Earth & Martian Words! {freebie}

The end of the school year is quickly coming, but I'm already thinking about back to school.

I can't help myself!!!

This was one of my favorite games to play with my first graders at the beginning of the year!

It's called Earth & Martian Words.

It's a SUPER fun way to build fluency with CVC words.

What six year old wouldn't want to read martian words! ;)

It's really easy to play too.

You need two game boards...one with Earth words, one with Martian words.

The first option for playing is to simply take turns reading a word and covering it with a counter/penny or anything you have!  

This is how I play at the very beginning of the year.  

The kids choose whether they want to read an Earth word or Martian word.

The second way to play is to roll a dice. 

If the number is even, the player reads an Earth word and covers it.

If the number is odd, the player reads a Martian words and covers it.

Easy peasy! ;)

Your kids will be fluent little CVC readers in no time at all!

And they'll have fun doing it. :)

You can grab this FREEBIE in my store! :)

Animals in Winter

Sneezing.  Itchy eyes.  Scratchy throat.  Runny nose.

You guessed it --- I've been cleaning!

Haha!

I've been going through our basement trying to get it cleared out and ready to be remodeled by my lovely hubby and I am allergic to dust.  I always tell my husband that I'm allergic to cleaning, but he doesn't believe me.  It's the truth!

So now I'm taking a little break and stopping by here to tell you about one of my favorite units we are doing in my classroom right now - Animals in Winter.  It's pretty cold up here in my neck of the woods right now.  We had a couple days last week with -20 degree wind chills.  You know when it's so cold your face hurts...

So I just figure if it has to be sooooo cold outside, we might as well have a little fun with winter inside.    Here is a quick overview of what this unit looks like and if you stick around till the end you will find a little freebie too :)  

 First up in this unit is an Informational Mini-Book for shared reading.  There is a color copy for you to use as the teacher and a black and white copy to make for students to have their own.  I packed in a ton of important information in this book so your kiddos will be learning a lot.  Good time for an impromptu observation by your principal.  
Here's what it looks like in action:

Speaking of being observed. . . I'm sure your principals like to see the Common Core standards in action. So I included a bunch of practice to hit those reading for information standards.  You're welcome!

Included in those standards is learning new vocabulary, so that's in there too.  There's pieces to use when teaching the vocabulary and then a student book to fill in.  

Next up - writing.

There's papers for your students to write about what they learned and make their own book.  There's also templates for a class book about what kind of animal your kids would want to be in the winter and why.  

I also wrote a little fact filled song called Winter's Here.  

Finally, I included some center activities and printables to complete this thematic unit.   

Even if you are in a place where the air doesn't hurt your face, I hope you will find this a useful unit too.  Click on the cover below to check it out on TpT.  

And as I promised - here is a little sampler freebie for you.  To grab this freebie, just click on the picture below.

Thanks for stopping by and joining me for a little cleaning break.  

See you soon!!!

     

Arctic Animal Fun, Freebie, and Flip Books!

Hey guys, it's Amanda from Mrs. Richardson's Class. You have survived your first week back--you totally deserve something great! I hope you slept in, ate a yummy breakfast, and enjoy your Saturday!!

The month of January is filled with many great themes and topics that can be integrated into your standards.

Martin Luther King, Jr., Penguins, Snow, and definitely other Arctic Animal FUN!

My kids always love, love, love to research animals. They are just at that age where they are so fascinated with cool animal facts and seeing polar bears eat all kinds of crazy things!

We love checking out Discovery Education for great information videos.

We always explore tons of non-fiction text, focus on and discuss the text features, and dig into the content.

Anchor charts are a must!

Recording our information onto these flip books is easy-peasy, too!

If you are looking for more flip books for arctic animals, be sure to check this out. They are great for interactive notebooks!

My kids always enjoy writing and when I can add something fun to create with it, they enjoy it even more! It's easy to put something like this into the writing station for them to enjoy. 

Grab this little craftivity FREEBIE! Be sure to hop on over to my blog to pick this up! 

I hope you all enjoy the rest of your day, sweet friends!!!

Snowman Poetry: What's it all about? Plus a freebie!

