ABC Easy As 123

This is a fun way to practice and master our alphabetizing skills during centers. The students use the ABC worksheet and Saxon alphabet strip (both pictured below) to alphabetize the weekly Saxon spelling words.

For this center, the students look at each letter on the alphabet strip beginning with "A" to see if there is a word on the spelling list that begins with that letter. The students then move on to the next letter in the alphabet, and so on until all 20 words are used. This is a great beginning strategy for the students to use when alphabetizing. 

As the students work on this center with each week's Saxon vocabulary, the need for the alphabet strip becomes less and less, and the students are able to show mastery of this skill. I really like that they work on this in small groups and share their thinking with each other, rather than just copying what is modeled by me in a whole group lesson.

Figures of Speech

This is a collection of cute little mini-anchor charts to have in your Literacy Center or posted during Writer's Workshop to help show your students the different figures of speech, how to identify them, and examples of how to use them in writing.

I made mini-anchor charts for the following figures of speech...
- Alliterations
- Similes & Metaphors
- Onomatopoeia
- Hyperboles
- Idioms
- Personification

 click here to purchase these mini-anchor charts from my TpT store

This is going to be a great resource in the classroom literacy centers during our unit on figures of speech this upcoming school year!

The Day the Crayons Quit

I have been busy this summer working on my math and literacy units for my favorite classroom books. "The Day the Crayons Quit" by Drew Daywalt is such an amazing book to use in your classroom... and if you are like me, you will use it several times throughout the school year.

I absolutely LOVE this book, and I find a way to use this book 3-4 times during the year. This 70 page math and literacy unit is a great way to fill your centers with fun learning activities, leave out for morning work, or to have set aside for your students that complete their assignments early. You can use different parts of this unit all year long.

Here are a few pages from this unit...

Homophones, Homonyms & Homographs

How I spent my Saturday...

I created a 35 page differentiated literacy center/unit on homophones! I know... CRAZY!! ;)

This unit on homophones, homonyms, and homographs can be used in your classroom in so many ways… as a literacy center, morning work, reinforcement worksheets, during your introduction/instruction on homophones, as an assessment of understanding, for home learning, and even during guided reading. I have included several activities that can be used throughout the year, as well as for homework/home learning.

I have also differentiated this unit by using different color collars on the dogs for different learning levels... YAY!! :)

This unit on homophones, homonyms, and homographs includes the following…

- (7) Mini-Anchor Charts for introducing and reinforcing homophone learning

- “Homophones I matched” recording sheet (to be used with the puzzle game)

- “Use it in a sentence” worksheet

- “Which one is it?” activity

- “Color the homophone, homonym & homophone” activity

- “Who am I?” riddle matching activity

- Homophones Puzzle Game with 57 homophone puzzles

I have also added blank puzzle pieces for each learning level for you to add any additional homophones you may want to use/introduce. :)

That Darn Tricky Y!

WANTED: That sly tricky Y for stealing the sounds of "e" and "i"

Two things I must always remember

To keep the letter Y from tricking me...

In one syllable words he sounds like “i”

In two syllable words he sounds like “e”.

This is a fun little activity to help your students learn about that darn tricky Y. There is a mini anchor chart that can be printed and displayed in your literacy center, on your word wall, or with your reading and writing strategy bulletin boards.

I have also included two tricky Y activities...

- A worksheet to circle the number of syllables in each word and write which sound they hear... "e" or "i"

- A tricky Y word find

Click here to visit my TpT to download this Tricky Y activity 

Enjoy!

What happened to my snowman?

What happened to my Snowman?

We had so much fun using our imagination in the classroom this week to think of creative ways that our snowman could have melted, and then writing all about it...

- He sat too close to the campfire while making s'mores.

- He went on a safari to Africa and melted in the desert.

- He went to Mexico to eat tacos.

- He went to the beach to collect seashells.

- He went hiking up a hill that was really a volcano!

- He was cold and drank some hot cocoa.

- He was sick and ate some chicken noodle soup.

The creative writing that came from my first graders was simply amazing! I loved their writing so much that I just had to showcase all their wonderful stories on our bulletin board!

I have included a picture of our bulletin board in this *free* download so that you can see the melted snowman that the students made to go with their writing.

I hope your students have as much fun with this activity as we did... ENJOY!

Click here to visit my TpT store and download this *free* activity

100 Kindergarten Sight Words

click here to visit my TpT store and download this product

This is an alligator themed list of Fry's first 100 sight words for kindergarten. You can use this to create flash cards, keyring words, use in literacy centers, use as a guided reading/RTI tool, or for your word wall. This list can also be used for teachers to use when selecting the classroom *Word of the Day*.

Five Playful Penguins!

Five Playful Penguins...

Five playful penguins

Having fun in the snow

One runs off

Where did he go?

This is a story I wrote as a cute addition to our winter themed library collection. Similar to “Five Silly Monkeys”, this story counts down the number of penguins from five to one as they run off… but where do they go? You will have to read the story to find out!