Everyone loves playing BINGO! There's nothing more thrilling than placing that final chip on your card and yelling "BINGO!" I'd have to say that BINGO and Heads Up Seven Up where my absolute favorite games to play when I was in elementary school. We mostly played BINGO in music class...it's how I learned the names of various music symbols! If we won, we got a Jolly Rancher-woot-woot!
This Valentine's Day themed BINGO includes 30 different game cards, each with its own Valentine's Day themed picture at the top. The heart picture in the middle serves as a FREE spot.
The 42 oversized calling cards make it easy for students to read as you call each word. Reinforcing sight words even more!
These are the words included:
How did I choose which words would go with this game?
Well, I wanted it to be something that students who struggle with HFWs could still have a lot of fun with. So I decided to use the beginning & middle of the Kindergarten Fry list words. If you have students who are advanced with their sight words, give them a pieces of paper and let them use the word in a short sentence in between calls. Or have them write a word that rhymes with it. But most importantly, HAVE FUN when playing this game! It's not intended to frustrate anyone!
Today I'd like to introduce my Word Family Accordion Friends with you.
They are super easy for students to make on their own and have proven to increase engagement as students can't seem to take their hands off of them once they are made!
Your littles are going to LOVE practicing word families with these stretchy friends, I promise!
So let me show you how they work, how they are made, and how you can differentiate with them to best meet the needs of your littles. (18 different friends are included, not just the boy seen in the highlighted pictures. They do repeat...92 pages to print total.)
So we all know that not Kindergarteners are great cutters yet. With the Word Family Accordion Friends, THAT IS OK!
Your more advanced cutters can go ahead and manuver around all the grooves of the body and those who struggle with cutting can simply cut one straight line down the paper.
Each Word Family includes two different friends...one that has words pre-written on it and one that doesn't. This is so that you can offer a challenge to those who are ready for it.
Let advanced students think up words on their own and write them in. Students who struggle with writing or who need more help understand word families can simply focus on the families and not have to worry about the writing part. And once they get it, offer them the same challenge as well!
To turn these friends into accordions, you'll want to grab a handful of rulers.
--Tell students to leave the line between the first two words unfolded. --
For the rest of the lines, show them how to make a 'perfect fold' by placing the ruler right at the line and bending the paper forward over it. (Some of your students won't need a ruler to fold.)
Flip the friend backward every other time you fold.
There are 38 Word Families to choose from.
Blank friends are included so that you can add your own.
A corresponding recording chart is also included so that you can keep track of the families your littles have mastered. A great way to show student progress and growth!
Once they are made, your students will not be able to put them down! There is just something about accordions that make you want to keep stretching them out and closing them over and over again.
Students can 'quiz' each other by keeping the friend closed, seeing if they can say words from the family without looking, and then opening them to see how they did.
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!
I know Thanksgiving hasn't yet passed, but I wanted to get this out to you guys so that you will have a head start heading into December. I'm gonna keep it quick and to the point today.
I've bundled together every single one of my December resources. You read that correctly! Every. Single. One. Which means two things.... 1) You can have all the extra resources you need all in one download. 2) You can your precious hard-earned $$$ (and use it on a little something for yourself) by getting all of these together in one pack.
This MEGA pack comes with over 550 pages of printouts you can download and use with your littles this December. A variety of themes are included, such as Polar Express, Gingerbread Man, Nativity, Santa, Winter, Christmas Carols, & more.
There are all types of activities including emergent readers, Common Core aligned morning work, pocket chart pieces, high frequency word practice, pattern & number review, fun sheets, Color-By activities, vowel reinforcement, alphabet & handwriting practices, & so much more.
You can find a very detailed description of all that's included HERE.
Get it now so that you can spend some time browsing and deciding which activities you want to print after Thanksgiving. Make this December a stress-LESS one by staying ahead of the game. I promise, you'll be glad you did!
I always feel like November is a shorter month than it is. I don't know why, but I've heard other teachers agree. So I wanted to give you access to some of my November themed resources in one quick and easy download. Plus, I wanted to share some additional activities, videos and crafts that you can do with your kids as well this month.
You'll find activities like emergent readers, pocket chart pieces, high frequency word practice, pattern & number practice, tally marks, fun sheets, color-by activities, Common Core aligned morning work, vowel reinforcement, a variety of K-1st math concepts, & so much more!
Print out some extras to throw in a sub tub, just in case. Send some home for fun review work over the Thanksgiving holiday break. Or even use a few for fast finishers!
If you're looking for even more...
This 'I Am Thankful' flip book gives kids a chance to practice writing (and cutting & gluing) skills while thinking about what they are most thankful for in life.
There are nine covers for the book to choose from. If you're going to use this with your students, the books make a wonderful hallway display outside your classroom that they can take home for Thanksgiving break.
Besides the cover, there are six additional pages to the book. Each one has kids focusing on a specific area to be grateful in. From family, to food, to friends, and more!
One page throws a little word making fun into the book and asks students to think of all the smaller words they can make from the letters used in the bigger word 'thankful.'
