Literacy Picnic In the Classroom!

Hello!  It's Reagan from Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits!  I hope I can help inspire some FUN with this post on having a picnic in the classroom!

When spring fever hits, I like to bring out what I secretly call "Disneyland Centers"  I amp up the fun and keep my students engaged and excited about learning!  They won't dare misbehave because they won't want to miss out on the fun!  Grab some free printable lessons in this post and have yourself a literacy picnic too!

Here's a peek into my literacy picnic basket!  {Thank you dollar store!} I only spent $8 on a few little props and we feel like we are in the park at Summer time!

We made an anchor chart for our ketchup words

 click to download the bottles

Then we took it a step further and learned a new literacy center!

This one is also on the menu...

I may have heard squeals when I introduced this one.  {Okay the squeals were mine}  I love chip clips anyway, but now the kids get to enjoy them too! It's the simple things in life...

My boys were all over being grill king!

And what picnic is complete without some sentence skewers?

We will also be making sight word sandwiches.  I had this one already, but I had made each sandwich piece with construction paper and hand written the words.  I am thrilled to have given it a make-over!

YUMMY!

No picnic this delicious is without ants.  Thankfully the kids were happy to have them along!

We even matched each one up with a cookie!

 Click to download

We decided to cool down with some compound cool aid!  So refreshing!

The kids can't get enough of this one! That pitcher is always being emptied!

Get these literacy centers here

For a post on the math centers click HERE! 

For a math Picnic too check out my Picnic Pals Math Centers

Bundle of math and literacy together

Handwriting in March

Hello there!  This is Deedee from Mrs. Wills Kindergarten.  Wanna talk about handwriting?

So I am going to start this post by saying... I am not an expert and I am so far from perfect that I'm not even sure where they line the cars up for the race.
  

Here is what I do...I research it, try it, revise it, and then try it again.  I am a practitioner.

Handwriting... ugh!  It is not my favorite thing.  The Perfect Son has imperfect handwriting.  It was not my passion when he was 5 years old, it is not my passion now.  However, the purpose of writing is to make our meaning known, so we work a little on handwriting.  When I say a little... I mean a very little.

What we do actually do is write... ALL. DAY. LONG.

We start every morning with a version of these.  The kids love them, they make me smile and in this super simple warm up everyday, we can address so many skills in a creative way... Letter formation, spacing, capital letters, ending punctuation, illustrating, reading simple text... the list is long.  We do these as our "morning work."  I can quickly instruct them if there is a letter out of whack. 

Click on the picture to find these activities.

Click on the picture to find these activities.

Click on the picture to find these activities.

You can find the GROWING BUNDLE HERE.

Someone asked me if I address handwriting during writers workshop.  The answer is VERY RARELY.  Writers workshop (my belief) is about composing.  It is about getting our thoughts out and conveying meaning.  If their writing is confusing because their letters are not clear, then I might say something like.   "Wow!  I love the story you just told me". (Then offer a few more genuine compliments)  "I wondering if we could make this story a little easier for your reader to read?"  Then I would try to support them in that process.  No red pen!  

So... when else do I work on supporting handwriting?

During interactive writing!

During our Minute to Win it (literally 5 minutes worth of handwriting work in this activity!

I quick adjustment and he was on his way!

and during stations.

Our high-tech overhead station involves writing...

Our pocket chart (predictable sentences) station has LOTS of writing!

And when I set out to make my monthly Math and Literacy Stations unit I had a few goals in mind:
1.  Meaningful work
2. The task must take more than 3.2 seconds to complete... hello!  I have groups to meet with!
3. It needed to support my classroom goals (increase writing and illustrating).
4.  It HAD to be easy to prep... we are all busy!

Does the clown look abnormally scary... or is it just me?

My final thoughts on handwriting.  Some students are not ready for it.  That's okay.  I just take it where they are and nudge and guide them towards improvement.  I sing their praises and celebrate every step in the right direction.  I am not sure if that is right or wrong, but it is how I roll.

Egg-cellent Spelling Center

Hi all!  It is Erica Bohrer from Erica's Ed-Ventures.   Take advantage of the after Easter sales and snap up this flash freebie!

I purchased two sets of large plastic eggs, easter grass, and a basket from Target.  Then I typed up our Words of the Week on cute chick cards.  The adorable clip art is a freebie from our fellow Blog Hopper, Mel of Graphics from the Pond.   Next, I printed and copied the recording sheet.  I have provided you with two copies of the recording sheet.   On the recording sheet pictured above, the students write the spelling word as many times as they can around the egg and in the middle.  They use the same color as the egg and word, so you will need to provide your students with colored pens, pencils, or gel pens.  The students at the center take only one egg and open it at a time. I like to teach my first graders process of elimination: "If you took two orange eggs already, do you think you should take an orange egg again?"

I hope you enjoy this flash freebie.  Please, download it before it gets listed on TpT for $1, it will still be a great deal if you ask me!

Happy Teaching!

Things

Hi friends!  It's Julie from Mrs. Lee's Kinderkids.  If you're like me, you're crazy busy right now not only with classroom things, but Christmas things, get-together things, program things, shopping things, LIFE things!  Well, you get the point.  (hence the name of this blog post)

We've been super busy in our classroom the past couple weeks doing Christmas things, ornament things, crafty things, writing things, & center things!

Oh, and don't forget assessment things!

Here's what we've been up to:

These Santa's take forever...BUT they are so worth it!  I absolutely love the way they turn out each year.  You can find this resource here.

These pattern block ornaments make for a bright element hanging from our classroom ceiling...

I saw this on a website a few years ago...littlegiraffes.com

I give all the strips to my little friends and they must put them in order from shortest to tallest before gluing them on their paper.  I check each one first.  Such great math skill practice but in a fun way!  Last, we add snow with white paint and a q-tip

Here's some of our center games this week and you can find them in my Holly Jolly Christmas unit.

 I like integrating math and literacy into my centers as you can see below.

 They loved these interactive presents they could actually open to find the sight word to read.

 We matched numbers to number words with real gift tags!

These next 3 centers from last week can be found in my Deck the Halls unit.

 Working hard on middle sounds with this center...

Another interactive center where they build the sight word with lights! 

 This was the first center this year where they had to unscramble the sight word, but they did SO good!

 And, these 2 can be found in my December Craze packet…just print and play!  Plus, there are TONS more just like these in this packet!

That's it in a *tiny nutshell*...we've done LOTS more and still have lots to do before next Friday.  I hope to be back with more Christmas fun on my blog soon that you can check out here. 

In the meantime, I have a 12 days of Christmas giveaway going on right now that you definitely want to check out.   Then, there's one more coming up that you won't want to miss.  Follow my blog or follow me on Facebook for updates!