b or d center FREEBIE!

Hi friends! Back to school is creeping up and I am frantically trying to prepare myself! I will start setting up my room next week and then in-service starts the 31st (ah!). This is what my new room currently looks like:

See why I'm panicking?! BUT it is huge and I cannot wait to get it all together.

I did get to meet the other kindergarten teachers yesterday and they seem amazing, so I am excited about that!

b or d Center FREEBIE

I have been working on some alphabet centers for the beginning of the year and I have a FREEBIE to share with you.

Every year, kiddos have trouble deciphering between b and d. It is one of those tricky things that we deal with all year. I made this center for some extra practice working on this skill. It is a "b or d?" sorting center. You can grab this freebie over at the K-3 Connection facebook page. (Click "like" then "fan FREEBIES" to access it as well as my other fan freebies.)

Here are some other ideas I found that can also help your students with b and d. Just click on the picture to see where it came from.

Happy 4th! Back to School FREEBIE!

Happy 4th of July friends! I hope you are having a wonderful holiday with your friends and family. I will be heading downtown for a free concert and fireworks tonight.

I wanted to share a couple of things with you on this special day. First of all, a new Facebook Fan Freebie from my newest creation. Click the picture below to head to facebook for your freebie! (You have to click "like" and then click on the "Fan FREEBIES" tab to access it.)

(You can view this product on TpT here.)

And now, a special Educents deal for my followers! With the code "Fireworks4K3Connection" you can get 10% off and free shipping on $75 or more! This deal lasts until Monday. If you haven't discovered Educents yet, it is a place where you can get some amazing deals on already discounted education products.

Happy shopping and Happy 4th of July!

Plants, Plants, Plants!

We just starting our plant unit! I have been loving it because I found TONS of fabulous free resources to use! Read on to see what we've been doing and where you can grab these freebies.

Parts of a Plant

On day 1, we focused on the parts of a plant. I found this super cute anchor chart idea on pinterest. (Not sure where it is originally from, if you know... help a girl out!)

We read a Parts of a Plant reader that I got for FREE from Greg over at Smedley's Smorgasboard.

We also sang a Plant Parts song by Dr. Gene!

Once we learned ALL about the parts of a plant, we added our new learning to our Plants anchor chart. We will continue to fill out this anchor chart and then use it to publish writing at the end of the week.

Then we made this cute little craft that shows the parts of a plant.

(I got this FREEbie from Kimberly Cavett.)

Plant Needs

On Day 2, we focused on the needs of a plant. 

We sang this Needs of a Plant song to help us remember everything that a plant needs.

We added the needs of our plant to our craft.

Then we filled in the "need" portion of our anchor chart.

Click here to grab this free graphic organizer and a writing page.

We will be finishing the graphic organizer and then doing some writing all about plants. Next week, we will start on the plant life cycle.

Here are some books that we have been using to lead our discussions. Click them to see on Amazon.

           

Follow me on Pinterest to see more great ideas I've found.

Weather Unit (with a FREEBIE)

We have been learning about weather for what seems like forever! It has been a fun unit and the kiddos have really enjoyed it. I had a great time teaching it because it is easy to incorporate across subject areas and EVERY student has background knowledge on it!  Here is an overview of our unit:

We started the first day just talking about the different types of weather. I made this anchor chart to help us remember the types of weather.

We also did the sheet below. You can get for free in my Weather Freebies on TpT. There are two differentiated versions included.

(I love this student's "windy" illustration!)

After the brief weather intro, we spend a couple of days talking about each type of weather. I usually started each day's discussion with a short video to get the kids thinking about the type of weather we were going to discuss for the day.

Here are the videos that I used (There are some great Sid the Science Kid videos.):

Cloud video        Wind video        Rain video        Storm video     

(Some of the ones I used are already removed from youtube--boo!)

After the intro and video, we read a book about the type of weather we are discussing. Then we add the important words to an anchor chart so that the kids can use them later in their writing. Here are the books I used to discuss each type of weather:

                                      

                                                         

                                        

Here is a picture of our stormy weather anchor chart. The kids supply all of the words that are under each type of storm.

After the anchor chart, the kids write about the type of weather. I have three differentiated levels for this. Level 1 draws and labels a picture, level 2 draws a picture and finishes a sentence starter, and level 3 draws a picture and writes a couple of sentences about it. (There are some examples later in this post.)

We did this for each type of weather.

Then we moved on to how weather affects us.

Please don't judge my not so cute anchor chart. Hey, they can't all be "pinterest-worthy"!

Here are some examples of the differentiated writing activities. We did this for each type of weather as well as how weather affects us.

I found a couple of fabulous free readers that we read together and then added to our book bags. Click the picture to grab the free readers.

(This came from Greg at Kindergarten Smorgasboard.)

(This came from Brittany Melzer's TpT store.)

We also started using "spelling sentences" to practice our spelling words, sight words, reading skills, and review our science concepts for the week.

Here were our spelling sentences for "how weather affects us":

I got the sentence strips here. Love them!

At the end of the week, I print the sentences with the word order mixed up on paper that matches the sentence strip (this makes it easy for kinders to keep straight). The kids cut and glue them in the correct order.

Thanks for sticking around to read this long post! click the picture above to grab your FREEBIE! You will get the writing pages and spelling sentences for the "how weather affects me" lesson. Enjoy!

NO PREP Spring FREEBIE

I have some sad, sad news to share. My school revoked our color printing privileges. BOOOOO! What is a girl to do? Create a zero prep, black and white, quick and easy packet of fun!

(Click the picture to check it out on TpT.)

I have a couple of pages to share with my amazing followers. Click the picture for this blog exclusive FREEBIE! (Also check out my facebook page for a chance to win this product!)

I am also throwing a giveaway for my most recent TpT milestone of 400 followers! Click here if you would like to help me out and donate.

Weather Five for Friday (January 17)

Do you ever have a week that seems so crazy and jam-packed... then you think back and you can't think of the reason it was so chaotic? Well, that was this week for me. BUT it is Friday AND a three day weekend! Yippee!

This week we barely started our weather unit. I am going to share some of what we have done/are going to do. There is a pack of freebies if you stick around to the end!

On the first day we talked about weather, we made an anchor chart that shows the different types of weather. My kiddos were already familiar with the types of weather because we talk about what the weather is like each morning during calendar.

We have been using the poem "Weather Ways" to go along with our unit. We read the poem each day and look for sight words, rhyming words, etc. throughout the week. At the end of the week, we add the poem to our Poetry Notebook and do an activity. This week the students unscrambled the mixed-up poem and glued it in the correct order. (The poem and mixed-up activity are included in the weather freebie!)

We did read Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and wrote about whether we would/would not want it to rain food. I loved listening to the kiddos answers and reasoning behind them. (This page is included in the freebie.)

As I was planning my weather unit, I realized I had ZERO books about weather. Oops. So I ordered a bunch from Amazon and I can't wait to use them! These are the books we will be using...

                                      

                                                         

                                        

           

Thanks for reading through this post! Click the picture to grab your Weather Freebies!

Have a great MLK weekend!