1-2-3 Come Do An Alphabet Craftivity With Me

Woo hoo for me; woo hoo for you!  As some of you know, I just opened a shop on TpT May 6th  We've reached our 1st "milestone" of 100 followers.  In celebration of that, here's a special little FREEBIE great for anytime, but especially nice for back-to-school.

So that I could get a handle on where my new kiddos were at, I always liked to do some fun assessing the first week of school. 

Testing and assessing students can be tedious and overwhelming for young children, as well as time consuming for teachers.  Keeping that in mind, I designed Alpha Bird.

Precut "Alfie's" body parts from a variety of colors of construction paper.  Students choose the pattern pieces that they want, and glue them to their paper plate bird body, which is simply a folded paper plate.

To expedite things, I'd fold and staple them shut ahead of time, leaving the bottom middle open so that students can insert the birds "legs".  For extra pizzazz, I added several feathers for a tail.  You can buy a bag at The Dollar Store.

Students cut and glue the alphabet strips to make Alfie's legs. When everyone has completed their alpha bird, play "I Spy" by calling out a letter.  Because the legs are long, and to increase upper body strength, have children lie on their tummies.

Students find and trace both the upper and lowercase letters.  When they  have done so, children raise their hand, so that you know that everyone is done. 

With just a glance, you can see who is struggling, either trying to find a letter, tracing the wrong one, or peeking at others to see what they're doing.  

Jot yourself a note, so that you can work with these children later. Call on a child to choose the next letter.  Play 'til all of the letters have been traced.

Alfie offers a simple, quick and interesting way to whole group assess, while providing a nice review of upper and lowercase letters. 

The birds also make a stunning hallway wall border.  Simply tie a yarn loop at the top and suspend from the ceiling.  Caption: "We know our letters and that's something to TWEET about!"

If you don't want to do this craftivity with your students, but like the different assessment idea, simply make your own alpha bird, hang him on a wall, and use Alfie to individually assess, in a non-threatening fun way. Click on the link to grab a copy of this fun FREEBIE: Alfie the Alpha Bird.  

Well that's it for today.  Thanks for stopping by, and a very special thank you to all of my loyal followers!  Wishing you a warm and wonderful summer.

"If plan B doesn't work, don't give up; the alphabet has 25 more letters!"  -Unknown

1-2-3 Come Do An Alphabet Craftivity With Me

So that I could get a handle on the ability of my  new students, I always liked to do some fun assessing of my first graders the first week of school.  

Testing and assessing students can be tedious and overwhelming for young children, as well as time consuming for you.  Keeping that in mind, I designed Alpha Bird.

Precut "Alfie's" body parts from a variety of colors of construction paper.  Students choose the pattern pieces that they want, and glue them to their paper plate bird body. 

To expedite things, I'd fold the paper plates and staple them shut ahead of time, leaving the bottom middle open so that students can insert their alpha-bird legs.  

For extra pizzazz I added several feathers for a tail.  You can buy a bag full at The Dollar Store.

Students cut and glue the alphabet strips to make Alfie's legs. When everyone has completed their alpha bird, play "I Spy" by calling out a letter. 

Students find and trace both the upper and lowercase letters.  When they  have done so, children raise their hand, so that you know that everyone is done. 

With just a glance, you can see who is struggling.  Call on a child to choose the next letter.  Play 'til all of the letters have been traced.

Alfie offers a simple, quick and interesting way to whole group assess, while providing a nice review of upper and lowercase letters.  The birds also make a stunning hallway wall border.  Simply tie a yarn loop at the top and suspend from the ceiling.  Caption: "We know our letters and that's something to TWEET about!"

Click on the link to grab a copy of this fun FREEBIE: Alfie the Alpha Bird. 

"If plan B doesn't work, don't give up; the alphabet has 25 more letters!" 

Tweet! Tweet! Life Is Sweet!

It’s now all the rage to “tweet” news, so why not make tweeting a fun writing prompt.

I’ve designed 2 “craftivity” headers for your students to pick from, that will make writing even more fun.

The results will make a lovely springtime bulletin board as well.

Make a robin template by tracing, then cutting the birds out of old file folders.

Students trace them onto recycled newspapers and cut out their robin.

They can leave the bird as is, or add a bit of color to the orange breast, yellow beak and add a black dot for an eye.

Run off the nest master on brown construction paper and have students cut around it.

The robin’s blue eggs can be pre-cut.  Review and discus what a main idea is.

Students’ write the main idea of their “newsflash” on the whole egg.

Print off their school photo and cut the headshots into ovals.  Students glue their photo to the back of the “hatched” egg.

Children glue the eggs and newspaper bird to the nest and the nest to the top of their “Tweet” paper, writing one to two “tweets”.

The other option is a word art robin.  I made this on the awesome website Tagxedo.

You can use my template, (run it off and have students cut it out and glue it to a sheet of brown construction paper & trim.) or you can have students go to the site and type in their own word list, using adjectives that describe their news, or have them type in their entire tweet!

The site is easy to navigate.

Since they did not have a bird shape, I imported one and have provided the clip art for you.  Simply use my pdf, save it as a jpeg to your desktop.

When you click on shapes on the left, you’ll get a window with all the blue shape options,  on the bottom is a box that says “add image” click on that.

Make sure “desktop” is in the top file window.  Scroll down ‘til you find the "robin" file.  Click on it to import, then click "accept" in the bottom right box.

The robin is a state bird for several, so make it a teachable moment with a few facts about your state and the bird if you like.

There’s also writing prompt about those “tweet” friends your students have and a mini certificate of praise to tweet the good news to family.

If you have an I Pad or e-mail account at school, with a real Twitter account, (easy to set one up for pupil praise purposes) why not let students who have done an especially fine job with this activity, really Tweet about it! 

Let them know about this bonus ahead of time, for added incentive!

Click on the link to view/download the Tweet Stuff packet.

I hope you can fly on back tomorrow for more fun tips! It's OK to PIN anything you think might be helpful or interesting to others too.

Happy Tweeting!

Scroll down for article #2 today...More preschool kindergarten graduation ideas.