Kindergarten Quarterly Assessments Freebie!

Hello all!  Come over to {Little Minds at Work} to grab this Kindergarten assessment freebie!  Also, check back Monday-Thursday for daily freebie posts- all in celebration of the upcoming Summer break!

End of Year Fun Math Unit: Explore The Seven Wonders

This 10-12 day end of the school year lesson plan is intended to help summarize some of the general math concepts that may be taught throughout the school year in a challenging and enjoyable way. Some of the concepts are: estimation, measurement, geometry, puzzles, story problems, x-y coordinates, and much more.

The opening page reads... "Thank you for choosing Vacation Vinny as your world tour guide. Your vacation will go much smoother with Vacation Vinny trying to help you out as you and your family travel around the world in hopes of earning enough reward points to build your air-tight vacation vessel to the planet Mars." Students will travel to several exciting and challenging “wonders” of the world such as the Grand Canyon, Pyramids of Egypt, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Legend of Lochness, Amazon Rainforest, Great Wall of China, Great Barrier Reef, and finally the planet Mars.

But groups will find it challenging because cousin Calvin will be joining them on vacation, which will certainly cause for some challenging problems.

Included in this 55-page packet is 8 vacation packages with keys, reward points, pages to be copied, challenge cards, assessment forms, and more. Here is an example of a challenge page introduction for the Great Barrier Reef.

This would be a great activity to end your school year at the elementary level.
See our store for more end of the year activities.

FREE LANGUAGE ARTS LESSON - “Newspaper Center - Black, White, and Read All-over”

Life on the Fourth Floor, a seller-author at Teachers Pay Teachers, created 16 newspaper task cards. Go to “The Best of Teachers Pay Teachers” for this and hundreds of free lessons.

http://thebestofteacherspayteachers.blogspot.com/2012/05/free-language-arts-lesson-newspaper.html

Father's Day Craftivity Printable

Here is a fun craftivity your students can do to celebrate Father's Day. "Top 5 Reasons Why Dad, You Rock" has 4 writing prompts and 1 blank prompt for students to decide for themselves.  Check it out over on Teachers Pay Teachers.  It is fun for kinder-4th grade.

 
I hope all dads out there have a very Happy Father's Day!

~April

Time to Reflect and Record Memories

I can't believe the end of school is so near. This year has been challenging to say the least. As the school year comes to an end, it is time for reflection . I know that I am going to search for new discipline ideas, look through all the great units I purchased, and over 4000 pins I pinned on Pinterest (LOL), and start planning for next year. I have a great collection of teaching resources that I have filed away in my computer that I also need to revisit and organize.

As I was thinking about the end of the school year, I started thinking about a way for my students to reflect on their year. I came up with a memory book where they can record their likes, achievements, and descriptions of their friends, their teachers, and themselves. I felt this would be a great project to end the year with. You can grab one at either my TpT or TN store for only $3.00. It's my featured item at both shops!

Happy Almost Summer!!!

FREE ABC Mini Booklet

The ABC Mini Book is a blank ABC booklet that you can use for a variety of projects. Most ABC booklets require students to use a full sheet of paper for each letter of the alphabet and the entire project takes students hours to complete. This Mini Book only requires two sheets of paper per student so it takes much less time to complete. You can use this template in almost any subject area to have students create thematic ABC booklets. Assign a topic or theme and have students think of one word for each letter of the alphabet related to the topic. They define the word or explain how it relates to the topic and illustrate one of the words on each page. If you have students write and illustrate words related to what they learned during the school year, it would make a great keepsake to take home on the last day. You can download this freebie from my TeachersPayTeachers.com store.

Laura Candler
Corkboard Connections 
Teaching Resources

The Scientific Method PowerPoint and Notes

This is my most popular free item.  And you will need this to start of the new school year.  Grab this freebie now, and you will be ready to start the new school year off with a bang.

The Scientific Method

PowerPoint with Notes for Teacher and Student

This is a 26 slide PowerPoint presentation on the nature of science and the scientific method. The slides are colorful and visually appealing. Steps of the scientific method are covered, but more importantly, the lesson provides examples and practice problems illustrating the application of the scientific method. Analysis questions and answers are included.

The download will include 4 pages of notes for the teacher and a 5 page notes outline for the student. Students will fill in their outline as the Powerpoint is being presented. The notes are offered in an editable Word document as well as a pdf form.

Click here to visit my blog.

Enjoy!!

