Learning Surveys for Parents and Students-FREEBIE!

The new school year is about to begin!  This means there will be new kiddos coming through our doorway.  What do you do to learn about each and every one of them as learners?  Look through their portfolios from their previous grade(s)?  Speak to their previous teacher? 

In addition to those things, I like to send home the following 

Parent/Guardian Reading and Learning Survey

This basic survey is completed by the parent/guardian of the student.  It asks about what the child likes to do, what they are good at, what may be difficult for them, etc...  It also allows the parent to share any important information that will help me support and motivate their child as a reader.

I found a great two-page student survey from 

The Teacher Organizer right on TPT called

Things That Interest Me!

I have used this with both first and second graders.

For older students, I have them complete the following 

Student Learning Survey:

This two-page survey helps me learn about their interests at school, at home, and when reading.  It also helps me learn about my students' thinking during reading, writing, and more!

What are some means that you use to help better understand and learn about your new students?

End of Year Lollipop Holders EDITABLE FREEBIE

A few years ago I shared a picture of the lollipops and holders that I created for my students to send them off for the summer, telling them, 
"Have a sweet summer!  Love, Mrs. McKown"

Just recently, "The Mailbox" shared it on their Facebook page.  Ever since I have been receiving emails, requesting a copy of the flowers.  I hadn't shared the file before because I had listed my name right on the flower, but I just recreated the file to say, 

"Have a sweet summer!  Love, Your Teacher" 

You can choose to print them out as is.  Or since I left the file as editable, you can change the text so that it includes your name or your own clever saying!

Once printed, simply cut the flowers out, stick whatever brand of lollipop you choose in the center of the flower, and hand them out to your little sweeties!

In the picture of the final product, you can see that I used the "DUM DUM" brand of lollipops.  By reading comments posted through social media, I learned that a few people found this brand to be somewhat offensive.  To be quite honest, I never even thought of them that way before I read the comments and they are just great little lollipops to me!  I have used this brand of lollipops a lot, both at home and at school, and the kiddos really enjoy them and do not think twice about the name of them.

Summer Early Literacy Calendar FREEBIE

Oh my goodness...it is June!!  I just can not believe how fast these last few months have gone!

I still have a few more weeks, but soon the school year will be ending.  As I think back to the beginning of the year, I am so proud of the amazing progress my Kinderkids have made!  Now I start to worry about regression over the summer.  

My little ones truly need daily practice and reinforcement in order to maintain what they have learned.  Knowing that routines will soon be changing at home once school gets out, I want to provide my parents with some fast and fun early literacy activities they could easily slide into their daily routine.  So as I have in the past, I created a calendar for the summer months.  Each weekday, I listed a simple activity that could be done almost anywhere.  I tried to keep them somewhat quick so that parents can combine a day or two together in case they need to skip a day.

  The activities are pretty much the same as listed on the calendar I created last year.  They include reinforcement of:

~  rhyming

~  syllable segmentation

~  alphabetic knowledge

~  phoneme isolation (beginning, ending, and middle sounds)

~  sight words

~  early reading

Knowing that school districts across the country have different beginning and ending dates, I made two sets of calendars.  One for June-July of 2014 and the other for July-August of 2014.  The activities are the same for both sets.

I also wanted to add that since at the end of each school year, I send home all of the Student Readers the student has read.  There is an activity listed on the calendar that says, "Read your pack of student readers".  If you do not have these Student Readers, you could always supplement with a bunch of reading at the student's current reading level!  

As always, I would love to hear ways that you try to prevent the summer slide!!

Earth Day CVC Word Find FREEBIE

Here is a little FREEBIE I threw together to help practice reading CVC words just for Earth Day!

Kiddos will look at the picture to find a CVC Word.

They will then blend the sounds together to read the word and write it on a line.

They will continue this until they find all 20 words!

Happy Earth Day!

Valentine FREEBIES and Goodies!

I thought it would be helpful if I combined all of my Valentine goodies into one post!  

Some of these items are FREE!!  Those that aren't are on sale until Valentine's Day!!

Just click on each picture to be directed to my shop!

  

 

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Thank you!

Upper Case Letter Identification Freebie

Here is a fun activity for your students to independently practice their upper case letter identification and alphabetical order.

The students color a path, one square at a time, from A to Z.  As they color, the following box must be touching the last colored box.  I remind my students that if they get stuck, to head back to the beginning of the alphabet and recite the ABC's as they point to each letter.

This download includes two different versions.  In the first version, the students start at the snowflake and create a path to the snowman.  This path moves from top to bottom.  In the second version, students begin at the the bottom with a penguin and creates a path moving toward the top, to reach an igloo.

Hope you and your students enjoy!

Letter Identification with Alphabet Charts

As a reading teacher, I work with many kindergarten students who come to school having little to no exposure to the alphabet.  So in addition to building their critical phonemic awareness skills, I spend a lot of my time exposing them to letters. 

