Teaching Children, Colors My World With Love

The easy reaader, My Penguin Color booklet is  terrific for your penguin theme and a fun way to review colors and color words.

Students read the simple sentences, trace, write and color the color words. They can also color the penguin and the featured object.

There's plenty of room for students to draw the featured noun in the sentence, or write that word as well.

To nail even more standards, have student circle the beginning word capital letter, as well as the ending punctuation.

When everyone has completed their booklet, read it aloud as a whole group, so you can cover concepts of print.

While doing so, remind them that there are spaces between words and that they are reading from left to right and top down.

I've also included a cute certificate of praise.

Click on the link to view/download My Penguin Color booklet.

In keeping with the color theme, I also wrote My Winter Colors booklet, which helps review Common Core State Standards: RF.K1a, RF.k1c, RF.K3c

It follows the same format as the penguin booklet does.  The sentences feature winter things that are a specific color, such as white snowflakes.

The last page offers a writing prompt.  Students write what their favorite winter color is and then name something that color and draw a picture of it.

Both of these booklets make nice activities for your winter Daily 5 work.

Click on the link to view/download My Winter Color booklet.

Thank you for visiting today. I hope your winter is filled with happy and colorful moments.

Feel free to PIN anything that you think others may find helpful.

Do you have a color word activity you can share with us? I'd enjoy hearing from you. diane@teachwithme.com or post a comment here.

"Motivation is what gets you started.  Habit is what keeps you going." Jim Rohn

The Silly Shaped Penguins Family Has GROWN!

Do you remember the Silly Shaped Penguins I packet I made a while back?

It features 2D shaped penguin craftivities + an easy reader with a surprise ending, where the last penguin is in the shape of a child’s shoe, thus making the booklet a special keepsake.

It has been THE most popular download in January and has been pinned a zillion times.

Many requests have come in for an additional page with penguin patterns for the newer shapes: pentagon, hexagon and octagon, that have since become standards for some teachers.

Well, you asked for them, you got them.  Here is the Silly Shaped Penguins 2 packet.

It contains the patterns for the pentagon penguin as well as the hexagon and octagon penguins.

I’ve also included these as an additional page in the booklet.

If you don’t teach those shapes, simply don’t add that page, or you could “raise the bar” and challenge students to learn some new ones!

Click on the link to view/download Silly Shaped Penguins 2.

Thanks for visiting today.  Feel free to PIN anything you think others might enjoy.

“Write it on your heart, that every day is the best day in the year.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Waddle You Do, To Help Students With Letter Recognition?

Are you studying penguins with your students?

This was one of my Y5’s favorite themes.  I think they are so adorable and enjoy designing with them.

I just finished Penguin Letter Puzzles

Since putting together a puzzle as well as identifying  letters were report card standards, I decided to combine the 2 activities.

Print, laminate and cut out the puzzles.  Store them in a file folder or manila envelope.

Students spill them out at a center and work on matching the lowercase letter on the heart to the uppercase letter on the balloon.

You can also pass them out and play “I Have; Who Has?” “I have the uppercase letter A.  Who has the matching lowercase letter?

Students enjoy these reinforcement games because they are easy and fun, and you have a chance to whole-group assess to see who is having difficulty and needs extra help.

When children can do these activities successfully, you can give them the two certificates of praise.

I’ve also included a set without the puzzle lines, so you can put them on the wall for a December or January ABC border.

There’s a blank page as well, so you can program the penguins with numbers, names, words, equations etc.

Click on the link to view/download Penguin Puzzle Pals.

Thanks for visiting today.  Feel free to PIN anything you think might be useful to others.

“Learn from yesterday; live for today; hope for tomorrow.” –Albert Einstein

Ring In The New Year With ABC's and 1-2-3's

Sliders are a fun way for your students to review upper and lowercase letters, counting by 1's to 30, skip counting by 2's, 3's, 5's and 10's, plus counting backwards from 10-0 and 20-0.

Students trace the letters and numbers and make a snowman or penguin slider to insert their strips into.

I've included a colorful snowman and penguin as well as ones that are plain, so students can color their own.

You can jazz them up even more by mounting them on construction paper, as I did the snowman. 

Give students a glue bottle or for little ones, put a dollop of glue on a small paper plate and have them use a Q-tip to make X number of dots as they count, then sprinkle with silver glitter after you have finished working with the sliders and have reviewed whatever lessons you wanted to.

Students set their sliders some place safe 'til they are dry and can take them home.

How do you make a slider?

Simply run off the templates, (I use white construction paper so they are more durable) and rough cut them, so that students can practice their own cutting skills, which will exercise and strengthen hand muscles.

You may want to slit the lines in the slider's body before hand.  This is difficult for little ones to manage with safety scissors.  I use an X-acto knife.

Students trim, color and trace their slider and then insert whatever strips you want them to review.

Have students fold down their long ABC strip to manage it better and for ease of taking them home.

Encourage parents, via a newsletter to reinforce these lessons at home.

You can sing the Alphabet Song while pulling letters through the window.

You can play "I Spy" and have a student call out a letter or number.  Everyone pulls their strip through til they find it and then raise their slider, so that you see at a glance who has what so that you can whole group assess and help those who are struggling.

Laminate a set for yourself and use as a fun way to assess individuals as well.

Click on the link to view/down load the Snowman Alphabet and Number Slider or The Penguin Slider.

Thank you for visiting today.  Feel free to PIN anything you think others may find helpful.

"Tomorrow [January 1st] is the first blank page of a 365-page book.  Write a good one!" -Brad Paisley