Fun Friday: Maps plus a free song:)

We read this book to start our unit on Maps.  It is a great book to introduce maps.

Then we sang our Maps and Globes song.  My kiddos love singing this as they are being introduced to Maps and Globes.  We are offering this as a Freebie today and tomorrow for Fun Friday:)

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Maps-and-Globes-Mp3-Song-453041

Several of my kiddos broke into song as they were working on their maps and one little girl said 'I just have that song stuck in my brain." It has a catchy tune.

Then we worked on classroom mats.  I let my students work together on these and I loved watching and listening to the conversations they had about where to place items based on the North, South, West and East side of the room.

This  little guy was saying "This 

is the north side of the room." 

She was saying that Quentin our Quality Penguin sits on the north side of the room.  I love how my kiddos included Quentin in their maps.  They just love him!

Hard to see, but he's working on his legend.

Working hard on their maps.

Sorry I don't have pictures of the completed maps, but we have to finish them on Monday:)

I will post some on Monday, if we don't get snow.

We hope you enjoyed our Fun Friday activity on maps.

Thanks for stopping by!  Please comment anytime on things that you do that would enhance these lessons.

Creative With Pattern Blocks!

So, one of my kiddos used the pattern blocks and made the Cat in the Hat.  

Then another student decided to add Thing 1 and Thing 2.

Then we needed Nick and Sally

And of course, we couldn't forget the fish in the bowl.

It is amazing what your students will create when given the chance!

Monday Mood Lifter #8

Happy Monday Teacher Friends!

How do you get your kiddos to work together?

Fun Friday! All About Community Helpers!

We started by reading our Community Helper book that is included in our Community Helper Bundle  that you can get in our store.

My students took turns reading the pages.  One of my friends read "He builds our houses"
The rest of the class tried to guess which community helper he was reading about.  So they said"builder"

Then we sang and acted out our Community Helper song which is also in our bundle.  These kiddos are saying"Community Helpers are always standing by."

This little guy was having fun doing the last part of the song with his air guitar.

Next, my kiddos dressed up like community helpers.  I gave them the wrong tools on purpose so that the other students would come up and give the helpers the correct tools.  They thought it was pretty funny.

This is one of the students giving our fireman the correct tool.

My class loved dressing up and they had no trouble doing our sheets after singing the song and seeing our helpers in front like this.

This is just one of the sheets in our bundle that has the students match the correct tool to the correct helper.

My kiddos loved making the 9 community helper finger puppets that we sang about in the song.

This creative gal decided to create her own puppet theater after seeing the sheets in our bundle.

These sheets are in the bundle.

We made a class book about what community helper we want to be when we grow up.


We have a video that you can watch about our Community Helper Bundle and you can hear some of the song.

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/499125571174371447/

You can get the bundle for 50% off this weekend:  Mar.7-9.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Community-Helpers-Literacy-UnitSongs-BooksGames-and-other-Activities-618383

We hope you enjoyed FUN FRIDAY!

See ya next Friday for more FUN in Learning.

Monday Mood Lifter #7

Hello everyone!

This is fantastic.  I know it's how we all see our students' efforts:

How do you lift your kids up when they feel they have failed?

Fun Word of the Day Activities for Fun Friday

Today was the last day of our Word of the Day calendar for February so my students chose 5 words from their calendars  to write a story today.  Most of my students can just circle 5 words on their calendars and start writing since we do this every month.

 Some of my students have trouble doing that so they tell me what they want to write about and we write the words from their calendars on the top of the paper like this.

Now look at what a great story this child was able to write using those words.  He is one of my ELL students and I am so proud of how his writing improves every month!

The really great thing about this is when we played the Brain Bounce game I will share with you in a minute, is he knew what patriot meant.  Yay!!

Here is a story about the dentist.  The students circle the words they use from our Word of the Day Calendars.

And here is one on Abraham Lincoln.  We try to incorporate lots of rich vocabulary words each month.

Here is our new March Word of the Day Calendar which is on sale all day today.  Remember the TPT code at checkout to get the extra percentage off. TPT3

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Word-of-the-Day-March-Calendar-1119945

Then my kiddos got ready to play our Brain Bounce games to test their knowledge of their February words from our calendars.  I gave them about 10 to 15 minutes to discuss the words on the calendars and then we were ready to play.  I divide the class into 2 groups and they pick a team name.

They take turns choosing a card to read and answer.

This little girl was so excited to read her card!

Here is a sample of our cards.  We try to make them go with the monthly theme because the kids like to see the designs on the cards and they are nicer to use in a center.  You can do that earlier in the month and let your kiddos use their calendars to help find answers.

Well it looks like the Redskins won this time.  My kiddos love this game!  They always ask me if we can play again.  What a fun way to review our monthly words.

Our Brain Bounce is also on sale all day today Feb.28.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Word-of-the-Day-March-Brain-Bounce-Game-1121771

 We also have a Quest Game where your kiddos find parts of words or chunks in our Word of the day words for the month.  The kids love being detectives and finding the word crumbs.  We have 3 ways you can play.

Here is a sample recording sheet.  Now the cool part about this is I am finding that my students are finding "word crumbs" in their other work.

Here is a student who was writing about the word "lawyer" in her calendar notebook, one of our word of the day words and she was excited to discover her own "word crumbs"

She found ham in Abraham and law in lawyer.  The 2 is how many syllables lawyer has.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Vocabulary-Quality-Quest-Game-March-Word-Crumbs-1137343

We also have March Activities where your kiddos cut and paste our Word of the Day words in order, and write the sentence, illustrate it,and do a bonus question about the words.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/March-Word-Activities-1136564

We hope you have gotten some great information about our Word of the day activities and games and you will take advantage of getting them while they are all on sale today during the big sale.

Thank ya'll so much for stopping by and we hope you will check back every Friday for Fun Friday.

Have a great weekend!

BIG TPT SALE!!!!!!

Everything in our store will be on sale.  Come check out all of our new March activities and games.  We will be posting some brand new items as well so come follow our store so you know when we have posted them:)
http://www,teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Sol-Train-Learning

We hope you find some great products for your kiddos!