The Barefoot Teacher: reading

Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts

These Labor Day activities for Preschool, Kindergarten, or First Grade students will go right along with the other lessons, arts and crafts that you have planned for your community helpers unit. Lesson plans that will engage your students! #laborday #labordayforkids #labordayactivities #kindergarten #emergentreaders #labordayactivitiesforkids #labordayreader #firstgrade

How can it be that Labor Day is already upon us?! My kids have been in school for over two weeks now. I'm curious to hear when you went/go back.

Since it kinda just snuck up on me, I'm going to cram this post in real quick so that you'll have a few extra Labor Day ideas for your littles.

Here is a Labor Day Emergent Reader you can use over the next few days (or even next week) to reinforce the high frequency words "I", "Can", & "See" while celebrating Labor Day at the same time.

Each page goes through various community helpers including:
-police officer
-fireman
-teacher
-garbage collector
-nurse
-hair stylist
-baker
-crossing guard
-farmer
-soldier
-doctor

The book is 12 pages total and is created two to a page for easy copy machine copying, stapling, and slicing.

We tie in Labor Day with our Community Helpers unit.
Here are a couple of Community Helpers activities to add to your plans.

These Community Helpers Writing Activity papers are great for a bulletin board or hallway display.

Many occupations are included, most coming in both male and female characters.

Two different formats allow you to choose what's best for your students.

PLUS, there are blank ones so that your littles can write about what they would like to be when they are older.

Pocket chart pieces are a must for your Community Helpers unit.

These ones include:
-artist
-chef
-construction worker
-doctor
-farmer
-fire fighter
-mail carrier
-police officer
-hair stylist
-nurse
-teacher
-vet

Choose from a full color version, or a less-ink one.

Each snapshot is 4"x4.5" in size.

Enjoy your Labor Day!

Til next time,

Bek

Are you looking for activities for an insect or firefly life cycle unit? If so, then here's a blog post for you! This "How to Survive as a Firefly" FREE book companion activity is a fun way for students to gather and organize facts that they learn about fireflies. It's a great way to incorporate science and non-fiction into your lesson plans. #fireflies #insects #bugs #kindergarten #booksforkids #camping #bookcompanion #bugactivities #activitiesforkids #flipbook

**Book images created by Erica Salcedo are used with permission from The Innovation Press**
**This post contains affiliate links.**

I was recently given a copy of the book
How to Survive as a Firefly

by Kristen Lootes and illustrated by Erica Salcedo.

It was my first time seeing (or even having heard of) the book, so I was excited to read it. Before even opening the book, I realized that I really don't know anything at all about fireflies...except that they are a ton of fun to catch in the summer at dusk!

I found this book to be a delightful and incredibly funny informational book for kids ages 5-10. If you teach an insect unit, or about fireflies or the life cycle of fireflies, then this book is a must-have for you and your students.

I made a FREE Firefly Life Cycle Flip Book for students to use as a fun way to gather and organize facts that they learn while reading!

Ok, so let me tell you a little bit about the book. You can also download a PREVIEW of the book and take a look for yourself!

"How to Survive as a Firefly" is written in a story format, having an adult firefly educate the newly hatched firefly eggs on what they will need to do throughout their life to survive.

It covers everything in a very humorous, yet informationally accurate way. From life cycle info, to vocabulary terms, to parts of the body...it has it all! Even a glosser is included at the end of the book.

Students can work on the companion resource before reading the book. This will give them time to gather any background information they have on fireflies, as well as wonder about them.
Have them start out by coloring the flip book cover page.

Then they can cut out all of the pages and glue them together. It can dry while they initially read the book. After reading it, they can go back and look for information that they'd like to include in the flip book. The first page has students simply write out the four stages of a firefly's life cycle. They can add quick sketches of each stage too, if they'd like!

Then they can write down facts specific to each stage of the life cycle. Starting with the Egg stage:

Then on to the Larva stage:

And next the Pupa stage:

And finally, the adult stage:

The final page give students a chance to jot down some unique, or their favorite, facts that they learned about fireflies.

After it's finished, students can use it to review or reflect on. They can use it to study from (if there is any type of assessment over the information) or just take it home to share what they learned with family and friends!

Enjoy How to Survive as a Firefly Life Cycle Flip Book absolutely FREE. Don't forget to leave a review of the resource. I very much appreciate your opinions and feedback on activities that I create!

-Til next time

Bek

This FREE ocean reading comprehension activities download will go great with the other ideas, lesson plans, and crafts you have planned for your Kindergarten or First Grade students!

Are you like me and already looking for what new ocean resources you're going to use this spring for your ocean unit? Today I want to show you some Ocean themed Reading Comprehension Passages that you can use to build your little readers confidence.

I'll show you what it entails, how I use it, and then I'll give you a FREE DOWNLOAD so that you can try it out!

Help your littles develop confidence in their reading abilities while having fun and learning about our Earth at the same time!

I made these reading passages (with corresponding comprehension questions) with Kindergarten students in mind using the Flesch-Kincaid reading comprehension leveling formula. The passages range from .1 - 1.0 levels.

The kid-friendly font that is used in these passages makes reading the text even easier.

There are 10 passages included that teach students about the following topics:

-crabs, sea horses, whales, clown fish, star fish, sea turtles, squid, lobsters, puffer fish, shrimp

When I use these passages with my students, I introduce them by first asking what they know about the topic. This allows me to pulls as much back-ground information as I can so that I can base my direction and discussion around their prior knowledge.

