Let's Go! Let's Get Out In That SNOW!

Yesterday I updated and posted the ordinal number winter poster packet to rave reviews. (Thanks!  So glad you liked it. I guess lots of teachers & parents were in the same boat. )  This sort of “What goes on next?” always helped my Y5’s and expedited things, so we could waddle out for recess before the bell rang to come back in!

I decided to follow that up by updating an emergent reader booklet on the same subject, that will help you review Common Core State Standards: RF.K1a, RF.K1c, RF.K3c, L.K2a, L.K2b

Like the poster, the booklet helps your students identify winter clothing words and the order clothes should be put on. Students correct the sentences by adding ending punctuation and a capital letter to the beginning word.

They trace and then write the ordinal number, as well as the article of clothing that is put on.

Students use pictures as clues to read the sentences, as they cut and glue other pictures to the matching numbered boxes.  This packet is great for your Daily 5 word work activities.

There are 58 words in the booklet, 30 of which are Dolch sight words. I've included 58 traceable word cards to practice with, as well as worksheets involving contractions also found in the booklet, plus some word work with compound words.

Since the booklet is all about getting ready to go out to play in snowy winter weather, I thought it would be fun to see how many compound words starting with the word snow, I could come up with. 

Can you think up more than my 15?  I’d love hearing from you!  I still don’t understand why snow pants is not a compound word! Anyone have an answer to that?  diane@teachwithme.com or post a comment here.

The packet also includes:

• 58 traceable word cards + covers to make Itty Bitty Booklets.
• 8 matching picture cards (Great for playing Memory Match or "I Have; Who Has?" games.)
• A graphing extension
• + 4 skill sheets, which include: Match the word from the story to the picture.
• An alphabetizing worksheet
• A compound word worksheet. (Trace and write 15 new words that begin with snow.) and
• A contraction worksheet +
• A certificate of praise when students can read the booklet independently.

Click on the link to view/download the Let’s Go! Let’s Play In The Snow Easy Reader Booklet Be sure to scroll down for yesterday's article "This Is How We Get Ready" if you missed it, and grab the matching FREEBIES.

Thanks for visiting. My feet have hit the floor running today, as my Christmas decorations need to be taken down and packed away, along with a myriad of other things.   Anyone else hate that job? 

“Leave as little to chance as possible.  Preparation is the key to success.” –Paul Brown

1+1=1 Compound Word!

Are you working on compound words with your students? This is a comprehensive list of 2,718 compound words for PK-12th grade. 

Choose ones appropriate for your grade-level. I spent hours compiling this alphabetical list of compound words for you to choose from.

This is the 3rd updated list. I've added 40 more compound words. (The 2nd up-date had 22 additional compound words + corrections.)

In this 19-page packet there’s also a compound word anchor definition chart, compound word of the day poster, and a compound word header poster of Compound words we've spied! so that your students can make up their own list of words when they discover them while reading.

Build students' vocabularies and have them learn a new compound word each day as you count up to 100 Day!

I've provided a cover for a compound word booklet.  Choose a compound word from my list, or have students select a compound word that they'd like to learn.

Have them write it in their compound word booklet, break down the two words, and define them. What a fun way to increase their vocabulary skills.

Working on compound words is a great activity for Daily 5 "word work" too.

Click on the link to view/download the 2,718 compound word list.

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“Accomplishment influences confidence, and confidence influences accomplishment.” –Harold S. Hook

This Is How We Do It!

Do your little ones put their mittens on and then wonder why they can't zip up their jacket, or put their boots on first and then get their feet stuck inside their snowpants?

I found that if I put a picture prompt poster up in the hallway that listed the articles of clothing that should be put on first, second and third etc. my Y5's not only got ready so much faster, but I had a teachable moment for them to learn ordinal numbers.

No more taking stuff off to start over again.  For many of my little peanuts they barely had time to play because they were taking so long to get dressed to go out for a 10-minute recess!

I gave them the added incentive of having a sticker snowflake-star chart of who got done the quickest. 

The first three done, got snowflake stickers.  10-stickers meant a trip to the treasure box.  This incentive got things moving quickly.

What boot to put on always posed a problem too, until I had a room helper, cut silver Duct tape squares with me.

We stuck them on the right toe of everyone's right boot and taught students to put their right boot on FIRST. (The one with the silver square on it!)