The first place I like to start with my kiddos is with the 
ABC Song and an alphabet chart.  

We begin by singing the traditional melody of the ABC Song because many of the children are familiar with it.  (However there always seems to be a child or two who is not, so the extra practice and reinforcement is generally helpful to all.)  As we sing the song, we point to each letter of the alphabet.  This can be challenging at first, especially for the little ones who do not yet realize the relationship between the letters they are speaking and the letters in print.  It is important to slow the song down so that each letter can be heard, especially the L-M-N-O-P.

We use many different tools for this activity, including fun pointers, our own fingers, alphabet strips, and alphabet charts.  As the students become more proficient, we use different ABC songs and gradually transition into reciting the alphabet (removing the melody and pausing at the end of each row), while pointing to each letter.  

Seems pretty simple, doesn't it?  Alphabet charts provide so many opportunities for teachable moments!

I like working with alphabet charts in this manner for two main reasons:
First, this helps to build understanding of the organization and basic features of print as they follow the letters from left to right and top to bottom.  (Sound familiar to anyone?)  Not only are they improving their ability to recognize and name the upper and lower case letters of the alphabet, but they are tracking print from left to right (understanding directionality), tracking print from the end of the line to the beginning of the next (return sweep), 
and pointing to individual letters (using one-to-one correspondence).  These are big skills for our little literacy learners!

Secondly, this activity provides the students with a strategy to use to help them figure out unfamiliar letters on their own.  Almost every classroom environments are rich in print.  Every classroom in our building has the alphabet posted and most students have the alphabet printed on their name tags at their seats.  So as long as they have the alphabet in front of them and can recite or sing the ABC Song as they point to the letters, they will have a means to name unknown letters.   

Here is a FREE Alphabet Chart to share with you!  To help our little literacy learners develop return sweep, you will see that I alternated the bee and the butterfly for each row.

I also created some letter cards and letter matching/identification worksheets to go along with the alphabet charts.  
You can find them here:

(Here is the link for my TPT shop.)

Here are some links to other letter matching/identification activities I have made to go along with the Fall that include alphabet charts:

 Do you use alphabet charts yourself?  Where do you start with the children who come into school who have had little to no exposure to the alphabet?

I Have, Who Has Blending and Rhyming

Hi all!  
Do your students like "I have, Who has" games?  Well, since I work with small groups of children, I wanted a quick activity where they could practice blending their sounds and also reinforce their rhyming skills at the same time, so I created these two games.  

The two games are identified by the color of their borders, one yellow and the other pink, with eight rhyming pairs each.  Each game creates a loop, so the last question is answered by the first answer set on the table.  The students are encouraged to work together to determine the correct answers.  Directions are included! 

Click on the picture to download.

 

I also have another "I have, Who has" game to help reinforce rhyming.  This game is much longer and includes 24 rhyming pairs.  In this  game, there is no text for the students to read.  They match the rhyming pairs using only pictures.

Click on the picture to head over to my TPT shop!

Have you ever heard of LoopWriter?  It is a program you can buy/download that can create looping games just like these.  They also have a FREE "I have, Who has" rhyming game with pictures.  You can access that here.

Thank you!

Ultimate FREEBIE Collection-HAPPY BIRTHDAY TBA!

Have you been over to Teaching Blog Addict (TBA) in the last few days?  If you haven't, you really need to stop by!
We are hosting an ultimate FREEBIE celebration to celebrate filled with FREEBIES for different grade levels!

Click on the picture below to head to the 

PreK and Kindergarten FREEBIES:

Once you are there, you will find 8 or more pages of 50 FREEBIES to each page!  

And that is just for PreK-Kindergarten!

Click on the links below to find the other grade levels:

1st-2nd Grade

3rd-4th Grade

5th-6th Grade

So get your printer ready and stop by to grab some amazing FREEBIES!  

You are also invited to link up your own FREEBIES!

How amazing is that?

I feel so blessed to be an author for TBA and can't believe it has already been 2 years!  I look forward to celebrating many, many more!!

HAPPY, HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY TBA!

Zippin Down the Freebie Trail

I am so excited to be part of the FREEBIE trail!
I hope you have found some great activities to add to your toolbox!

I would like to share a fun game called
The Bunny Trail

This game can be used to reinforce so many different skills.  I use it to reinforce fluency with letters, sounds, and sight words.

To play, write whatever needs to be reinforced on the included flash cards and also in the empty boxes on The Bunny Trail game board.  Mix up the cards and have the child read through each card until they get to the first target on the trail.  You then continue the same routine until the bunny gets to the end of the trail!
Enjoy!!

Now, click on the egg below to zip on down to our next stop and see
Learn With Me in Grade Three

And if you are just starting with us, click on the egg below to head to beginning of the trail!