The 'My Family' page asks kids to draw and label members of their family.
When they are done, they can cut them out and glue them together at the top (don't worry, the tabs show where to glue on each page).
Another great activity are these differentiated 'I Am a Turkey' emergent readers that sneak in some writing practice at the end of each book.
These I Am a Turkey emergent readers not only tell all kinds of facts about the life cycle of a turkey, but are differentiated as well. Meet your students right where they're at with their reading abilities.
Each level of the reader takes students through the basic development of a turkey from inside of an egg, to hatching, to young poult life, to adult life.
Here are a few more pages that are included:
My favorite part of this informational emergent reader set is that the last page that sneaks in some writing practice! It asks students to write down some of the favorite facts they learned about turkeys.
As I was browsing on Pinterest to look for new Thanksgiving craft ideas, I stumbled up this awesome FREEBIE by The Creative Classroom (see link below)...
Each page of this little mini book has a place for them to write and draw what they are thankful for. Plus, it's just absolutely adorable! I'm so glad I ran across this!
The download includes detailed instructions on how to build this book, along with picture examples.
I just started a NEW Pinterest Thanksgiving board to keep the newest Thanksgiving craft & activities ideas all in one place. If you have some good Thanksgiving ideas and would like to be a contributing pinned on the board, just shoot me a message and I'll add you.
It includes all kinds of ideas for Thanksgiving related songs, games, crafts, snacks, and learning activities. I'm glad to finally have it all in one place so that I don't have to keep scrolling through my other boards looking for the Thanksgiving themed items.
For clean up or transition times, use this silly Turkey Song as a time limit for students to complete cleaning.
Another one that you'll find yourself singing long after it's finished is this fun one:
If you're kids like to watch videos of books being read, this next video reads Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving. Sometimes my kids like to watch it read on video after I've read it to them in person.
Speaking of books, there are so many to available for Thanksgiving, but here are some of my favorite. Maybe you'll find one or two new ones that you haven't used before.
On a non-classroom related topic...
Do you have a favorite food you make every year for Thanksgiving?
I LOVE teaching Fairy Tales! Today I want to share my absolute all-time favorite resources with you, as well as give you some activity ideas, some YouTube videos your kids will be sure to fall in love with, and a Little Red Hen FREEBIE (which will be at the end of the post)!
**This post contains affiliate links.**
Fairy tales are my favorite books to read to students. I especially like to read different versions of them that allow us to compare/contrast. Have you seen the ones that are told by an unexpected character from each story. These are just some of them from the collection. But there are a lot more available too.
Here are links to my top 5 favorites, but you can browse through all of them here.
My students like to create their own fairy tales and also reenact their interpretations of the well known ones. I happily noticed that they were falling in love with them just as much as I was.
However, when they would go to the reading carpet to look at the variety of fairy books I had laid out, they were only skimming the pictures.
I needed fairy tale books that were more at their level.
So I ordered some from online. All kinds of them at a variety of levels. I was so excited when they arrived, but to my disappointment, for most of my students, the words were still too hard and the sentences still too long.
I decided to create my own miniature versions of classic fairy tales (& fables & folk tales-but those are for a different time!) that are at simple levels...levels that even beginner readers could handle.
I bundled them together (there are 16 fairy tale readers total) so that if you're interested and want them for your classroom, you can access them all in one simple download - Fairy Tales Emergent Readers Bundle.
They are also available individually as well! They include the following stories:
(This last one is perfect to read during your Christmas week of activities!)
When your students read these little books, have them use gel highlighters to highlight sight words that you have or are currently working on. Or blends, or whatever you want them to focus on.
Whenever I read a Fairy Tale to my students, I like to also show them the matching YouTube channel CoolSchool's videos! They are fun, silly, and perfect for comparing and contrasting. Plus, they'll have your littles rolling on the ground in giggles!
There are many types of videos on the CoolSchool channel, but we focus most on the FairyTale (& Nursery Rhymes...but those are for a different post!) ones with Ms. Booksy, who not only narrates the story, but jumps right into the story herself...literally!
Here are a couple of our favorite...although they all are really good:
Jack & the Beanstalk:
Little Red Riding Hood:
If you're looking for math and literacy activities to go with your Fairy Tale units, I have a few that will go with the more common ones used in classrooms. Most of the activities were made with the Common Core standards in mind.
This Goldilocks & the 3 Bears Math & Literacy Bundle includes over 100 pages of emergent readers, vocab reinforcement, labeling activities, fact/fiction practice, counting & pattern practice, and so much more!
Remember that FREE DOWNLOAD I have for you? Well, it's a The Little Red Hen emergent reader! Before I send you off to download it, here are some ideas that you can use along with it.
These craft ideas are simple and involve supplies you most likely already have! (I hate having to go out and purchase a bunch of stuff I only wind up using once a year.)
This Little Red Hen Reader has easy to read text and includes 20 pages. Many of the pages are repetitive so that littles can experience even more success when reading! Take a peek at some of the pages...you can download it absolutely FREE using the link below!