Eggcellent ideas for Spring

 I have ideas for activities with eggs for you.  The #kinderfriends are doing a give away too, so be sure to enter! I also have a sweet freebie for you. Keep reading so you can grab it.

I love doing a mini unit on spring with my class right before break.  Part of that unit is learning about all the baby animals being born.  It is really fun to learn about how many different animals come from eggs!  That's why I made this sweet little emergent reader:

My kiddos LOVE this book!  You can grab it right here:  Emergent Reader: Oviparous Animals - What Comes From an Egg?   We really enjoyed learning about a new animal each day for the next page.   I did a Google search each morning to show the kids real images for the eggs.  I projected the images on the big screen in our classroom. 

I also had some great books to read to my sweet students on this topic.  You can find lots more ideas for books and other activities about eggs and spring here:  Baby Birds! Spring ideas from Mrs. Byrd   You can also grab some tips on coloring eggs in your classroom and grab a FREEBIE for spring word work with plastic eggs here: Coloring eggs in the Classroom .

It's fun to have your students design a colorful egg for spring.  This is my teacher example that I show my students as I explain the art project to them.  You can see how we made these eggs on this blog post: Melt Art Fun!  I had a cute little bird in my egg.  But, it's fun to let your students pick whatever animal they want to come out of the egg.  

It's also really fun to hatch real eggs in your classroom.  Last year, some kids at school found these little yellow eggs and we hatched  them in our room.  We watched them go from eggs to larvae to pupae and finally we had live adult ladybugs.  It was an adventure every day finding aphids.  I am so glad I happened to have a great little habitat for the buggies!  I posted pictures and videos about the ladybugs on Instagram.  I try to post something on Insta from my classroom each day.  You can find me on Instagram here:  @mrsbyrdslearningtree

This year a sweet parent brought in some tadpoles from her pond.  It's been a learning experience keeping them.  None of us had ever tried to watch the frog life cycle in a classroom before.  Thankfully another sweet mom brought in a great bowl to keep them in.  

I was worried about how they would do over spring break and I was THRILLED today when they were still doing fine.  Yay! 

 Isn't this little guy cute?

OK, it's FREEBIE time!!!

I wanted a fun little number, counting, and number word review for my class this spring.  So I put together this little math station activity.  It is FREE this week only!  Grab it by Thursday April 13th 2017.  It will turn into a regular priced item on Thursday night.  The link is below.

I have kids work collaboratively to put the numeral cards in order first.   Then they take turns matching the nests and word cards to the numbers.    This set also has two worksheets to reinforce the concepts.  One is to practice the number words and neat handwriting.

The other sheet is a cut and paste matching numerals and number of eggs.  It's a cute one:

I hope this is a big help to you!  You can grab it in my TpT store here: Spring Eggs Number Match

Don't forget to enter the #kinderfriends giveaway.  Some buddies and I are giving away some "EGGSTRA" special spring products.  One lucky winner will get all 7 packs!  Woo hoo!  Hope you win:)

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Happy teaching!

Name Games! and a FREEBIE!

Hi there!  This post is about using your students' names as a beginning of the year literacy theme.  In kindergarten, these little students are babies!  They are just learning to write letters, and names are the most important letters in their world right now.  So, using names as a first theme for BTS is a no brainer.  Here are a few ideas to help you do some name activities in your classroom.

OK, first things first... I do not  put pictures of students on my blog very often.  When I do, faces are obscured, and permission has been given by parents.  THESE ARE NOT PICTURES OF REAL STUDENTS.  They are stock photos of kids that I have a commercial license to use.  I wanted a few "pretend" kids to show you what I do in my classroom without using my own students' names or pics.

Just had to get that off my chest.

OK, Back to learning with names...

 I always start my year with several sets of name cards.  It is really nice to make at least one set with pictures of the kiddos.  Here are some activities I like to do with names using the cards:

This fun student made emergent reader is a favorite with my kiddos all year long.  I take each child's photo early in the year.  I print out one color photo for each child.  Then I make black and white copies of all the photos.  I make sure there are plenty to go around.  For centers, we make the pages of this book using name cards.  I only do a few pages in the books, but you can do as many as you want.  The kids simply glue on a picture of a friend and write his or her name in the sentence below.

