Valentines Day Addition Freebie!

Dear Teaching Friends,

Looking for a fun and seasonal way to practice doubles sums? Here's a one page simple to prepare freebie for your first and second grade students!

 If you have a moment after you take a look at your download, I'd really appreciate it if you would leave feedback at my TPT store. Thanks!



Happy Teaching!

Snowy Reading!

Dear Teaching Friends,

I promised a while back to share a few of my favorite winter read-alouds. I got kind of caught up in delivering all of those freebies and sort of forgot about doing this post. So, without further ado, here are three that I think you and your little guys will enjoy!

Betsy Maestro's Snow Day is a quiet book that beautifully capture the anticipation, arrival, and aftermath of a big snowstorm, and how it affects so many aspects of life. This book is awesome for making text-to-text  and text-to-self connections! The children returned to this book again and again during self-selected reading. The realistic illustrations by Guilio Maestro are also a good reference for young illustrators, especially for things like heavy equipment for moving snow. This book pushes many children beyond basic snow stories in their independent writing.

 

Snowflake Bentley is a 1999 Caldecott Award-winning biography. Although its sidebars and some of its vocabulary and concepts can make it a challenge to read aloud, this book is well worth the effort!

Bentley's passion for learning and dedication to his dream make this a great addition to your character-building lessons. You'll hear your little guys saying, "Hey! That's just like Snowflake Bentley!" long after the snow has melted.


 

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Snowballs, by Lois Ehlert, uses the author'/illustrator's classic collage style and a simple but very snappy rhyme to get kids thinking about possibilities for snow "people". They'll be inspired as artists by the gorgeous collage selections AND inspired as authors when you flip the book sideways to show how Ehlert deals with the problem of limited page size: "Is this something you could try in your writing?" Make time to give your class the opportunity to make and write about their own imaginative collages. I've seen everything from a Snow Princess to a Snow Motorcycle Guy! Be prepared to use lots of instant tacky glue - these babies are so heavy that it's amazing that some of them stayed up on the wall!

 

Do you have a favorite snow book that you love to read aloud?  Leave a comment to help us all discover a new favorite!

 

 

                                                                         

                  

  

Fact Family Fun ( and a freebie, too!)

Hi, Teaching Friends!

Are you working on related addition and subtraction facts? Do you have a few little stinkers who think that all they have to do is plug in the same numbers  - who cares if the facts are correct? :)  I know that I've always had a few (or more!)  who need some convincing that they're actually going to have to do some thinking!

Here's a free set of puzzles to help with more practice with addition and subtraction number families.
There are 2 levels: +/- zero and one facts  and +/- mixed facts, both with sums through 10. Click on the picture to download it from Google Drive.

If you have some students who could use some extra practice in determining whether related facts are really related, here's a resource that will get them beyond just glancing at the numbers.

In Fact Family Fun, players have to examine four number models on each of the cards and decide whether they're in the same family. This is a good one for whole class  (think document camera), small groups, or math centers. A click on the picture will take you right there!

                                             Hope these will be helpful for you!

Happy Teaching!

                                                                                      

           

A Quick Freebie for Skip Counting

Hello, Teaching Friends!

Here's a little Valentines Day game to review counting by 2's. It features more of those sweet bears by Aisne! The cards can be put right over the numbers in your hundred pocket chart if your little guys need some extra support. Of course, it's really fun to line them up in a long train on the floor -maybe your students will even want to predict how long the train will be when complete, and then measure it to compare with their prediction!



 

Enjoy!

                                                                                      Linda

                 

The More They Read, The Better They Read - Free Winter Story Cards!

Our young readers need massive amounts of practice on continous texts at their independent level in order to really make progress in reading.

Are you looking for new ways for your emergent readers to practice sight words on continuous text? Story cards are quick, short reading passages designed to help build automaticity with sight words and to encourage fluent phrasing. Print the cards on cardstock and laminate them or put them in a plastic sleeve. Then use them for buddy reading or independent reading - story cards are great for literacy centers!

