Apple Happy, Apple Math, Apple Freebie!

Hello, Teaching Friends!

September is here, and in the primary grades, the days are all about apples, apples, and more apples! Today I have a bit of apple literacy plus an apple math freebie to share with you!

My plan for this month was to share some ideas for using one of my very favorite fall poems for new readers, "Apple Happy".  With its repetive text, high frequency words, and rhyme, "Apple Happy" was the perfect poem to use with my literacy intervention first graders. It's a great way to build fluency and confidence in reading!

Well, sharing my ideas was my plan.

The reality is that on blogs and at TpT,  I found a few posts and resources about this poem and its variations, so I decided not to reinvent the wheel, but instead to share a few of the links with you.


From Mrs. Piltz's Kindergarten, here's a printable of the poem, ready to copy and put in Song and Poem Notebooks. {Find out more about Song and Poem Notebooks here, and on my K-1 Songs and Poems Pinterest board.}

Kindergarten with Susie at TpT has this free set that includes word cards, picture cards, and even a printable mini-book. Nice!

Lastly, here's a free printable of the version that I like best.  It's fun for acting out, too, which is a bonus at this time of year especially {keep them moving, keep them moving!!}. Whichever version you use, I think is a happy little poem that your kiddos will like and benefit from using! This version prints well in black and white or even on colored paper, and again, is ready for your Song and Poem Notebooks.

Now, let's get to the second part of this post - the apple math freebie!  Are you ready for some subtraction with Johnny Appleseed? Click here or on the picture to get your free game!

Johnny's Subtract From Ten Sweep is a sample from my most recent resource at my TpT store, Fall Into First Grade Partner Math Games.  I've realized quite recently that games and riddles have become my favorite kind of resource to create.  {Let me be honest, it's kind of obsessive. I'll start out to make a set of ten games. Then it becomes 15, and suddenly I've made 30 games! Well, definitely not suddenly, but I think you know what I mean.}

These one page games have features you'll love, like low-prep (one page each, no cards to cut), low-ink  (less than 30% color on each page, plus each game also comes in a blackline option), and minimal materials - just dice and wipe-off markers!   For me, the fun comes keeping the games challenging, varied, and of course fun for your students, while getting all of that on to just one page!

Happy Teaching!

Apple Graphing - It's a Primary Thing! {{Apple Freeebie!!}}

Hi, Teaching Friends!

It's apple season! Tasting apples and graphing our favorites is a classic activity in most primary classrooms... graphing apples is our thing! Have any of you had this happen to you when it's time to get ready to graph your favorite apples?

You go to the grocery store, pick out a few interesting varieties of apples, make a lovely graph, smartly save the file of the blank graph to use again next year. Come the following September, find the graph again (the finding is sometimes its own small miracle, right?), go to the grocery store, find all of the apple varieties EXCEPT ONE. It's not at the second store either, or the third... every year, there are more kinds of apples, but it seems like rarely the ones you need. 

And so... search for another new graph.  Grrrr.

So, if you find yourself in the same sad boat, I hope this will be a mini-sanity saver for you.  Three blank graphs (two column, three column, four column), ready for you to label AFTER you buy your apples. (Note: You'll have to write them in by hand after you print. Sorry, I still haven't mastered making documents editable. : / ) Many thanks to Mel at From the Pond for the font and graphics! 

Click here or on the picture to download your free graph.

The whole apple experience is so full of learning opportunities for our littles, from the five senses to enjoying great books to math, like cutting apples into fractional parts, counting apple seeds, and more. 

Looking for more apple activities? Click to see this set for PreK and kindergarten at my store.

...or this bundle of apple math for first grade!

Enjoy, and happy applin'! ;)

Apple Blog Hop ~ Rehearsing Learning with Puppets

Hi, Teaching Friends!

It's apple season again, and time for another great blog hop!




Do you love reading aloud to your class? I think it's one of the coziest, calmest, and happiest times in the day. It's also a time that's chock full of teaching opportunities, making it all the more important to choose read aloud books carefully and pre-read them thoroughly. (I could share a cautionary tale about reading Tomie DePaola's  Bill and Pete to a class without pre-reading ... but that's another story for another day...)

Here's a book that I've found to be a great teaching tool for this time of year, Amy and Richard Hutchings' Picking Apples and Pumpkins.

 

 

There are a number of other good books with similar titles out there, but what makes this one my favorite is the fact that it's illustrated with photos. I think that really brings the book to life and encourages children to make comprehension-building connections with their own lives. I'm also partial to this book because it was photographed at Battleview Orchards, which is only about 45 minutes away from where I live here in New Jersey. We've been apple and pumpkin picking there with our own children!

After you read, you might want to try comparing apples and pumpkins, using one of these great ideas from Pinterest. These fruits are a natural for using Venn diagrams!


Here's a great one from Simply Second Grade ...

 

 

 

...and another variation is this double bubble thinking map from My First Grade Backpack. This one will also leave you with a useful anchor chart for your fall writing center.

One way that I've enjoyed extending the value of read alouds is to make simple puppets and use them to rehearse the language and concepts of the book. Puppets are fun, engaging, and often just what's needed to build confidence and speaking skills in your more introverted students.

I like to keep the puppet-making simple, like these quick-and-easy construction paper and popsicle stick ones. But don't stop there ... add in a literacy component!

Let's have a show! Using dialogue is a great way to cement learning from a read aloud and to master new content area vocabulary. In kindergarten and first grade, it could be as simple as partnering students and having them act out little conversations, using  the new vocabulary from Picking Apples and Pumpkins.

After a minute or two of conversation, switch partners for a new talk and new practice. Quick-paced, fun, and effective practice of new vocab and concepts!



With more advanced writers, try having partners write the dialogue. The anchor charts above would be good graphic organizers for this. Keep a copy of the book you read as well as other relevant books handy for inspiration and reference, and remember to leave time for performances, too!


Here's another way for your students to practice their learning about apples and pumpkins.  With this brand new set of 20 riddle cards and a four-in-a-row game, your students will practice inference and build vocabulary like pulp, core, vine, harvest, and 16 more. Check it out here at Teachers Pay Teachers or here at Teachers Notebook.

Would you like to win a copy of this riddle set? I'm giving away three during this blog hop!

a Rafflecopter giveaway








Time to get hopping to Kooky Kinders for more great apple fun! Just click on the cute owls and enjoy the rest of the blog hop!

                                                                           


Happy Teaching!