Hiya friends,
I'm back. I'm a BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD BLOGGER! I know. I think about blogging often, but I don't actually sit down and do it. But, I resolve to be better. And, fingers crossed, I'm going to take some pictures that I can use on my blog....errr...for next time :-)
I was thinking about all of the wonderful resources that I buy or download for FREE from Teachers Pay Teachers. TpT is my go-to resource when I need/want to supplement the district resources that I am given. My district has really awesome reading and math resources, but I often supplement writing and social studies resources. I thought it would be a cool idea to showcase the resources that I used and really, really liked and may use again next year. Actually, this could be a really cool linky party too! What do you think?
Resource Rewind: show & tell the resources created by other teachers that are proven winners in your classroom.
Here are some of my January faves and the links so you can find them easily.
This make-your-own BINGO board was a huge hit with my firsties! After reading a book about MLK Jr. and brainstorming some adjectives to describe the civil rights leader, we talked about some of the adjectives students could cut out and paste onto their BINGO board. Then, the following day we BINGOed til we were blue in the face. The kids just didn't want to stop! When I called out a word, I would use it in a sentence to help make a connection to our story. For example, "Equality. Martin wanted equality for people of every color." Some of the words are difficult for first graders, so I projected the words as I called them out loud. Winners got a mini tub of playdough. Students begged me to play again the following day during social studies.
Another resource that I really liked was this 3 sounds of -ed resource from What the Teacher Wants. In my district, very detailed and scripted lesson plans are provided for reading/language arts. The plans focus on reading strategies and reading comprehension more than phonics. But, when one of my guided reading groups is having trouble reading words that a quick phonics lesson will fix right up, I teach it. My kiddies reading at a level D/6 were having a tough time with word endings, especially -ed. They had no problem with "wait" or "skip" or "smell" but they struggled with "waited" and "skipped" and "smelled". I did a quick mini lesson whole group using these anchor charts and the word cards. Then, when I met with the guided reading group, I had the kiddos look through their books for words that ended with -ed. We discussed the root word and which sound of -ed the word made. It really helped! I struck gold with this resource.
We've been working on All About...writing for the past few weeks. The kids did some cross curricular writing, "All About My Rock", when they described the attributes of the rocks they brought from home for our science unit. Then, we painted and pasted and hot glued to create pet rocks and wrote, "All About My Pet Rock" during Work on Writing. My class had a blast creating and writing about their pet rocks, and I didn't think I'd be able to come up with something else they would enjoy writing about as much as those rocks. But, we had a couple of snow days, well...ice and sleet days, recently and we are reviewing weather in science, so I decided to work with that. I found this snowman glyph writing craftivity from Primary Paradise and the kids loved creating a snowman to write about. This resource has a variety of hats, scarfs, buttons, etc. to choose from so each child's snowman is unique. We are in the middle of this little project, but I plan to display the snowmen without the writing attached. Then, students will share their writing with the class to see if their friends can figure out whose snowman is whose. We are working on adding details to create a mental picture for the reader. If I remember to take some pics, I'll update this post with some pictures of the snowmen later on.
It just so happens that each of these resources are FREE!
Stay warm,
