Hurricane Florence & A Friday Freebie!

Hurricane Florence made landfall this morning near Wrightsville Beach, NC and is heading down into South Carolina now. We are starting to get some of the outer rain/wind bands, but the meteorologists are expecting us to get more tonight and into tomorrow. 

Well since we are cooped up due to Hurricane Florence bearing down on the Carolinas, I am hard at work creating some new materials for my classroom. I would like to share some of my work with you as well. I have been creating some new math center activities focusing on the counting and cardinality standards as those are the ones we are currently focusing on in my classroom. I plan to make an entire pack of these activities, but this is my 1st set. Since you are followers of my blog, I am posting this set for the weekend as a Friday Freebie. It will only be free this weekend and will be a paid product on Monday. 

**Please if you download this set, leave me some feedback. These comments help motivate me to create new freebies for you as well!

Long Time, No Blog Post!

I am so sorry for neglecting my little blog lately dear followers! I have been going through a lot in my personal life and have been unable to do more than the essentials, so please bear with me!


To get you up to date, I moved back down to kindergarten this year after 2 years in 2nd grade! YAH! I am so excited to be back where my heart has always been! This has been a great move for me, but also very busy as I am trying to get my brain wrapped back around kindergarten standards. Since I have been out of kindergarten for 2 years, we have changed from Common Core here in South Carolina to the new South Carolina standards which are very similar, but still different too.


I have also been going through some health issues with some of my family. This has made me find what is truly important in my life and do those things more than the less important things, so thank you to those of you who have stuck with me through this SUPER LONG post about nothing educational! As a "prize" to you sweet followers, I have this Christmas counting sheet, you can use next month. This is a simple print and do sheet for your kiddos to review counting up to 20 objects. It can also be an informal assessment if you choose. Happy Friday followers!

Christmas Counting to 20 Sheet

Teaching 1 & 2 Digit Addition With a Friday Freebie!

For the past month or so, my 2nd grade team has been reviewing 1 digit and teaching 2 digit addition to our students. We began by reviewing what they knew about 1 digit addition (friends of 10, doubles facts, near doubles facts). This lead us right into our instruction on 2 digit addition without regrouping. Once our kiddos had the hang of addition without regrouping, we introduced regrouping which was difficult at first but most of them had it by the time we went home for Christmas break. This week, we reviewed these skills and today we had our cumulative assessment.

1 & 2 Digit Addition Assessment

This assessment is a freebie on Tpt so you can just click on the link above to download if you would like to use it with your kiddos too! Please remember to leave my some feedback if you download! Happy Friday everyone!

Five for Friday - Feb. 6, 2015

For today's post, I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her Five for Friday linky party.

Here are five photos from this week:

This is a game I made back in 2012 to have my kinders practice identifying the syllables in different words. I used it with one of my groups of struggling readers this week during Daily 5. You can download this game for free by clicking here: 

Valentines Syllable Sort

We have been working hard on guided reading during Daily 5. Most of my kinders are really making good progress with their reading, but there are a few I am still concerned about.

My kinders are really LOVING our writer's workshop right now. They are so excited to be able to put their thoughts down on paper and I am so proud of the progress they are making!

Read to Self has become a favorite activity for my kinders during Daily 5. This kinder was so excited today when he got to read in my rocking chair! It is a favorite spot for all of them!

This was one of my kinder's writing from earlier in the week. She wrote this in her journal during Work on Writing. It made me smile when she chose to share it with the class today!

Now head on over to Doodle Bugs Teaching blog to see all the other random photos from this week! 

Friday Freebie & Jan Brett Author Study

Next week we will be doing an author study of Jan Brett's books The Mitten and The Hat. I love both of these books and my kinders love them every year too. There are so many fun activities to do with these books. I do all the sequencing activities related to The Mitten with picture cards and my kinders will make their own minibook of the mitten.

I am also doing an extension activity with The Hat. I found this cute hat craft on Pinterest and we cut paper plates in half to make each child's hat. They will decorate their hat and we will give them cotton balls to make the fluffy ball at the top of their toboggan cap. This is a picture of how my sample one turned out. I am sure the one the kids make will be so cute too! 

After we made the toboggan caps, my kids used this writing paper to write about their hats. I printed this writing on light blue paper (although it doesn't look blue from this picture). 

You can click on the link below to download it for FREE in my TpT store. Please leave me some feedback if you download it!