I've found that some of my students tend to instantly shut down when seeing so many words together in one passage like this, so we break it down before reading so that they can see that they actually already know many of the words that they'll be reading.

First, we find out what the topic is about, and then highlight the topic word all throughout the passage with an orange crayon.

Then, we go back through the passage (not yet fully reading it) and highlight with yellow any high frequency words that we can find.

Finally, we notice that there is a word underlined, which probably means it's pretty important! So we highlight that one pink so that we can pay close attention to it.

After we've fully read the passage, we move on to the comprehension questions.

Sometimes I read these questions to the students, sometimes we read them together. If a student is able, I allow them to read the questions to me.

Many times, the students can recall the information needed to answer the question without going back to the passage. But if they don't know the answer, I guide them back to the passage and together we look to see if we can find the area that might give us the answer. Then we fill in a dot next to that question so that later, when I'm recording their data, I can remember that they needed help answering that question.

Here is what I record their data on:

Currently, I have five different Non-Fiction Reading Comprehension Packs. You can get them all in one bundle if you're interested, which allows you to save some money compared to purchasing them individually.

Help your Kindergarten students develop confidence in their reading comprehension abilities while learning about spring at the same time! This free download will go right along with the other Spring activities and crafts you have planned for your class. The strategies used with these worksheets will feel more like playing you are playing games with your student than it will reading!

Now - let's get you that FREE DOWNLOAD! I'm going to give you the Inky Fish reading passage, with its corresponding reading comprehension questions so that you can try it out with your students. Don't forget to leave a rating after downloading, it's important to me to hear what you think!

Click here to get it:

Ocean Themed Non-Fiction Reading Comprehension FREE DOWNLOAD
Don't forget to leave a rating - I love feedback!

-Til next time

Bek

I love celebrating Earth Day in Kindergarten with a variety of activities that are geared just for them. Use these reading comprehension passages with your kids to build confidence in their reading abilities while learning about our Earth at the same time. Topics include plants, the sun, trees, recycling, animals, the moon, rocks, and more!

Earth Day is April 22nd, and you may already be starting to collect resource ideas for your planning, so today I want to show you some Earth themed Reading Comprehension Passages that you can use to build your little readers confidence.

I'll show you what it entails, how I use it, and then I'll give you a FREE DOWNLOAD so that you can try it out!

Help your littles develop confidence in their reading abilities while having fun and learning about our Earth at the same time!

The kid-friendly font that is used in these passages makes reading the text even easier.

There are 10 passages included that teach students about the following topics:

-our planet, the sun, the moon, plants, trees, animals, recycling, clouds, wind, and rocks

First, we find out what the topic is about, and then highlight the topic word all throughout the passage with an orange crayon.

Then, we go back through the passage (not yet fully reading it) and highlight with yellow any high frequency words that we can find.

Finally, we notice that there is a word underlined, which probably means it's pretty important! So we highlight that one pink so that we can pay close attention to it.

After we've fully read the passage, we move on to the comprehension questions.

Sometimes I read these questions to the students, sometimes we read them together. If a student is able, I allow them to read the questions to me.

Here is what I record their data on:

Now - let's get you that FREE DOWNLOAD! I'm going to give you the Hungry Plants reading passage, with its corresponding reading comprehension questions so that you can try them out with your students. Don't forget to leave a rating after downloading, it's important to me to hear what you think!

Click here to get it:

Earth Themed Non-Fiction Reading Comprehension FREE DOWNLOAD
Don't forget to leave a rating - I love feedback!

-Til next time

Bek

Are you ready for some football??!!

To be honest, I'm really not a football fan (Ah! Did I really just admit that out loud?!), but I know a lot of littles that are.

Let me show you some of the things that are in my Football Activities pack and then I'll give you a link for a Football Freebie!

First I want to show you this Subtracting Footballs Emergent Reader.

Each page asks students to figure out how many footballs are left after a specific number of them are 'kicked' away. You can have your students cross out the kicked-away number of footballs, or you can have them use the included football manipulative pieces to figure out each book page's answer.

Besides the reader, the Activity Pack also includes practice in beginning and end sounds, short vowels, color word recognition, measurement (shortest, tallest), syllables, number recognition, & rhyming words.

Here are some more of the included printouts...

This Football Color-By-Number FREEBIE is also included in the pack.

Your littles are going to absolutely love this activity!

You can download this Football Color-By-Number absolutely FREE!

Have fun!!!

-Til next time

Bek

What's better than a kid reading to other kids?!

I've discovered that in almost all circumstances, 100% of my students were instantly engaged when I either showed them a video of another kid reading or had a special kid visitor come to my classroom and read to them. There's something magical about it. Students like to see other kids in action.

That's why I like the Book Nook Girl's YouTube channel.

She offers a variety of books that kids can watch and even interact with...yes, I said interact, lol. I can't tell you how many times my students have conversed back with the video they are watching.

She has many videos, but I am only going to highlight a few...

1.) 10 Little Pirates - A Counting Book
I love that at the end of the story, she practices counting both forward and backward with her audience!

2.) Elephant & Piggie - I Love My New Toy
The Book Nook Girl demonstrates great expression when reading from one of our favorite series from Mo Willems!

3.) Pete the Cat and the Bad Banana

Do you stop eating your favorite food when you encounter a mushy banana? LOVE this story...a great reminder to always try things more than once before walking away!