Free Digraph Posters

admin November 6, 2014 No Comments

Have you ever had a project that you’ve been meaning to get to, but for some reason it just lingers on in your to-do list?  That’s kind of how it was with these consonant digraphs posters.  They’ve just been sitting on desktop for literally over a year.   Well, my friend was helping me with a computer project and he literally gasped when he saw the mess of files on my desktop.  That was motivation enough to get to work on a few of those projects. If you’d like to download these posters, just click HERE.  They are available for a free download in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

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Teaching the Hard and Soft “C” and “G”

admin October 30, 2014 No Comments

Our little first graders will soon be introduced to the two sounds of  “c” and “g”.  Those two consonants are a bit tricky as they make different sounds depending upon the letter that follows in the word.  We typically teach students that the “hard” sounds of “c” and “g” occur most often, but they do need to know when these letters make the “soft” sound.  We tell the students that when the letter “c” is followed by the letters i, e or y, the “c” makes the /s/ sound just like in the words “city”, “cent” and “icy”. The letter “g” is similar.  When the “g” is followed by an i, e or y it makes the /j/ sound as

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Fun Fall Freebie

admin October 23, 2014 No Comments

My fabulous artist, Kyle, drew this tree one afternoon for her daughter when she asked her mom for a tree to color.  It must be so much fun to have an artist as your mother.  Kyle sent this coloring page along to post on the blog just in case others would like to download it for their students or even for their own children.  Eleanor used markers to color her tree, but your students may want to try watercolors or even bingo dabblers to make leaves. Just click the following link: Fall Coloring Page  Enjoy!

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Phonemic Awareness Activities – Just Grab and Go!

admin October 12, 2014 No Comments

Last year I was cleaning my basement getting ready for our annual garage sale and came across all those old Disney movies housed in VHS cases.  Although our VHS player is long gone and the kids are now into their late teens and twenties, parting with those old movies was pretty difficult.  I can’t tell you how many times I watched Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast- I can still sing many of those songs years later.  While I was looking at that old stack of tapes, I was trying to think of ideas for re-purposing the case and it hit me!  They would make ideal storage containers for activities!  Here’s the vision: The step- by-step directions for the activity

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Teaching Contractions

admin October 9, 2014 No Comments

In our everyday speech we use contractions.  Contractions are a kind of “short cut” in the way we use words to communicate.  Think about it for a bit.  If you were going to tell a friend that you aren’t going to lunch, are you likely to say, “I am not going to lunch” or “I’m not going to lunch”?  Because we use these words so often in our speech, it’s important that we teach students how to use the words in writing.  Teaching contractions can be fun and there are tons of great activities to use to support this concept. When introducing the idea of contractions, it’s helpful to begin by defining the word “contract”.  “Contract” means to get smaller or

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Halloween Themed Activities Perfect for Centers!

admin October 5, 2014 No Comments

  Well, the calendar turned to October and that means Halloween is just around the corner.  Halloween is one of my favorite holidays.  The children just love it when we introduce a little holiday themed activities into small groups and centers.  Here are a few of my old favorites. Rhyming Memory Game  I love Michael’s Craft Store.  They always have so many fun holiday themed items that can be changed into educational activities.  I found these holiday themed discs that, with a little creativity, can be turned into an awesome holiday themed rhyming activity.  It’s a new twist on an old favorite- Memory.  To make this activity, simply print the pdf below on a full size Avery label, cut the

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Cookie Sheet Activities Pre K- K Bundle- Early Literacy and Numeracy Activities

admin September 27, 2014 No Comments

We all know that young children learn best through hands-on activities.  When children can manipulate letters to form words or use manipulatives such as counters to learn critical concepts their learning accelerates.  The Make, Take & Teach cookie sheet activities offers students hands-on  fun for learning and practicing beginning literacy and number concepts.  These activities are ideal for both direct teaching and independent practice.  The cookie sheet keeps the activity contained as well provides the engagement of using magnets! There are 6 volumes of cookie sheet activities each volume targeting a specific skill.  Just to keep it simple, I combined the volumes into two grade level bundles- one bundle for my Pre K- K friends and another for my first

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8 Hands-On Activities for Teaching Long and Short Vowel Sounds

admin September 21, 2014 No Comments

Learning vowel sounds can be so tricky for our young readers.  Not only do several of the short vowel sounds sound similar (for example, the short /a/ and short /e/ sounds), but vowels have two sounds– a short sound and a long sound.  Teaching students that vowels have two sounds is typically introduced early in first grade.  The explanation is actually quite simple.  We just tell students that when a vowel has a long sound, it says its name.  Having this poster handy while teaching this concept can be helpful.  Just click the link below for a quick and easy download.  Just click the following link to download this freebie Long and Short Vowels Poster For our little first graders, I

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The FLOSS Rule

admin September 17, 2014 No Comments

Memory aids are often used to help students remember certain spelling rules. The FLoSS rule is one of the first spelling rules taught to our first and second grade students to help them understand when to double the final “f”, “l” and “s” consonants at the end of certain words.   The word “floss” actually follows the FLoSS rule.  When a /f/, /l/ /s/ (or /z/) is heard after a short vowel at the end of a one-syllable word, it is spelled with a double “ff”, “ll”, “ss” or “zz”.  Okay, you’re probably thinking how did that “z” sneak in there.  Well, there really aren’t too many words that end in “z” so this rule will work for the majority of words your

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10 Engaging Activities for Teaching Homophones

admin September 13, 2014 No Comments

Teaching and learning homophones can be tons of fun!  Many reading programs introduce the concept of homophones in second grade.  Homophones are words that sound alike but are spelled differently and have a different meaning.  Students need to be able to tell the difference in the meanings of these words and to use the correct spelling in their writing.  If students misspell words or use the wrong word in writing, the reader is not likely to understand what they are trying to say. Of course, using hands-on activities to teach any skill is preferable to worksheet drill and practice.  The Make, Take & Teach Complete Activity Pack for Teaching Homophones includes 10 engaging activities for teaching 65 common homophones.  My

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