It was a lifesaver as well as timesaver!  Print off several posters and put them up in various locations in your hallway, by your students' lockers.

Review the posters and what the pictures mean, so children know the order of how to get dressed. 
I included the line about socks, because for some unknown reasons, many of my little ones were peeling them off along with their shoes.

I hope this poster helps your students get ready fast, so they can get outside, get those wiggles out, and have a great recess.  Click on the link to view/download This Is How We Get Ready! winter poster.

Thank you for visiting today. Feel free to PIN anything you think others may find helpful.  Do you have a getting ready tip you could share with us? I'd enjoy hearing from you. diane@teachwithme.com or leave a comment here.

"Quality schools are the result of quality teachers and deidicated staff going above and beyond the call of duty." -Unknown

You Asked For More... So Here's Gingerbread Galore!

Are you doing a gingerbread theme for December and need some activities that fit your report card standards?  You’ve come to the right place!

I just finished making some adorable alphabet cards using some of my favorite clipart from Laura Strickland.

I’ve included both upper and lowercase letters as well as a blank set for you to program with whatever else you can think up, like equations, or students’ names.

There’s also a 3-page tip list of what else to do with the cards including games, so I’ve included “Kaboom” bomb cards as well, plus covers so that your students can also make Itty Bitty Alphabet Booklets too.

Click on the link to view/download the Gingerbread Alphabet Cards.

Venn diagrams are a wonderful way for students to compare and contrast a variety of things.

During my Gingerbread unit, I read half a dozen versions of the tale, including Jan Brett’s Ginger Baby.

By having students fill out a Venn diagram, they can easily see the similarities and differences in the stories, as well as with characters.

It’s also fun for them to compare and contrast themselves to the gingerbread man. Click on the link to view/download the 4 Gingerbread Venn diagrams.

I always liked to have a little surprise sitting on my students’ desks when they came in, in the morning, or something to staple to their paper if they completed their work or stayed on task.

These 4 different gingerbread bookmarks are great incentives to help motivate your students.

Click on the link to view/download the 4 Gingerbread Bookmarks.

Finally, as we can all empathize, teaching grammar can be a bit tedious.  Spice things up by going on a “Gingerbread Hunt!”

Choose 10 of the 18 Gingerbread Sentence cards and scatter them around the room.  Number the backs with a dry erase marker and attach a magnet so students can sequence them on the white board, or put them in your pocket chart.

I’ve provided a numbered game paper for students to rewrite the sentences correctly, including beginning capital letters and ending punctuation marks.

How sweet is that?  I’m sure your students will enjoy it more than the “same old-same old.”

When everyone is done, choose students to correct the laminated cards with a red dry erase marker, and have them self-correct their own gingerbread paper.

I’ve included several different certificates of praise that they can choose from, for a job well done! Click on the link to view/download Gingerbread Sentences.

If you are looking for more gingerbread activities or gingerbread arts and crafts, scroll down to check out my other gingerbread articles.

I hope you find these gingerbread activities a sweet learning treat for your students and that you have a terrific time doing your lessons this December.

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

“It takes time to save time.” –Joe Taylor

1-2-3 Count Gingerbread With Me!

"Run! Run; as fast as you can. Try and catch me! I'm the gingerbread man!"

In this sweet counting booklet, the gingerbread man is running past a number of Old Mac Donald's farm animals, as students count backwards from 10 to 0, making it a terrific booklet to practice "blasting off" counting.

This is also a fun way to review subtraction by taking away one and makes a nice independent math center.

Students are encouraged to make the animal sounds, the number of times that correspond to the matching number of animals that the gingerbread sees, which is a wonderful opportunity to introduce the word onomatopoeia to them.

You can finish up by reading the booklet as a whole group to reinforce concepts of print and then sing the song Old MacDonald as well.

Follow up your reading block by having your students crouch down and blast off to their seats to make one of the gingerbread manipulatives in the Arts and Activities packet.  If you do use this booklet for your reading block, it works well for a Daily 5 activity too.

Click on the link to view/download The Gingerbread and OldMacDonald Counting Booklet.  If you're looking for more Gingerbread Activities, simply click on the link to go to that section of my shopping cart.  Everything's FREE.

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

Thank you for visiting today.  Feel free to PIN anything you think others might find worthwhile.

"Make sure you choose your own path and stick to it." -Apples and Chalkdust

Run Run As Fast As You Can!  Hop On Board And Make A Gingerbread Man.

