Letter Sorts for Your Interactive Notebook {Uppercase and Lowercase Letter Recognition}

Posted on July 3, 2018 by Shelley

I’ve posted a compilation of all of the Letter Sorting Activities from My First A to Z Interactive Notebook. These are great for teaching letter recognition, uppercase and lowercase pairs and beginning letter sounds.

Each sheet contains all you need to practice one set of letters. And every activity is tailored to that letter’s beginning sound.

Here is a look at all of the activities:

Print the activities on your favorite Astrobright paper:

Add the letter sorts to your letter formation practice pages:

Or print them on white paper so your students can color/personalize their work:

Get these Letter Sorts for half-off through tomorrow!

SCRIPTURE I STUDY from A to Z {Interactive Notebook Edition}

Posted on June 9, 2018 by Shelley

Are you thinking about sending your kindergartner to a summer camp for their character development? Why not spend a few minutes each day teaching them foundational scripture instead?

We’ve transformed our Scriptures I Study from A to Z Booklet into Interactive Notebook, activity-packed FUN!

The activities included in this pack will help your children visualize the key points of each verse and apply them to their walk with Christ.

SCRIPTURES I STUDY from A to Z was created as a companion to the Harrow Family’s Sing the Word from A to Z (part of Sonlight’s Bible A memory program curriculum). But, it can be used on its own, or with your letter of the week program.

Each activity in this resource is designed to cover two-pages in a standard 7×9 composition notebook. In our notebook, we glued the uppercase letter header, scripture reference, and handwriting practice on the left-hand pages. We composed all of the activities on the right-hand pages.

For example, with letter E you will print two pages:

After building the pages and completing the activity, your notebook will look like this:

Each letter, A to Z, has:
1. The target letters (uppercase and lowercase for letter identification/recognition) that begin the scripture

2. A portion of the scripture in dashed print (the full scripture can be found on the Scripture Memorization Cards included in this set).

3. Graphics by Melonheadz that correspond with the scripture. Here your students will meet and color some of their Bible heroes and other relevant pictures. The graphics give you a chance to talk about the heroes and discuss the scripture.

4. An interactive activity designed to apply the scripture to your Kindergartener’s walk and growth in Christ. Each activity has its own instructions. Most can be completed with supplies you have on hand.

So grab a composition book, scissors, glue and crayons and starting laying a solid foundation in the Word of God for your child’s character to bloom and grow!

You can grab it on sale here through tomorrow!

CRAZY for CVC GAMES!

Posted on June 6, 2018 by Shelley

Summer is full of fun…and planning for next school year! As we begin First Grade next year, we’ll be reviewing CVCs. Instead of using lots of great worksheets, we are going to start our year with CRAZY for CVC GAMES!

The best part about these CVC games is that the are ALL in black and white. No expensive colored ink needed here! So, grab your favorite Astrobright cardstock, and start printing up some learning fun!

THE BUNDLE will contain 30 games–six games for each CVC vowel group. These games can be used during the KINDERGARTEN school year in small reading groups, morning work tubs, for fast finishers, literacy stations, etc. Whatever works best in your class!

Now…for a look inside each of the games in the short A pack:

In GAME #1, playing with a partner, or alone, your students will read CVC words and mark their pictures on the game board. We like using Mathlink Cubes for this activity, but you could use whatever game pieces you have on hand. When they have found five words in a line, they win! Or, they could be like my kids, and keep reading and marking words until the whole board is full of math cubes!

GAME #2 is a word family Tetris puzzle. It is a great tool for assessing your student’s word family knowledge and critical thinking!

Using the game board from GAME #1, your students will cover the words that rhyme (that are in each word family)with the correct word family puzzle piece.

GAME #3 has four different TRACTOR RIDE game boards (#1: -ab & -ad; #2: -ag & -ax; #3: -am & -ap; #4: -an & -at). Your students will find and build the medial A CVC words on each board by drawing clue cards. Each clue card will give them a beginning or ending letter that they will use to find the word. This game can be played with a partner, or alone.

GAME #4, BOGGLE BUDS is a fun way for your students to practice their beginning reading skills. This short A pack has four different Boggle Bud boards (try saying that 5 times fast :).

Students will search for CVC words using three letters (including the medial A) that are touching each other in any way–sideways, up and down, or diagonally. The words can also be formed forward or backward.

GAME #5 is sure to be a class favorite. Who doesn’t love candy?!? It is really a fun way to practice reading and rhyming words.

I printed the rhyming boards on white and the candy on all different colors of cardstock. But you could print all the candy on one color (that matches the title page) or, if you’d like to use this activity to introduce the word families, you could print each word family’s candy in one color (a different color for each word family). Your students could then spend less time discerning the word families and more time simply reading the words.

