Communicating Progress to Parents: Sight Word Note!

Quick post alert!! I recently posted this photo on Instagram (@firstiefavorites) of my end of the year sight word note that I send home to parents.

Several people were interested in using it, as well. We expect students to spell 80% of the pre-primer and primer sight words in first grade. This is the note that I send home to communicate their child's progress. I always hope that parents continue to practice the sight words over the summer!

Here's a free copy for you!

Enjoy!!

Teacher Appreciation Blog Hop!

Welcome to the We <3 Teachers Blog Hop!!

I teamed up with some fabulous educators to offer you some free resources to get to through to the end of the year!

My exclusive freebie is my Zoo Field Trip Research Book!! I created this as a resource for kids to use on our end of the school year field trip to the zoo.

Grab it for FREE in my TpT store by clicking this link or clicking the image below!

Here's a peek at the pages!!

Some of the pages are designed to be completed at the zoo while other pages can be completed back in the classroom.

This is just what I needed to help my students make the most of their learning at the zoo!

Several people have downloaded this product already! Take a look at Kindergarten Days' Instagram photo of these research books in action! (mine is on the left)

To put these mini books together, you simply copy the pages back to back and staple along the center crease. Otherwise you can just cut all of the pages in half and staple in the upper corner.

Can't wait to try these out at our zoo field trip in June! I hope that you enjoy it, too!

Please hop over to My Day in K for another freebie!!

Wild about Word Work!!

Do your students just LOVE word work?? Mine do!! I try to keep a delicate balance between paper/pencil based practice and very hands on, interactive materials!! Take a peek at some of our favorites!!

In many of the photos in this post, you will notice small, laminated word list cards. These are our weekly spelling words. The little cards allow students to take the list around the room with them and they make it convenient for students to practice their weekly words. ALLLLLL of my spelling lists and homework are available for FREE in my TpT store. I created these lists in collaboration with my first grade team so I don't feel right about profiting from them. However, I still wanted to be able to share them with you! I hope that all of our hard work helps you to lighten your work load a little bit!!

Here are the links to my word lists!! Click the photos to be directed to these FREEBIES in my TPT store! Please help me out by leaving feedback!

BEADS:

Let's start with my students' favorite center! BEADS!

I started using beads in my classroom about a year ago. I went to Michael's Craft Store and bought two different kinds of beads. I also got these cute little organizers for the small beads. I took this photo before I used the beads in my classroom and these little containers did NOT work out... the covers didn't snap shut and I had many spills of the beads... all over the floor.... Also, because the sections of these containers were small, students had a hard time getting out the beads that they wanted to use.

After about a week, I moved the beads and pipe cleaners into old pencil cases. They have worked out well ever since!!

WORD SORTS for POCKET CHARTS:

This center is a new addition to my word work centers!! I use these pocket chart word sorts with my class as a whole group sorting activity at the beginning of the week. We revisit it during guided reading practice and I use it as an interactive word work center. Students sort the cards by word family. Once the cards are sorted by word family, students put the words in ABC order. Super simple and fun!

I have these available in my TPT store for both Long Vowel and Short Vowel words!!

Want to try these out before you purchase the whole set? Grab my LONG E word sort cards for FREE!!

FOAM LETTERS:

The other fun interactive center that I started using last year is foam letters. I found these on clearance at Michaels... not sure if they have the same exact ones anymore, but I know they have similar things!! I find that any letter manipulatives work well with my firsties!! The key is variety... I switch out the centers weekly so they don't get bored with the same ones! Then, I reintroduce the centers a few weeks later!

BUILD A SENTENCE:

This is one of my newest, most popular centers!! Students take color-coded word cards to build sentences! Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and other words (articles, etc) are all printed on different color cardstock and laminated. Students explore different combinations of the words to build sentences. This center also includes a recording sheet for students to write their sentences on after they build them!!

I also used these cards as a whole group... we took a "random" group of words in a pocket chart and arranged them into an interesting sentence together!!

To grab this fun word work, click the photo below!

BOGGLE WORD SEARCHES:

Here's a GREAT freebie that I found in Krista Wallden's TPT store!! Boggle boards!! Students search for 2, 3, 4, and 5 letter words and record them on a simple sheet! So fun!! Her freebie has 6 different boards!

INTERACTIVE NOTEBOOKS:

One of my favorites additions to word work and Daily 5 has been interactive notebooks! We use these notebooks for many language arts activities and WORD WORK is one of them!! During word work, we use our notebooks for long and short vowel practice! PHONICS! Earlier this year, I started using some FABULOUS short vowel notebook pages from The Sassy School Teacher...

Here are some of my favorite pages from her product that we completed!!

After seeing my students' success with these short vowel practice pages, I created some of my own for Long Vowels!! Take a peek!

