1-2-3 Come Read and Write the Room With Me

Reading and writing the room was always a fun activity for my students.  I think making them ABC De-tectives and allowing them to roam the room with their worksheet on a clipboard, helped encourage an enthusiastic effort.

With that in mind, I designed some "Read and Write the Room" worksheets.   You can simply make copies of the template you like best and have students fill them out, sending them home when they finish, or you can take advantage of all of the back to school super sales going on and pick up notebooks for as little as .15 cents.

By having students glue the worksheets to a page in their Read and Write the Room Journal, you'll have an easy way to show student progress during parent teacher conferences.

If you start the journals in October and have students “write the room” once a week,  (using a new letter) you’ll complete them in April, and have a wonderful end-of-the-year keepsake for them to haul home.

The first photo is one journal option, if you like the idea of running off separate worksheets.  I have two kinds available.  One has a traceable letter box with an empty one for children to write the upper and lowercase letter in.

The other is an "I spy" version and has students draw something that they see that begins with that letter.  You can pick the style you like best or mix things up to add more interest and variety.

Another option is seen in the second photo. Here you conserve paper and the time it takes to run things off. Run off the "Read and Write the Room!" template, trim and glue to the inside cover.

Students use the “master” to write their own page for the letter of the week.  If you assign a new letter each week, it will take you 6 months (+2 weeks) to complete the journals. 

If you want to continue afterwards, you can run off my "roam the room" alphabet cards.  (Laminate them so you can use them each year.)

Toss them in a container and have students pick one.  That will be the letter they "roam the room" looking for.  You can use the blank template as a worksheet for them to fill in whatever, or one of the other options.

As with all of my other alphabet cards, you can use them for games, flashcards, sequencing etc.  A tip list is included to give you some ideas and includes the "Kaboom!" game.

I've also included a simple ABC De-tective alphabet worksheet, where students roam the room, trying to find something that begins with each letter of the alphabet. 

There are also several choices for the cover of the notebook journals.  Choose one, run off, trim and glue to the cover of your notebooks.  You could also have students design their own cover. 

Click on the link to view/download the Read and Write the Room Packet.  Thanks for visiting today.  Feel free to PIN away.

I'm off to try and find the bottom of my desk.  So many design ideas, so little time!  I need to prioritize and organize!  Can you relate?

The difference between school and life?  In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test.  In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson." -Tom Bodett  

1-2-3 Count Up To 100-Day With Me!

I always like to repost the Zero The Hero packet (a super popular download) at the end of July, as teachers are thinking about back to school.  It's a whopping 171 pages (!) and an oldie but goodie for "Throw Back Thursday".

I start keeping track of how many days we'd been in school that very first day.  A counting up to 100-Day idea, that is a “must have” for me, is Zero The Hero. He is a fun vehicle for incorporating all sorts of math skills.

I designed an entire packet around Zero, including a friend named Zippy, who would allow teachers to toss in a little geography.  

There just never seems to be enough time in the day for everything, and geography is one of those “things” that my students needed a bit more of.

Zippy is a quick, fun and easy solution, as he travels to places around the world that begin with the letters O and Z.

Celebrate every 10^th day by making a page in your Zero the Hero book. 

What a great keepsake to take home on 100 Day, and interesting way to learn how to count by 10's.

Students put 10 reinforcement holes on their number. (I use these instead of stickers because they are really inexpensive, but you could switch things up if you wanted to. )

This is a nice fine-motor and counting skill + each child will then have 100 “zero-stickers” in their booklet on the 100^th  Day of school when they complete their last page!

Students will also enjoy zipping around the world to interesting O and Z places with Zippy. 

The passport is sure to be a huge hit, complete with travel  and award stickers.

 Included are: clue sheets, notes, and an

“I Wonder Where Zippy Is?” Guessing-Poster.

Students will have fun learning about the various places as they work with parents to find and bring in an interesting fact in their "home-school" connection assignment. 

Follow up their adventures, by locating places on your classroom map.

