Alphabet Coloring pages

My kindergarten literacy class will be working on their alphabet in the next couple of days. I have several different activities planned; a matching game, a scavenger hunt, a what's missing activity, and developing their fine motor skills with some simple coloring pages. Unfortunately, I didn't have any I really liked, so of course I cam home and made a set this evening. Isn't that what everyone does? I decided to make this another FREE download, through the end of the year. Enjoy.

 

By the way, my Big Fat Hen lesson has been a big success. The students have really enjoyed the stories, re-reading the rhyme, and getting up and moving with the partner matching activity. I'd love to hear how the activity went in your classroom or library.

Big Fat Hen

Guess what I'm reading to Kindergarten tomorrow? Yes, the title of this blog post gave it away. Actually I'm reading two books, Hungry Hen by Richard Waring and The Big Fat Hen by Keith Baker. There yearly favorites. The unexpected ended of the first and all those chickens in the second! However, I really wanted an extension that was more substantial than a coloring page. Thus I came home and whipped up a sequencing activity, along with some rhyming and matching cards. I tossed in a worksheet, just in case there's a need. But otherwise, I wanted these to be as paperless as possible. Here's a sample of what the individual sequence cards look like. The pocket chart cards are just larger versions.

 

This is another FREE download, so if you teach the little ones, pop over and snap it up. As always, if you do download, please leave me feedback. Enjoy!

Clouds...and writing

Because I'm on a roll. One of my teachers is reading the book It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles Green Shaw this coming week. I lent her cloud cards and offered her a copy of a writing activity I had done in the past. We made wonderful class books with the children drawing pictures of what they too thought they saw in the clouds. Unfortunately I couldn't find my paper copies, and my electronic copy had apparently become corrupted.

I always think creating these new worksheets will take less time than they do, especially when working with Microsoft Paint. My drawings always take longer because I get so fussy. I'm not terribly thrilled with the outcome, but I'm trying to learn to "let it go" and not be such a perfectionist.

In the end, I created six pages suitable for a class book or for individual worksheets. Five of the pages have cloud shape the student can identify, the sixth page is blank for their own creative drawing opportunity. Each of the five pages has two formats, complete the sentence and a blank line for their own interpretative writing. I also added in vocabulary pocket chart words to help with spelling.

This is a free TPT download, so pop over and grab the download. I'll include my standard plea for feedback. Enjoy!

Autumn Activity Pack

While I should have been doing school work, I added another freebie to my TPT store this evening instead. Oh well. I like sharing. Let me know what you think, and if you do download this, or any, activity pack please remember to leave feedback. Your comments will help me improve what I share.

This is one of the pages from the activity pack.

The pack also includes a leaf graphing activity, a pattern activity and an apple race game. The leaf activity is a good extension to Lois Ehlert's Leaf Man, while the apple race game ties nicely with Ten Red Apples by Pat Hutchins. Of course, these are only two of the books in my library that I read, you may have other favorites. The Autumn Roll and Color and the patterning activity were added into the pack, simply because.

To grab the Fall Activity Pack- Freebie visit my TPT Store. Enjoy!

Teachers Pay Teachers

This past summer I had finger surgery which did not allow me to enjoy my usual summer pastimes, consequently, I spent quite a bit of time creating new materials for my library program. After sharing these I received lots of encouragement and coaxing from my colleagues and I've opened a Teachers Pay Teachers store and placed a few items on my site. Hopefully the extra time I've invested will be worth it and others will find the materials useful which will encourage me to create even more.

If you have a few minutes and are so inclined, take a look, I'd love to hear your feedback. What do you love, what do you wish I would have included, what could you live without. Thanks

Interactive Bulletin Boards

As I've mentioned, the reading board happens to be directly across from a much used rest stop. I often see the students reading the various book covers posted, but I want something more. I'd like them to be a bit more engaged, have some real conversations about what they are reading. Call be crazy!

With that, I decided I'd have a new theme to this year's bulletin boards. Each board must be interactive in some way. My "welcome back" board tied into our summer reading Superhero theme and asks students to find their superhero name. While not leading to deep rigorous discussion, I'm certain it will be fun.

The inspiration for the board came from a few different Pinterest finds. The Cityscape idea from this backdrop idea, Skippyjon Jones and the slogan from this Pin (I found additional characters to fill the board), and the idea for the Superhero name came from this Pin. When I decided to add it to the board, I didn't like the flavor aspect of the last name. I did some searching for "What's your superhero name" and found a few more examples. I wanted a list was elementary school friendly so I did some blending to create my custom list.

Attention grabbing and EASY Book Fair Decorations

We all love book fairs. Regardless of the vendor, the provide our libraries with monies to be spent on books, author visits and other programming to help our students. Many book fairs have a theme. Personally, I have had good luck with the Scholastic program. Most of the time I use the theme they suggest, occasionally I go rogue and use something different. I have found that in my school, decorating the tables and such do not make the kids any more excited about the books. However, I have found that using large posters flanking the library doors does have an impact. It keeps the kids excited and it keeps sales brisk.

These are a few of my past book fair decorations.

There were two of these awesome reading tikis, one for each side. Painted by my awesome art teacher.

Both the cat and dog were also painted by my art teacher.

My art teacher was busy, so I got creative and did a bit of overhead tracing magic.

More overhead magic along with some die-cuts and construction paper embellishments.