Grab my entire set of long vowel interactive notebook pages here!!

MAGNETIC LETTERS:

We love using magnetic letters as a part of our word work routines!! These long vowel sorting mats are perfect for my first graders as we explore long vowel spelling patterns! The majority of these cards feature the CvCe spelling patterns. Students add magnetic letters to the beginning of the word families to create words. Then, they write their words down on a simple recording sheet.

These are FREE in my TpT store!! Enjoy!

SIGHT WORD STICKS:

I got this idea from Reagan Tunstall! She has a great set of Sight Word Stick sheets to go with her center!! Visit her store to see her product!!

Grab my Stick ABC Order sheet here!!

Oh my gosh! I feel like I've still only scratched the surface of word work!! I hope that you find these activities helpful and simple, just like I do! They have all been tested and LOVED by my students!!

Build A Sentence Interactive Word Work!!

Blogging... two days in a row??? It must be spring break! Oh my gosh. I am soooo enjoying a relaxing week at home to catch up on school work, run errands, and binge watch Gilmore Girls.

This morning, I started prepping my word work for when I return to school next week. I wanted to come up with a fun activity for students to interact with parts of speech as they are creating sentences and I put together this super simple idea, Build a Sentence Interactive Word Work.

Yesterday, on my errands, I picked up this awesome cardstock on sale at Michael's Craft Store.... 3 packs for $10!! Woohoo!! I had lots of fun colors to choose from as I put together this activity today!

I started by printing each of my word sets 

{nouns - verbs - adjectives - prepositions/conjunctions/articles} 

on different color cardstock.

Then, I cut the cards apart and mixed them together. There are 60 word cards all together.

As I began making sample sentences, I realized that 60 word cards may be overwhelming for my firsties when we begin this activity for word work. When I introduce this in my classroom, I plan to start with half the cards and then gradually add in more words in future weeks.

Here's a sample of the types of sentences that students can make.

I also created a printable to go along with the sentence building cards so that students can write their sentences. We will have to talk about adding uppercase letters to the first word in the sentence and punctuation when we write the sentences... since the cards are all lowercase letters so that the words can be used anywhere in the sentences.

And there you have it... a fun, simple, interactive activity! Can't wait to use it with my firsties next week! Enjoy!

Spring has Sprung!!

I am very happily writing to you from my spring break Monday morning. Nothing better than your first morning of not setting an alarm. Pure bliss!!

Spring has arrived in our classroom and I'm currently in the works of prepping more spring activities for when we return from spring break!

RAINBOW SIMILES

Last week, I tried out a new craft and writing activity from Teacher by the Beach and I LOVED it!! Her FREE activity can be found on her blog... click this link to view her post!

Here's her photo of the finished product! Apparently, I forgot to take a photo after I hung ours in the hallway.

We wrote Rainbow Similes and made some rainbow artwork to go with our writing!

We began by brainstorming things for each color of the rainbow. It was a perfect chance for us to use the "pair and share" method of sharing ideas with a partner before sharing with the whole group. Here is a peek at our brainstorm... please excuse my disgusting, smudgy whiteboard!

Then, I added to Teacher by the Beach's idea by creating a "planning page" for my students to write their similes on. I have many students in reading/writing intervention this year, so I knew that they would need a little more guidance to create their similes.

Here's a photo of one of my adorable firsties making his final copy! Students traced over their writing with a Sharpie, which was very exciting for them and make the writing look crisp and clean!

After finishing our writing, students made rainbow artwork.

Such a fun activity! Now our hallway looks so bright and cheery!

APRIL WRITING AND PHONICS PRINTABLES

Click the photo or this link to see this in my TpT store.

This past weekend, I created by second set of Writing and Phonics Printables... now ready for APRIL! I wrote about this idea in my March post, but I created these simple monthly printables as take-home activities for my first grade students who are in need of writing intervention. I had a solid group of about 5 students who came into first grade reading below grade level. They are making great gains in reading so now I'm focusing more on their writing and phonics/spelling skills. I have a fabulous group of parents this year who want additional resources for their children to work on at home. I've received great feedback from those parents after completing similar resources for the month of March... so here we go... ready for the month of April.

Now, that being said, these could easily be used in the classroom as well!

Here's a look at some of the activities included in the pack. Click this link to download 5 of these printables for FREE!

A FREEBIE and A STEAL!

Finally, I have a few Easter/Spring math activities up my sleeve. The first one is a freebie!! Grab this fun Easter Math Sort from my TpT store! Can't wait to work this into my math workshop centers!

Finally, the steal! Grab this Spring Mini Math Book for only $1.00!!! Skills include name collection boxes, missing number subtraction, adding/subtracting 10s, What's My Rule? (function machines), fact families, and telling time to 5 minute increments.

