My TeacherspayTeachers store is up and running!

I am proud to announce the opening of my Teachers pay Teachers online store! Visit the store at  www.teacherspayteachers.com/store/kt-education  and download the Math freebie.

 

If you go directly to www.teacherpayteachers.com you can access my products for sale by typing in Trish Saccomano or Kathy Bringhurst in the search bar BUT the free download does not appear. Use the above "store" address for the freebie.

 

After you download the Math freebie, and/or purchase some of the other great items, please take a moment and "rate" the product and leave a comment.  Comments and ratings drive more people and more business to my site, so thanks in advance for taking a few moments and sharing your thoughts. 

 

Visit my store often as I will be posting new products - including freebies! - on a regular basis.  Check out my website too. www.kteducation.com

 

THE MATH FREEBIE

 



 In the 29 page  FREE packet featured below: Kindergartners at Work - Six Super Activities: Math you will find 6 Math activities based on the Common Core for Kindergarten that address a Math skill or concept. These Math activities are intended to be used as "center" activities, however, they work well in small group settings or with the whole class as well.  Be sure to introduce, model and practice with the whole class before putting the activities into a center.

 

Marvelous May includes 40 pages of engaging activities including:
Literacy: sight word activities
Writing: poetry and riddle writing
Math: addition fact families
Science: parts of a flower
Social Studies: transportation activities with lots of cards to identify, sort and categorize
Arts & Crafts: pet rocks with planning sheets for students

  

  

 

Great integrated unit based on  the book Care For Our World by Karen Robbins. This unit can be used to enhance your Spring or Earth Day activities.  There are 52 pages packed with direction cards and ready to use activities from the Super 6 areas of the curriculum - Literacy, Writing, Math, Science, Social Studies, Arts & Crafts. Templates, worksheets, fact cards, writing pages, step by step directions and SO MUCH MORE!  

 



Dollar Store Challenge - Having a "Ball" With Sight Words

Literacy: Sight Word Practice

 

 

Here's a great Literacy idea - straight from the Dollar Store.  Students use the ball shooter ($1.00 at your local Dollar Store) to shoot at the sight word poster. They read the word they hit. If they hit the empty space in between the sight words, then they choose any of the sight words and say a sentence using their chosen sight word. Use words from the Dolch Pre-Primer list.  Thanks Savannah Smith for the easy, cheap and fun practice idea! 

May Celebration

I'm back and it feels good! After a roller skating trick with my 11 year old nephew went horribly wrong, I wound up with a broken left wrist, a broken right elbow and a sprained right wrist! I am very happy to announce that all casts are off and I'm back to blogging. Scroll through and check out some cool blog posts for Spring.





Spring is a green EXPLOSION!  Hip Hip Hooray for Flower Power!

  Start off your Spring unit by reading and discussing the book Busy in the Garden by George Shannon.  This book is part of the I Can Read Book series.

 

Bird Journals: It's Spring! The birds are returning and having baby birds! Make color copies of pictures of different types of birds and tack them all over the ceiling and walls. The more pictures you can use the better. Bring in binoculars, bird identification books and pillows and let your students do a little "bird watching." Have students draw and write about their "observations" in their Bird Journals or Discovery Journals.

 

 

Calendar Count: Exploring Numbers to 30 - For this Math activity purchase (or make) a large bulletin board type calendar and some calendar numbers shapes numbers 1-30. Mix up the calendar number cards and the station is ready! Students put the cards in numerical order on the blank calendar. They say the numbers in order. Extension: Have students lay out the number cards in order from 1-30.  Use inexpensive jelly bracelets from the Dollar Store to loop every other number shape.  Now you can visually see counting by 2s.  Every third number looped shows counting by 3s. Or 5s, etc.



 Parts of a Flower: This simple project helps students identify the parts of a plant. Give each student a large piece of  blue construction paper or butcher paper. Students take an orange square of construction paper and trim the edges off to make it a circle. They glue the square onto the blue paper. Students rip yellow paper scraps into the petals of a sunflower and glue around the orange circle. Have students use real sunflower seeds or they can use their fingertips dipped in brown paint  for the "seeds" in the middle of the orange circle.  They rip and glue a green stem and leaves out of paper. Students draw brown roots at the bottom of the stem and finish by labeling the corrects parts of the flower.

Studying Magpies: Nature gives us so much to observe and record during the Spring months. The students at Rowland Hall Beginning School in Salt Lake City, Utah discovered a magpie building a nest in a tree right on the school grounds.  They used the ongoing observation of the magpies to draw, photograph, write about, talk about and thoroughly immerse themselves in the study of the magpie and her nest. It was a topic that had a strong and natural connection to the students and their school. They also used materials from nature to assemble their own "nest" creations.  

My First Story Folder: Writing on Self Selected Topics - Give your students some inspiration for their beginning story writing. Make a picture file for the students by finding and pasting interesting pictures inside a file folder. On the other side of the folder, write words or story starters that would generate writing ideas. Students choose a folder and write a simple story.

 

 

Spring Poetry: Students use the letters in the word S-P-R-I-N-G to write an individual or group poem.



Flower Power: April Showers bring May flowers, so set up a flower making station in your Arts & Crafts area. Choose a number of "cut and paste" flower projects for students to complete. Set out paints, dot markers and collage materials. Students use teacher provided patterns and/or their imaginations to create a colorful garden full of whimsical flowers, right in the classroom! 

