Bugging Out Over the Alphabet!

How is it Friday of Spring Break already? The bad news? Only two more days of break. The good news? End of Spring Break means the homestretch of the school year!

It has been quite the adventure switching districts, positions, and roles this year! Holy smokes! It has been quite a learning year, but I'm so grateful to feel a new wind after my break. Fingers crossed this wind carries me to June!

In the meantime, let's get BUGGY!

To continue with my Insect Theme when I return, I decided to make Buggy Letters. Buggy letters allows kids to identify uppercase letters, and is differentiated to allow students to match uppercase to lowercase letters as well.

Check out pictures below and head over to my TPT store if you want to snag it up yourself!

Check back soon! I am in the process of creating my Very Hungry Caterpillar expansion pack and will soon be combining all of my insect work into an Insect Bundle. It's a great week to be following me! Tell your friends about it! :)

Keep your head in the clouds!

xo

Spooky, Sneaky, SPIDERS!

There's one insect that gives me the "creepy crawlies," but kids seem to LOVE:

SPIDERS!

Though I get the heebie jeebies over them, spiders are such a fun topic to bring into the classroom. Kids seem to love it! They tend to have a decent amount of background knowledge on them, and since there always tend to be spiders in everyone's backyards, basements, classrooms (!) children love to spill their knowledge they just learned once they see one!

Here are some of my favorite spider activities in the classroom.

Fly Swat!

I made these cards with flies on them. On the back I had the letter F (to make an association with /f/ and Fly). Some of the flies had spiders on the back of them. Students took turns swatting the flies with a fly swatter and flipping them over. If they got an F, they kept it. If they got a spider, the spider caught their fly on their web and they lost a turn. The student with the most flies at the end, won! Such a fun, hands on learning experience for the kiddos!

You could definitely do this with sight words, numbers, uppercase/lowercase match. Comment below if you'd like me to make some with those options. I always love creating resources.

Parachute Webs!

Continuing with the word FLY, we practiced identifying the letters F and L. I made F and L spiders with magnets on the back. We put them under the parachute and took turns crawling under to pick a spider. Then, I projected F and L webs on our board, and students had to stick their spider on the proper web. This would be a great activity to do if you had a web for each uppercase letter and had a spider with each lowercase letter to match. Hmmm... I should get to creating that! :)

Spell with Spiders!

At Halloween time, the dollar store or party stores seem to always sell bags of spiders in bulk. I used them for my kiddos who were still working on Name Recognition. You could also use these to spell out spelling words, sight words, or letters and numbers. KIDS LOVE THEM!

Spider Hats!

My inspiration for the hats came from Fantastic Fun and Learning. I loved it because it involved one-to-one correspondence (counting out 8 eyes and 8 legs), fine motor practice (folding out those legs!), and Science spider knowledge (did YOU know they had 8 eyes?!). It didn't hurt that they were TOO cute!

Spider Count Playdough Mats!

You can download them here.

I love these play dough mats! The visual spiders on the bottom help create independence for the kiddos. They're able to count the spiders if they cannot yet identify the numeral on their own yet. Plus, the hand strength for rolling balls of play dough is an added bonus. You could even make it a one-to-one correspondence center by counting the mini spiders used for spelling in the earlier photos. I love being able to use a center in different ways. It's an awesome way to see if students can generalize their skills across manipulatives.

Next year, I hope to incorporate Little Miss Muffet and do a cooking activity making "curds and whey." What are your favorite spider activities in the classroom?

Keep your head in the clouds!

xo

An A-Bee Pattern!

These few days off have been so refreshing for me! I think simply clocking a full 7-8 hours of sleep each night has been enough to rejuvenate me. That needs to be a new goal for myself going into the last few months of school.

Keeping with my Bug and Insect theme I plan to start when I return, I have another unit I'm eager to get going on- it's quite.. buzzworthy! ;)

It's An A-Bee Pattern!

I really strived to make it kid-friendly and hands on driven.

I plan to start my unit on patterns by introducing bees. It's an ideal segway from our overarching insect theme to an intro to patterns. Talk about a perfect real world example of learning in the classroom.