Well, that's what I have for my spring activities! Can't wait to check out TpT for other activities I can grab for next week!

Literacy Recap!!

I don't know how this always happens... it's been over a month since my last post! The weather is gorgeous here in Wisconsin this week and I am finally feeling motivation to sit down and BLOG! We have been soooooo busy with reading and writing in first grade and I am excited to share a few of my new and simple ideas with you!!

But first, a peek at what I bought in the big TpT Teachers are Heroes sale!!! Oh my gosh! I am so excited about all of these items!! Highly recommend them all!!

I started putting together Miss DeCarbo's Intervention Binder for Language Arts! Many of these interventions will come in handy at the beginning of next school year. I have several students in intervention right now and there are some great activities that I am using now... especially for reading blends and digraphs.

Ahhhh! I'm so in love with this resource.

Alright, now for some more simple ideas that you can easily put together!

MAGIC E PRACTICE:

After winter break, we made the switch from focusing primarily on short vowel word families to long vowels. My intervention kiddos have a hard time switching back and forth from long and short. This is such a simple activity that we did in my guided reading groups. I wrote simple CVC words on a piece of chart paper (some are nonsense words). Then, I taped a "magic e" to a bubble wand (you could use a popsicle stick).

Students read the CVC word and then add a magic e to see how the word changes. We switch back and forth from short to long vowels. Then, I let the kiddos take over leading the activity. They LOVED it and it was great practice. These two cuties begged to use the poster to practice together during a round of Read to Someone... how could I resist??

WORD FAMILY TOSS:

This next activity, I thought up on my way to school one morning. I was looking for a way to spice up my phonics mini lessons during Daily 5. I got to school and taped together a few colorful boxes that I had from the Target dollar section. I wrote word families on post-its and stuck one in the bottom of each box.

For the activity, I had my students create a wide aisle on the carpet, with students sitting facing the center. Each student had a whiteboard and a dry erase marker. I placed the word family boxes in the aisle and students took turns tossing a small pattern block into the boxes. After a student tossed the block, we wrote a word in the corresponding word family on our whiteboards. It was a great way to keep the kids engaged and writing our word family words!! We did this activity during two different mini lessons this week so that every student got a turn to toss the pattern block.

INTERACTIVE NOTEBOOKS:

Okay, I am still on an interactive notebook kick! My students absolutely love doing interactive notebook pages and they are perfect for our long vowel practice.

This week, I had my kiddos sorting long i words by word family. First, I had my students read the words "down the columns." Then, for a fluency challenge, I had my students read "across the rows." It is more challenging and requires more quick thinking to switch between word families as they read the words!

Here is a FREEBIE of my Long I Word Sort notebook page if you'd like to try it out! If you are interested in more long vowel interactive notebook pages, click this link or the photo of my product!

WRITING AND PHONICS PRINTABLES:

At the beginning of the year, I identified several students (11 out of 20) who were reading below grade level for the beginning of first grade. Needless to say, that number was concerning to me because I only have eight hours a day with these kiddos! How was I going to help 11 students "catch up" to where they needed to be?? I started sending home weekly interventions with these kiddos and their parents have been pretty good about doing some extra reading and phonics practice at home. I am happy to say that as we approached February, 5 out of those 11 intervention students are now "at grade level." I was doing my happy dance and so were their parents. However, it was a long process and a lot of work to get the kids there. I am lucky to have so much parent support. Therefore, I wanted to create some simple printables that the kids could take home weekly to work on their writing skills and some phonics (review) skills. I created these weekly activities that my students started taking home. They are earning stickers for each page that they complete, which they LOVE and they are LOVING the extra writing practice as well. There is enough variety in the pages that they don't get bored of them and the pages are simple enough that the parents can get them started and the students zip along!

Here are some examples of the pages I created for March... this is my first week of printables, which I uploaded to TPT for free! Click this link for a free sample!

  I know,,, weird to start with the letter, v, but I plan to mix the earlier letters into months Sept-Feb when I start on those!! Had to do some backwards planning here!!

 There is also a full page of handwriting lines to print on the back of this half page.

Getting in some fluency practice while identifying punctuation and counting the number of sentences. My students also LOVE "fixing my mistakes."

Some simple phonics practice!

If you like these free pages, please consider buying the whole set for March by clicking this link or the picture below! I have an April set of printables in the works right now and I plan to do a May set for sure! By the end of this coming summer, I hope to have sets for every month of the school year! Stay tuned!

Okay, so that was a very random peek at some of my new literacy practices over the last few weeks! I always feel the need to spice things up to keep the kiddos motivated and engaged. I am also more excited to go to school when I know I have a fun new game or activity to introduce that day! I hope that you can use many of these fun, easy ideas! Enjoy!