My Hat writing paper

Friday Freebie - St. Patty's Color by Sight Word Sheet

Top o' the mornin' to you! I am just popping in this morning to give you a freebie you can use today. It is a simple leprechaun color by sight words sheet. Hope you can use it! Happy Friday!!

Leprechaun Color by Sight Word Activity Sheet

Friday Freebie: Word Family Practice Sheets

I have been working on creating some word family practice sheets to have my students practice the word families we have learned so far. I am sending these sheets home with my students so they can practice reading the words with their parents. Since many of the words are CVC words, they shouldn't have any problems reading them. I am also hoping that the parents will be able to understand word families better through these sheets as well. 

These sheets are a downloadable pack through my TpT store for free. I hope you can use them as well. Please leave me some feedback if you download them.

Word Families Practice Sheets

Friday Freebie: Ending Sounds Activity Sheet

Happy Friday everyone! I am exhausted after a very busy week, but I am excited for the long weekend ahead! Yah for 3 day weekends!! I do have to finish my students' report cards before Wednesday so I guess I will be working on those at some point this weekend.

I created this simple activity sheet for my students to practice ending sounds. I hope you can use it as well. The students just fill in the missing ending sound for each of the pictures. 

Ending Sounds Activity Sheet

If you download this activity, I would love to hear from you. Thanks for your support!

 

Wonderful Winter (Friday Freebie)

This week and next week, I am working with my kinders on the theme of winter. It has been difficult to teach about winter this week since we have had temperatures here in SC of 70+ degrees. It has felt nice to be outside but definitely not winter weather. In SC, we rarely ever get snow, but I love teaching about winter. 

One of the activities I have done this week in my small groups was a snowflake syllable sort. This was a good way to review syllables with my kiddos. Once everyone got a chance to use the activity, I am putting it in a literacy station for next week. I am putting this sort on TpT if you would like to download it for free.

Snowflake Syllable Sort

Friday Freebie: Ordering Numbers 1-20

Ordering numbers from 1 to 20 is a skill that can be difficult for some students so I work on it all year. In this activity, I have my kinders color the stockings in a pattern of their choosing. Some go for more difficult patterns (ABCD or AABBCC) while others stick to the simpler patterns (AB or ABC). Either is fine with me now that patterns are no longer addressed in the Common Core standards. This is just a fun way to get them interested in the activity. 

When they have finished coloring, they have the cut apart the squares. Then put them back together in order on a sentence strip. This can prove to be difficult for some and fun for others. I just walk around and help those who seem to be having more trouble than others. 

Here is the sheet if you would like to download it. 

Ordering Numbers up to 20

After today, we only have 3 more school days next week until the beginning of our Christmas break. I am so excited about having 2 weeks off to spend with my family.

UPDATE: Some people were having trouble downloading this activity from Google Drive so I put it in my TpT store. Click here to download it from TpT.

Friday Freebie: Christmas more/less game (K.CC.6)

This is a more/less game created with the theme of Christmas. My class has been working on the CC standard K.CC.6 comparing two sets and this game has been great to use with my small groups. Each child got a mat and two sticks of 10 Unifix cubes in two different colors (10 of each color). Then we drew a candy cane card first and they put that many Unifix cubes of one color on the top row. Then we drew an ornament card and they put that many Unifix cubes on the bottom row. Then we compared the sets to see which had more and which had less. For example, the candy cane had less than the ornament because the candy cane had 2 and the ornament had 8. To make it even more challenging with my higher level thinkers, I had them tell me how many more one set had than another set.

In the spirit of holiday giving, this game is free on TpT. I hope you will hop on over and download. Please leave me some feedback! Thanks so much!

Christmas More/Less Game

In other news, I missed the big TpT Cyber Monday sale last week so I am throwing a weekend sale this weekend (Friday through Sunday) and offering 10% off all the products in my store. Please head over to my TpT store and see if you can find something to use in your classroom.

My Teacher's Notebook shop has a 20% sale this weekend (Friday through Sunday) if you would prefer to shop there! Thanks for your support!

Friday Freebie: Thanksgiving Counting Sheet

Happy Friday friends! I feel terrible for being such a bad blogger lately so I am sharing a fun freebie with you this Friday while I am heading to my graduate class.

I created this counting sheet to use as morning work with my kinders but you could also use it as homework or a math review. 

You can download this activity sheet on TpT. Please leave me some feedback if you download. Thanks so much!

Now if I can get through the 2 days next week, we will have 5 days off for Thanksgiving! Can't wait!! 