Hello Primary Buddies! This is Chrissy from Buzzing with Ms. B and we're back!

Back to school, that is. I thoroughly enjoyed my break - family, delicious treats, and The Blacklist, 24/7. I probably gained nine pounds in two weeks due to excessive Reese's stuffed in my face and that apple pie the hubby demanded.

Oh, yes, I am now paying the price.
Anyway, I thought I'd share a poem freebie with you today and a handy strategy for teaching poetry!

I wrote this poem a couple of years ago because my students were struggling to differentiate possessive nouns from plural nouns. But it works for more than just that!

Grab it free on TPT

We frequently use poetry for word work, but we can get so much more mileage out of a poem if we take the time to do some comprehension work with it. One strategy my primary teachers have used is gathering evidence to decide what the poem is mostly about. Sounds simple, but how many kids would say the poem above is all about a snowman melting, when most of the poem is about building the snowman? They often remember the last lines they read!

1. On chart paper, the teacher creates a blank bubble map. Each student has a copy of the poem with the title whited out or cut off. 

2. Each pair of students receives a post-it to record one piece of evidence that shows what they think the poem is about. These are direct lines or phrases from the poem that they think are important.

3. The teacher collects these post-its and sticks them onto the map. Then she reads them all aloud and gives the partners one minute to decide what they think the poem is mostly about. We're looking for a sentence that encapsulates the topic or event of the poem. 

4. Then, the class creates a new title for the poem using what they think it's mostly about.

It's surprising what a challenge this can be for our struggling readers, but with practice, they are able to decide the topic of the poem using evidence. 

Be sure to grab your Snowman poem freebie above!

Have a Happy New Year!

Four Ways to Retell

This is Chrissy from Buzzing with Ms. B! It's the eighth again, so that means it's my day to contribute to this fabulous collaborative blog!

I've chosen to make my post about something that's essential for student success in reading. Retelling!

Retelling is such an important skill for students. It's the foundation for almost all other comprehension strategies that come later - summarizing, making inferences, predicting, and so on. To help kids retell, we can do a few things that make it engaging and memorable.

#1 Props

Sometimes, students try to retell a story but they suddenly hit a memory wall. They can't remember what comes next. Who does the character meet? Where do they go? By having objects from the story - this could be a felt board with appropriate pieces, puppets, or actual objects - they can often remember the next event. They are prompted without anyone having to tell them anything!

#2 Pictures

A fun way we retell is having kids take pictures (copies of pages from the book) and sequence them in order. The students can point to each picture and tell a sentence about that event. This is also a great opportunity to have them use sequencing transition words like first, next, finally.

#3 Retelling Glove

I love using our retelling gloves with primary students. Students put the gloves on and point to each finger to retell that important part of the story. The parts of the story we include are the character, setting, what the character wants, the problem, a solution, and a lesson that can be learned.

#4 Drawing & Writing

This is the eventual step for students when they retell. We have scaffolded enough to this point to prepare them for retelling in writing and drawing. One fun way to get kids writing and drawing to retell is a sentence strip accordion. Take a sentence strip and fold it up into equal parts. On each part, students write and draw about the important events in the story.

How do you have students retell?

Super Readers!

Happy Tuesday!

It's Sarah from A Sunny Day in First Grade!

In first grade we want our kids to be readers.

We want them to LOVE reading!

With our reading series, we learn 3-6 new high frequency words a week.

Some of these words are tricky!!!!

So to make it a little more fun, I put them up by our door.

The kids have to "high five" one word any time they leave the room.

That includes trips to the nurse and the bathroom. ;)

If you forget, you have to do all of them!  :)

The kids LOVE IT!!!

It makes it fun and it's a quick and easy way to review the words throughout the day.

I've also done them in different shapes.

Here are some snowflakes from last winter!

I change the words each week and put the old ones along the bottom of my eno board. 

At the end of each unit, the kids have to do the High Five Challenge!

They had to high five EVERY WORD from the unit.

EVERY WORD?!?! 

It's so quick and easy!!

Plus it's FUN! :)

My kids were begging me to be the next challenger!

After they read the words, I give them a little bookmark for being a SUPER reader!

You can grab this FREEBIE in my store! :)