I use the color picture in each child's book for the last page, "I see me!"  Since there is no writing involved on that page, I make them, and the kids see it for the first time when they read the assembled book.  It's a surprise and they love it!

These are a favorite all year long.  I love these books because they are a great way to teach all those important early reading skills, especially pointing to the words!  It would be really easy to make these yourself.  I am sharing this idea freely.  So, go for it!  If you don't have the time to make it yourself, you can get it in my TpT shop for a buck.  Friends - Student made Emergent Reader for Back to School

After kids have had practice with writing names in the book, they can continue to practice using a sheet like this.  This is super fun to have in your writing center so kids can do it on their own.  Make sure you have a set of name cards with it so they can easily write the names.  This sheet came from my Print and Go! Back to School (NO PREP) set. 

We always sort the names by the number of letters in each.  This is a fun sheet for each child to do after the name sorting activity.  It is a review of writing, number, tally marks, ten frames, and a little face drawing too.  You can find it here: Print and Go! Back to School (NO PREP).

I also use the name cards to play games with my kiddos during attendance or circle time or whenever I have a few extra minutes with my group.  I like to cover the name and just show the first letter.  Then kids need to guess who it could be.  Once they are familiar with the names in the class, this becomes a great critical thinking activity.  When you have two kids with the same first letter, they can then decide who it is by looking at the second letter, and so on.  It is lots of fun for beginning of the year letter learning.  You can also clap the syllables in each name, do a rhyming game with the names, or phonemic awareness poems like Hickety Picktey Bummble bee, or Banana fanna....  you know those poems right?  Just in case you don't, here are examples of them using my name (Katie):

Hickety Pickety Bumble bee
Can you read this name for me?
Katie!
Can you clap it?
Katie (with a clap).
Can you shout it?
Katie (shouting)!
Can you whisper it?
Katie (in a whisper).

I do that little poem with sight words too.  It is very useful and can be changed up in any way you like, the clapping and shouting part, that is.  I recommend that you always end it with whisper, that way you have your group quiet and listening at the end of each name.  They can get a little excited with all the clapping and shouting.  But, it is lots of fun.

Here is the other one:

Katie, Katie, bo batie,
Banana fanna fo fatie,
Me, my, mo, matie,
Katie!

You can do that one with any word or name.  It can get a little tricky wit the long names, but just go for it!  The rhyming and alliteration make it a fun way to play with sounds in language.  Perfect for our little Kinder friends.  Perfect phonemic awareness practice.  And it's FUN!  Woo hoo!

I also do Student of the Day!  It is the ultimate in literacy learning through student names.  I will do a post on that once I get started with my new group of sweeties.  Stay tuned...


OK, were you really just looking for this?

Here is your Name Bingo freebie.  It's a fun and purposeful way to get some name writing practice into your centers time early in the year.  First, kids write their name on the grid one letter in each box.  Then repeat until all boxes are filled.  The photo at the top of the post is an example of how it should look when it is complete.  THIS IS HARD FOR KINDERS!   So, I highly recommend you do this as a teacher supported activity.   After names have been written correctly onto the grid (and traced with marker if you like), then you can laminate, and use these as game boards for ABC bingo with any set of alphabet cards.  If you need some cards and other games for alphabet learning, you can find some here: ABC Games! Fun Activities for learning the Alphabet.

Just click on the image below to go get your Name Bingo FREEBIE:

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope you found some helpful ideas for your classroom.
Happy teaching!

How do you teach the ABC's? Part One

This is the first of several upcoming posts on how I teach letters and sounds in my classroom.  So, first things first, if you are teaching kindergarten, please tell me that you don't do letter of the week anymore!  I was soooo glad to read this on Cara Carroll's blog too!  I have been thinking it for years now, thank goodness someone just put it right out there.  Kindergarten kids need to have a working knowledge of letters and sounds by the end of the first trimester in order to meet grade level expectations for the end of the year. So, teaching letters weekly just doesn't work.

OK, so... time for true confessions.  Even just a few years ago, I was still doing a poem each week that had a letter reference and activity with it.  Although it wasn't really a "letter of the week" program, I finally came to the realization that it wasn't appropriate any more.  By the second half of the school year, my students were so "beyond" the letter work, I was feeling bad.  It's hard sometimes, as teachers, when we see the value in certain activities, but we know that it is time to move on.  Well, I finally moved on.

