Alphabet and Numbers Review Packs!!

Happy Saturday, Folks! Kerri here...

About this time last year, as I was starting to plan for the following school year and thinking about what beginning Firsties needed to review, so I created 2 different learning packs, one for the Alphabet and one for Numbers 1-30.
 I also created these with the end of Kindergarten in mind, remembering back to the good old Kinder years, when my Kinders were getting squirrelly at the end of the year, but still needed to review all of the good old alphabet and number concepts we had learned throughout the year.
Hence, my Amazing Alphabet Activities pack was born...

...as well as my I Know my Numbers Activity pack!

I asked Lindsay if she would let her Kinders be my guinea pigs for the Alphabet activities, and of course she agreed, since she's my bestie and all! :)

Here is are a couple of pics and what she wrote from her post last year...

A few weeks ago Kerri offered to share her Amazing Alphabet Activity pack (She had even printed, laminated, cut out, and Ziploc-baggied all of the pieces for me!  Yippee!!)  My class had just wrapped up the last letter of the alphabet, so we were gearing up for a week of ABC review - it was perfect!  My kids LOVED all of the activities, particularly the "Alphabet Mystery Words". . .

I even used the alphabet picture/word/letter match with my RTI group and they loved it!  They were so motivated to see who could get the most matches!

Anyway, this was a fun lil unit - I highly recommend it for your end of the year kinders or fabulous fall firsties!

These units are also perfect summer school activities for your  Kinder or First grade kiddos. My daughter used lots of the activities last year with a couple of Kinder and First grade boys she was tutoring over the summer, and the activities really helped them hone their alphabet and number skills!

You can check them out in my TPT shop, friends!

I'm off to grade a brazillion papers, work on a couple of yearbook pages for my school's yearbook, and get started on this little number...

Happy Weekend, friends!!
XOXO Kerri

Just Some Random Bits and Bobs

Greetings friends!  Lindsay here . . .

I cannot believe that some of you are out of school already . . . NOT. FAIR.  And yes, I am cyber-pouting.  We still have 4 weeks, 4 days, and a few hours to go. Not that I am counting or anything . . .

Tonight's post is just a couple of random teacher goodies.  With Open House right around the corner my kidlets and I have been finishing up projects, doings lots of writing, and having so much fun with the RAINFOREST!!  But even in the midst of the project craziness, we have had time for lots of great math and language arts reveiw.  Check it out!

First up tonight: Amazing Alphabet Activity Pack . . .

A few weeks ago Kerri offered to share her Amazing Alphabet Activity pack (check it out HERE in her TPT store).  (She had even printed. laminated, cut out, and Ziploc-baggied all of the pieces for me!  Yippee!!)  My class had just wrapped up the last letter of the alphabet, so we were gearing up for a week of ABC review - it was perfect!  My kids LOVED all of the activities, particularly the "Alphabet Mystery Words". . .

I even used the alphabet picture/word/letter match with my RTI group and they loved it!  They were so motivated to see who could get the most matches!

Anyway, this was a fun lil unit - I highly recommend it for your end of the year kinders or fabulous fall firsties!

Next up: pockets.  Yes, as in pockets in your pants. Or your shirt.  Or . . . well, you get the idea.

My class has a wonderful volunteer who comes in to help with centers once a week named Mrs. Rogers.  She is a former teacher in my district, and her sweet grandson is in my class this year.  Mrs. Rogers is funny, adorable, encouraging, and a WEALTH of teaching ideas and information.  She introduced the "How Many Pockets?" activity to me last week and I just had to share!

The pocket activity is great for getting kids excited about estimating, comparing numbers, and practicing place value with tens and ones, and it goes a little something like this:

Mrs. Rogers kicked off the activity by posing a question to my kiddos: "I was just wondering how many pockets do you think we are wearing today altogether?" She gave my kiddos a chance to share their thoughts, and then she organized a way for them to find out.

First, she put a supply of unifix cubes at each table and told students to put one cube in each of their pockets.  Once all of my kidlets had done this, all of the extra cubes were removed from the tables. 

