Thankful for Sight Word Readers

I love November! It is definitively fall. It brings about the excitement of the holiday season without pushing it too early or too soon. It brings about a time of gratitude and thanksgiving! What more is there to love?



To kick off the season of gratitude, I always like to teach my students about the first Thanksgiving. As always, I've made my favorite foldable coloring books to teach the topic. Explicitly teaching the topic and labeling new vocabulary words is a critical component to help enhance my students' reading skills. Besides the fact that research shows the higher vocabulary a child has, the greater their reading skills- knowing the name of words will help them read predictable texts with picture cues! Check out the cover of my foldable reader below. You can click the picture to download the book, or just click here!

In Kindergarten, November is also a time when we start to dive a little deeper into our literacy skills! Our November writing units consist of list books that we turn into pattern books! It is the beginning of tracking reading in predictable texts. Since November has a lot of Thanksgiving vocabulary, I decided to create an Emergent Reader with sight words my students would already know and picture cues for the unknown words! (See where that critical background knowledge and vocabulary come in handy!) Here's a sampling below. You can download it here.

It comes with options with and without dots depending on your preference!

In an effort to up the ante and differentiate learning, I made a create your own predictable reader for the kiddos! This interactive reader allows students to cut and paste if they like or do not like certain traditional Thanksgiving foods.

 It comes with options with and without dots depending on your preference!

The beauty of this book is that it takes out the predictability of the patterns and forces the students to truly track print. However, because it is their own opinion, the picture cues will help them navigate the unpredictable text. Not to mention, it's a great introduction to the sight words: do, not, like! Download it here!

November for us means conference season! If this is something you could use to help get through the busy time of parent-teacher conferences amidst cooking and prepping for the holiday, click here to download it today!

If you like this, you may LOVE my Thanksgiving Literacy Bundle. It includes this product plus my Horn of Plenty of Vowels Pack! Click here to download!

Pumpkin Investigation!

The baby's asleep! I was able to get in the shower AND eat lunch AND have time to spare to blog? Today is a good day! (Now if I can keep the dog from escaping the backyard, it'll upgrade to great- but that's a story for another day!)

One of the reasons I love doing apples in September is because it leads so well into pumpkins! The background knowledge on apples really helps kids expand their learning by applying it to pumpkins. They have similar life cycles, similar parts, and they both make for some excellent fall themed cooking in the classroom! YUM!

The first part of my pumpkin products that I've added was the Pumpkin Investigation!

Does it look just like the apple investigation? YES! Was that on purpose? OF COURSE! When it comes to little ones, familiarity, routine, and repetition are key! With similar visuals and understanding what they did last time, students will have greater independence in this activity. Plus, the familiarity helps them build deeper connections and understandings of the topic at hand. Many teachers feel the key to engagement is *new* and *different*, but what I've found is familiarity with a slight tweak has shown the greatest engagement and independence in my little learners.

Take a closer peek below!

Interested? The best part is it's a DOLLAR DEAL! Yes! ONE dollar! Find it here!

Be on the lookout! The mini book version of the investigation is coming in my pumpkin pack shortly!

Keep your head in the clouds!

Christopher Columbus: Explore the Explorer

Whenever there is a day off of school, I like to teach my students all about why they are off. It's a real world connection to their learning. Plus, it serves as a great conversation piece with their families while they're home from school! Thus came, Christopher Columbus {Explore the Explorer}!

This was one of the first products I ever made! It's so fun to revisit it and see how my style of TPT products has evolved. Yet, the products still remain a great teaching asset over the years.

As you may know by now, I love a good foldable mini book! It takes bigger topics and breaks them down into smaller pieces. Plus, as students go back to color in the picture, they are able to retell the story through the illustrations! I couldn't make a Columbus pack without a minibook!

Here's a great Color by Number. Perfect for those students who are learning their numbers and color words early in the school year!

Download the whole pack here to check out the early addition ship page as well as the Columbus K-W-L chart! For those of you who have the day off, enjoy your long weekend! My district usually has a Professional Development day on Columbus Day. For those of you who are still teaching, I hope this helps make your day a little easier! 

Keep your head in the clouds!

All About Apples! An Apple Finale!

I like to end my study of Apples with a day of cooking in the classroom. There is always so much joy when I bring a cooking activity into the classroom. Magic seems to fill the air while curiosity and engagement fill the students eyes. Plus, an added bonus if you make something with a delectable aroma such as this delicious and easy Applesauce Recipe!

I must admit, I found this recipe from Persnickety Plates. I love to cook, but I am still a novice in creating my own recipes! Thank goodness for blogs like hers!

This freebie is included with my Johnny Appleseed product (read more here) as well as my Bushel and a Peck of Numbers (read more here) all together in my All About Apples Bundle here!

     

Check out all the details below!

Keep your head in the clouds!

1200 Followers! THANK YOU!

When I first moved back to Jersey in 2014 from my wonderful time in Boston, I decided I would take the summer off and not work. With my newfound free time (and a boyfriend living two states over), I began exploring how to create products on Teachers Pay Teachers. I made one single product and posted it. It became more popular than I anticipated and thus started my adventures in TPT!

