March?!? Seriously, how is it already March? This year is flying by! I thought I'd share a few of my favorite things to do for St. Patrick's Day. It doesn't get any better than Leprechaun punch and Leprechaun glyphs! YUMMY and ADORABLE! In Unit 3 of our Writing Through the Year unit we teach students the process for Procedural (How-To) Writing, and throughout the year we continue to work on How-To pieces to record our experiences as a class. First, we talked about the ingredients that ... continue reading...
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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...
How to Catch a Leprechaun
This week we are working on my St. Patrick's Day unit. We made our Leprechaun glyphs and wrote about How to Catch a Leprechaun. These are some of their drawings they did in their journals. It's so easy to teach them how to draw if you do step by step modeling using simple shapes. This was mine that I modeled on the Smartboard. Notice that it isn't perfect and it's all made with simple shapes. Tomorrow we will be ... continue reading...
More Leprechaun Fun and a FREEBIE!!
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...
America Unit
The America Unit is packed with enough ideas and activities for a one or two week unit on American Symbols and Presidents. My America unit is on sale until Wednesday. Click the cover image below to view it on TPT. If you purchased my St. Patrick's Day unit last year you will want to go to your My Purchases folder and download the revised version. Click on the cover below to view the unit ... continue reading...
St. Patrick’s Day Math and Literacy Activities
Wouldn’t it be nice to find a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow? While it is not actually possible, the excitement this would cause is coming alive in the classroom! However, many students are looking forward to building leprechaun catchers or pinching people not wearing green during St. Patrick's Day. No matter what the excitement is over, it will be essential for teachers to create engaging St. Patrick’s Day Math and Literacy Activities. By doing this, student excitement for St. ... continue reading...
Making Inferences
Learning how to make inferences is a really tough skill to learn! Often, students want to look back in the text for answers. However, this is not the only aspect students need to do when making their own inferences. They need to use their prior knowledge, personal experience and incorporate it with the information provided. Additionally, in the primary grades, we know that students' listening comprehension far exceeds their reading comprehension since students in kindergarten and first grade are ... continue reading...
FREE Spine Labels for Binders: Getting Organized!
This is a throwback post that I did awhile back about getting our Guiding Readers units organized. Since this post, I've had quite a few requests to make matching spine labels for the Writing and Math units. So HERE YOU GO! Sorry, it took me so long! We also have a Free Year-Long Curriculum Map for Kindergarten and First Grade. (Scroll to the bottom of this post to grab the map and spines) If you want to read the throw back post carry on! If not, Happy Organizing. ... 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...
Fact Fluency for Addition & Subtraction
What is Math Fact Fluency? Fact fluency is knowing a math fact with accuracy and automaticity. Rather than needing to use math strategies to figure it out first-grade students should be able to see an addition or subtraction problem within 10 and give the answer within 3 seconds. It is recommended that kindergarten students have math fluency within 5. Why is Math Fact Fluency Important? When students are able to fluently solve basic addition and subtraction problems, it frees up their ... continue reading...
Back to School Activities and Crafts for the Primary Classroom
Back to School activities for kindergarten, 1st, 2nd grade. Open house resources, schedule cards, songs and chants, crafts, and so much more! Back to School Activities It's that time of year again! New students will be walking through your classroom door soon or maybe they have already! These back to school activities are great to help students become comfortable in their new classroom with a new teacher and possibly new friends. Plus, there are some great resources to help you feel ... continue reading...
The Gruffalo Lesson Plans | Reading Comprehension for K-2
The Gruffalo lesson plans for K-2. Engaging 5-day lesson plans with differentiated reading response, vocabulary, sentence study, and a craft for this fun story! The Gruffalo A clever mouse outsmarts some woodland animals who want to eat him with the story of a Gruffalo. Little does he know, a Gruffalo is real and loves to eat mice. Your students will love this award-winning story! Through our engaging lesson plans students will strengthen their reading comprehension skills and have fun ... continue reading...
Inferring with Primary Students: The Case of the Missing Toy Sack
Inferring with Primary Students: Christmas Inference Detectives Activities for Kindergarten and First-Grade Inferring with Primary Students: Kindergarten and First-Grade Inferring is an important comprehension skill for young readers to have and I love giving them lots of practice with this skill. We infer each week with the story we are reading, but I also like to give them opportunities to infer outside of the text. Inferring is just putting clues together and using that voice inside ... 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...