Do you give your students a book as an end-of-year gift? A lot of teachers do - it's a great gift! If you have some extra school pictures of your students around (especially those sticker ones), here's a great idea to add with your book! What kid doesn't want a bookmark proclaiming that they are FINALLY moving on to the next grade!?
You can pick these bookmark freebies up from my shop HERE - I included bookmarks for rising 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th graders, as well as one that just says, "This kid is a super reader" in case teachers have a student not moving on to the next grade. ;)
If you're looking for something else to give your students, how about bubble wands? You can find them all around these days and nothing says summer more than blowing bubbles! :) I picked up six packs from Wal-Mart for $3.88 and then attached these cute little "Have a WAND-erful Summer" tags.
Grab these tags from my shop HERE. Just a few more days and we'll all be having a "wand"erful summer, friends! Enjoy!
Since it is poetry month, I thought I would share a bit about how I teach alliteration. Teaching literary devices is probably one of my favorite things to do, but they can be tricky for the little ones! That means I provide a lot of different kinds of activities to help the concepts stick!
Here are just a few of my favorites with alliteration.
Tongue Twisters
Tongue twisters are a favorite! I love sharing some with my students and have them try to say them three times fast to the class. We usually end up doubled over in laughter. :) Once students are familiar with tongue twisters, we set out to write our own.
We publish them on the tongues of these cute displays! No template - we just trace lids for the circle faces and I free-cut tongues out of the large construction paper.
Poem Practice
We read the Jack Prelutsky poem, "Bleezer's Ice Cream" and I ask students to identify the flavors that alliterate, like checkerberry cheddar chew or cotton candy carrot custard. This poem is in the book The New Kid on the Block and it's an all-time favorite poetry book that I highly recommend! {affiliate link below}
There are a few ways to access this poem online if you can't get your hands on the book. Here is a YouTube reading of the poem.
You can also play the musical version of the poem being sang by Natalie Merchant here.
After analyzing the poem, I put students in partners and let them create their own wacky ice cream flavors that alliterate! You can download the freebie below to do this activity with your students.
Games are so important in the primary classroom. We play games every single day. Multiple times a day. For alliteration, we play an old fashioned car game. It's great, not only for alliteration, but for listening and memory, too!
The items being taken on the trip must all begin with the same initial sound as the destination. To play, I read the card, for example, "I am going to Paris and I'm taking a parachute." The next student in the circle would repeat my item and add one of his own, for example..."I am going to Paris and I'm taking a parachute and a piano." The sentence keeps getting passed around the circle with each student repeating it and adding another "p" word. They are amazed when it make it all the way around the circle!
I also teach students how to play it with just two players - perfect for the car ride home from school (sorry parents)! One student starts it, and it keeps alternating until one player either can't think of an item to add or can't remember an item. What fun practicing alliteration!
Clever Crafts
Since we study literary devices during the spring, we love to decorate the hall with clever craftivities. For alliteration, we create "Alliterainbows." Students use planning pages and brainstorm parts of speech to alliterate with each color and then use these ideas to write their own sentences with alliteration on each color band of the rainbow. By now, they are amazing at alliterating! :)
Story Surprises
Throughout our study, I always throw in a couple of surprise read-alouds! These are a couple of my favorites for alliteration. The first book I read is The Little Book of Alliterations. It is a simple alphabet book with one phrase per page. It's perfect to read before having students write tongue twisters. The next book I read closer to the end of our study. It's called One Smug Slug and it is written in story format. The story uses as many "s" words as possible. They enjoy trying to figure out what the smug slug is climbing throughout the story and are always surprised when he is eaten at the end! But, their favorite part of the book is that there is a hidden "S" somewhere on each page - some are super tricky and they love searching for them.
{affiliate links for books}
I hope this post gave you a few new ideas for teaching alliteration!
Who is here for a FREEBIE today? Keep reading! You can pick up 8 of them!
That's right! I'm linking up with seven other fab teacher bloggers to share some of our favorite spring-inspired activities and picture books. One lucky reader will even win all 8 books to accompany the free activities. What a wonderful asset to any classroom!
I chose a classic book that I feel like most teachers may already have easy access to from their libraries. This is a quick read and one that can be a springboard into many other activities - plants, colors, spring....and even poetry!
April is poetry month, after all, so I like to use this book as a springboard to writing color poems with my students. I've included all of the resources that I use to do this in my freebie - a step-by-step procedure poster, a prewriting graphic organizer (and sample), a poetry frame (and sample) in both a half-page format and full-page format, and a class book cover.
Then, you'll want to hop through the other seven blogs to collect MORE freebies. But, before you hop over to Digital Divide and Conquer to visit Matt, you'll need to jot down my number on the image below, so grab a piece of paper! You'll collect a number at each of the 8 blogs in this hop. Just add up the numbers to find the "mystery number." You'll enter that number into the Rafflecopter at the end of any post for your chance to win all 8 books that correlate with the freebies you collect!
Often our students don't get to go outside for recess as much during the winter. This can cause restlessness in the classroom. I like to keep my students moving as much as possible during lessons to combat this, and one of my favorite ways to do this during winter is through Snowball Fight Learning!
They eat it up! Here's how it works. Have each student write a two- or three-digit number on a blank page. Then, wad it up into a snowball. Divide the class with half of the students standing on each side of the classroom. Have them thrown their snowballs on your signal. After throwing, they race to pick up a snowball and head back to their seat. I partner students up with the person sitting next to them. They straighten out their snowballs and solve the problem with their numbers. Compare. If their answers match (both got it correct), they wad the snowballs back up and head back out. If not, they work through them together to find their mistakes. Once all students are armed and ready, we repeat!
