Rainbow Acrostic Poem for Kindergarten and First Grade

Acrostic Poem in Kindergarten and First Grade

My talented student teacher has been teaching the children about adjectives and character traits. She came up with a project that combined both of these using an acrostic poem format. The children thought of a character trait to go with each letter of their name. They used a format we created to write and organize the poem. Check out the adjectives in the photo above. One says, "educated" this was written by one of the kinders!! Hooray!! This just made my day. This little girl would barely say a few words when she can to us. Now she feels educated.



The children came up with their own ideas. After they wrote the acrostic poem, they glued it to a cloud and then added the words on the rays! I got out the cotton balls and the writing project was complete with puffy clouds. As the children were finishing they listened to Happy by Pharrell Williams. They were so cute as they celebrated their projects. It was a great moment! Take time to enjoy Happy from Despicable Me. It can truly make you happy.

 


Haylee is doing a great job. The future of teaching looks bright!!

New Base Ten Kids Numbers and Operations Unit with a Freebie

This is part of my new unit for learning about Numbers and operations in Base Ten.

This is a great back to school unit for second grade and a great start for first graders and kindergarteners that need practice with this skill. This is a matching game the children can play that uses expanded form, base ten blocks and numbers. The unit is Practice in Base Ten with the Base Ten Kids. You can find the unit on Teachers Pay Teachers. There are 65 pages of activities for the common core standard for Numbers and Operations in Base Ten. A I have, Who has game with tens and ones using addition and subtraction is part of the unit. There are several center activities that can be used as finishers once the children understand how to play them.

Ten Frames for Matching Numbers
One of the centers is matching ten frames and ones with a number. A great way to play this game is to place magnetic tape on the back of the cards and let the children use cookie trays from a dollar store.

There are cards for a Poke It Game and for a Dice Roll Game. Many of the centers can become independent work stations and finishers once the children know how to play them.

Math Task Cards and Thinking Sheets
There are math task cards and thinking sheets so students can write and draw how they solved a math problem. There are a lot of worksheets as well in this unit so you can be sure you are getting a lot of bang for your buck! I have used variations of this unit in my classroom. I made this new unit with graphics that will appeal to boys and girls. The activities are challenging and I have provided for differentiation in this unit. You can use this unit throughout the school year. I can't wait to share this unit with my children at school. I'm sure they are going to love it. There is sample download with the unit so you can get one activity free! I hope Practice in Base Ten with the Base Ten Kids will be part of your Back to School planning!

Please visit my new blog, Teaching Resources for the Classroom, and follow. I am having a big contest soon with a $50.00 Dollar gift card to Target. Woohoo!!

Reading Strategies to Help Build Reading Confidence

Reading Strategy Number 3~ Circle It to Show You Know It

If you missed the other reading strategies link directly to it from here. This is a link to my site Teaching Resources for the Classroom.

3. Circle It to Show You Know It! it s fun practical reading strategy that I created to use with readers who need to develop confidence. It can be used with any level of reader. I find that many readers know words but do not have confidence in their ability to read the words when presented with a book or a page full of words. The photo is an example of a passage from a Magic Tree House book that I am using with a student.

I copy a page from a book I know the reader likes for educational purposes. I ask the reader to circle each world that he can read. If you pick the just right text most of the words will be circled. Just right texts are texts that the reader know 94% of the words. Here is poster with the Goldilocks Rule and the Five Finger Rule for picking texts. This is easy to teach to children.

The children love Circle It to Show You Know It!. It is visual reminder of what they do know. I put the percentage here so you could see it. I don't do this on the reader's page. For most of the children just seeing what they know is a huge revelation to them. Their faces light up. This strategy would work for adult education as well. The written page suddenly becomes less scary and more like "Hey I can do this!" I have had children carry these around and show their families and friends. Sometimes I think we should frame their sheet. If you use this strategy in your classroom or home school drop and tell me how it worked for your reader. Do you think this is an effective strategy? I welcome your comments below! 2 more strategies are on the way.

Freebie for Place Value

My Freebie for the week for Classroom Freebies is a quick math center to practice place value, expanded form and base ten counting. You can get it here on Google Drive.

All the best,
Sarah