In Game #6 your students will put all of their reading skills together by building sentences with CVC words. There are 6 different picture strips in this game. Each picture strip has a set of word cards (distinguishable by the matching picture on the word cards) associated with it. Only names are capitalized on these word cards.

Your students will read each word card and then order, and re-order them until they come up with a sentence that matches the picture strip. Next, they’ll write the sentence into their “My Little A Book” using a capital letter to begin their sentence and appropriate ending punctuation. The only sight words included in this set of sentence building cards are “is” and “the”. Your students should be very successful completing these sentences independently.

As a mom of 8, I need to be organized, or not much gets done :). So I want to share with you a couple of ideas on how you can organize the CRAZY for CVC GAMES.

The first is super simple and fairly inexpensive. Print the title pages for each game on a different color of cardstock. Paste them onto large manila envelopes and tuck all of the game pieces inside their envelopes.

If you are into IRIS containers (who doesn’t love them?!)–all of the game envelopes can be stored in one of their 11 x 13 project containers.

Another idea is to store all of the game pieces in a 4×6 IRIS container and the larger title pages and game boards in a plastic envelope (I love these by the way! They can handle daily use a lot better than their manila cousins).

Everything fits in, nice and tidy :).

So…6 simple games…low prep…lots of fun…and perfect for teaching/reinforcing CVCs with a medial A!

You can grab the short A set on sale through tomorrow. Or grab the whole bundle today! The bundle price will go up as I add each letter’s games.

ONE-TO-ONE CORRESPONDENCE with Classroom Tools

Posted on June 1, 2018 by Shelley

When it comes to teaching our youngest students numbers we often focus on counting. Counting involves memorizing the number words in the proper order (one, two, three, four, five…). Many young children easily memorize the number words in their proper order, but often do not understand the concept of one-to-one correspondence.

ONE-TO-ONE CORRESPONDENCE is being able to skillfully count an actual number of objects. A child that understands one-to-one correspondence knows that 2 cookies = 2 or that 5 raisins = 5. Our students need many opportunities to practice saying one number with one object.

Here is GREAT way to begin next school year with 1:1 correspondence:This 220-page ONE-TO-ONE CORRESPONDENCE ACTIVITY PACK can be used with tools already in your classroom to build 1:1 correspondence in your students!All of the activities in this pack include mats and booklets WITH prompts, for your newest number learners or students that need additional practice, and WITHOUT prompts (so you can assess your students’ learning).

In this first activity, your students will count with Play-Doh containers, erasers, markers, crayons, counting bears, dice, math cubes, pom-poms, buttons and paperclips. The School Buds 1-10 booklet includes numbers and shapes to glue on the pages–matching the number and completing the count.

The “I Can Count What I See” sheets can be used as additional task cards, or stapled together into booklets. They use some of the same manipulatives as the previous set, or ones that your students can find at home (scissors, Q-tips, elbow macaroni, Cheerios, Goldfish and small puzzle pieces).

Another fun way to count (and great for fine motor skills) is to clip what you count. With these color palettes, your students will be challenged to use the clips with both of their hands.

The Count and Color booklet, like all of the other ones you will see in this post, can be completed with dot markers and crayons. Or you can use these sheets as additional task cards and your students can count with Play-Doh, clothespins, push pins, hole punchers, moon sand, regular sand, finger paint or even edible counters (yum!). The possibilities are endless! The more your students practice, the better they will get at 1:1, number recognition, and counting.

Here is another great way to incorporate fine motor skills into your 1:1 correspondence lesson–plastic tweezers!

And, I love this Button Up activity. You don’t just have to use buttons, either!

These multi-sensory mats are great for instructing correct number formation along with the 1:1 relationship. And, what child doesn’t love Play-Doh? (If you have one, just use bingo chips :)!

To form the numbers, have your students place their pointer finger on the star and talk them through the number formation. For the Number 4 I would say, “Start at the top on the star. Short line down. Stop. Straight line over. Stop. Now jump up and make a big, straight line down. Stop.”

With a die and a partner, your students can play DICE COVER-UP. They will roll the die and cover the die face they rolled, or its number. First one to cover all of the spots on their game board wins! Two boards are included–one that is in numeric order, and one that is not.

With this multi-sensory activity, your students can build ten-frames, practice correct number formation and “write” the number word.

Count and stack the math cubes on the Counting with Cubes mat.

Teach tally marks with Popsicle sticks. The prompts on the Tally Me This mats are numbered to help your students learn to tally from left to write and slash for 5. Finally, teach 1:1 correspondence using a Bear-y Good Line (and counting bears).

