Five for Friday & Freebies

                                                       Mother's Day Gifts

Our Kinder class really loved our mothers this week. :) Our Breakfast work was Mother related number work (which means the early finishers wrote lots of mom sentences on the backs). They wrote the room for verbs related to pictures of children and their mothers. They had a reader to stamp the word with at stamp center. Then in reading groups we worked on pronouns (she, he, his, her) in another reader from my My Mom Interactive Readers.

Then today we crafted. They rotated stations to make 2 different flowers. They traced their hands and rolled the fingers to make paper lilies (with a little symmetry). They painted with water colors on coffee filters folded in half to make their second flower. They used the cutest seed packet craft from Teaching's a Hoot to hold their flowers.

Teacher Appreciation Gifts My own children and I made art for their teachers. We used my digital scrapbooking sets from Just So Scrappy (see the Sweet picture) and Kari Bolt's Summer Reading Kids clipart to make art for magnetic picture frames for their teachers.

Teacher Appreciation Sale - Oh boy...I stocked up on graphics from some of my go-to artists like Kari Bolt, Zip-a-Dee-Doh-Dah, Pink Cat Studio, Ashley Hughes & Charlotte's Clips plus a new to me artist Kady Did Doodles (had to get some baseball!) My new problem was what to start on first! :) Thank you to everyone who purchases from my store. I was nicely surprised that people shopped my sale. I love that others can use what I make.

Summer Sports Set - I started with the Boys of Summer Sports a set of word wall word cards to play Four Card. Each of over 50 word wall words (high-frequency) comes in 4 graphics (surfing, baseball, biking & soccer) so students can match either the picture or the word in a fun, fast paced game to improve fluency. You differentiate by selecting the words your students need. This can be played as a center or with a few students at snack or with a volunteer. I also added in a game board so the students can play a slower game to practice using the words in sentences. You can use 1/4 of the deck or have multiples of words the group really needs to work with.

Freebie Friday - As I was thinking about my freebie, I knew I needed to add-on to the Boys of Summer Sports Words. I created a shake and write center. Put cards in a bag or box. Students shake the bag and draw a card. They find the column on their paper making the picture on the card and write the word there. It isn't quite a graph because the words can change. A fun way to practice reading, spelling and writing words. Of course, I couldn't stop there. I added more word cards - verbs this time to go with the sporty theme. These can be combined with Four Card game. So where is this freebie...in the Four Card Preview - just download the preview for the free add-on.  Here is the freebie on Teacher's Notebook.
Now to stop over to TBA and see what everyone else has for Freebie Friday.

Have a great weekend! I'm going to relax with my children for Mother's Day so I am off to work on progress reports due next week.

Jenn