Thursday, March 29, 2012

FREEBIE! Easter Sight Word Game

Hey Dear Friends,
Here's my newest Freebie! It's a Easter Sight Word Game. I got the idea after playing "Spot It" with my niece the other day. I tried it out with my students today in fact and they loved it. I don't know what sight words you are working on right now, so obviously I chose ones that we've been working on, but I hope that they will work for you.
Have fun!
Love, Bri

Click here to get it on TpT.
Click here to get it on Teachers Notebook.

PS-My Easter Bunny Clipart is FREE as well. Just click here.










Monday, March 19, 2012

A Galaxy Quest and GIVE-A-WAY!!! Yay for Blending!

Ok, if you saw my last post you were able to see the Cinderella Blending cards, well...here are the GALAXY QUEST BLENDING CARDS!!! It took me a while to get them put together but I think they turned out pretty great! I can't wait to try them out with my kids tomorrow...Last year my boys were obsessed with Star Wars as well and I had one little boy who would put Star Wars stickers on his math papers so that he would have "The Force" to help him during math time. Magically, it really worked! It was amazing. I'm really hoping that these will do the same thing for my little struggling readers right now...You can pick these up for $2.99 on Tpt and Teachers Notebook. I will also be giving 2 of these away as well, so the first 2 people to email me with the heading "GALAXY QUEST" will receive these cards! YAY:)






Cinderella Blending Cards

So, I first need to explain how this came to be...I have a few students who are really struggling with blending (to be honest they are just struggling with everything!) and I have been wracking my brain trying to think of a way to help these poor kids. Finally it hit me: STAR WARS! Ok, now you're wondering what Star Wars has to do with Cinderella...let me explain again. The kids who are struggling happen to love Star Wars so I started making clipart and formulating some activities to go along with the clipart to help with their blending. Then I started thinking about all of the little girls in my class who don't like Star Wars and knew that I needed something different for them, that's when I came up with the Cinderella clipart. So, here's the blending cards for Cinderella, and the Star Wars blending cards will be coming along later tonight. I'm just finishing them up (they are just slightly different). But you can pick these Cinderella Blending Cards up on TpT or Teachers Notebook for just $1.99 or I am also going to give 2 away to the first 2 people to email me at theartofteachingut@gmail.com SO EMAIL ME QUICK!!!:)





Cinderella Clipart

I'm am going to be making a reading activity with this later today but I thought I'd put up my cute clipart if anyone is interested...just click here to go to my Teachers Notebook account to see more about it or go to tatclipart.blogspot.com!

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

St. Patrick's Day Lesson Pack

Hey Friends! So, I know that it's almost St. Paddy's day, but I finally got my lesson pack together for the holiday (and I think it turned out pretty awesome)!
I've already used a few things with my kids but we're going to really be focusing on it starting tomorrow. I think they're going to love the "Leprechaun Language"! This pack includes reading and math activities for St. Patrick's Day. 

Reading Activites include:

Blending (including a games and worksheets)

Letter Recognition

Sight Word Recognition

Math Activities include:

1. Patterns

2. Numbers

3. Addition 

4. Subtraction


And of course some art activities! There are a total of 113 pages--so there's plenty to keep you busy!!! 
Just click here to get it on Teachers Notebook and here to get it on TeacherspayTeachers.

I hope you enjoy it!!! 

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Opposites from Dr. Seuss Week!

During Dr. Seuss week we focused on opposites. We spent one day reading Dr. Seuss' 'THE FOOT BOOK' and making a list of opposites. Then I used my foot template to assign each of the kids opposites that they had to draw. When they were done we shared them as a class and discussed each one. Then we hung them in our room.
This is something I will definitely do again, because I really felt like it helped sink it in for the kids. And because I wrote what opposites they had to draw I also felt they were exposed to opposites they would not have been exposed to otherwise.













Just click here to download the worksheet.

Making Leprechauns!



This is one of the best days in Kindergarten! I love making our leprechauns and so do my kids! I usually hate using paints in class because they are just so MESSY! However, for our leprechauns I make an exception because they just turn out so cute. This is a listening activity for my kids, they have to follow my directions in order to end up with a Leprechaun. The instructions I give go something like this:
Write your name at the bottom of your paper
Make  a big square on the top of your paper
Put a long rectangle under that square
Put a line through the square
Make a three leaf clover on the hat (I say make an upside down U three times and add a stem)
To make his beard you want to make it like a cloud
Make a cloud all of the way around
Make an uppercase U for his face
Draw on lips, eyes, and a nose
Then make a rectangle for one arm, another rectangle for the other arm
Make a square for the front of this jacket
Make a line down the square
Add buttons next to the line
Then for the hands, make one bit uppercase U next to a lowercase u without a tail
They'll look like mittens.
Next add two rectangles under his jack to make his pants
Add ovals for the feet






This is an easy way for the kids to understand how to make them and keep them on track.
My morning group I did NOT have them use a black crayon to trace them and they still turned out pretty cute, however my afternoon class did use a black crayon to trace their picture and I think that may have turned out better....

After they are drawn and traced have the kids color them using water color paints. Let them dry and then cut them out, they'll be so CUTE!

Have fun!






Seasons Tree

So, we started our Seasons Unit this week and I have been scouring pinterest in hope of finding something new or exciting that I could do. Unfortunately there just weren't that many ideas so I came up with my own based off of this painting:



First, we made a poster talking and explaining the differences between each of the seasons (I use sticky-notes for this). Then we talked about what we wanted to achieve with this art project (i.e. to show the seasons changing). Then I went through the instructions with the kids as follows (this is a great activity for the kids to practice listening skills):

1. Start with the earth/ the ground.
2. What color should the (or usually is) ground be in winter? A: White
3. Color that section white.
4. What color does the ground start to be in the spring? A: Light Green (it's coming to life!)
5. Color that section light green.
6 What color does your grass turn to in summer? A: Green
7. Great! Color your summer grass dark green!
8. What happens with your grass at the end of summer and in fall? A: It starts to turn yellow
9. Color your grass in fall yellow!
10. DO NOT draw pictures on this paper or draw leaves on the tree, that will come later.

Then show them how to put on the leaves. I used white "snowballs" for winter, pink "buds" for spring, green leaves for summer, and red/orange/brown leaves for fall.

I have my kids take one in their hands squish it up, dip the bottom in glue and put it on their paper.
Show them where each color goes and how to get the glue on the paper without getting it all over their hands.

They really turned out cute and the kids loved doing it! It was also good for me to see who could follow the directions and how well they were doing with their fine motor skills.

TOO MUCH FUN!




This is the template I used:



Just click here to download the Seasons Tree!