Click on the picture to get 3 free story cards for your class.

There are 3 more snow-themed story cards in my Wonderful Winter Literacy set. The complete set also includes 14 other literacy games and activities. You can see it at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

Valentines Day will be here before you know it, so click here for 2 more free story cards!

 

There are 3 additional story cards, along with nearly 100 pages of other activities, in "Oh, Lovely Literacy!", available at my Teachers Pay Teachers store. Click on this cover picture to go directly there!

We all work so hard to keep providing all of our young students with lots of opportunities to sharpen their new reading skills.  I hope these will help make your job easier!

                                                                                                    







100 Followers -Woohoo!! Bring on the Freebies!

     You did it! I did it! We did it! Woohoo!

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I'm so pleased and proud that you have found my little corner of the blog world to be an interesting place to visit!

As promised, here are the celebration gifts, all with a "100 Theme", which hopefully for most of you will still be in time for your 100th Day of School festivities. Even if your 100th day has already passed, these 3 items should be usable long beyond. The first one even has a slight nod to St. Patrick's Day, without being overly leprechaun-ish, in case March timing doesn't mesh with your teaching calendar!

12/30/12 * NOTE: This resource is now part of the 100th Day Common Core Math Power Pack, at my TPT store. If you download the preview, you'll get "Lucky Numbers" free!


 

The second item for you is an activity to go along with your reading of Wolf's Chicken Stew . It's a great little story for talking about predictions, characters, and stereotypes. This activity is for a math lesson, and will also make a great math center afterwards! There's also a follow-up page for a quick student write-and-draw, using positional words. Click on the pic to download it all!

The last 100 theme item is not free, but will be on sale at my TPT store through January 25th! It's a set of riddle cards, one card for each number from 1 to 100. Suggestions for games and activities are also included. Click on the cover below to go directly to the product page.

Again - many thanks to all of you! Hmmm... wonder what I can give away when the 200th follower comes along? :)

                                                                                             Linda

Free for Valentines Day!

Now that I've got the hang of Google Docs :) , I'm just having fun making new little goodies to send out to you! I hope that you'll enjoy them... and I'd appreciate it if you could help me along the way to getting 100 followers. Please sign on, so you'll know when I post more free items!

Here is a set of Valentines-themed cards for antonyms. Your students can match the opposites and then use the card to check their work. You can also turn these cards into a memory game by printing the first card on one color paper and the second card on a different color. As long as you use pastels, the darling bears by Aisne (she has such cute stuff on TPT!) will turn out just fine!

Click on the picture to download.

                                                                                         

                                                                                             

Cheez-Its Giveaway (well, kind of... )

Have you seen these crazy crackers??? I'm guessing that this is a "limited edition" sort of thing, but don't they just make your teacher's brain start humming?

My mind went right to word families...

... but there are LOADS of other things to do with these cuties, and that's where the giveaway comes in.

What would you do in your classroom with a box of Scrabble Cheez-Its? Leave your idea in a comment after this post, along with your email, for a chance to win (no, not a box of Cheez-Its!) any item of your choice from my brand new shop at Teachers Notebook! I'm adding new items every day, so I think you'll find something perfect for your class!

*** "Eat them when the kids aren't there" is not a valid entry! Awww, c'mon!

Enter by 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, January 18th. The winner will be chosen randomly, and notified that evening. Good luck!

                                                                                                                      Linda

Easy Plant Project for Your Classroom

Do you teach a science unit on plants in the spring? Here's a way to help review the work and words of scientists (observe, predict, data, conclude) and also build some prior knowledge with your students about the needs of plants. You can easily squeeze in some writing and math with this project, too! Grow one of these big, beautiful amaryllis plants!

The boxed bulbs are still in stores, and mostly marked down now. They come in red, white, and pink. Personally, I love the red ones for a punch of lively color in your classroom, and because they become part of the Valentines Day celebration when they bloom! When you buy yours, take a peek in the box to find one with minimal sprouting, so there'll be more action for your students to observe.

