Self Portrait FREEBIE

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I like to plan for self-portraits on the first week of school. They show me each student’s ability when it comes to fine motor skills and attention to detail. A read-aloud is always tied in to this lesson. We talk about things that we will learn in Kindergarten, this year. I also make sure that they understand that everyone CAN learn. It is very important that they believe in themselves and always try their best. Leo the Late Bloomer is a good book to use with this activity.

Freebie

Here is a free self-portrait template. The download includes two templates in English and two templates in Spanish.

 

Samples of the Spanish printables. The large face template is a good one to use in a Pre-K classroom on the first day of school. The smaller face template can be used in the Kindergarten classroom where students are able to draw more details.

 

Back-to-School Books

These are some books that can be used during your Back-to-School unit. I LOVE The Kissing Hand, Froggy Goes to School, Leo the Late Bloomer, and Chicka, Chicka Boom Boom!
Which books do YOU like to read? Are they on this list?

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Butterfly Gametivity

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I hope that you like my new idea 🙂

I am always looking for ways to
make learning fun. This FREE pack includes the common ROLL, SAY, COVER game mats for
number identification and addition. But, I came up with a new way to use this
concept for vocabulary development and comprehension.  I combined the ROLL, SAY, COVER game with the
LIFE CYCLE OF THE BUTTERFLY vocabulary pieces.  It is a good way to develop thematic vocabulary skills and, of course,  practice those new words. In this case, the students will review butterfly life cycle terminology. (My plan is to make more of these for other themes as well.)
Then, I added a twist to this game and
came up with a ROLL, SAY, COLOR GAMETiViTY. Let’s have fun while learning, right? Take a look and tell me what you think 🙂
Oh, and make sure to download your freebies.

If you like my new ROLL, SAY, COLOR idea, here are some more freebies from my latest product.
Enjoy!!!

Click on the picture of the Alphabet Roll, Say, Color Gametivity.
This freebie is hidden in the product preview.
So, download the preview to get this freebie 🙂

Do you like the clip art? It’s all in my clip art store. More will be added this week 🙂
By the way, I am having a sale in my TPT store and my
TPT clip art store. 

Now, HOP along to the  Kinder-Craze blog by Maria Monroe for more freebie fun!

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Valentine’s Day Ideas

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Valentine’s day, the day of romance and love. There’s plenty to do, have a romantic evening meal, go on a date, gift bracelets for women or cologne for men… Sometimes it can be hard to include the little ones in the festivities, after all they’re young and don’t quite understand the concepts of love or dating.

I think just because most parents probably hire a babysitter to take care of things on Valentine’s day, doesn’t mean the children should miss out. Whether you’re a teacher or homeschooler looking for some class activities, or even a parent looking to include your child in the day, here are a few Valentine’s activities I thought of.

First, I wanted to create something that would incorporate conversation hearts. I thought of a few things, but then I saw these wooden alphabet beads at Walmart. I knew that I could create several projects with them. So, I came up with the idea of the Valentine’s message. I created 16 cards with conversation heart messages. I included a few ideas on how to use these cards down below for you.

But, the main objective with these wooden beads would be to create a Valentine’s Bracelet that can be exchanged with a friend, given to mom/dad or grandma/grandpa as a gift, or keep as their own. It’s no diamond bracelet or declaration of love, that’s certain. But its a great way to get kids to be creative and get them into the habit of gifting on special occasions. It won’t be long until they grow up and start gifting out of the kindness of their own heart.
So in summary, if you have beads, you can make things like these.
If not, you can make these Valentine’s Messages:
Using these premade templates:
Or these blank hearts which you can use to write your own messages together.
You could even use these in the pocket chart if you have one:

Simple and Sweet for your little ones on Valentine’s Day. Just click on this Valentine’s Day cover to get your freebie 🙂

And just because you are here TODAY, you will also get my new heart borders FREE –Today ONLY 🙂
If you like them, make sure to follow my clip art store for future listings. 

Oh, and these are a regular freebie 🙂

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Free RED Printables

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Do you teach color songs? I LOVE how simple and catchy they are. These songs are a good way to learn about colors and color words. It’s always fun to hear students sing-along and spell these words.

Other simple activities that you can incorporate into your lesson are:

1- Sing a color song
2- Play I Spy
3- Play color bingo
4- Create a collage of pictures that are red
5- Make a collection of things that are red
6- Read books such as Clifford the Big Red Dog
7- Sort objects by color
8- Read and write simple sentences about the color red

Here’s a color song about red.

Here are some free printables to help your students learn about the color red.