There were years I didn't touch my TPT store (in 2015 I my boyfriend moved back home, we bought a condo, got a puppy, got engaged and I switched school districts!), yet the followers still trickled on in. And so, I THANK YOU! It's always been fun for me to create things for the classroom, but it's so fulfilling to share it with fellow educators.

My 1200 Follower Freebie is here!

There are four different templates. Some pre-made and others completely editable for you to make it work for your own classroom needs! Below are my weekly templates, but each template comes in monthly as well!

THANK YOU for choosing to follow my products on TPT. If you don't already, click here to do so! Then you'll be the first to know when I post my next follower freebie!

Keep your head in the clouds!

Happy Birthday Johnny Appleseed!

One of the reasons I love to do apples at that the start of the year is because the unit hits a crescendo on September 26th in celebration of Johnny Appleseed's birthday! I've put together some of my favorite activities I use to celebrate one of America's beloved characters.

I love teaching new topics with coloring book mini books. They offer visuals to help understand the writing and they're perfect for children to turn to and color for independent work when they are early finishers. 

There's of course, an apple investigation! I have two options for greater differentiation. There is a one sheet option as well as a mini book containing each activity from the investigation on individual pages. You can read more about my Apple Investigations here. If you're interested in just downloading the Apple Investigation single sheet, you can do so by clicking here.

I love ending Apple Investigations with Apple Tasting! I bring in a few apples of each color and we all taste test them together as a class. Not only is it a fun way to practice our scientific observations skills but it ties in the five senses and builds great classroom community as students have opportunities to share each other's opinions and compare their thoughts.

We also make a class graph with our favorite apples to eat! Talk about STEM in action!

There are also Literacy Resources as well! One of my favorite activities to offer Kindergartners is Color by Sight Word. I love the fine motor skills practice of coloring in smaller areas while incorporating sight word practice with color word practice.

Here's also a sneak peek at the Apple Easy Reader Mini Book that's also included:

With more pages included in the pack!

Plus a Johnny Appleseed hat and more! Is there any other activities you are sure to include when you celebrate Johnny's birthday?

Click below to download the Johnny Appleseed product from my TPT store:

If you want even MORE Apple downloads, check out my All About Apples product here:

Keep your head in the clouds!

Selfie Portraits

One of my first jobs as a teacher was in a district that celebrated learning at the end of the year with a Portfolio Day. We as teachers collected pieces of work throughout the year to pull together in their end of year Kindergarten portfolio. It was a little piece of pride and joy for the kiddos as well as the teachers!

After that experience, I always find myself looking for ways to show tangible growth across the school year. I loved having pieces of the portfolio to pull out in IEP meetings, parent teacher conferences, or just to show students how much they've improved since September! My favorite piece of growth has always been self portraits. I LOVE seeing how the fine motor skills grow and how much detail students start to add into their self portraits each month. I couldn't help myself, but to embrace the children's love of selfies with, Selfie Portraits!

Each month has themed clip art and a cell phone for students to draw their selfie! Instead of the usual mirror we've used in the past to look at to make a self portrait, I also allowed students to use the classroom ipads to look at their own selfie to help them draw! 

Plus, it includes monthly name writing practice on the line at the top! Another great piece of growth to show parents throughout the year. Check out some more samples below! You can purchase Selfie Portraits from my TPT store, here.

Keep your head in the clouds!

I Love You, A Bushel and a Peck

I am ALWAYS looking to build my repertoire of center activities. They are perfect for small group work as well as early finisher activities or morning work options! This apple themed math activity is one of the first centers I pull out during Math rotations!

Download it here!

It covers all the basics of numeracy for the start of Kindergarten Math! There is numeral identification, ten frame recognition and counting, tally mark recognition and counting as well as finger counting! To top it all off, the recording sheet incorporates handwriting with numeral writing practice!

There are two separate recording sheets, one for numbers 1-10 and one for numbers 11-20. Plus, for easier differentiation, each recording sheet has a blank version and a dotted version for tracing! Don't you just love when differentiation can be made with a touch of the copy machine! Plus they look so similar, students feel like they are doing the same as their peers. I like to write names on the sheets ahead of time and sometimes I even let them choose which page they would prefer!

When it comes to center activities, I am a huge proponent for REPETITION! The first time a child is working with an activity, they are learning the HOW of it- what are the rules? How do I keep play going? What do I do if this happens? The second day is when they've mastered the how and are now focused on the content involved. For the first two times in a center, I like to have an adult running it to help answer any questions and ensure both the HOW and the CONTENT are being performed correctly. After that, I can usually put a center out as an independent rotation from time to time.

I love the ease of these to create independence early in the year- and especially love how it goes with Apples for Back to School theme, Autumn theme, or a general Apple Theme!

For even more apple fun, download my All About Apples Bundle here!

Keep your head in the clouds!