Product Swap

This week I teamed up with Diana from Sticky Notes and Glitter for a little product swap hosted by Jessica Stanford.  Diana teaches first grade, but I thought my kiddos could handle the challenge.

We just finished our 10 week vowel review where we focus on one vowel sound per week, starting with the short vowels and finishing up with the long vowels.  Diana's product, Long and Short Vowel Sounds Word Hunt Pack fits in great.  I haven't had it for very long, but I am already planning to use it next week and again next year.  This time starting with our "short a" review! :o)

I love this idea because it gets the kids up and moving.  You know I am all for that!!  During the activity the kids walk around the room and hunt for words.   Then they write them on their log sheets.  Diana has pages for the short vowels, long vowels, and for multiple vowels.

Next week we will be playing some long and short vowel sound comparison games, and I can't wait to get them up hunting and sorting again.

Thanks Diana!

Check out these other great products from the product swap as well.

"One who loves a pure heart and who speaks with grace will have the king for a friends." Proverbs 22:11

Burping in the Classroom & A Freebie!

Who doesn't love those There Was An Old Lady books!!  I know my kiddos sure do.  Last week we read There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly and There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Shell.  After sequencing the events, we had to compare and contrast the stories.  The kids blew me out of the water!! (lol)  They actually told me I didn't have enough lines in the circles for them.  "Don't worry Mrs. Rucker, we can just smoosh the words in there!"  So, just like any good teacher, we did it.  :o)

Now, I don't know if you can do this next part in your classroom (or would want to), but boy did we have fun with it.  Of course the boys were sooooo excited because in the shell story the old lady didn't die, she burped!!  Here it comes, yes, we had to burp!  We burped and built a sand castle.  Here are their adorable drawings.

I had them go to their tables and draw their sandcastle.  If you notice, some of them even included everything from the story.  Then yes, here it comes, we got back together and burped!!

If your kiddos love these stories too, click on the picture below to download this compare and contract freebie.  Caution, you might have to add more lines or "smoosh" in all of the things your class comes up with!

"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will." Romans 12:2

Phrase Cards - High Frequency Words & Fluency

There is great discussion as to when, what, which ones, and how we teach our little kiddos sight words.  We use the Animated Literacy program at my school to teach the 44 sounds in our English language, and I truly believe this program gives our students a solid reading foundation.  We teach two sounds per week, which means we finish all 44 in February.

So when do we teach the "sight" words?   Well, when developing/ revising/updating our Kindergarten curriculum (lol), it was decided that Kindergarten would be responsible for the first 50 "high frequency" words on Fry's list.  Our first grade teachers take the next 150!  :o)

We don't really start "testing" on the high frequency words until 3rd quarter.  1-25 3rd quarter, 26-50 4th quarter, and we added a few other words we commonly saw in our readers or words we thought the kids should know.

These little phrase cards have become very beneficial for my students.  I keep them in the table boxes for when the kids finish work early or for other various times/activities during the day.  They get them out and play games like teacher/student, fan and pick, etc.  They love them!   I love them!   Not only are they great word "flash cards," the back sides have phrases for the kiddos to work on fluency! 

High Frequency Phrase Cards

This resource is available in my TpT store.  I have included words 1-50 from Fry's High Frequency word list, color words and number words.  Click on the link or picture above to find it.   I have printing instructions available in the preview download, plus a list of included words and a freebie set for you to practice printing with.  Look for more sets to come!

"Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock." Isaiah 26:4

McDonalds French Fry Fun

I did guest blog with Kindergarten Smorgasbord last week!  Go check it out! Greg made a fun little freebie to go along with the idea.

Click on the picture below to read the post.

McDonald French Fry Fun - Subtraction

Click here to find Greg's French Fry freebie.

"People learn from other people, just as iron sharpens iron." Proverbs 27:17

Lessons From a Lemonade Stand

This week worked on Lessons From a Lemonade Stand.  Yeah!!  What a way to welcome in spring and this warm weather.  Even though it actually snowed on Tuesday!!  Eeek.  30 one day, 70 the next......that is Kansas weather for you.

We read Lemonade for Sale, and the kids a lot of fun.  They were very eager for Friday when we got to put up the lemonade stand for our math graphing activity. 

We made 3 different types of lemonade:  regular lemonade, pink lemonade and limeade.  The kids got to try all 3, and they had to pick their favorite kind.   By the looks on their faces, there was definitely a favorite.

Then came the data collection.  What was our favorite kind?  They had their data collection sheet, and I put our class list on the back.  The kids went around and asked each other which kind of lemonade was their favorite.  We used tally marks to collect our data, and then marked off each name as they went around.

After collecting our data, it was time to analyze and graph it.    The worksheets are created in color, but we are conserving ink, so I had the kids color the cups of lemonade with their crayons.  :o)

Yep!! Pink lemonade won!

There are many other great activities in this pack including cupcake graphing, addition, subtraction, story problems, measurement, verbs, adjectives, punctuation, creative writing, CVC, CVCC, CCVC words, alphabetical order, and letter matching.  

When we found the verbs in our sentences, of course we had to act them out.  If you like these lesson ideas and would love to have them for your classroom, please click on the link below.  

Lessons From a Lemonade Stand

"For as the soil makes the sprout come up and the garden causes seed to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations."  Isaiah 61:11

How Things Move & a Freebie!

We just finished our "How Things Move" unit in science.  The kids had a blast.  We pushed and pulled, rolled, went back and forth, spun in circles, and went up and down for a week!  Whoooo,  I was a little tired by the end of the week. :o)

 I really do love this unit because we get up and moving.  I introduced force, and we were off.  We got to go outside and swing (back and forth movement), play with hula hoops and ribbons (circular movement), and blow bubbles.   Yes, we had to talk about why somethings go up and stay up, and why somethings go up and come down - gravity.  :o) We named "gravity" - Mr. Gravity - because I said it was like a little man pushing back down on your head.  We have already done our Earth and Space unit, so they knew that once something got high enough, it would stay up there and float.  They loved it because I picked them up and let them "run" in space.  heheheheh

Then we talked about how different things can change how something moves.  We went out side and experimented with a wall.  What would happen if we rolled the ball straight to the wall?  What would happen if we rolled the ball at an angle to wall?  Well, one of my little girls knew exactly where she needed to roll the ball to make it hit the wall and go to her partner!!  Yeah!!  The other kids were soooooo impressed.

Finally, we talked about how things move on different surfaces.  The boys where hooping and hollering when I got the cars out! For our experiment we rolled a car down a ramp and onto three different surfaces.  Which surface would it roll the furthest on?  Oh, this is so much fun to watch!!  I have them record their "drawings" on a record sheet.  (We draw where the car stopped.)

If you would like to download this fun little freebie, Exploring Different Surfaces, click on the picture below.  Of course I had to make it cute before I gave it away.  The paper you see in the pictures above was the one I used last year.  My kiddos had so much fun with this, so I wanted to share.

If you liked this little freebie, please remember to follow my blog or Facebook page. I hope your kids have fun too!

"You don't have enough faith," Jesus told them.  "I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it would move. Nothing would be impossible." Matthew 17:20