Freebie Halloween Calendar

I am joining up with Manic Monday Freebies.

Since it is almost the first of October, here are some free calendar pieces with a Halloween theme.

 

     Don't forget to check out last Friday's feelings freebie. This is our apple week and we have been working on a number book (I may even have pictures on Friday!)

Get your freebie here.

 

 

Five for Friday and a Feelings Freebie

I’m going to try and get back to Friday Freebies.

 I did post a Monday apple freebie this week (which I did do with my class yet). My apologizes for no photos this week but I can't seem to remember to take a camera that I can get the pics off easily.

 

Today was a reward day for the students for good behavior. Instead of their regular music/pe, all the kinders were together moving from the gym with PE stations to the music room for dancing to the Media Center for board games and picture drawing. It was a little overwhelming for them but they get back on track and spent the rest of the day learning!

 

We started the day off with the Grover and Dave Mathews' song about feelings. Mainly because I figured out that it was accessible at school with our new policy for youtube for education. The kids thought it was great!

 

We have been talking about feelings a lot recently. We've been building our classroom community. In celebration of the word am, I made a reader with I am___. I used certain vocabulary for my son that his speech teacher works on in his pragmatics group. I made the one for my class with other words (disappointed was super long to fit in the book :).

 

We did the book over 2 days. Even my kids who love to free draw large amounts of one color drew the most amazing detailed faces. We spent time on each page making that face to our neighbor thinking about what would make us feel that way, sharing with a partner (and of course lots of examples from me for some of the words). They looked at eyes, eyebrows, mouths. We talked about how some people in the class had different faces for the same feeling. Surprised was a big one for that - some had small round mouths and some people opened their mouths really big. We talked about what we can do if a friend is sad. They had lots of ideas. When I asked what they could do for themselves if they were sad, it was harder. So after we talked about what would make us feel happier when we are sad, they drew a thought bubble for the happy page of something they could think of to feel happy.

We talked about the feelings of characters this week and how illustrators show us how the characters feel or think through their pictures. We don't "do" a reading program but we have the Treasures materials. I love the Oral Vocabulary Cards. They are 4 picture cards with a story written on the back. The kids see the pictures as you read the story. Sometimes I have the kinders look at the card and sometimes I project them on the SmartBoard. But I never just read the story. There is lots of questioning, turn and talk, drama and a little ad-lib. This one was great to talk about lonely and scared. The lonely lion tried to steal the ostrich's chicks. The ostrich gets scared and gets other animals to help her trick the lion. We really read the pictures closely looking at their faces and other clues.

graphics by Krista Wallden at Creative Clips

So as I typed I figured out what freebie I have to give you all -the feelings book. I didn't want to post it on TPT because being me I'd feel I had to make a dozen versions just so everyone had a choice. : )

This is the one I used with my class. Yes, it has sleepy and hungry because those show up in the Rigby books and they were fun to draw.

You can download it here.
And I'll link up to Five for Friday and Freebie Friday. So check out all the links there!
Jenn
 

 

Apple Freebie

I do love my themes. They keep repeated material fresh. They help connect learning to specific moments in time. They invite inquiry. And so much more.

When we were planning Apple Week this year, a teammate mentioned to me that I made a ton of apple items last year. She was right. I was planning to revise them with fonts I can use commercially to share with you all but my husband's new job and schedule, 3 kids and a stomach bug have eaten up time I would have allotted. Not wanting to leave you without....

I made a flipbook for the numbers 1-10 (you can use with 1-5 if you prefer). I played with different formats but the end one was my son's favorite.  Here is how to use it....

Trace and write the numeral and number word. (He really wanted me to include the lines to write. So the ten frames are smaller.)
If you use the smaller paint dabbers, they will work in the ten frame (bingo markers may be too big). You can also fingerprint the students in the ten frames. We tried this at home. : ).
Color the numeral to make apples in the basket.
Draw apples on the tree to match the number. This is a great place to differentiate. Instruct the students to use two colors crayons. You can have one group draw one green and rest red. They can work on plus one. You can have them randomly color and compare different students so they see there are different ways to make each number. If you have students working on writing equations already, they can do that as well.

Click here.

Enjoy!
Jenn
Check out  Manic Monday Freebies.

Star Kids Freebies

Here are the editable Star Name Builders Pages. mentioned on Friday's post. There are text boxes in PowerPoint overlaying a flattened picture of the background.. You will need to have a font you wish to use installed on your computer.  I used Hello Fonts - Hello I Heart You and Hello No More Teardrops. You can get these for personal use for free.

I also made Star Goal Pages for our kinders to draw their goals in to start the year. You can download this file for free as well. Don't forget to download Friday's Roll and Trace freebie with these adorable Star Kids.

Enjoy,
Jenn

Five for Friday Currently September and a Freebie

I'm late. I'm late. I'll be the White Rabbit although I felt a little like Alice with this head cold. Thankfully, we had a 3 day week. (We were off for Labor Day and Rosh Hashannah). I thought about posting and I read a lot of everyone else's posts but I was so tired each day. My husband teases that I am only ever late for being early but I love that I can still link up in blogland.

Five for Friday

1. I love Krista's limited edition set. It has lots of bright elements and Star Kids. This works perfect with our school wide behavior/character ed theme of Star Students and Star behavior clips/charts. I made trace and cut and paste name worksheets for the Star Kids in my class.

2. and this Freebie for ...you guessed it....Friday. I made a roll and trace for numerals 1-6 to introduce the center this week. I put it up on TPT and in a Facebook post. You can get it here.

 

3. We've introduced a new Math center whole group each day this week.  We did also played Roll & Cover and Roll & Color 3. After each day, we referenced our PYP board (we were risk-takers for trying, cooperative taking turns, communicative by explaining the game/our strategies, caring (helping each other) and reflective by using the Math Workstations questions. When asked, "What did you enjoy most?" They said rolling the die and getting to color in the numbers. :-)

4. Our current program goes super fast through the alphabet to get to sounds but I like to take it a little slower. This week we worked on handwriting and our abc book in workstations. Proper letter formation is important early on as it is hard to unlearn muscle memory and fine motor skills are super important to our kinders. For our alphabet book, they cut out the pieces to make a new animal for each letter (fine motor) and add details. I use Jumbo Fun with the Alphabet by Evan-Moor. The kinders work on writing by adding details and setting to their pictures. We read Pete the Cat Rocking My School Shoes this week and wrote about things Pete could do in school (we really worked on persevering with this as well). When we made our Cat for C, a few were at school in their setting. One of my kinders drew her bear having a teddy bear picnic. I love the different backgrounds and stories the students come up with in this ABC book (and it is all theirs). I will have to get some pictures of their writing for next week's post. My goal...instill a love of writing right off the bat with lots of drawings, then adding details, labels and sentences.

5. Currently...

I so had this ready Monday after celebrating my daughter's birthday with different family all weekend. : ) Here's my baby girl (with her birthday pin) to sign off.