Read To Succeed!

One of the most requested items from teachers is “easy readers.”  They say that they need more little booklets for students to work on during Daily 5 as well as ones to send home so that students can practice reading them to their families.

I like to make up easy readers that also reinforce additional standards like math, science, colors, etc. so that I get more “bang for my time buck” so to speak.

I also want my students to have an opportunity to write some of the main words in the easy readers to get practice with those skills too.

I dabble with goofy endings, or ones with a unique twist, and sometimes allow students to think of an alternative ending, so that they can use their imaginations.

One of my biggest pet peeves with many published easy readers was that they abruptly ended with no real conclusion.

This week I completed several.

My Mom is perfect for a Mother’s Day writing prompt and reinforces the use of adjectives and verbs.  Make it even more of a keepsake by having students glue their school photo to the last page.

Click on the link to view/download My Mom Mother’s Day booklet.

Several teachers wanted a booklet that reviewed the seasons.

Since many of you also study trees, I thought it would be nice to combine the two.

The Seasons Of My Tree (photo top right) does just that, with a cute twist at the end, that I’m sure your students will enjoy dreaming up.

Click on the link to view/download The Seasons Of My Tree

Who Invited The Ants To The Picnic? (photo bottom right) is a sweet pre-summer, easy reader that reinforces number words and counting to 10.  It provides an opportunity for students to write two alternative endings to the story.

Click on the link to view/download Who Invited The Ants To The Picnic

I just finished story cards for the old-fashioned tune, The Ants Go Marching.  So if you'd like to incorporated these with the picnic booklet, or teach your little ones this fun counting song, click on the link to view/download

The Ants Go Marching story cards.

I hope you enjoy these new booklets. If there’s something special you’re looking for, just shoot me an e-mail and I’ll see what I can whip together.  diane@teachwithme.com

I’ve found that if one teacher needs it, there’s sure to be many more out there who do too! i.e. I only had 1 request for some activities with an Angry Bird's theme and Angry Birds Activities & Angry Birds Shapes, are two of my most popular downloads!

Thanks for visiting; feel free to PIN anything that you feel might be helpful to a parent or teacher.

I hope you can stop by tomorrow for more tips.

Happy Reading!

Tag You're It! Now You Make A Picture!

I am over the moon excited over Tagxedo! It’s a website that turns words, famous speeches, poems, quotes, etc. into a VISUALLY stunning word cloud.

Click on the link to check it out. Tagxedo The possibility of ideas is endless. Here are a few that I dreamed up for up-coming spring activities:

The site is simple to use, so that even K students can be shown how to type in a list of words and create a special piece of art that can also become a card.

Brainstorm a list of words with students; write them on the board; students choose the ones appropriate for them and type them in.

These are three that I made for Mother’s Day. You can use mine, or have students describe their mom and make their own. Click on the link to view/download the Mother’s Day word pictures.

Different fonts, colors and shapes are available to choose from, so each child will come up with a unique keepsake for their mommy.

Another activity that you could do,  is to have students make up a list of adjectives that describe them.

Students make a word picture about themselves entitled “ME”.  I chose the handprint shape for mine, but they could choose whatever shape that represents them, such as a shape from their favorite sport, a ballerina, their age, their initial etc.

Teacher's could also make a "High Fives!" word art picture for each one of their students as a card for preschool or kindergarten graduation, or as a certificate for going into the next grade. 

I've also made, "Look Who's Leaping Into ______ Grade!" filled with fun words associated with the school year. There's also a matching bookmark or slap bracket to go along with the certificates.

Click on the "Look Who's Leaping!" template to view/download mine, or design your own with words specific to you and your school.

Tagxedo also has an awesome gallery featuring famous people.  Two of my favorites are Abe Lincoln and Martin Luther King.

How perfect to use word art, when studying these men. Have students plug in a speech, or adjectives they feel describe them.

What a wonderful vocabulary builder and great independent computer center to practice keyboarding skills!  It’s also a fun way for students to illustrate a poem or short story that they wrote!

I’m always looking for different ways for students to use Dolch and CVC words, so I typed in the various lists of Dolch and CVC words to make cute anchor charts.  I made a header that says:  How many words can you spy?

Students LOVE  “I Spy” and “Where’s Waldo?” books, so this is yet another way to immerse children in word work in a fun way. Run off copies of the various word pictures and have students “spy” the words in the collage.

Have them jot down the words as they find them and then, for another activity, students can alphabetize their list.

Have students make tally marks next to each word to see how many times they found it in the word picture, to reinforce yet another standard!

I've included an apple word art picture for all of the Dolch words for the following lists: pre-primer, kindergarten, first, second and third, + an apple for all of the Dolch nouns and an anchor chart that lists all of the words in their separate categories.

There are 8 CVC word posters. The shape depicts a CVC word. i.e. dog, pig, key etc. I've included an alphabetical list of all of the 338 CVC words used on the word art posters. Click on the links for the Dolch Word Picture Packet, CVC Word Picture Packet

I also thought it would be cute to make a graduation certificate using those themed-words. Click on the link to view/download the Kindergarten Graduation certificate word picture.

It’s also a great way to plug in new vocabulary as it relates to the various science themes that you study, like butterflies.

Click on the link to view/download the Butterfly Word Picture anchor chart.

As you can tell, I had an absolute blast on this site and hope you do to! Do you have a fun site that you relish? 

I’d enjoy hearing from you diane@teachwithme.com or feel free to post a comment here, especially if you use one of my ideas.

I hope you can pop by tomorrow for more ideas. Feel free to PIN anything you think others would find helpful. Thanks for visiting!