The Gingerbread Art and Activity Book has 108 pages of heartwarming arts & crafts + activities that will dazzle and delight.

Some full color pictures, + copy-ready patterns and step-by-step directions for each project are included.

These projects all involve many of your report card standards, like the "Pocket Pal" (pictured on the left.)

If you look closely you can see that the face of the gingerbread is made out of construction paper + 1/2 of a paper plate, which makes a pocket that contains colored shapes, and skip counting folded number strips + anything else you may want to review that day.

The gingerbread "Story Slider" has students sequence the Gingerbread tale to retell the story and makes a nice Daily 5 activity.

The gingerbread clock is an easy and different way to reinforce telling time with your students.

The gingerbread paper chain is a wonderful way to review whatever color pattern you choose, as well as have students count down the days to Christmas, as they tear off a link each day.

Children are learning and reinforcing much-needed math, writing, and science concepts while enjoying art that has a gingerbread theme.  It was one of my Young Fives favorites.

As you can see, many of these make terrific manipulatives, 
or great keepsakes for parents.  You can use them as gifts, bulletin boards, hallway and classroom decorations or for portfolios.

Some of the projects include songs and poems to reinforce those concepts as well.

Click on the link to view/download the Gingerbread Art and Activity Book

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

“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson

1-2-3 Come Make a Gingerbread Glyph With Me

I enjoyed making glyphs with my students each month. Glyphs are a pictorial form of data, also known as a pictograph.

They are an easy and interesting way to help reinforce listening and following directions and make a great display for a hallway.  My Y5’s enjoyed making them + they provided an opportunity to learn more about their classmates.

If listening and following directions, is a report card standard for you, glyphs are a wonderful whole group assessment tool for that.

Because of the variety of questions, you can also turn some of them into graphing extensions. i.e. Do you like gingerbread? Have you ever made Christmas cookies? etc.

Turning your students into glyph detectives is also a fun way for them to learn how to collect data and analyze results.

Give students 10 minutes to see how many gingerbread glyphs they can figure out. By using your personal glyph as an example, take a moment to explain how they would go about doing this.

When the glyphs are complete, number them, and display the gingerbread in the hallway. Write a list of student names at the top of a pre-numbered sheet of paper.

Give students 5-10 minutes in the hallway to try and figure out the gingerbread glyph mysteries.

When the timer rings, flip up the glyphs to read whose glyph it is, and have students self-correct their papers.

The person with the most correct, gets a gingerbread sticker or whatever you deem is appropriate.

I’ve included my purple gingerbread glyph as an example. The coloring didn’t come through the scanner as bright as I wanted it to.  Click on the link to view/print the Gingerbread Glyph

If you are looking for other glyphs, I have made one for each month. Click on the link to go to the glyph section.  Scroll down to view the examples and click on whatever else you want to download. 

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

Do you have a glyph you could share with us? I’d enjoy hearing from you.  diane@teachwithme.com or post a comment here.

“Little by little does the trick!” -Abraham Lincoln.

ABC and 1-2-3 Come Learn With The Turkeys and Me!

Are you looking for an interesting way to review Common Core State Standard: RI.K1d?

Why not try these Alphabet Turkey Cards and play some games?

The 20-page packet includes the upper and lowercase letters together as seen in the picture on the left + separate uppercase letters and separate lowercase letters, so you can play a variety of games like Memory Match games as well as "I Have; Who Has?"

I’ve also included a blank set of turkeys to program however you want + a 3- page list of tips of what else to do with the cards.

Click on the link to view/download the Alphabet Turkey Cards.

After I finished the alphabet template, it was easy enough to make a numbered one too, so I designed some Turkey Counting Cards.

The 20-page math packet includes numbered turkeys to 30 + skip counting turkeys for 2's, 3's, 5's and 10's.

I've also included covers, so students can make Itty Bitty Turkey Counting Booklets.

There's a blank set of turkeys + 2-pages of tips of what else you can do with the cards including games you can play.

Simply laminate the sheets and then cut the turkey cards into whatever shape you desire.

Click on the link to view/download Turkey Counting Cards.

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

Do you have a Thanksgiving lesson you could share with us? I’d enjoy hearing from you. diane@teachwithme.com or leave a comment here.

“There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving and that’s you own self. “ –Aldous Huxley