FREE MATH LESSON - “Fact Family Back and Forth Game”

Math Coach’s Corner, a TpT Seller-Author, created a jungle-themed math game in which students move back and forth as they practice the fact families. Go to “The Best of Teachers Pay Teachers” for this and hundreds of free lessons.

http://thebestofteacherspayteachers.blogspot.com/2012/05/free-math-lesson-fact-family-back-and.html

FREE MISC. LESSON - “Sprinkles Labels for Personal or Classroom Use”

Ann Marie Smith created labels for your classroom or home. Go to “The Best of Teachers Pay Teachers” for this and hundreds of free lessons.

http://thebestofteacherspayteachers.blogspot.com/2012/05/free-misc-lesson-sprinkles-labels-for.html

Time for Summer Camp!

Do you end your school year with a summer camp theme? Or maybe you're teaching summer school this year, and looking for ways to keep your little guys motivated with some learning fun. Here's a unit that will fit the bill!

It includes 24 center activities, as well as games and independent activities, all designed to reinforce math and literacy skills in your first and second grade students.. If you'd like a free sample from this unit, come on over to my blog to download "Catching Fireflies", a math center activity for matching pictures to number models. Click on the picture to get yours!

Happy Teaching!

                

Updated Classroom Prints & Posters

Are you the type who likes to be prepared for next fall before you leave for the summer? If so, take advantage of my newly updated classroom motivational art prints. I added several new designs and quotes and even converted all 63 prints into grayscale posters so you can save on color toner!

You can find all these prints (and more) in my teacherspayteachers store here:

Classroom Signs/Posters

Make sure you follow me because I'll be adding some FREE prints shortly! Enjoy!

-Tracee Orman

Daily Math Warm Ups

I know there are a lot of people who are uneasy about the transition to the Common Core standards.  I'm not sure if it's because I'm comfortable with my state's transition plan, or the standards themselves, but I'm pretty comfortable with them.  I am interested to see what happens in future years because I think standards aren't always flushed out between the years and my guess is that states will want to start doing that.  For example, money isn't a standard until second grade but at that level they are supposed to know the value and add a collection.  Will state's start deciding, individually, to put some substandards in the earlier grades?  Only time will tell.

In the meantime, I've started creating math warm up pages for the Common Core math standards.  I don't like saying they are aligned because I don't think it represents that they were created to match the standards.  Every page practices 5 skills and the standards spiral throughout the pack.  Click on any of the covers to head over and check it out and grab your 4 free pages.

Amazing Author Studies!

Are you looking for new ways to bring author studies into your classroom? 

Author Studies are perfect for reinforcing research skills and allowing students to discover new authors and books! Just think… wouldn’t this be the perfect end-of-the-year project to kick-off summer reading?! Each student could share book reviews or author book lists for their peers to take-home and use when picking out summer books!

Check out my blog post Amazing Author Studies for resources, freebies, and more!

 

(Click on the badge for a direct link to the blog post!) 

Happy Teaching!

Animal Adaptations - 6 Interactive Activities

Looking for a fun, hands-on way to teach students about physical adaptations of animals?  I have my students create a paper model of an animal with special physical adaptations.   They then add flaps over each adapted body part.  Under each flap, students write a description of how that body part or adaptation helps the animal to survive.  Click the picture below for my 27 page product featuring 6 animals and their physical adaptations (camel, polar bear, cheetah, woodpecker, platypus, and giraffe).  For each animal, a reading passage about the animal's physical charateristics, a cutout of the animal, and 4 to 6 cutout flaps are included.

 

 

AVID-ly AWESOME

Is your school involved in the AVID program? If not, you might want to sneak to word to your principal and have it check it out!

Click the picture below to read more about this awesome nation-wide program and see how our students are loving and learning!

FREE LANGUAGE ARTS LESSON - “All About Bugs Mini Unit”

Teresa Williams created a Mini Bug Unit which teaches alphabetical order, addition, subtraction, and science. Go to “The Best of Teachers Pay Teachers” for this and hundreds of free lessons.

http://thebestofteacherspayteachers.blogspot.com/2012/05/free-language-arts-lesson-all-about.html

Homework Help

It seems like every class has a handful of students who don't turn in their homework.  Click on the picture to read some homework tips.

Summer Vacation Writing Frames Freebies

My Summer Vacation Dreams Smart Board file and student PDF, free, here

My Summer Vacation Dreams PPt and student PFD, free, here

The PDF is also on the presentation files.  

Thanks for reading!  Carolyn