St. Patty's Poetry & FREE Measurement Printables

Well.....I suppose I'll do just one last blog post before I throw in the towel! 

Because we won't be in school for St. Patty's day (hello spring break!!), we "celebrated" it for the past two weeks with some simple themed activities, literacy centers, and poems:

You may remember the above poem that I used last year as well.

I put each of my firsties' names on a sticky note and each time we read the poem throughout the week, a new set of students got to be "in" our poem.

We also finished up our short-and-sweet linear measurement unit with a couple simple activities. My firsties worked hard while I pulled them for some one-on-one assessments.

For this first activity, the students used little cubes to measure and record the length of each ice cream:

Download this freebie HERE!

Next, they could draw any object/picture they wanted and then they measured the length and width of their drawing with snap cubes:

Download this freebie HERE!

After seeing my kiddies *flip* for my (FREE!) Dr. Seuss flip book, I knew I wanted to create some more. So over the week, I worked on putting together a little bundle of 7 different fiction & non-fiction reading response and comprehension flip books:

I have so many plans of how to use these with my firsties: from simple follow-up activities to various shared and guided-reading texts, to comprehension and story element assessments.

(As seen in the two pictures above, the books can be printed on either coloured or plain white paper)

If you think your kiddies would enjoy flip books as much as mine do, check out my new obsession in more detail :P

And now I am *officially* on spring break!!! Here's to a slightly productive and excessively lazy week ahead ;)

Hello! I'm still here!

Hey'all! I'm back after a little blogging vacation!! (yes, that is what I'm going to refer to as my temporary "life-is-crazy-and-it's-kicking-my-butt" leave!). So without further adieu, let's jump right in to some fun!

I'll start off with a quick little reading comprehension FREEBIE!

I use these cubes often during whole group after reading any story (the actual cubes are from a teacher supply store...maybe Lakeshore Learning?? I can't remember). I also use them in small group/guided reading, and am now planning a centre activity for next week where the kiddies can use the cubes on their own:

Here is a screenshot of one of the worksheets for our centre activity (I have included 3 different versions: one for just writing, one for writing and a picture, and one for just a picture). 

Click HERE (or the pic above) to download the FREE cube inserts & extension worksheet!

Next I thought I'd share the reading program I run in my classroom. Our school has a school-wide reading program called "Reading Rocks." Each student gets one of these bags to take home for a week and bring back to school each Monday. At the beginning of the week, the kids choose 3 new books to take home (one levelled reader, one guided reading book, and one general book from our classroom library--does not have to be a book they can read. I also send their sight word rings home every once in a while)

In my classroom, I have an added reading incentive to get them reading, reading, reading; Also in their Reading Rocks bags are their reading log duotangs, where parents record any books read with their child:

Click HERE to download my FREE reading log!

For every 10 books read at home, the student gets to choose one bead to add to their necklace:

This is the reading bulletin board, displaying our necklaces.

Like I said, for every 10 books read a student gets 1 "regular" bead (seed beads). AND for every 50 books read, the student gets to pick out a "special" bead. I have a massive collection of beads from my childhood and a "special bead" is one from my collection:

The beads on the left are regular beads and on the right are the special beads:

The kids are SO excited when they have read 10 books and I usually hear about it first thing in the morning and throughout the day...they are *obsessed* with putting beads on their necklaces! Love it. At the end of the year, the kiddies get to keep their reading necklaces as a token of how much progress they made in first grade!

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And, since I haven't blogged since LAST MONTH!!! I figured I should throw in a festive activity to welcome December:

This little writing craftivity was inspired by one that we did last year. Rather than just using red and green, I had my kiddies choose from brightly coloured paper...I love the final product so much more!!

First we read this book:

and discussed how getting toys and lots of other presents is not at all the true meaning of Christmas. 

(click the pics to enlarge)

Their answers were so sweet!

That's all for now. I will hopefully be back at the end of this week for another update. Have a great week, everyone!

Sight Words & Winners!

Hiya'll! Before I share my weekly sight word "routines," I would like to congratulate Cindy Murray, who was the grand prize winner out of 1,493 entries in our "11 bloggers, 11 freebies" fall blog hop:

Cindy has won my Everything Autumn literacy center activities pack, along with 10 other fabulous products which you can read about HERE. CONGRATS, Cindy!!! And a huge thank-you to everyone who participated in our blog hop...and scooped up 11 fall freebies on the way!!!

Alrighty, now for some sight word fun!

Like I mentioned in this blog post, I will be teaching my darlings THREE sets of sight words this year (pre-primer, primer, and first grade). So, each week, I introduce anywhere between 3 and 5 sight words each week. I start by arrange the words in a "sight word sentence":

(Above shows 4 weeks of sight word sentences--one sentence each week...it's super crinkly since we've been constantly referring back to this page for 4 weeks now!)

We review these sentences throughout day whenever we have a spare moment. We read them forward. We read them backwards. We act them out. We search for letters and words. The sentences are, overall, just a great little tool to help the kiddies learn each word (especially when initially introduced). This chart will eventually hang in our reading center with other class-made big books. 

My kiddies are also *obsessed* with playing Sight Word Slap at any spare moment:

(I wrote "and" twice. It drives me absolutely NUTS!!!)

I keep adding our new sight words to this page every week. 

How we play: Each kiddie gets a turn as I call out a sight word and he/she has to first find and then "slap" the spoken word with a fly swatter. Simple and fun!

We keep track of the sight words learnt with our door decor; "Sight Word Celebration." We made a deal at the beginning of the year that for every 20 sight words learnt, we will have a little sight word celebration! I still want to add ribbons to some of the balloons:

I put our "Sight Word Celebration" on our door because, at the end of every day as the kiddies line up and leave the classroom one-by-one to pack up from home-time, I point to a balloon and each kid has to say the word before they leave. It is also right next to my Word Work 2 center, so the kiddies are constantly referencing the words throughout certain center activities.

I've mentioned my "Read It, Build It" filing cabinet once before on my classroom reveal:

I have been adding each week's new sight words to the cabinet for students to practice building their sight words with Alphamagnets. Right now, I am using this as an "I'm done, now what?" activity.

The front of the filing cabinet features an Alphamagnet version of our current sight word sentence:

Throughout each day of the week (whenever there's a spare minute), I will either rearrange the letters in one or all of the sight words and have students fix the mis-spelled words,

OR rearrange the word placement to focus more on sentence structure and deciding "what makes sense":

Next up, are our flash cards:

Each student has a set of sight word flash cards (which the have written themselves) that they keep in their individual book boxes (book boxes contain levelled books and guided reading books, which the kiddies read when they visit the reading center). Every Friday, we take a short moment to write our new sight words for that week on a card, and add them to our rings.

 Last but not least, you might have already read about of our Sight Word Wands:

Again, I add our 3 or 5 new sight word wands to the cup at the beginning of each week. The kiddies use the wands to search for sight words as they read. I really love love loovve these wands especially for my little guys who aren't confidently reading yet; rather than always just looking at the pictures of a book, it gives them more of a focus in hunting for all of the words they DO know and CAN read independently. It works wonders for their confidence!

And that about sums up our main "routine" when learning new sight words!

Let's be friends!

Get teaching tips, ideas, and FREEBIES every now and then.

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Now, I would LOVE to hear from YOU!

Comment below to share any tips, tricks, or activities that you use to help your kiddies learn and practice sight words....