Friday Freebie: Beginning Letter Sounds Review Sheets

I have shared with you before that this year we are using the Houghton Mifflin Journeys reading series for the first time so I am redoing my letter sequence to follow the reading series. We teach all the letters by Dec. so they can be assessed in January so we are going in the order of the reading series but doing 2 letters per week. I redid some beginning sounds sheets with the new sequence. I hope you can use these too (even if you aren't using Journeys!).

G, R, D, & O beginning sounds review sheet

J, E, L, & W beginning sounds review sheet

N, F, B, & I beginning sounds review sheet

If you download and can use these, I would love for you to leave me a comment and also rate me on TpT. Thanks so much! You are fabulous!!

Friday Freebie: Chevron Binder Covers

I made these binder covers for a friend to put on the cover of her notebooks. I hope you can use them too! You can download them for free from TpT by clicking on the picture below. 

 

The binder covers are in PowerPoint so you can just add a text box to the blank spots to put in your initials or what each cover is for. 

If you can use these, please leave me a comment and rate me on TpT. Thanks!

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I didn't get to draw for the winner of my Thanksgiving unit yesterday so I drew this morning. And the winner is....Leese! Congratulations!

Fall Friday Freebies: Fall counting sheet & Ordering leaves (numbers 1-30)

Happy Fall y'all! Yes, I am a southern girl so this fits perfectly. I am so excited that it is now officially fall. This is probably my favorite season. I love watching the leaves change colors and feeling the cool morning air. Here in SC, it usually doesn't feel like fall until about November and even then we have some very warm days!

In the spirit of the fall season, I have a two fall themed freebies I created to use with my kinders that I am hoping you can use them too!

Ordering Leaves (numbers 1-30) cards

Fall Counting sheet up to 10 with numbers

If you download these activities and can use them in your classroom, I would love to hear about it.

Friday Freebie: Labeling Parts of an Apple

Since we have been working this week on both labeling parts of objects as well as my apple unit. This was the perfect addition to our week. This is a simple activity sheet that has the kids practice labeling the main parts of the apple. Each child is given the apple sheet and a strip of labels to cut out and glue.

Click on the picture to download this activity from TpT.
Please let me know if you can use this too! I love hearing from you!

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Friday Freebie: Apples Counting activity sheet

I love teaching my apples unit every year so Johnny Appleseed's birthday next week (Sept. 26th) is the perfect excuse to teach about apples.

Next week, my kinders will be doing this counting sheet where they will circle the correct number for each box. This activity sheet was created with an old Carson Dellosa clipart cd.

Apple Counting activity sheet

I hope you can use this freebie too! Please let me know if you download and how you use this activity sheet!

Friday Freebie: Counting Up To 10 (With Numbers)

During the first quarter of the school year, I always begin teaching my students one-to-one correspondence. I teach this using many different kinds of manipulatives. For some kinders, this seems to be a quick skill to master while for others it can be very difficult so I always give lots of practice. I also teach my kinders to count pictures on paper. I created these 2 counting sheets with DJ Inkers clipart to use with my kinders for homework. I hope you can use them too!

Counting up to 10 objects (with numbers) activity sheet

If you download and can use these activity sheets, please leave me a comment. I love hearing from you!

Friday Freebie: Trace the Shapes activity sheet

Since it is the beginning of the school year, I am working with my kinders on skills that many of them come to kindergarten lacking. I have many kinders who didn't know how to hold a pencil and weren't able to recognize their names on the table. This week I am working with them on the basic 4 shapes so I created this simple activity sheet to have my kinders practice tracing the shapes correctly.

Trace the Shapes activity sheet

If you download and can use this activity sheet, please leave me a comment. I love reading them!

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Just a little plug from me:

I have 3 Donors Choose projects that are currently posted. I would love to have these projects funded. If you enjoy downloading my freebies, I would love it if you could donate a little to one of my projects. You can also search for a match code that will make your donation worth twice as much!

A Splishin' and A Splashin' (Freebie Friday)

I love teaching my ocean animals unit so I have been busy creating activities to use with this unit. Here is one activity that I created to use with small groups and as an independent center activity.

Ocean Syllable Sort

This activity sheet has the kinders sort the ocean pictures by the number of syllables in each word. They each get a copy of page 1 and there are 2 sets of pictures on page 2. I used it as an independent activity during my guided reading small group time.

Please leave me a quick comment if you download this freebie. Your comments make me smile!