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Free Penguin Printables for Reading and Math

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As students return from winter break, we will see that some will need a lot of review of basic skills. First, I created a packet that you can use for introducing penguins. It has your basic Can-Have-Are format. It also includes a small student book that you can use as closure to the theme so that students write what they learned about penguins.

English version
Spanish version
For the review part of it, I made two packets. One is a Read it. Color it. Write it. packet. Students will be able to review sight words, color words, pointing while reading with one-to-one correspondence, return sweep, etc. After they read the sentence. they will color the penguin by using the color mentioned in the sentence. It is not necessary to color the entire penguin in one single color. They can use white and orange where they normally go, but will replace the black parts of the penguin with the color indicated 🙂  Finally, students will write the sentence on their own.
NOTE: I fixed the page for orange in the English packet. It said “I see a orange penguin.”  I changed it to “I see an orange penguin.” So sorry for that little error.
English version
Spanish version
The third free packet focuses on the numbers 1-10. Students will count the penguins, trace and write the numeral, and finally trace and write the number word on each page. They may color the penguins if time allows. They are all free and provided to you in English and Spanish packets. Just download the ones that suit your needs.
English version
Spanish version
Well, that’s it. I hope that you are able to find these free packets useful 🙂

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CVCC Clip Art and Word Work Freebies

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This post includes clip art and free word work activities. I am having so much fun making these unique sets of Clip Art for Teachers. Now, my collection includes short vowels in CVC word patterns, CVCC words clip art, and finally, CVCC word patterns clip art. Yay! I know that you will find these useful when creating lesson plans and activities. They took me a long time, but they turned out very nice. I am so proud of my CVCC AND CCVC sets because I have not seen any others out there. If you like them as much as I do, I would love for you to pin them 🙂 Anyway, I created these in order to make some CVCC word work activities. You will be able to download your free copy, of what I have so far, from the bottom of this post. Students will practice identifying beginning sounds, ending sounds, vowel sounds in CVCC word patterns. These will come in handy when you return back from winter break:)

This bundle includes 40 color images and 40 black and white images.
Total= 80 images.

How about a freebie? Just click the image below to open in a new window. Then, right click to save it to your computer 🙂 Don’t forget to read my terms of use here:)
Click on picture to get the CVCC Word Work Freebies.

Enjoy!
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Using Fun Fonts in Kindergarten

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Welcome to our Blog Swap and Hop. We have many teachers guest blogging on each other’s blogs today. Hopefully you will find some new ideas and freebies along the way. 

My guest blogger is Michelle from Inspired By Kindergarten with a wonderful post about fonts. After you read her post, you can head to  Forever in First for my post about Back To School goodies. You will also find a linky for the blog hop at the bottom of this wonderful post:)


Hello!  I am Michelle from Inspired By Kindergarten and I am so excited to be guest blogging on Kinder Alphabet today! I’ve been teaching for 14 years (2 years Title Math teacher, 7 years First Grade and 6 years Kindergarten).  I “met” Lidia through Facebook and was so excited to get the chance to guest post for her!   I’ll be honest with you. . . when it’s someone else’s blog you put a LOT more effort into what you write.  🙂   It’s a little long today but FILLED with freebie!
Ok, onto our topic:  Funny Fonts
For me it’s a love/hate relationship.  Anyone out there use the old DIBELS assessment? If you did you’ll remember the horrible funky looking “g” they put on the first line.  WHY?  The kids would look at that “g” and just freeze up.  Even giving them the answer and encouraging them to keep going was fruitless.  Their confidence was gone and they were DONE.  Ugh.  And funky fonts are EVERYWHERE!  There’s no getting away from them.  So. . . instead of kicking, screaming and crying over it (me, not the kids) I decided to start teaching it.   WOW. . . the letter naming confidence level of my kids shot through the roof!  I saw huge improvement in my ELL students and all kids in general.  The best part was it’s really not that hard to do!  For the rest of this post I will stop rambling (promise) and give you 5 tips on how to get funky fonts into your classroom!

1.  When you label the students cubbies, mailboxes, notebooks, journals, etc. at the beginning of the year choose a different font for each spot.  
2.  Put several sets of alphabet flashcards, each with a different font, in your reading centers.  You’ll find these all over the web but to save you some time just click the pic for your free copy of these funky font flashcards (also includes a page with suggestions on how to use):

3.  Save old food boxes to cut letters out of.  This is a super cheap way to collect hundreds of funky fonts. Plus you get several sizes so they are great for all sorts of sorting!  : )
I recently reorganized  my stamps and kept the case the stamps came in.  I saved it for sorting the smaller letters. 
However, if you don’t have something like this you could have the kids sort the letters onto an alphabet poster:
Or a simple sorting sheet (click picture to download yours):
4.  For more independent practice check out some of these packets from TPT:
                                                                                                           