You’ve gotta get this set! Your students are going to LOVE math. So, go grab it for 1/2 off today (here)!

YAY! The Bundle is Complete!

Posted on April 7, 2018 by Shelley

Letter Z has been added to this amazing set of interactive phonics activities, so this baby is complete! Yay! Grab it at half-off today!

For each letter your students will complete hands-on activities for: – Correct letter formation (uppercase and lowercase writing)
– Letter recognition
– Sorting lowercase and uppercase
– Beginning sounds (including long and short sounds for each vowel as well as hard and soft sounds for C and G).
– Using high frequency vocabulary that begins with the target letter
– ABC order up to the target letter (this set can be purchased separately here)
– Word building with lowercase and uppercase letter matching
– Order and sequence
– Visual discrimination (identifying items that begin with the correct sound; are found in a particular place; are a particular size or shape; or simply do not belong).
– Using stickers to accomplish simple beginning target letter sound tasks

Are you ready for some awesome interactive learning? Check out the tutorial to see how we put our notebook together and be sure to grab your copy of Letter M.

STAR WARS Parent-Teacher Conference Pack

Posted on March 1, 2018 by Shelley

This is for all of my teacher friends who love Melonheadz Star Wars characters as much as I do!

Two files are included in this Parent-Teacher Conference Pack. One is loaded with Print-n-Use forms. The other is a PowerPoint file with editable forms. This pack also has lots of options for coordinating with parents as well as creating progress reports that work for you and your students/parents.

Here is peek at what is included:

This form you would send home and have your students’ parents give you 3 dates/times that they are available. With the other set of forms (see below) you would set a time/day for each parent to meet with you (based on the sign-up sheet). They would return the bottom half of the form to you with their reply.

Use this next set of forms to find out what your students’ parents concerns are, and what your students think about their own progress.

And now, here are the options for gathering all of your data and generating a progress report or student summary. Choose the one that works for you and your students/parents.

Now, you are ready to hold your conferences! Be sure to have this sign-in sheet printed and some Padawan Love Notes ready for the parents to leave their children.

This set will be on sale through Friday! Hope you love it!

MAGNETIC Y and C+LE SYLLABLE Packs!

Posted on January 5, 2018 by Shelley

Two new syllabication packs are posted MAGNETIC Y

C+LE SYLLABLES!

These are the fourth and fifth pack in our series and both build on the VCCV and VCV syllabication rules taught in the earlier packs. They are both half-off through Sunday!!

American Government and Civics Tests

Posted on December 28, 2017 by Shelley

Our oldest two children just completed Sonlight’s 18-week American Government and Civics (Level 420). This course is designed for your high school students to read the texts and respond to daily questions, but there is no assessment of mastery included in the course work. So, I added one :). You can get it here.

There are four tests (with answers) in the download. You will administer the tests after your students have completed the assignments for Weeks 4, 8, 13 and 18.

All of the questions included were taken from the information discussed in your student’s reading response questions. They include a mixture of fill-in-the-blank, order the events, mapping, and short-answer questions. Each test has approximately 20 questions.

As a Final Exam, we used the Arizona Department of Education’s Civics Test. It is a 100 question test based on the US Immigraton and Naturalization test. You will need to modify the final questions to reflect the state in which you live (if it is not Arizona). Your students should score well above their required 60 of 100 correct answers.

This set of tests will be half-off until Saturday!

Totally Techie Trigraphs (SCR, SHR, THR)

Posted on December 8, 2017 by Shelley

A little digital something for your Second graders–TOTALLY TECHIE TRIGRAPHS! These are perfect for your Google Classroom, or homeschool. The files in this set will run on any computer that has access to Google Slides or PowerPoint.

Three activities are included in this set:

In this first activity your students will sort SCR- and SHR-; SHR- and THR-; SCR- and THR- words. The words are included on the picture sorting cards. Simply click on the word card; drag and drop it next to its beginning blend.

Your students will drag and drop the right beginning trigraph for each picture. Not all beginning blends will be used.

A printable word list included for this activity. Your students will type the word in the blank to complete each sentence. Then they will drag n’drop the picture that matches the sentence.

The text boxes in this activity are designed to use the KG What the Teacher Wants font. Click on the link to download your free copy. You will need to install it on your classroom’s shared drive, or on the computer that will run these files.

Every file in this set has movable pieces (only the pieces that need to move actually can be moved), so once a student has completed an activity and you have checked their work, close the file by clicking “DO NOT SAVE.” That way the pieces they moved will go back to their starting positions and the program will be ready for your next student.

TOTALLY TECHIE TRIGRAPHS will be half-off this weekend!