Back to School-Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Alphabet Cards

Get ready to go back to school, by getting this easy to prep ALPHABET CARDS based on the popular book by Bill Martin Jr.- "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom." 

With so much happening at this time of the year, I feel teachers need all the help to get organized. Planning fun activities for the first few weeks is always my top agenda during this time and these alphabet cards and activities surely come handy.

I can use these cards to quickly assess letter identification and the knowledge of sounds. I would either put them in my literacy center or lay them out for morning work. Children can match uppercase and lowercase letters by using a clothespin.

Of course i read the book first and do many activities around it before i use these cards.

You can use it to practice names of children.It makes for a great bulletin board display too.

Or you could make coconut tree models.

Or simply let the child color a coconut tree and add letters he/she can recognize.

Stories are a great medium to teach kids a lot of concepts in the beginning of school year like class rules, name identification, making friends etc. 

I also have a great product with activities for all the popular books, teachers use during this time of the year.

Grab it from HERE!

I will soon be posting alphabet packs comprising of posters, activities for beginning sounds, alphabet stories, puzzles and songs which you can use for the entire year. Do come back to check them out.

Wednesday Book Talk- Moon activities

This Wednesday i am sharing another fantastic book on space. "On the Moon" by Anna Milbourne! I love this book because of its simplicity and it explains a lot of  moon facts in a super easy way. With big and bold illustrations, this book is great if you are introducing moon to the children. 

We follow it up with an art activity. I mix flour and white paint to give the paint a little texture and let children paint the moon surface.

Some writing has to be thrown in for the older kids! They record moon facts that they learn from the book.

Sorry for the blurry picture!

I made a model to explain how the moon gets its light and why it looks different everyday. You can click on  the LINK to get the instructions for this model.

I love food and and using food to teach concepts gets me pretty excited. And let me tell you, the excitement rubs on the the kids too. So we got some Oreo biscuits and carved out moon shapes. And of course, we ate them all after we finished. ;)

The kids discovered why the moon is full of craters with a simple experiment. You only need some rocks and a bowl of flour for this experiment

 Let the kids drop the rocks and see what happens. Explain that moon doesn't have an atmosphere like Earth to protect it from space rocks. They enter the moon easily and hence the craters.

I added a literacy activity in this unit too. The astronaut has to reach the moon by following the alphabetical order.

And Math cannot be left behind, so a little addition practice took place with this game. Cut 5 rockets and 5 moons. Stick them back to back and put them in a bowl. Let the children shake the bowl and roll out the pieces. They make combinations and record it in their sheets. I got this idea long time back from a blog but can't remember the name. So please if this is your idea, do let me know. I will add a link of your blog/website.

If you want more space themed addition activities, visit my TPT STORE.

Have a great week ahead and try these fun filled activities with  kids if you are teaching a unit on space.

Wednesday Book Talk

Books open a new world for us, especially young kids who have embarked on a learning journey. Sometimes there is so much to share that as an adult I have to remind myself to keep in mind the developmental level of  children before overloading the little brains with information. I love collecting children's books and of course reading them to the little ones. This Wednesday, I am going to share one such fantastic book with all you fellas out there. And if you have a space enthusiast at home or school , this fictional book can't be missed.

The book has eye catching illustrations and is loaded with humor. And the kids would want you to read it again and again.

After reading a book, I love following up with activities and what better than a craft and a little creative writing.

This little kid wrote that "if she met an alien she would sit in his space ship and roam around in space". Of course, she will hand over all her underpants to the alien in return.

We also made a UFO to go along with the book.

The little kiddo matched different patterns of underpants. Good for

her visual discrimination skill!

I also added a math activity with this book. The child rolled a dice and counted those many uni-fix cubes to make rockets.

It was great fun doing all the activities. If you would like to get the template for the alien craft, click

HERE

If you have read this book to the kids, i would love to know your experience.

I will get back next Wednesday to share another fantastic book.

Letter Sort

Want to do a quick revision with your little kiddos after finishing  a set of letters? Grab the letter sort pack for FREE. It's a no prep printable which can be used in two ways and will help you do a quick assessment of the letter sounds with your little ones. 

The pack has six letters s,a, t, i, p and n based on the sequence of jolly phonics.

You can either let the students sort the pictures in boxes.

Or they can cut and paste it on a sheet.

Encourage your child to say the names of the pictures as it will help build vocabulary. Do stress on the sound too after your child says the name of the pictures.

Its a quick hands-on review activity and a lot of fun for the little ones. I will post the letter sorts for the rest of the alphabet soon.

Board Games

Who loves board games? I do ! and it sure brings back childhood memories. Monopoly, scrabble, snakes and ladders were just a few games that added fun to our evenings and gave us time to bond as a family. But now a days, thanks to all the technical devices, kids don't really understand the meaning of playing with others, taking turns and waiting for their turn. 

So i decided to whip up a quick board game for one of my kids, not only to teach him an academic concept but also some other important skills. And boy oh boy, it did turn out great!

We practiced numbers with this board game but you can work with any concept you like:Alphabets, CVC word families, sight words etc. 

Just print, fill and use.

Grab your copy HERE

Get Your Children To Spell !

Today i will share few activities to help your kids learn spellings without stress. My activities are based on a farm theme since that's what my kiddos are learning at the moment but they can be adapted to any theme/unit.

I first let the kids get exposed to the words through different mediums like books, word walls and videos. I point at the words that i want them to know and allow them to read the words out loud.

Put words in a pocket chart for your child to read.

Jumble up the pictures and words for the child to put them correctly.

Next give some letter tiles and help your child to make words.

 Have them trace the words or if you want to skip this step, just give the child a paper with the pictures to spell on his own.

Make a spelling dictionary and add the new words learnt.

Use spelling board books from scholastic. Children have a lot of fun spelling using such manipulatives.

Try these activities with your kiddos and never hear them moan about learning and writing spellings.

Oceans of Fun!

I know I have ignored my little blog for a long time now but I was caught up in setting up my own workplace so this little baby suffered in the meanwhile. But I am settled and I promise that I will share a lot more stuff that I have been up to with little kids. And I must confess that I did squeeze in a beach holiday this summer break. So it wasn't all work and no play!

And since my beach obsession continued even after the holiday, I incorporated some ocean activities while teaching the little ones. According to me a beach/ ocean unit is the perfect thing to do during summers.

I started off with this sweet activity which will be a super hit with the little ones. And don't be surprised if it gets devoured in a minute, You need :

Blue/green jello to represent the ocean. 

Fish gummy candy or fish shaped crackers 

 A glass to set the jello in.  

I let the little one to mix the jello and water. Once the jello is semi set you can add the gummy fish.

 Voila! Its done. Simple and easy and a quick fix for those hot sweltering days!

We also played a fun math game with the goldfish crackers. The child has to throw a coin on the number wheel and take out the corresponding number of gold fish. Children get excited to eat the fish but before they eat the goldfish, ask them to count all the goldfish they have taken out. Its a great counting activity. 

We explored the scuba diving equipment and made a scuba diver craft.

All the activities had a fun element to them but learning took place too! So have fun trying out these activities with your little ones if you are stuck indoors in this maddening heat.