So, I tweaked my alphabet program a bit.  Instead of a weekly poem book, my students make a little ABC emergent reader.  It is one of the first books they learn to read.  Not only does it help internalize letter names and sounds, but it also helps my students learn to handle books, point as they read, understand directionality with text, and it makes them feel confident as readers.  Woo hoo!  That's why I love these little books and am happy I made the shift to these.

These books are VERY simple.  You could easily make them yourself by drawing out the pages (wink, wink).  If you have the time and inclination to do that, go for it!  This is not an original idea.  But, if you don't have the time to make them yourself, you can go get these in my TpT store:  ABC Book! Student made Emergent Reader for Letter Learning

I have my kiddos do a page each day as a center activity for the first few weeks of school.  It is nice to have an activity that they feel comfortable doing as we are learning routines and setting expectations.  For each letter, I set out lots of matching picture cards like these (ABC Cards! Letter matching cards for learning) .  I am also in the process of teaching my kinesthetic alphabet to them at the same time.  We are also reading lots of alphabet books.  We are doing lots of hands on activities with tactile letters.  They are getting immersed with letters as we make these books.

The important thing about this book, is that students choose what picture they will draw for each letter.   When the child chooses, she will usually pick something that she has already associated with that letter and sound.  This creates a STRONG connection between letter and sound.  It helps students master letters and sounds quickly.  It has been working well in my classroom.  That is why I am finally sharing this with you.  I have had proven success with this.  (...and I finally made it into an actual product I can share... ha ha!)

You get the idea.  There are also pages with the pictures and words already on them.  Those are for TK or preschool sweeties.  Here are a couple of those:

 

So the pre-K pages do not require drawing, just coloring.  I used these with my TK students last year and they were perfect.  The pictures are aligned with my Kinesthetic Alphabet.  What is a kinesthetic alphabet, you ask?  Well, that is a whole other blog post.  So, keep posted.  It is coming soon.

I hope this idea helps you to teach the alphabet in your classroom this year.  Stay tuned for future posts on this topic.  Letters and sounds are such an important foundation in literacy.  So, it is something we need to share and talk about.  If you want to use this little book in your classroom, you can get it on my TpT shop.  Just click on the image below:

If you have some great ideas for how you teach letters in your classroom, leave a comment below.  I hope we can get a little conversation going.  Let's share best practices to help make us all better teachers.

 

Happy teaching!

Counting and Reading

Hi there!  This is a quick little post on a cute counting book my kiddos made.  It is a simple idea, but has been a great little reader.  I especially love how it is helping my students practice reading the number words.  I thought it would be fun to use these old teddy bear stamps I had hanging around...

Do any of you still have these in your classroom?  They are soooooo old.  I am pretty sure they are from the Mathland program.   It was the math adoption back when I first started teaching over 15 years ago.  But, since I don't use mine often, they are in very good shape and worked out great for this little book!  My kids did the pages as an independent center over several days. 

My sweet little students did a great job on these.  But more importantly, they are a favorite in the book boxes and are read weekly by most of my kids.  I just LOVE when something we do covers both reading AND math.  This little book covers LOTS of standards!  There is something so magical about books that the kids make themselves.  They are so much more engaging than the other reading books we use.  The kiddos love reading them!  (and that makes me very HAPPY!!!!!!!!)

So, I want to put this out there to other teachers - I am sharing this idea so that you can do this in your classroom.  Yes, of course it is for sale on TPT, but since I am sharing it all right here on the blog....  if you have the time and inclination to make your own, GO FOR IT!!!!  I feel like all we do in our blogging, making products, and pinning on Pinterest, is sharing ideas and helping each other.  That is always my intention when I make something.  I made it for my own classroom and am just passing it on in hopes it helps you too!

It would also be really cute to make the pages using stickers like these.  In my packet, there is a page of paper teddies the kiddos can color, cut, and glue on to the pages.  There is also a set of pages with the teddies already on them.

So if you don't have the time or inclination to make it yourself but would like to use this book in your classroom, you can get it here (just click on the image):

Thanks for stopping by the blog.
Happy Teaching!