Make a Zero the Hero count by 5’s slider and a Zippy count by 10’s slider to review skip counting and identify numbers.

Various activities reinforce a variety of report card standards and are sequential and repetitious, so that students know what to do.

Because of this, kids are empowered and are able to do these as independent center activities, which are great for Daily Five or other “no hassle” centers.

For example, on the 30th day of school, students bingo dot their skill sheet and then graph their cup of 30 Froot Loops. Afterwards, they can make a necklace out of the brightly colored cereal or eat it.

Students keep everything in a folder and have a wonderful keepsake to take home on the 100^th day of school.

Click on the link to see sample pages from this 171-page unit and then download it.

What a fun way to count up to 100-Day while reinforcing a variety of report card standards!  Zero the Hero packet   For more fun ways to count up to 100 Day click on the link.  

Thanks for visiting today.  Feel free to PIN away. 

1-2-3 Come Make Some Banners With Me

More and more schools are telling teachers that they only want them to put up student-made bulletin boards that showcase their work, so I thought I’d take it a step farther and have student-made banners too.

I LOVE how festive a classroom and hallway look, when they are decorated to the nines with children’s “mess-terpieces.” As I’ve shared before, I have spent a small fortune on decorations for all of the seasons, months, and themes that I taught, so I like to design lots of FREEBIES so that you don’t have to.

A “Welcome” banner suspended from the ceiling in your room or hallway, is a wonderful way to greet children on their first day of school.

I thought it would be fun for them to help create that banner by coloring it.  A "full shot" of the banner, isn't that good, so I decided to just show the 1st pennant and the first letter in welcome, so you can still get an idea of  how they look.  The 1st and last pennants also come in black and white if you want your students to color them as well.

The first few days are often very hectic with all sorts of rules and regulations to go through, along with a lot of forms to fill out for each student. It’s nice to have an independent quiet activity little ones can do, so you are freed up to get some of that one-on-one stuff done.

Even if you have already started school, your students will enjoy having a part in decorating their classroom, making it look comfy with their special creations.

I have designed a color as well as a black and white version, of the cute “saying” pennant that starts your banner. (There are 3 "saying" options for the cow.) Because I’m all about things looking symmetrical, I suggest putting a duplicate at the end of the banner as well.

Run off and pass out the pennant pieces to your students. They color and cut them out. When everyone is done, gather on the carpet circle and put your banner together, spelling out the word “Welcome.” To add a bit more pizzazz you could tie ribbon bows inbetween each triangle.

So that you have enough pieces for each child, and your banner looks great from both sides, put the other set back-to-back. This will give you 16 total pennants.

If you have more than 16 students in your class (At this point with budget cuts I think we can only dream of small class sizes.) make another banner for a total of 32 pieces.

This can be hung as one long streamer down the hall above your door, or as 2 separate banners across your classroom ceiling. If you don’t have that many students in your class, allow early finishers to color the extra pennant pieces. You could also do one.

I tried to think of the more popular themes so that the Welcome Banners would match your room. Click on the link for the OWL welcome banner, the COW welcome banner, the APPLE welcome banner.

The WESTERN welcome banner & the PIRATE welcome banner, both feature a different pennant for each letter.

I've included a pennant for preschool, kindergarten and 1st grade.  I thought they were a bit too cutesy for older grades, but if you don't, and want one for 2nd or 3rd grade, drop me an e-mail and I'll make you one.diane@teachwithme.com

I've seen a lot of frog themed activities, especially about "leaping into a new grade, so I also made a  FROG banner.

Superheroes continue to be very popular so here's a SUPER HERO banner  as well. To view/download them, click on their links.

Why not  change your banner every now and then, as you switch themes.   If you’d like me to whip together another themed-banner, simply shoot me an e-mail and I’ll see what I can do.

Thanks for visiting today.  If you’d like to see all of the wonderful educational FREEBIES that I PIN, simply click on the “Follow me” heart on the right of the blog.

“Our success multiplies each time we lead someone else to success.” –Susan Collins