Shedding our Shells

At the end of each year I read The Hermit Crab to my students. As I read we discuss how they have filled their Kindergarten shell with what they have learned and now they need a bigger shell in First Grade to fill with knowledge next year. We brainstorm ideas together of what kind of things "filled our shells" this year (what they learned). Then I give each student a paper plate to paint with water color (which they LOVE....we don't get to do much painting anymore;) And then I give them pom poms, scraps of paper, stickers, buttons, basically anything you can find to glue on. Then I give each student writing paper to write about what they learned in Kindergarten. It's so cute to see what they come up with..things I may have even forgotten about. Finally, I have a little template of a hermit crab they cut out and I staple to the paper plate (it's a hard copy...I don't have an electronic copy...SORRY!) But it's super easy to do. So if you're looking for a good end of the year activity you might want to try this!

A HUGE Thank You!

So this year when all the office, nurse, custodians, cafeteria worker appreciation days came around I found myself panicking to get thank you notes to everyone. I mean where's the time!?!? So I came up with a template for students to draw a picture and write a little note to everyone and was going to just paste them on Poster Board. But my wonderful para came up with an adorable way to display the notes. I forgot to take pictures of the custodian broom she made out of poster board (so cute) and a tray made out of poster board for the cafeteria workers. I did snag a picture of the one for the nurse (the picture below). Everyone seemed to love them  and the students really enjoyed personalizing their own square.  So if you're looking for an easy way to give a big thank you this is the way to go! To download the thank you card template for FREE click HERE! What other ideas do you have for thank you notes? I would love to hear!

Angry Birds/Angry Verbs

I found this great idea on Pinterest! My students loved using their favorite angry birds characters to practice verbs! Click here to find the Angry Birds templates. I had each student chose their favorite angry bird, colored it, and paste it on paper. Then they had to write sentences using verbs and then they highlighted them. And tada Angry Verbs!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!! 2 Freebies!!!!

Hope you wore green so you didn't get pinched;) Sorry it took so long to post this....better late than never right?!?! This a St. Patrick's day writing activity that I did with my students last week and they loved it! Luckily the art teacher at my school had students make a four leaf clover with a pot of gold so I didn't have to do that part in my classroom. I made this sentence starter for my students to finish and cut and glue on each leaf on the clover. My favorite is the one that says " I am lucky because I have the best teacher."~ Reminds me of why I teach;) Click on any of the pictures to grab your own freebie!

  

I also created a Wanted! Paper that is similar to the heart one I made for Valentine's Day. Click HERE to grab your copy!

Color Persuasion

This 9 weeks my school is working on persuasive writing. On pinterest I found the coolest way to teach it. OREO! Click on the oreo picture below to check out the website...it even includes a template!

I saw this crayon paper at the Dollar Store and thought my students would like the cool paper and it would be a great way to use the OREO outline for them to persuade each other about colors. First they brainstormed using these graphic organizers I made this summer. I had them color the star green and the last arrow to show opinions and the two arrows in the middle yellow for reason and example. The next day I gave them the crayon paper and they copied their sentences and colored the crayon. They loved it. Here are some pictures of how they turned out. Hope your students have just as much fun persuading!;)

Freebie!!!! February Journal BINGO

Click on the picture below to find February's Journal BINGO. Sorry I'm a few days late..Hope your students are enjoying them!

FREEBIE: January Journal BINGO

Whew! We made it through the first week back. Getting up with the alarm clock was rough to say the least. But the kids came back remembering most of the classroom routines;) I don't know about ya'll but we're exhausted! It will be nice to relax and refresh this weekend!
Here's January Journal Bingo. Download HERE!

Monster Mash!

I LOVE Halloween!  It was always been one of my favorite holidays.  Of course we try to incorporate some educational Halloween activities into our October lesson plans.  A super fun activity that I did with my kids this past week was making our own monsters.  This is something that The Lesson Plan Diva and Plug-and-Plan have also done in the past.  I let the kids chose a mouth, nose, and some eyes.  They free cut a head or body and just created!  It was really cool to see what they came up with.  After they finished their monster, it was time to write!  I wrote some questions on the board to try and help direct their writing.  We also incorporated some Editing mini-lessons into our writing.  The kids did great with this! 

Freebie: October Journal BINGO

TADA! Here is October Journal BINGO. Hope your kids are loving them as much as ours;) If you download leave a note or rating. We appreciate it! Click HERE to download.

You can check out the September Journal BINGO too by clicking on the picture below.

BINGO!

A literacy center we both use in our classrooms is journaling. We were finding that students were drawing and writing the same stories over and over again. To solve this problem Journal BINGO was created.

There is one for each month and students glue it to the front of their journal .Students can either do 5 across, diagonal, down or you can have them fill the board. Each time they "won" and we checked to make sure they wrote enough to fulfill the assignment they would get something out of the treasure chest and then they could continue playing on the same board.

 Each month students would get a new board and they absolutely LOVED it and we got some really great writing out of our students. To download your own copy click on the picture below.

Graphic Organizer-Persuasive Writing

Here's a couple graphic organizers to go along with the interactive writing. To download  all three just click here!

Persuasive Writing

 This was an interactive writing activity I did with my Kindergartners during our Writer's Workshop about persuasive writing. It really helped them catch on and expand their writing instead of just saying "I want it". Typical right?;) This way they knew they needed to write at least three REASONS. It also kept them on topic. After doing this activity my students started really embracing the concept and doing some really great persuasive writing. So if you'd like to give it a try hopefully you will have great results too!