I always make sure to have my students color the key. This helps create more independence as they continue with their coloring. I also chose Color by Letters to create exposure to letter-sound recognition and phonemic awareness.

My older kiddos would be able to cut and paste in addition to creating patterns so this was made in particular with them in mind.

I can't wait to encourage my higher thinkers to color in a pattern as well when they finish.

I always try to include hands on, center activities in addition to a worksheet. You can only do a worksheet once, but hands on activities can be thrown into rotations, centers, and work groups throughout an entire unit!

I've created books your kiddos can use to help get started with working on patterns!

Just Laminate, connect books with a brass fastener, and throw in a center! Pattern starters help the kiddos who are still catching the hang of it, while blank sheets allow students to expand their knowledge and carry their patterns differently than just an AB, ABC pattern.

As their practice improves, allow them the chance to record their pattern!

Voila! Differentiated instruction, tactile learning, and special ed friendly!

Purchase the entire A-Bee Pattern Unit here!

What are some of your favorite ways to teach and practice patterns in your classroom?

Keep your head in the clouds!

Start of Spring Break + {freebie!}

Do you ever feel like the weeks leading up to a school break all you can think about are your days off? Then, once the break comes around, I find that all I can think about is school! It's funny how that works. Sometimes I think taking time to get some rest, relaxation, and a breath of fresh air can help the brain focus on tackling what used to seem like work-related stress.

In an effort to keep that breath of fresh air continuing back into the classroom next week, I decided to find ways to get my students outside next week. I'm hoping to embrace Spring (and hoping that in doing so, the Spring weather will come here to stay!) by kicking off the home stretch of the school year with a Bug and Insect Unit.

While the unit as a whole is still in the works, I decided to give you all a sneak peek with this Bug Hunt freebie! Take a look!

You can download it here!

Check back later this week for more pieces of my Insect Unit.

It will all be up on my TPT store soon!

Keep your head in the clouds! xo

Thinking Ahead: Open House!

Open House. Back to School Night. Meet the Teacher. No matter what you call it, bringing in families of students can be a bit nerve wracking! All those extra eyes scoping out the room. You want to make sure you've dotted all i's and crossed all t's. Well you're in luck! I've made a bunch of resources to make your Open House night a success (and adorable, if I might add!)

And so, I bring you.. Cooking Up A Great Year!

Adorable AND Editable! Can you believe it?
Comes in three variations: Back to School Night, Open House, and Meet the Teacher.

There's even this adorable Student Activity to have on display:

And get this- first five people to retweet me will get this whole set FOR FREE! Retweet and follow my blog and you've got yourself an automatic free pack, regardless of which number retweet you are! Happy tweeting!

Chirp, chirp!

Keep your head in the clouds!

It's a Numberpalooza! Early Number Activities

Hello Friends! It's hard to believe we are approaching mid-August. Can you believe it? I cannot get into my classroom for another few weeks, so I've been keeping busy making some Math Centers that I think you'll love!

These stations are filled with number writing games, number identification and recognition, some early addition skills, and number words. Take a look:

Did I mention they are each themed? School themed! Apple themed! School Bus themed! Fall and Autumn themed! Perfect for back to school in PreK, Kindergarten and First! Once I get back in the classroom I'll snap some pictures of the centers in action and share them out.

Enjoy the numberpalooza! And remember..

Keep your head in the clouds!

First Days in First Grade

After two years teaching second grade in inner city Boston and two years teaching Kindergarten in the suburbs outside of Boston, I have finally decided to head back to my hometown of Hamilton, New Jersey. It is only fitting that I will be teaching first grade- right smack in the middle of my experience! Should be a perfect fit!

In celebration and excitement of the upcoming month of first grade preparation, I've created an adorable, yet fun "firsts" themed activity pack. It's perfect for the first day or first week of school. Yahoo!

Check it out at my TPT store! Click the picture below to take you there.

It has First Self Portrait, First Story Reader's Response, First Number in a Series, First Sounds, Ordinal Vocabulary and a Writing Prompt. Check out a sneak peek below:

Enjoy! Keep on checking back- there is more to come here AND on my TPT store. We've got a fresh new look coming to the blog and some fun, beginning of the year number activities!

Keep your head in the clouds!

-Dianne