Mrs. Rogers then directed the class to take the cubes from their pockets, and snap them together into stacks.  Once they had done this, she gave further directions.  "Now I want you to combine all the stacks at your table into stacks of ten each."   After students had done this, each table brought their bundles of ten and their extra cubes to the rug, and each table had a representative come up and share how many pockets their table had.  After recording the totals for each table, Mrs. Rogers asked the students how they thought they could find out the answer to the original question: How many pockets did the whole class have altogether?  Students came up with the idea to count all of the bundles (or stacks) of tens, then to stack together the extra ones into MORE stacks of tens, and finally count up the extra ones.  Wow - our class had 90 pockets! 

Mrs. Rogers recorded this number on the board and challenged my class to see if they could do this activity every day for the whole week, to see if they got the same number.  Needless to say, my competitive little kiddos were up for the challenge, and the next day there were cargo pants, hoodies, and and other pocketed clothing items galore!!!  One of my little girls even wore THREE HOODIES just to help get more pockets for her table!   (Talk about dedication . . .)

This activity culminated on Friday, when my kiddos reached 119 pockets!  Oh the elation at reaching such a big BIG number!!  This activity sparked such great discussion amongst my students, even on the playground: comparing data from day to day, making predictions and estimating, even using great math vocabulary such as "more" and "less"  and "tens and ones". 

Here is picture of Mrs. Rogers getting the students to think about how many pockets they thought the whole class might have . . . (Notice the child in green thinking very, VERY hard! )

And THIS is my dedicated little mathmatician wearing three hoodies and putting her unifix cubes into each pocket:

And finally, here is a little recording sheet to use with this activity.  At the end of the week you can have your kidlets practice writing a true statement about what they observed, such as: "There were more pockets on Tuesday than on Wedensday", etc.

(Click on the image to download recording sheet)



Well, that is it for now!  Let me know if you try to count pockets with your kiddos!  The number to beat is 119! 

Lindsay

Tricky Y FREEBIES, and some Squiggle CUTENESS!

Hi Peeps! It's Tuesday already!! YAY! Kerri here...
First of all, A big GINORMOUS thank you to those of you who already got my Amazing Alphabet Pack! 
I shudder to think about next year already, but it will be here before we know it! For you Kinder teachers out there, this pack is the perfect culmination of a year spent learning the ABC's (Aah, my fond memories of teaching Kindergarten all those years!)


 I have some FREEBIES for you! But first, here are some pictures of our latest Squiggles from my Squiggle Writing Pack!
I tell you what...my kids never cease to amaze me with their creativity. They see things I would NEVER see when they make their squiggle story. Here are some fun ones...

Hedgie from the Jan Brett books

A tea pot!

A whale

Her hair. And...she wrote that she love Phineas from Phineas and Ferb. HA!

A bird

They made some SUPER cute ones this week, and I can't wait to share them when I get around to grading yet ANOTHER mountain of papers this weekend (Can you tell I'm sooo excited??)

Here are 2 freebies for you! The first I posted last year around this time when we were teaching about the sound Tricky Y. I thought I would post it again since we have a "few" more followers than we did last April (we love you guys!!)

It is a read the room center called "The Grouchy Fy". Print up the cards, laminate (natch!) and tape around your room. Have the kids use clipboards to look for all of the grouchy fly cards, read the sentences, and write the words that have the 2 sounds for tricky y on their recording paper. Easy peasy and they LOVE LOVE it!!

Click on the fly to download...

I also made a SUPER SIMPLE (not cute, don't judge!) word sort cut and paste for my kiddos to practice the tricky y sounds this week. Not only do they have to cut and paste the correct word onto the correct column, they also have to read the words to their table partner and then their partner gets to put a happy face on their paper as proof that they read the words. They LOVE being the boss of their partners, do they not?? It also keeps my kids accountable with practicing reading the words, not just cutting and gluing and calling it a day. You know what I mean??


Click on the other fly to download...

That's all I got folks!! But, be sure to enter our giveaway for the Hear-All Assessment Recorder! It ends tomorrow! And, I'll be back later this week with a giveaway for this little baby...

Oh snaps!!