay ... continue reading...
America Part One: Statue of Liberty
We did a directed drawing of The Statue of Liberty. The kids did an AMAZING job! We wanted to find out the answer to the following question. It is really hard to explain to kids just how HUGE the Statue of Liberty really is! So, we measured out bulletin board paper for her foot (even the length of her toes is correct) to get an idea of how huge she is! All About The Statue of Liberty writing Our bald eagles... they turned out so ... continue reading...
February Reading Fluency Activities for 1st and 2nd Grade
Focus on reading fluency in February. Differentiated fluency passages and activities that can be used in class or given for homework. Reading Fluency As educators, we know that reading fluency is important and should be a focus in our early elementary classrooms. It is a building block in literacy. The more our students automatically recognize words in reading, the better they comprehend the text that is being read. There are four components of reading fluency: accuracy, rate, ... continue reading...
St. Patrick’s Day Activities & Crafts
St. Patrick's Day activities for kindergarten and first grade. Cute craft ideas and fun math and literacy lessons to help you celebrate. St. Patrick's Day Activities St. Patrick's Day is such a fun holiday to celebrate in the classroom! Maybe you have a leprechaun who visits and leaves his tiny footprints and glitter all around. Or, perhaps your students build traps to catch a leprechaun. The excitement of the holiday is sure to make an engaging day of learning. Check out some ideas from ... continue reading...
Owls and Veteran’s Day
We made soldiers in honor of Veteran's Day and created a Bubble Map. These are some of the books we read. There aren't very many books out there for children about this important holiday. If you have found one that you like please let me know! Blogger isn't cooperating with me tonight y'all! If you turn your head to the right you can view the pictures that are sideways. :) We had a great time learning about owls this week! I LOVE seeing how ... continue reading...
25 Christmas Read Aloud Books for the Primary Classroom
Christmas read aloud books for kindergarten and first grade. These are some of my favorite books to read during the month of December. Christmas Read Aloud Books It's December! Whoo-hoo! Check out this list of 25 Christmas read aloud favorites! #1 Is it Christmas Yet by Jane Chapman Teddy is anxiously awaiting Christmas. He and Big Bear have lots to do! #2 Memoirs of an Elf by Devin Scillian Elf friends work to keep Santa on schedule. Follow the 24 hours leading up to ... continue reading...
Oceans of Fun!
I got up bright and early this morning and drove 2 hrs. in search of the perfect wedding dress for my daughter Taylor. SUCCESS! But, I'm one tired mamma so this is going to be a super quick post! We just started our ocean unit. Nothing gets boys excited more than sharks! (okay...maybe dinosaurs...but they still LOVE sharks too). We used interactive writing to label the parts of a shark. Comparing sharks and whales. Schema Chart Writing ... continue reading...
Engaging Readers: Getting it ORGANIZED!
Hey There! Happy Hump day! We've had a few questions about how we organize our new Engaging Readers units so I thought I'd do a quick blog post to show you! These are the supplies I used to organize mine. I used a 1" binder sheet protectors Binder pocket (one pocket holds all four books) ziploc baggies Clear packing tape Printables for the spine and fronts of sheet protectors click HERE to get yours. First, I put our cutie patootie cover (thanks to ... continue reading...