November Arrival Bins…Part Two!

I posted these arrival bins earlier this week and I’m so excited for you to see them! They are the perfect addition to your morning tubs!

Here is a closer look at the reading and language arts items. You can check out the math items in this blog post: November Arrival Bins Math.

I loved all of your suggestions last month. These letter/sound/sign match-up cards are perfect for your students!

I’m excited for my intervention students to use these acorn onset and rime puzzles. Picture clues are included to assist your emergent readers. Twelve different puzzle cards are included.

We have been busy clapping our syllables in our classroom. These fall syllable clip cards will be perfect for my students. Twelve different cards are included.

Now that many of my students have learned their letter sounds, we are planning on moving on to digraphs. These digraph punch cards can be used all year.

There are two different levels of the November word cards. Twelve different words are included. The picture below features the cards where students fill in the missing beginning letter. The other version simply features the word that students can practice building on their own with magnet letters.

And last, but not least, are the letter tracing cards! There is also an editable version. This would be great activity for practicing sight words as well!

I forgot to tell you that there are color and black and white versions of all of the activities, AND editable student direction cards.

You can purchase this ELA arrival bin separately here: November Arrival Bins ELA Version or you can purchase the bundle with all of the math and literacy activities here: November Arrival Bins–the bundle.

Thanks for checking out this post! I’m excited to start working on the December Bins this month!

November Arrival Bins

Thank you so much for all of your feedback earlier this month–I’m so excited to say that the November arrival bins are DONE and posted!!!! They will be on sale for a special introductory price of $4 through Wednesday, November 1st. That’s 50% off of the regular price! You can check out the bins here: November Arrival Bins

Here is a closer look at what’s inside…

Let’s start with the math goods!

I’m so excited about this non-standard measurement activity! You could use unifix cubes, like the picture below OR Pom-poms or erasers, really it can be whatever you want! Ooh, and think of the great conversations you could have with your kids if you measure with different types of objects!

Next up is 3-D shape puzzles!

These fall ten frame mats are perfect for practicing number recognition and creating sets! You can have students use play dough or erasers.

Fall comparing sets clip cards. There are three different kinds. Students can clip to identify more, then less & use symbols (< = >) to complete the number sentence.

Fall addition mats–students count the leaves and match according to their sums.

Number puzzles for the numbers 1-10 and 1-20.

And there are skip counting puzzles too! Students can practice counting by 5’s and 10’s to 100.

Students will be able to practice their counting skills and number recognition with these punch cards.

The last activity includes an editable version of number writing cards.

Both color and black and white versions are available for each activity. Simply print which version you prefer! There are also editable student direction cards.

Come back tomorrow to check out what’s inside of the ELA Arrival Bins!!!

Arrival Bins Winners and Back to School fun!

Thanks to all who entered the contest!!!  I meant to post this earlier today, but I’ve been sick with a horrible head cold!  Jennifer McAdoo and Amy Braswell are the winnners!!!  I’ve emailed your prize!!!

I’ve been busy with all things school lately!  I’m so happy to say that I am teaching a straight TK this year!!!  I absolutely love my sweet students and we are off to a great start!!! Here are a few things we’ve been working on:

These shape busses are always a favorite activity!

I’ve also been busy updating my Back to School pack! Here are a few pictures of some of the included.

This is a close-up of the shapes on the bus activity that’s included in my Back to School pack.

Lunchbox syllable activity. Both color and black and white versions are available for all activities! Simply print what you need!

Click any of the images above to be taken to my TpT store for more information in this packet. I hope that all of you have a great week!

Some shamrockin’ fun!

It’s March!  Hurray!!!!  One of my favorite holidays is just around the corner.  I thought I’d share some of the fun things we’ve done in the past to celebrate.

We always read Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato.  I always try to read out loud with my best Irish accent (which I’m sure is ridiculous…😂).  Last year my class made these adorable potato people.    My class also completed these leprechaun directed drawings from First Grade Blue Skies.  They turned out SO adorable!!!