 

 

 



Flower Shop: Turn your dramatic play area into a flower shop filled with fun and spring flowers. Collect or buy a variety of artificial flowers and place them in the area designated as "The Flower Shop." Dollar stores and craft stores usually have quite an extensive selection of flowers. Add the following to the dramatic play area: florist foam, plastic flower pots, a toy cash register, coins, paper, pencils and crayons. Students make a large sign for the shop listing prices for goods and services. Students take turns being customers or shopkeepers. Customers choose someone to send flowers to, purchase flower arrangements, write cards and pay the cashier. Shopkeepers arrange and deliver flowers, as well as run the cash register. There are a lot of skills integrated into this learning activity including Math, Writing, Literacy and Social Interaction skills. 



May Booklist

Spring has sprung . . . . Great books to use for my favorite season! 

 

 Busy In the Garden by George Shannon
Spring is a green explosion . . . . This book is part of the I Can Read Book series

  

An Egg is Quiet by Dianna Aston

An introduction to eggs from tiny hummingbird eggs to great ostrich eggs.  Introduces more than 60 types of eggs. Amazing illustrations.

 

 

It's Spring! by Linda Glaser

This book talks about the arrival of Spring and it's effect on plants and animals.  Includes nature study projects.

 

Baby Bird's First Nest by Frank Asch

In the middle of the night, baby bird rolls over and falls out of her warm, cozy nest.  What is she to do?

 

 

From Seed to Plant by Gail Gibbons

This book by the always fabulous Gail Gibbons explores the relationship between seeds and the plants which they produce.

 

 

And Then It's Spring by Julie Fogliano

Following a snow-filled winter, a young boy and his dog decide they've had enough of all that brown and decide to plant a garden. 



April Celebrations

Ready, Set , GO GREEN!!!

 Great book to kick off a study of the Spring season: Mother Earth and Her Children: A Quilted Fairy Tale by Sibylle von Olfers

This book explores the seasons and delicately touches upon the circle of life.  Beautiful book. 

 

 Bookmaking: Use the wonderful book, Our Class is Going Green,  created by the Kindergarten students at Oak Park Elementary School in Bartlesville, OK as a guide for creating a class BIG BOOK on "going green."

 Patterns from Nature: Use items gathered on a nature walk to make patterns at your Math center.  After using the natural materials, have children return the items to the outside where you found them.

Beanstalks in a Paper Bag: Line a decorated paper bag with aluminum foil.  Add potting soil and beans seeds.  Grow a beanstalk right there in a paper bag!  Watch, measure and record the growth cycle of the plants. 

Earth Day Pledge: After students watercolor a representation of planet Earth have them trace their hand and paste the handprint on top of their "planet." After reading about Earth Day and discussing all the ways we can take care of Planet Earth, have students write a "pledge" of something that they personally can do to leave our world better than when we found it. 

 

Earth Day Busy Box: Make a memory game with symbols and pictures that represent Earth Day.  Great independent game for small groups or pairs of students. 

Recycled Junk: Building & Sculpture - Recruit parents to . . . send in their junk! Gather smallish items such as old keys, nuts and bolts, material scraps, old art supplies, brushes, combs without all their teeth, old toothbrushes, etc. Try sending a lunch-sized paper bag home for each student to fill.  You'll also need some lids from shoe boxes, old copy paper boxes, egg cartons or flat cardboard. When you have assembled all the supplies, have students glue "junk" onto the cardboard. Spray paint the entire project and . . .  junk to ART!   



Building Challenge: Bring out recycled materials and challenge students to build.  For example: Can you build a structure that has 3 sides and 3 corners? Can you build a circular structure that you can fit inside?

April Booklist

From a "green theme" in March to "going green" in April . . .



Mother Earth and Her Children: A Quilted Fairy Tale by Sibylle von Olfers

This book explores the changing seasons and delicately touches upon the circle of life.  Beautiful book. 



Handmade quilt in the style of the book,  Mother Earth and Her Children by Sibylle von Olfers, made by Kindergarten students at Beacon Heights Elementary School in Salt Lake City, Utah 

 The Earth and I by Frank Asch

This story celebrate the friendship that one child has with the Earth.  I am obsessed with this book and it's amazing illustrations!

 

 

The Earth Book by Todd Par

"I take care of the earth because I know I can do little things everyday to make a BIG difference."

 

 

The Peace Book by Todd Par

The concept of peace can be difficult to understand but Todd Par does a great job explaining it.  For example: Peace is wishing on a star.  

 

 

Earth Day - an alphabet book by Gary Kowalski

From apricots to groundhogs to junebugs!

 

 

Our Class is Going Green

by Kindergarten students, Oak Park Elementary School, Bartlesville, OK

Get this and see how Kindergarten students created a book about "going green."  I haven't tried this yet, but I am definitely going to!  I love the content, the illustrations (So childlike!) and the fact that they did it themselves!



Learning Games with Plastic Easter Eggs

The Dollar Store is a great place to get plastic Easter eggs and a cute basket to store them in. Scroll down for some easy to make learning centers using plastic Easter eggs. 





Math and Literacy Centers: 

LITERACY: Sight Word Scramble

Write sight words on 1" squares of paper - one letter on each square. Put the sight word squares in the plastic Easter eggs. Hide the eggs around the room and put them in an Easter basket. When students find/choose an egg, they must unscramble the sight word contained within the egg.  Students can then either write the word three times of use the word in a written sentence.

  

 

 

MATH: Simple Addition

Write simple addition problems on the outside of plastic Easter eggs. Inside the egg place 2 different types of beans that correspond to the addition problem. Students break open the egg, sort the beans in 2 piles and count the beans to answer the problem.  Make addition practice just a little more fun!
 

 

LITERACY: Onset & Rime

This activity is an "oldie but goodie." Write an onset on one half of an Easter egg and the rime on another half. Students put the eggs together and read and write the onsets and rimes.