The 12 Days of Christmas Flip Book & Emergent Reader Activities

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat...! This nursery rhyme and Christmas song is already being sung by the kids in my house. Christmas seems to be hitting us earlier this year. We've had record breaking temperatures and snow as early as Halloween. It seems to be inspiring people to put up trees and decorations a little earlier than normal. 

As you begin to compile activities for your Christmas lesson plans, there are two brand new 12 Days of Christmas activities in The Barefoot Teacher shop this season that you won't want to miss out on. 

This '12 Days of Christmas' flip book gives kids a chance to practice writing (and cutting & gluing) skills while practicing counting to 12. 

There are 12 pages, plus a cover included. There is one page for every verse of the song.

Here is a close up of just the cover that the kids will color and cut out:

Each page has a 'glue' tab at the top to show students exactly where to glue. Glue sticks are best for this. That way, if they make a mistake, it can easily be fixed! 

Here's a peek at the last 12 pages of the book:

When they are done, they can cut them out and glue them together at the top (don't forget, the tabs show where to glue on each page). And the complete project looks like this: It's great for helping the kids remember the order of the song. Even I often forget which number has maids milking or pipers piping, lol!  You can get the 12 Days of Christmas Flip Book HERE! The second activity goes right along with the flip book. It's a 14 pages emergent reader that comes in two versions, which I'll explain below. This book will fit right into your kids book boxes and is great for keeping at school for reading practice.  This reader is printed two to a page so that you can use the copy machine's double staple function when making your copies, and then use a slicer to slice the books apart. The first page students will read is set up to introduce all the objects given during that 12 days of Christmas.  Students can highlight number words and practice counting on each page!  I included two versions of this book. You can use: 'seven geese laying' OR 'seven geese a-laying' for your little readers. Get this 12 Days of Christmas Emergent Reader HERE. Don't forget to PIN this post so that you can remember these activities for future planning!

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Thanks for letting me share these activities with you! I hope your littles love and enjoy them. I also hope they make your teacher life & prep just a tad bit easier!

-Til next time

    

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Bek

Thanksgiving 'I Am a Turkey' Differentiated Emergent Readers

Most people only think about turkeys as being a delicious part of their Thanksgiving meal. We can describe what they look like and how scrumptious they taste, but really don't know much else about them. Well, not anymore! By the end of this post, not only will you know more than you would ever want to know about the life of a turkey, but you'll also have seen an awesome differentiated emergent reader that you can use to teach your students more about them as well.

Did you know that a turkey hen lays 9-13 eggs in her clutch in a shallow hole in the ground that's only about 1/2" deep? 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.  Turkeys do not see well at night, which is why they fly to trees for sleeping. A mother hen, however, will stay on the ground for 28 days, sitting on her clutch to keep them warm and risking her own life to protect them from nighttime predators. It isn't until a poult (baby turkey) is 4 weeks old that it will be able to fly to safety above ground at night with its mother.  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.  At 6 weeks old, a poult will molt it's feathers for the first time. It will molt multiple times. Each time, larger feathers will grow until the poult is an adult.       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. Get these 'I Am a Turkey' readers HERE. Don't forget to PIN this post so that you can remember these books for future planning!

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Thanks for letting me share these activities with you! I hope your littles love and enjoy them. I also hope they make your teacher life & prep just a tad bit easier!

-Til next time

    

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Bek

I Am Thankful Thanksgiving Flip Book & Other Activities

Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite holiday to celebrate! While we should always be grateful every single day of the year, I love that this time is specifically set aside to celebrate our blessings. 

Sometimes, it's easy to get wrapped up in the busyness that comes with the holiday...cleaning the house, shopping, preparing the food, traveling, and so on. In the midst of all there is to do, it's important that we take some time to also help our kids make their own moments for reflecting on their blessings as well! 

Here are some fun, and even yummy, ideas to help you do that! 

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).  You can get the I Am Thankful Flip Book HERE! Here are some other cute ideas to get your kids thinking about what they're thankful for: This first idea would make an adorable bulletin board display. Imagine...a turkey with hundreds of feathers filling up the board! This next one is a Grateful Game...and it looks yummy and can be used with Skittles or M&Ms. This is a great one to do in small groups throughout the classroom!

This one is my favorite...though meant to keep kids busy while you're cooking Thanksgiving dinner, I think it actually makes an excellent math adding center during the week of Thanksgiving! An attention grabber for reluctant adders for sure!  Don't forget to PIN this post so that you can remember these activities for future planning!

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Thanks for letting me share these activities with you! I hope your littles love and enjoy them. I also hope they make your teacher life & prep just a tad bit easier!

-Til next time

    

Read more »

Bek