Everything you need to get started is right in the box: bulb, pot, and soil disk. The hardened little disk needs soaking to get started, and boy, is that ever a cool and amazing high-interest thing for the kiddos. It also involves some math (measure the water, watch the clock...).

Follow the directions on the box, put it in a sunny spot, and stand back! These plants grow amazingly fast, which is part of what makes them so interesting to grow with your class.

Here are some of the other learning opportunities:

* Have your students make journals to record their observations. This could be included in your writing center during the time you have the amaryllis in your classroom. Look below for a journal cover and word list. Print them back-to-back, staple with half-sheets of picture/story paper - voila - instant Scientist's Observation Journal! By the way, we brainstormed the words for writing, and did a shared writing of a chart list before I transferred them to the word lists for their journals.

* Keep an ongoing, dated record of growth to support the student journal writing. As you see in the picture, there was a good amount of shared writing going on! Also measuring, naturally!

* One year, we grew 2 plants side by side, which led to a whole slew of other learning, including lots of comparative word problems. "How much taller is Plant A than Plant B? ", etc.

* Even the word amaryllis was a learning experience: "Look, Mrs. Nelson! It's the /ar/ chunk!";  "I see is!" ; "I see am!"  :)

Click the picture for journal cover and word list for writing.

Do you have a favorite plant project that you'd like to share? Please leave a comment! Thanks!

                                                                                                     Linda



Grouchy Groundhog - Free Consonant Blends Game!

It's just a bit early, but, hey - we can never get enough practice on those "r blends": dr-, gr-, tr-! {you won't find the dreaded "jr-" in here!} It's time to play the Grouchy Groundhog game!

Here's a simple-to-make card game for Groundhog Day, and before, and beyond! Featuring the cutest little groundhog, from Little Red's Schoolhouse at TpT, this game has 51 word cards, for LOTS of practice! Your download also includes a sort-and-record student response page. Click on the picture and enjoy!

Looking for more activities for Groundhog day? Click here to visit this post, packed with ideas for integrating Groundhog Day into your curriculum.  You'll even find another freebie for this crazy February celebration, a set of math riddles to enrich and extend your students' thinking!

                                                                                    

Happy Teaching!

Free for You - Valentines Day!

In my Very First Attempt at using googledocs (fingers crossed, please!) I'd like to share with you a Candy Hearts board game for practicing short vowel words with digraphs in both initial and final position. 

This is part of my huge Valentines Day math and literacy unit, "Oh, Lovely Learning!" - titled with a wink to Joy Cowley fans!  Click on the cover picture below to see it at TPT.

Hope the doc download works for you - I'll watch the comments and try to fix it if it doesn't!

                                                                                                Linda

                                          

What are YOU doing today?

Do you follow the terrific Catching Readers blog by Pat Johnson & Katie Keier? They are the authors of one of my all-time favorite professional books, Catching Readers Before They Fall. The book provides a wealth of ideas and encouragement to teachers who work with readers who struggle in grades K-4... and if you are reading this blog, that probably describes you as a teacher!

Today's post at Catching Readers talks about how much time, effort, and passion teachers put into preparing for their work, and how so many teachers are using this extra day to plan, reflect, and organize. (Okay, even if you went back to work today  - think about what you were doing yesterday - and what you're doing right now!)

I hope you'll take time to read the whole post and to follow Pat & Katie, but I'd like to quote a bit here...

"...the interesting thing is that they are not complaining. They may make a few jokes about “yuck, back to the real world tomorrow,” but there is excitement in their voices. They are invigorated by the New Year – the chance to try a new idea, refine some old ones, organize or schedule in a different way, rethink how to support that group of strugglers, and so on. Some people may argue with me and say that it’s just the people I know who sound like “workaholics” or “type A personalities.” But, if that’s the case, then all I can say is, “How lucky am I to have such a terrific group of friends who are whole-heartedly dedicated to the children they teach!”  "

And how lucky I feel to be part of this community of teachers, teacher authors, and bloggers, filled with that dedication and passion for children! Keep up the great work!

                                                                                       Linda