Mother's Day Gift Idea!

Mother's Day is around the corner and I have come up with a sweet gift that is absolutely low prep. 

Just print out the cards and use any heart shaped candy/cookie to place on the heart shape. If children want, they can even color in the heart to make it more personalized.

 I wrapped up the cookie in a plastic wrap and secured it with a scotch tape.

Get it for free from my TPT STORE.

Do check out my other Mother's Day Unit too!

Literacy Center- Teaching Sght Words

Centers are such an effective way to get students to learn independently and in small groups. I love making resources to use in the literacy centers. It empowers my kids and gives them a sense of accomplishment and they tend to take ownership of their own learning.

So this activity was born keeping in mind the above points. You may have seen versions of this game online but it took me a while to give it a try. But the moment I made it and put it out for the kids to try, they kinda went ballistic with it. Sight word learning has never been so much fun.

So don't wait and give it a try in your class now, because its completely worth it.

I simply made some fish cuts with sight words written on  them . I use the Dolch word list, so the words are from there. 

I attached a magnet strip at the back of each fish. You can even attach metal paper clips.

Give children a fishing rod and a recording sheet. Let them catch the fish and tick off the sight words on their sheet.

Simple, easy and pure fun!

Grab this game from my TPT STORE.

Happy fishing for sight words!

Community Helpers- Doctor

We started the unit on doctors by exploring nonfictional and fictional books.

         

The kids made a doctors craft and did some writing.

We also discussed the different kinds of doctors-surgeons, paramedics and pediatrics.

I integrated literacy into the unit and played a word surgery game. The idea came from Tunstalltimes.blogspot

We also made a doctors kit and an ambulance craft.

We recorded facts that we learnt about a doctor. You can download this sheet from 3dinosaurs.

We wrapped this week long unit by reading my doctor emergent reader book. Get your copy from my TPT STORE.

Children also explored the various tools that a doctor uses. I don't have a picture of them engaging in dramatic play but you can view how I had set up a dramatic play area previously by clicking HERE.

I will be sharing few activities about the community helper- dentist as well. So do come back to check them out.

Community Helpers

This topic is one of my favorites to teach because its so easy for children to connect the learning with their immediate environment. We are surrounded with people who help us, be it doctors, nurses, teachers or police officers. And in some point or the other, children have had contact with these professionals. So teaching this unit is fairly easy and the opportunities for pretend play are also immense with this topic. In short, I always feel successful as a teacher when teaching this unit ;)

 I love incorporating literacy into any thematic unit, so I created a set of emergent readers which kids enjoy reading. It has simple repetitive sentences and basic sight words which makes them easy to read. 

I also get my kids to create their own books to take home. They can record the information they have learnt about each community helper and read it to their parents.

A good way to recap all the big words is through vocabulary cards. Just cut the pictures and words apart and put them in a pocket chart. Children look at the pictures and match the correct word. I find this extremely helpful, especially for children who struggle with remembering big words. You can also print two copies and play a memory game with these cards

.

Another interesting activity is to do picture sorts. I normally keep this activity for assessing children's knowledge. I give them pictures of tools used by community helpers and they have to sort and stick the correct pictures for each community helper.

If you would like to get these activities, visit my TPT STORE.

I will be sharing more ideas that I do with this unit, so stay tuned!

Consonant Blend Activities

I started a lesson on blends this week with my kiddos as they have already mastered reading and writing CVC words but was surprised to find that there aren't too many resources on the web to teach blends.

I searched a lot and finally settled on one product-By Tweet Resources.

But I was motivated to create something of my own to add to this product, so I made a board game(my new obsession), a fun dice game and few other activities to get my students excited.

But the most exciting part of this lesson was the blueberry milkshake! Yup, you read it correctly.

We started by making a delicious shake with fresh blueberries in a blender as both the words start with the blend- bl.

Much to my surprise, few kids didn't know what a blender was so this activity was a good experience for them.

We followed it up with a blender craft. Sorry! I don't have a picture for this activity.

We read the emergent reader.

                   I cut up the word cards and allowed the kids to match the words to the pictures.

We also did a picture and word sort of words beginning with 'b' and 'bl'.

 The kids always enjoy reading when you add a fun element to it. And in this case it was only a dice. But the kids enjoy the process of rolling the dice and finding the words and of course whoever completes the sheet first gets to be the winner.

We also practiced spelling the words, though it was a little challenging. 

We used sound cards and my favorite - board game to read more words beginning with the blend "bl".

All these activities can be found in my TPT STORE.

Hope you enjoyed them and if you do something exciting while teaching blends, do share as I would love to get more creative and inspired.

And do come back for more blend packs in the future.

Indian Independence Day

This week is full of celebrations because the Indian Independence Day is just around the corner. And learning can be integrated in a fun way when ever there is any kind of  celebration. I am sharing some of the activities that I did with my little sweeties. The activities focus a lot on literacy and numeracy skills but  most of them are game based so kids participated with enthusiasm.

I read out a factual book about India to them.You can grab your copy from HERE.

We made an Indian flag by painting ice cream sticks with the Tri-color. The older kids added a sentence underneath the flag. I wanted them to practice reading the sentence from left to right and top to bottom, so I cut up the words and let them stick the words in order.

Since we are practicing reading CVC words, I made an activity where the kids had to take the Indian boy to the national flag by coloring all the Vowel I words since India begins with I.

The younger kids just had to find the letter I.

We made rhyming words with the word 'flag'.

We also put together national symbol puzzles. The kids had to read the words and match them to the pictures.

We fixed some number order puzzles too!

We rolled the dice and graphed the national symbols.

We played a memory match game. The kids who found a matching pair of the national symbol, got a sticker of the Indian Flag.

Bingo was a lot of fun and the competitive spirit of this game surely got the kids excited!

We also colored kites of different sizes.

You can get all these activities from my TPT STORE.

I will be coming back soon with some more fun activities and a freebie! So do come back to check out!

Back To School-The Complete Alphabet Resource

 I am really excited to share my alphabet pack that is perfect to use with kindergarten kids. It sure took a lot of time and hard work to create this pack but it was well worth all the efforts. So what is there in this pack?

Alphabet posters: Use these posters to point at the pictures and say the name of the pictures by stressing on the first sound. Point at the symbol of the letter and stress on the name followed by the sound of the letter. Read all the other words and brainstorm new words with the children.

 

Letter Story: Read the story and focus on words beginning with the letter being taught. Ask the children to name the words. Let them turn into little detectives and circle the letters.

Coloring Sheets: Let children name the pictures and color the letters.

Letter Art: Allow children to get creative with these pages. Provide them with the suggested materials and let them turn the letters into beautiful pieces of art.

Handwriting Pages: Children can use these pages to practice tracing uppercase and lowercase letters.

Uppercase and Lowercase Identification: Children can sort uppercase and lowercase letters through different activities.     

Beginning Sounds: Children will get an opportunity to put their learning into practice with these beginning sound sheets. There are various activities in which children can tell the names of things that begins with each letter.

Review Sheets: Use the review pages to assess the knowledge of sounds.

Alphabet Puzzles: 26 letter puzzles which will enhance the problem solving skills of children. Cut them apart and allow children to put the pieces together.

The kids really had a blast doing these activities. 

Of course we didn't just work with these. I use different approaches and various activities when introducing a letter. But this pack proved to be extremely handy as it reinforced a lot of different skills like identification of letter names(uppercase and lowercase), letter sounds, beginning handwriting, fine motor skills and vocabulary.

If you are interested in getting this 'print and use 232 page' pack then visit MY TPT STORE.