 We also worked on writing questions.  First we brainstormed some question words whole class and made a poster.  Then during our stations we worked on writing down the questions to ask a leprechaun.  I had this large leprechaun cut-out that I purchased from Dollar Tree.  I taped it to the door and had students ask the leprechaun a question.  Oh my goodness–this was SUCH a cute activity and I absolutely loved the questions that my students wrote in their leprechaun letters.  

I uploaded this fun activity as a FREE item to my TpT store!  Just click here to download.

We also had a little visitor at our house!  My kiddos were SO EXCITED!!!  He left little green footprints and shamrocks everywhere!  Here is a photo:

The visiting leprechaun also left green milk in the fridge!  Ha!

I’m looking forward to this silly little leprechaun visiting again (and I’m looking forward to Shamrock Shakes)!  We also have a little tradition of making green dinner that night.  I usually just tint some pasta and alfredo sauce and serve with broccoli–yum!  What do you have planned for St. Patrick’s day?  I’d love to hear all about it in the comments below!

 

 

 

Teaching Major Events and Creature Reports…

The last month of school we worked on identifying major events in text and how they effect the characters (Common core standard RL 2.3). We reviewed what a character is and how we could identify what a major story event is. This standard is important because it helps to make connections to the text and understand the plot. We read Verdi by Janell Cannon and narrowed down the story to three major events. Students discussed with their partners what they felt was one major event from the story. We then worked on completing this worksheet together and created this poster about the story. He Here are some pictures of the graphic organizers that we used.  If you would like a FREE copy of this simply click one of the pictures below :).           Students also researched an animal and created reports. I made a little Amazon Creature Reports form for them to use to guide the process. I totally meant to take pictures of this to show you guys, but ran out of time at the end of the year. If you are interested, you can pick up a copy of my creature report organizer and writing papers by clicking any of  the pictures below.     Ok, I’ll admit that I may be been a tad inspired by the Octonauts when I created the creature reports :).  My kids love that show!  

Wonderful Weather!

It’s been a stormy weekend here in Central California.  Next week my students will be learning about the weather!  I’m super excited too because I just finished and uploaded a new weather unit to my TpT store!  Here are some sample pictures from this unit:

We will probably be completing some of these fun activities too (note: these pictures are from weather activities previous classes completed):

The pictures above are from a  previous post.  Check out link below for some great FREE printables:

• https://mrskilburnkiddos.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/what-a-great-time-to-learn-about-the-weather/

And…the first five people to leave a comment with their email will receive a FREE copy of my new Weather Unit!

So what are you waiting for?  Leave a comment so I can send ya guys a copy :).

~Barb

Great Resource!

A few months ago I found out about the Orange County Public Schools early childhood resource page.  This page is chocked full of wonderful resources.  Here are some of my favorites that we have been using lately:

This is the "Can You Find My Mitten" color word activity. My students love this song! I love it because it reviews colors and teaches my students to spell the color words too!

This activity is really fun too. It's actually just a laminated snowman picture and I placed magnet tape on the back. I use large magnet letters to place on the snowman's 'tummy' and we sing the Mr. Snowman song (tune of This Old Man) to practice letter sounds.

There are also a ton of printables to make books and flannel board pieces.  Thank you, thank you so much to the people that created this page, you are an invaluable resource!

So, if YOU want to check out this site click here.   Enjoy!

~Barbara

What We are Doing Wednesday…

Hello everyone!  I’m soooo very sorry that I had to miss last week’s post.  It was an insane week with activities, but the important thing is that I’m back!

This week we’ve been learning about the letter F and the color Brown.  We are also continuing to learn about patterning in math.  Oh, I almost forgot–we’ve also been learning about fall and how the leaves change colors!  Here in Central California it is just now starting to feel like fall and the leaves are starting to change colors, so it seemed a little silly to talk about this earlier at the beginning of fall :).

Here are some of the things that we’ve been working on lately:

We made some cute fall owls out of construction paper. We used circle and triangle shape sponges to make the eyes and beak.