 

St. Patrick's Day Literacy Activities

Here are some St. Patrick's Day themed activities that I will be using in the next few weeks to reinforce some foundational literacy skills.  Click on the pictures to learn more about each activity.

To help practice isolating and segmenting sounds, we will be using plastic gold coins to complete

St. Patty's Day Phoneme Segmentation:

To help practice letter and sound identification, letter writing, and phoneme isolation, my kinderkids will be completing activities from my newly updated 
Lucky Letters Literacy Pack:

And to informally assess correct responses to various phonological skills, I have my students
Color a Lucky Clover:

Sleigh Full of Goodies-Presents!

Thanks for continuing along the

If you missed the two stops on the blog hop from Day 1,
make sure you click on the picture above!!

In my sleigh, you will find my 
Christmas Present Letter Identification pack 
This will be FREE, for the next 12 days!

In addition to the blog hop, I am also linking up with Day 1 of 

hosted by Amy of Teaching My 3.

Click on the picture below to hop over to The Lower Elementary Cottage to see what she has in her sleigh!

Thank you Beth from Thinking of Teaching for hosting this merry blog hop!!

Do you have something you would like to share?  

Please link up and join in the fun!!

Color a Turkey FREEBIE

When reviewing foundational skills with my students in my small groups, I like and need to hear responses from each student individually.  To give it an extra boost of fun, I reward my students for correct responses by having them do the following:

How do you use this?  

Simply print the document and cut it into the four strips.  

Have your kiddos write their names on the back.  

As you complete your planned activity, have the student color in a turkey for each correct response.  

So simple, but the kids love it!!

This could be used in so many ways, with any type of skill!!  What will you use it for?

And don't forget to head over to Teaching Blog Addict for some other great FREEBIES!

Turkey Letters and Sounds

One of my favorite holidays happens to be just around the corner!

Thanksgiving of course!

I love gathering with family and eating delicious food!!  
What can be better than that?!

Are you working on introducing and reinforcing letters and sounds?  I created a Turkey Letters and Sounds Pack just for Thanksgiving, with cute little turkeys!  

Don't forget that I also included some cute Thanksgiving pages in the Roll and Say activity to help promote fluency with letters and sounds.

Finally, I have a game board that could be used when reinforcing almost anything.  It is available for FREE!!

Gobble!  Gobble!!

Words to Live By Right Now-FREEBIE

Hi all!

How is everyone doing?  Things have been a bit stressful in my neck of the woods.  Between SLO assessments, DRA2s, and benchmarking for AIMSweb, I have been doing lots and lots and lots of assessing.  

Without getting into too much detail beyond that, I wanted to share a little quote I came across while on Pinterest.  I fell in love with it because it fits things perfectly right now!

I decided to type it up with some fun fonts that are available for FREE!

One of the fonts was made by my very dear friend Leslie from

called "Leslies Hand".  This is the green and purple text and is my favorite font right now!  Thanks Leslie!

The other font was made by Amanda from

called "Pea Tracy".  This is the pink and turquoise text.

Aren't they great?  I would love to create my own font sometime!

How does this quote fit with your life right now? 

Am I the only one feeling extra stress these days?

Open House Night-FREEBIE

Last night we celebrated Open House!  Have you already celebrated yours?

In my school, children come with their families to visit their classrooms and visit different places in the school.  The classroom teachers have the children complete a scavenger hunt with their families to find places like the library, computer lab, cafeteria, and the gym.  Because we like to see the kiddos and their families too, the reading teachers are also placed on the scavenger hunts!  This year we had a few goodies waiting for the kiddos and their families when they stopped by.  

I created this first handout last year about every child needing a laptop.  Do you encourage your parents to provide laptops for their children?  You should!  They are free!  This handout definitely has a cute little twist that the parents enjoy as it discusses the importance of reading aloud to children, right on their own built-in laptop.  

If you missed the post from last year, you can check it out and grab your own copy by clicking on the picture above.

This year I created some bookmarks to go along with the handout, using the quote that I have seen floating around on Pinterest from Emilie Buchwald: 

"Children are made readers in the laps of their parents."  

I just love it and thought it fit perfectly!

We printed these bookmarks on colorful cardstock and the kids enjoyed taking these home.

I realize a lot of you have already celebrated Open House, but I could see these also being provided at parent conferences, literacy nights, etc...  What kind of handouts do you provide for the families of the children you work with?

Before I head off to bed because I am just absolutely exhausted, I wanted to share my new love with you!  

It is my new ruffle purse!

Isn't it adorable!!  I love, love, love the ruffles!!  It is another handmade bag that I found on Etsy from a shop called Gathered and Sown.  Angie was so easy to work with and I just love it so much that I had to share!  

What do you think!?  

And finally, don't forget to head over to TBA to check out the FREEBIES available for Freebie Friday!!