Items filtered by date: July 2012

1 page. A sweet note for students to sign and take home after their first day of school. Make it a keepsake and include their photograph.

11 pages.Common Core State State Standards: RI.K.5, RI.K6,RI.K.9, RI.K.10, RL.K.2, RL.K3,RL.K.6, RL.K.9, L.K.1d, RI.1.9, RL.1.2, RL.1.3 A variety of fun reading and writing activities to go along with Audrey Penn's The Kissing Hand.

3 pages. A great discussion and writing activity after reading The Kissing Hand. Chester's mother kisses his hand for comfort. What does that mean? What brings your student's comfort? These FREEBIES are part of my 102-page Kissing Hand Literacy packet on TpT.  Click on the link to pop on over. I know your kiddos will LOVE it!  For your convenience, I've included a preview in the FREEBIE here.

1-2-3 Come Make A Name Map With Me!

I teach “mapping” as a writing strategy to my college comp students.  It’s a fun visual way for them to get their thoughts organized on paper, before they begin to write their essay.

A name map is a terrific way to introduce "mapping" to elementary students.  This is also an interesting icebreaker for the first week of school and a great way to get to know your new students.

Children think of a symbol that represents them and draw that in the middle.  I chose an apple as it’s sort of universal for school or teaching.

Branching out from the center symbol is a variety of things about the person such as hobbies, their favorite season, birthday, what they want to be when they grow up etc.

By having students use their two favorite colors to write their first and last names in the center of their object, everyone gets to know another “tidbit” about that person.

The completed activities make a wonderful back to school bulletin board too!  Make sure you do a personal one of yourself, so that you have a sample to show your students as a way to explain things, as well as a means for them to get to know their new teacher. Includes an explanatory note home to families.

Sharing name maps is a nice activity to do after reading the story Chrysanthemum, a wonderful back to school tale, whose main character is a little mouse named Chrysanthemum.  She loved her unusual name until she started school and everyone began making fun of her.  It's one of my all-time favorite back-to-school books and especially great if you need some stories to go with "bucket-filling."

My inspiration to do name maps, came from an art teacher’s “heart maps” that he did with his 4^th graders at Riverside Elementary.  Click on the link to check out their awesome endeavors.  I hope you and yours have as much fun making these as I did.

Click on the link to view/download Name Maps.  This packet is a special FREEBIE in my TpT shop. Thanks for visiting today.  Feel free to PIN away!  For your convenience, my "Pin it" button is at the top on the menu bar.

“There’s few things as uncommon as common sense.” –Frank McKinney Hubbard

3 pages. A fun way to find out the feelings of your students on the first day of school. Nice icebreaker. Cute back to school bulletin board poster. Perfect activity after reading The Kissing Hand. This FREEBIES is part of my 102-page Kissing Hand Literacy packet on TpT.  Click on the link to pop on over. I know your kiddos will LOVE it!  For your convenience, I've included a preview in the FREEBIE here.

39 pages. Your students will enjoy making and wearing these 30 masks to help make story time come alive. Act out poems, nursery rhymes, fairy tales, counting parts of a story, and special holidays.

5 pages. A name map is a terrific way to introduce "mapping" to students. This is also a nice icebreaker for the first week of school and a great way to get to know your new students. The completed activity makes a wonderful back to school bulletin board too.  This is a special FREEBIE in my TpT shop.  Click on the link to pop on over to grab your FREE "Getting To Know You" Name Map packet.

123 Come Color With Me!

One of the ways I counted up to 100 Day was with a cute gumball poster by Really Good Stuff. Each day I’d choose a quiet child to X off a gumball.

Because of this poster, I designed the “Wel-gum To our really sweet class” find your name skill sheet.

Learning how to recognize their name was one of my Y5’s report card standards, so we worked on this every day.

I made this worksheet a bit more special by including my last year’s school picture inside one of the gumballs.

When they found their name, I had them color the gumball their favorite FLAVOR, and then we graphed the results.

We discussed the difference between favorite flavor and favorite color, for many, this was their first introduction to graphing.

Everyone enjoyed learning something about their new friends.

This packet also includes 2 class books.  One the children trace and write the sentence about their favorite color.

To make the book more special, include their school photo as well.

I also made a class color book, by including pictures cut out from magazines of things of the various colors.

Each child brought a color picture in on that particular color day, as well as wore the appropriate color.

I took a class picture each Friday and also included that in our color book.

This packet includes the letter home, a calendar + a poster for your parent-teacher conferences.

Click on the link to view/download Wel-gum packet.

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Feel free to PIN anything you think others might enjoy.

“Never be too big to ask questions. Never know too much to learn something new.” – Og Mandino 

It's Time For Fall; It's Time For Poetry!

I love poetry and enjoy dabbling in it every now and then when I get time, or an idea pops into my head.

My editor at Mailbox Magazine sometimes had that on her list of assignments.

I always run my “creations” by my husband Dan.  He’s great with word choice, and making things have the correct amount of syllables and still make sense!

Through all sorts of laughter, he helped me so much with The Colors Of Fall; I simply had to add his name to the “credits”.

I tried to include poetry, nursery rhymes, and other easy readers that rhymed as part of my genre each month, so that my Y5’s would get used to hearing rhymes.

Eventually I would pause, during the reading of a poem, and leave the rhyming word off, waiting for them to fill it in.  It never ceased to amaze me how adept they became at this.

I’ve included the poem on a separate sheet of paper, for you to read and hang up, as well as the booklet.

You can simply read it to your class or print off copies and have them trace and write the color words in their matching colors.

After you read the story, ask students what else they see in fall that are each of the colors.  Perhaps you can have each student design their own page as a class book.

Click on the link to view/download The Colors of Fall

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“Every child is an artist.  The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” –Pablo Picasso

123 Come Color With Me!

Color words were an important part of my word wall.

My Y5’s easily learned these because I included them in so many easy reader booklets, which really helped build their self-esteem.

This booklet Helps with Common Core State Standard: RF.K.1b

Students TRACE, WRITE, COLOR, & GLUE their way through 10 color words. (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, black, brown and white.)

It’s really a fun way to reinforce learning how to read, write and spell color words while reinforcing cutting skills as well as listening and following directions!

You can work on one page a day (perfect for Word Work for your Daily 5 activities) or one a week if you do "Color of the Week" like I did.

This is a great booklet for a portfolio as well, because it shows student improvement.

If you feel that color words are part of your "high frequency word list" then this activity would also help with Common Core State Standard: RF.K.3c

Click on the link to view/download My Color Words

Thanks for stopping by today.  I hope you can pop back tomorrow for more back to school ideas.

Feel free to PIN anything you think others might find helpful.

“What comes from the heart goes to the heart.” -Samuel Taylor Coleridge