Last week we learned about the life cycle of a pumpkin and completed this sequencing activity.

We also completed this fall tree project with torn paper. We talked about how the leaves on the trees are changing colors.

We also finished two more pages for our TLC Color book.  Here are some pictures:

Here is the orange page. The cat's turned out so adorable! I love how each cat looked so different!

Here is the brown page. These little 'doggies' turned out so cute!

Here is the fall writing page in case you were interested:  Fall Leaf Page.

Also, if you are looking for more great Fall themed ideas, then check out the Fall theme page for more ideas and links to wonderful printables and other great Fall theme pages on the web.

Come back next week to see what we’ve been up to!  Thanks for looking everyone!

~Barbara

My Favorite Teaching Blogs Part 2

A few days ago  I posted about some of my new favorite teaching blogs.  Well–today I’m going to post about some more of my favorite teaching blogs!

Well, I have to tell you, I’m saving the best for last!  Here they are:

1.  Heidi Songs Resource

This is the blog for Heidi Songs, and I have to tell you it is FANTASTIC!  It is full of great ideas and free printables and well just good information!  Here are some things that you will see on her blog:

Heidi has been posting tons of WONDERFUL lesson ideas on her blog the last couple of months like the one here.

She also has been posting a ton of great teaching video’s for the games that she has featured lately.  Here is just one of the great videos:

2.  Kindergarten Kindergarten

This blog is another fantastic blog that is chocked full of wonderful resources.  I am really loving all of the wonderful Math ideas that she has been posting about.  Here are a few:

There are lots of great ideas for math journals.

There are tons of pictures for great ideas for learning centers, like this playdough activity mat.

Lots of great printables and file folder games like this one right here.

3.  Teaching Heart’s Blog

This is the blog for the website Teaching Heart, which is full of great thematic resources and printables.  This blog is also equally fantastic and posts many wonderful teaching ideas and resources.  Here are some pictures from her blog:

Teaching Heart's Blog always has great ideas for using literature, like this picture here for the story, "Spookley the Square Pumpkin"

 

There are lots of great printables, like the picture here.

She has teaching videos on her blog too!

4.  Mrs. Jump’s Class Blog

Deanna Jump’s classroom blog is new, but has quickly become one of my favorites.  I love all of the pictures that she has been posting of things that are happening within her classroom.  It’s inspiring!  Check out some of her wonderful ideas:

 

There are some really cute ideas here for writing and comprehension. Here is an example.

There are lots of creative ideas for projects with your students, like this one here.

 

Well, that’s all for now, but I’m still not finished!  I’ll keep posting about my favorite teaching blogs next week.  Happy blogging and internet surfing everyone!

 

~Barbara

What We are Doing Wednesday

Hello everyone!  Welcome to my weekly “What We are Doing” post.  This past week we finished learning about the colors black and white and made life size skeletons with hand prints and foot prints.  I have to say, these did turn out pretty cute !

We also made another page in our TLC Color book for the color black (I’ll post the other pages later so you can see).

We have also been learning about patterning this month.  So, we made a cute art project with some bat and ghosts sponges.  This page will be their October page for their math journals.

I also used sponge paper to make the moon shape, which students sponged onto their papers.

I’m a little behind, but we also made our math journal covers.  This will hold our monthly Math Journal projects.  I’m planning on binding all of the pages and passing them out when we have Open House this year.

Last, but not least, we’ve been learning about spiders this week too.  We marble painted paper and then used a spider sponge to add our spiders.  Students later added some facts about their spiders on their papers.  Here is a picture:

In case you are interested, I thought that I would include the spider writing printable:  spider writing.

There are also more great spider activities listed on the Spider Theme page which you can access here:  Mrs. Kilburn’s Spider Unit.

That’s pretty much what we’ve been up to, what about you?  I’d love to hear about what’s going on in your classrooms.  Tune in next week for pictures of our pumpkin activities–I can’t wait!

 

~Barbara