New Resource

As you know, I have been spending a lot of time creating resources/products for my TpT store in preparation for the upcoming school year.
I don't know about you, but where I am in California education is getting getting hit with drastic cuts. Not only are our class sizes increasing (32 in Kinder, 33 in 1-3!), but our budgets are decreasing. Districts and thus teachers, will have much less money for resources and supplies.
Especially with many of us moving to Common Core, not only are our materials outdated, but Districts have no money to replace them!
That is one of the reasons that I post free products for a limited time. I am hoping that teachers and homeschoolers are able to take advantage during this short window.
I hesitate to link items here that are free because I don't know how (and will forget) to "unlink" them (is that a word?) once the freebie period is over.
So, this is what I propose to do. I will post/link items here, but they will have an "expiration" date. If you are reading this post after that date, please note that the item is still available in my TpT store, but no longer for free (although I always have many, many freebies available that I would love for you to check out).
I'm hoping this will prevent anyone from being disappointed if they click the product link after the "expiration" date.  Not stinky like expired milk, but a disappointment just the same.
So, that being said, I would like to share my latest resource with you.

Early Primary NURSERY RHYME Themed Activities

Here I have six different activities (5 for Language Arts, 1 for math) that I created for early primary classes. By early primary, I mean the beginning of First Grade, as well as Kinder and Pre-K.
Here are some shots of a few of the activities.

     Dolch/Sight word match.     Alphabet recognition/match.
There is also a CVC word building activity

and a math/number "Poke and Peek".

Again, these activities are geared to more basic skills: number recognition, alphabet match, etc.. that may be too "easy" for some First Graders and even some Kinders, but I hope they will come in handy for many others.

I really love this colorful unit (I adore ThistleGirl graphics as you may have noticed) and hope you do too. I am currently working on a similar type of resource, but this one is based on Fairy Tales rather than Nursery Rhymes.
The EXPIRATION DATE for this free resource will be Aug. 1.
If you are reading this blog post after that date, it will no longer be available for free (again, please visit my store and see what is currently free, it's always changing).
If you have a chance, let me know what you think.
Hope your summer is going well. Reeeeeeeeeeeeelax.

Chery

Handwriting Resource

Here are some great handwriting resources for your primary classroom. I have a large "Sky, grass and ground" writing banner across the top of my whiteboard which is a very useful resource for my students, especially early in the year.

It looks like this (except that it has the entire alphabet on it). It is wonderful for students to use to help with letter formation and letter positioning, which is difficult for our Kinders and Firsties.
This is another wonderful free resource from Sparklebox. At Sparklebox you can find many resources using the sky, grass, ground method. They even have each sight word on a separate page that you can laminate and have your students trace.  I took one of their pages and scanned and enlarged it for my classroom. I then wrote the letters on it and hung it in my room.
I also made a small mini-banner that I laminated and keep on my whiteboard. I can easily grab this mini-banner and using a dry erase marker, I can demonstrate how to write words or letters as they are presented. You can just see the corner of that mini-banner in this picture of one of my class whiteboards.

See the banner to the right?

Here is a link to these wonderful writing resources available free from Sparklebox. Be sure to check out their other resources while you are there.
Just another resource that would be a wonderful addition to your classroom and something you may want to think about creating over the summer.

Chery

Parts of Speech Puzzles

Back a few blogs ago, I talked about a very easy way to have students practice sight words using puzzles. Well, I just recently came across these puzzles at the Dollar Tree and they worked wonderfully for this activity.
Each pack came with 3 puzzles. Yes, there was a "boy" pack and a "girl" pack and I bought one of each.

I first put together all 3 puzzles (only one package at a time so that I wouldn't get too confused!).

After I put together all three puzzles, I flipped them over, face down keeping them in one piece.
(you can do this with the pieces individually keeping the puzzles apart, if that is easier for you).

I designated each puzzle to one word type; verbs, nouns, and adjectives. On the back of each puzzle piece I wrote one of that type of word.
For example, on the noun puzzle, I wrote a noun on the back of every piece in the puzzle. I then moved on to the "verb" puzzle and wrote a verb on the back of every piece of that puzzle, etc. The backs soon looked like this:

After all the words were written, I took the puzzle pieces apart and mixed them all together. Keeping the boy/girl different sets separate.
I placed each set of 3 puzzles in a container.
The children come and choose a set of puzzles and dump them out on a work surface. Next, by reading the words on the back, they sort them into three different piles, verbs, nouns and adjectives. After they have completed the all sorting, and working with one pile at a time, they turn the pieces over picture side up, and put the puzzle together.
After they have that puzzle put together, they move on to the next one.
If they did not sort the puzzles correctly, the puzzle will not fit together correctly, so they must look at the backs and see if they have all the correct pieces or sorted a piece into the wrong pile.
Once all three puzzles have been completed, students put all the pieces (of the same puzzle set) together in the container.
Three puzzles, three types of word practice!
You can do this with different puzzles that do not come in a set as well. Just choose 3 puzzles of the same type that have 25 pieces or less, and follow the same process.
This can be done for any grade level. For kinder you may want to have them sort puzzles by capital and lowercase letters, and perhaps add a number puzzle as well.
Get your puzzles, and the ideas ... they will come.