5.  Show a slide show of letters in different fonts.  This is a new activity for me so I’ve only created one file so far.  The first letters my class work on are M, S, R and T so I’ve created a PowerPoint that focuses on those 4 letters.  The first part of the presentation is “shout it out” time where the kids literally shout the letters out loud as they flick on the screen.  The next part of the presentation slows down so the kids can graph the letters they see.  I even put some “non examples” in this part and a sad face on the graph for kids to use when “non examples” appear.   
AND/OR
I’ve also included the jpg images of the letters from the Power Point.  I plan on getting my students used to the activity and then loading the images onto a digital frame for kids to use during reading centers.  
I found this awesome picture frame on Amazon.com last summer.  It’s also a dry erase board so I can write the focus letters on the frame.  Plus, it has a record feature so I can record a  message to the kids and they can press the green button to hear it.  Click on the picture to get one for yourself.  Sorry, the picture frame isn’t a freebie!  : (   : (    : (
However, I do have my MRST Power Point, jpg images and graph available if you are willing to be a guinea pig and try it out with me!   All you have to do to receive a copy is follow this blog, leave Lidia a comment and include your e-mail address.  
Thanks so much for taking the time to read this blog post!  
I hope you found something new and useful for you and your kinders!

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DIY: Roll A Word Activity

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Today, I want to share a Do-it-Yourself center activity. I will include a printable that can be used for making words with -at. This is so simple to make and you can use materials that you already have at home.

Best of all, this is a hands-on activity that your child or students will love to manipulate once you put it together.

Materials needed: colored paper, paper tube, ruler, scissors and tape.
First, you need to measure the width of the paper tube that you are using. Then, you will cut out a long strip according to the width. I did not measure the height for this one.
Next, you will roll the tube into the colored paper and cut out the excess paper. Now, tape it the paper to the tube. It should be a tight fit so that the paper will not come undone easily.
Download this free printable and cut out the letter strips. I have two consonant strips. Simply use one letter strip at a time on your paper tube or make two tubes.
Then, tape the -at strip directly to the paper tube so that it does not move. The letter strips will serve as the beginning sounds.  Assemble these according to the directions on the picture.
 Finally, slip the consonant strips into the tube. It should be loose enough so that children can roll the paper strip around the tube.

You are all set! Use it during guided reading groups or as a center activity. Watch the kids have fun reading!  Options: Students can write each word on a recording sheet or dry-erase board. 
They can even build the words with letter tiles or magnets.

UPDATE: I have included the word families that you requested plus much more. Click on the following picture to get it all.

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Alphabet Activities

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This is an activity to meet the Common Core Standards for Reading in Kindergarten. K.RFS.1 states that  students will recognize and name all upper- and lowercase letters of the alphabet. You can use this resource as stated below to practice these skills.

It fits right in on the first week of school when you read Chicka, Chicka Boom Boom or year-round.

Get the English Chicka Chicka Boom Boom activities here.
Get the Spanish Chicka Chicka Boom Boom activities here.
How to use:
1-           
Students
can match uppercase letters to the corresponding lowercase letters. Use the
attached mat to place the cards in the boxes.
2-          
Students
can sequence the upper or lowercase letters in correct order. Use in the pocket
chart or on the carpet. This is also a good way to retell the story.
3-          
Use
one of the mats in the listening center and provide magnetic letters. Students
place the correct letters on the mat as they listen to the story.
4-          
Hide
the letter cards around the room. Students go for a letter hunt. They return to
the carpet and show and tell about the letter that they found. (Example: I
found the letter “A”- acorn and airplane start with “A”) OR (Abel’s name starts
with “A”)
5-          
Use
the letter cards to for a graph.  Teacher
lines the letter cards on a bulletin board or butcher paper. Students write
their names on an index card and place it under the first letter in their
names.
6-          
Each
student is given a letter card. As the teacher reads the story “Chicka Chicka
Boom Boom,” the student raises the corresponding card.
7-          
Students
use magnetic letters or letter tiles to find the letters in their names. They
mix up the letters on the given mat. Then, they will build their names under
the coconut tree.  
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Baby Bumblebee

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This is a cute song for your Spring unit. Kids love to sing along and use the hand motions:) Place it in your pocket chart and let one of your students use a fun pointer. Make sure to arrange the corresponding pieces side by side to complete the sentence. Some common core skills that you can review are:

-follow words from left to right
-follow words from top to bottom
-identify a letter
-identify a word
-identify a space
-identify the beginning of the sentence
-identify the end of the sentence
-identify and read the words mommy, baby, my, a, so and me
-identify the rhyming words

-Click on the picture to get this freebie:)

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