Sounds super easy right? It is. But, I found that students would ALWAYS write 99 or 999. If I told them not to use that number, they would write 98. Haha! So, to ensure that students all had a variety of numbers (and that they were legible....that would sometimes be a problem, too) I created these super easy number printables that work perfect for this. There's one set that will ensure students are practicing addition without regrouping and another with regrouping. I hope you find them useful!
We're launching our money unit this week. I pulled out some O-L-D signs that I made years ago - like maybe when I student taught?? - with some handwritten money songs on them today. The kids loved them. But, I just couldn't bring myself to hang them in the classroom.
Did I mention they were O-L-D? Well, they were also handwritten (not in a good way). On chart paper. Glued to butcher paper. Yellowing.
I thought I would be able to find those babies online to print out somewhere, but a quick search turned up NADA! So, I typed them up real quick tonight and thought I would share them with you.
There's The Money Song (with two verses per coin) to the tune of Frere Jacques and a Money Trading Song to the tune of Miss Lucy Has a Steamboat. I also threw in a Hairy Money poster. Hope you can use them, too, friends!
I'm in the midst of writing a couple of BIG blog posts (one which will be a series), but geez....it is so hard during the week! Anyone else brain dead by 6:00pm? I *might* be counting down the days until spring break! ;)
Anyway, I was inspired by the ever-so-brilliant Amy Lemons when I saw her IG post where she had created wallpapers to number her student ipads. Duh! Why had I never thought of doing that?? It might be that "brain dead" thing....thank goodness for smart friends!
So, today I whipped some up using papers from my other brilliant friend, Megan! Now my student ipads are cute AND organized.
I just used PowerPoint and then saved the slides as images - super easy to do yourself! But, if you happen to need 5 (or fewer) you can snatch mine up by clicking below. I hope they help you feel a bit more organized, too!
It's SHARK WEEK, y'all!! Do you love it as much as I do?? I know that my students are always interested in these amazing creatures. I always use sharks as the guided topic for exploring the informational genre with my kiddos because the students have sooooo many questions about them! Well, today, a team of bloggers have decided to come together to give you some FIN-TASTIC FREEBIES all about sharks to engage your students!
Can you imagine how cool your NEW students will think you are if you incorporate SHARK WEEK (or just sharks, in general) into their learning?? Especially if you let them wear these cool shark hats while learning about sharks?? I mean, what kid doesn't want to BE a shark??
So, here's my freebie for you. It's a little organizer booklet to guide our research on sharks. It's the perfect tool for teaching little researchers to take organized notes as they read informational books.
Be sure to go for a swim in the linky party below. Every blog in the Shark Week Blog Hop features a fishy freebie for you and your students- but hurry! Shark Week only lasts until Sunday, August 17th : )
I'm breaking the cardinal blogging rule and posting twice in one day. But, I figure I have a lot of making up to do for earlier in the summer so it'll all even out. ;)
I'm linking up with Farley for Currently and also sharing another classroom craft {and FREEBIE}!
Each year I try to come up with a little unique back-to-school gift for my teammates that won't break the bank! This year I picked up these cute colorful whistles, letter stickers, and ribbon from Michael's. How easy is that?? I thought it was perfect since most of the teachers don't have whistles for recess.
You can download my TAGS HERE if you'd like to create these for your teammates.
Now, for my August Currently....
Listening
I want to go on Shark Tank. That.Is.All. Loving
I have two fashion addictions. Alex and Ani. Grateful Bags. And I added these new additions to those collection this week. This girl is in heaven!
Happy Anniversary and Birthday Month to me! <3
Thinking
Wait! That means it's AUGUST?! Where in the world did this summer GO?? Wanting
I was on a roll with reading books at the beach and since I've been home, NADA! I want to make time to read the last three books I purchased on my Kindle next week! Needing
This differentiated spelling unit has taken up TOO much of my time. I am so glad that it is in the proofing stage and I am ready to get it done and posted! This week...hopefully...has to be!
With back to school coming soon, I thought I would round up some of my favorite freebies I've offered here on my blog to make sure you haven't missed out on any of them!
My students LOVE these Animal Goodbye Signs. There are 35 different signs. I laminated them all and post one by our classroom door each week of the school year. As students leave in the afternoons, they say the first part (ex. "Better Shake") and then the rest of the class responds with the second part (ex. "Rattlesnake"). They EAT.IT.UP! If I forget to change it one week, they are all over it. :)
This is a pack of my favorite Attention-Getters! I've even provided tips on how and when I use them.
I LOVE an author study! I "map out" (loosely) my read-alouds for the year on my planning
calendar so I have an idea of what I want to read when. I include one
chapter book per month. The rest of the month's read-aloud time is
devoted to a particular author. This gives me the best of BOTH worlds.
An opportunity to share those GREAT
can't-wait-to-read-the-next-chaper-to-find-out-what's-going-to-happen
BOOKS, as well as digging into an author's craft.
When we get to our author-of-the-month, I like to provide my students
with a little background on the author. They love to know that he/she
used to make books with paper and yarn as a child, or that he/she
couldn't read until the fifth grade, or that he/she NEVER thought they
would grow up to write books!
This pack was so popular, that I did ANOTHER Freebie Pack!
2nd Grade Common Core Essential Questions for ELA...(53 pages)
2nd Grade Common Core Essential Questions for Math...(27 pages)
Sorry, I don't have EQs for any other grades.
I hope you can use these Forever Freebies in your classroom this year. If you like them, spread the word so other teachers can come snatch them up! :)