Chery

BOLO (Be On the Look Out)

Now that school is out for the summer (I sure hope your school is out by now!). If you are like me, you are looking for new resources to make for next year. In addition, if you are like me, you may be frequenting more yard sales or garage sales during the summer. That being a possibility, I would like to post a couple of my "finds" from yard sales that have turned into wonderful and useful classroom resources, just in case you may run into any of these items at your local garage sale (or Goodwill). Hence, Be On the Look Out ...
The first one is something the office at one of my schools was throwing out. What?! Trash? I think not!

This is one of those binder/stands that one used to keep forms and pages of phone numbers etc. in to have them handy at your desk. With everything on the computer now, they didn't need them anymore.
What I did was to convert this to a wonderful resource for my writing center.
 I added many, many different things that I wanted my Firsties to be able to easily access. Everything from letter formation, letter writing templates, names of people they could write to (principal etc.) picture dictionary/vocabulary pages, and so much more.
I keep little pieces of scratch paper  nearby so that they can copy words they need and take it to their table.

You can do the same thing with a binder, but this is such a fun way to display them.  I often see my kiddos just flipping through and reading the pages!
Keep your eyes open for one of these handy dandy things. You might even want to ask your school sec'y or office manager if they have one tucked away that they may not want anymore.
So... Be On the Look Out for more BOLO posts from me to think about when you are out and about.








Chery

New Resources

I am determined to get to all of the things that I've been wanting to post and was, of course, waiting until school got out. Well, I have been out of school for two weeks now, and instead of catching up on my blog, I have spent most of the time creating new resources for TpT. So, to kill two birds with one stone, please check out and grab copies of my FREE stuff as soon as you have a chance (only free until July 4th). I keep things up for free for a couple of weeks and whenever I have something new to put up, I try to take something down (meaning price it and put it in my store). Believe it or not, I have lots and lots of new resources almost ready to post so hurry up and get what there is now, before they are replaced with even more "stuff" for you.
Here are a couple of shots of things that are available currently:

Coin Counting Calendar Cards

These are great for Math Meeting or Daily Calendar.
And for my CANADIAN friends:
Canadian Coin Counting Calendar Cards

Pre-Primer Dolch/Sight Word Card Set

Please take a minute to check these out, as well as everything else currently free!
Enjoy!

Chery

"Spaceman" Writing Finger Spacers

If you haven't checked out "Sparklebox" it is a wonderful resource for all types of materials. This one in particular is for   "Spaceman" finger spacers. 

There are several different types available (I just show 2) and are great to have in your writing centers. Students love to use them when they are writing and they are great reminders for students to make spaces between words when writing.
Laminate and cut out spacemen. In order to make them sturdy and to hold up to lots of use I strengthen them before putting them in my writing center.
I get some coffee stirrer sticks from McDonalds (they have nice skinny ones) and cut each in half.

I tape the stick firmly to the back of the spaceman. I find that clear tape or packing tape works great. I use a glue dot to tack down the end of the stick on the cutout. This not only makes it sturdier, it makes it easier for little ones to handle the cutout.

Once you are done, you can't even tell from the front that you have added the support.

If you have not had a chance to check out the rest of Sparklebox take some time to do so. You will find lots of wonderful resources for free.

This is a great summer project to have all ready to go for the new year.

As always, thanks for checking in!

Classroom Pointers

Pointers are great to have in the classroom. The students love to use them and I am constantly using them in lessons. I have a ton of adorable pointers, that are super easy to put together.

It's a bit difficult to see, but here is my pointer holder on my desk. One of the jobs of the student of the day is to choose the pointer that we will use for calendar time/morning meeting. They love being the one to do this.
Here is a super simple way to keep lots of cute pointers on hand... antenna balls!

Wherever I go, I keep an eye out for cute antenna balls. I've gotten them at WalMart, Disneyland, auto parts stores, theme parks, even my son's Navy graduation! You can also get them online from sites like "Super Balls".
Just pick up a 2-3 foot dowel from any hardware store, pop the antenna ball on the dowel and you are good to go!
Jack in the Box often has antenna balls for different seasons. You can also hot glue little toys to the ends. Here is one I made for Halloween using a skull whistle and a spider ring I got from the Dollar Store.

Just keep you're eyes open and you'll find so many things that could be used.

Here are a few more pictures of some of my pointers. I rotate them so that we have seasonal pointers, holiday pointers, sports pointers and a constant variety for the students to choose from.
Just one more way of catching

their attention and making learning a bit more fun, and isn't that the whole "point"!?

Chery