Teaching Time in First Grade: 5 Tools to Make it Easy to Understand and Fun!

Understanding an analog clock can be overwhelming for 1st graders, but these 5 tools will help your students to feel more confident!

Ending Blends Games for K-2

Decoding words with ending blends has always been a confusing concept for my early readers. 

I find when they encounter these words in a long sentence, they become even more overwhelmed!

Easy Phonics Centers for K-1 with Print and Play Games

Games are an engaging way to help students review key skills daily. They enjoy the repetition and predictability of the game, while increasing their ability to decode new words.

As a teacher, I know that low prep are always a favorite of mine. All you need to do is print these games and then your job is done!

Resources to Help Start Your Year Strong!

TpT's Back to School Bonus Sale is happening August 30th and 31st!  Save 25% with promo code: BTSBONUS22

Here are some resources to help you start the year strong!

Reinforcing Phonics Skills with Learning Games

I have always used games to reinforce the concepts my students learn it class. I started creating them over 17 years ago when I worked in a Title 1 school. It was a great way to motivate them while reviewing key math and phonics skills they needed!

Valentine's Day ELA Games for K-1

Are you looking for activities for your Valentine ELA centers next week? Here are two of my favorite print and play phonics games!

Valentine's Day Short Vowel Games

This print and play set features 6 game boards: 

• short a words (ex: pal, tap, jazz)

• short e words (ex: neck, fell, hem)

• short i words (ex: lick, fib, miss)

• short o words (ex: pop, loss, box)

• short u words (ex: jug, fuss, sum)

• mixed short vowels (ex: fizz, max, loss, vet, yum)

Check out this video for a closer look!

Valentine's Day Short Vowel Bingo

A print and play bingo game to help review those medial sounds!

• 24 Bingo Boards

• 6 - 3 x 3 boards with Short Vowel Sounds (letters only.)

• 6 – 5 x 5 boards with Short Vowel Sounds (letters only.)

• Word Cards for Short Vowel Sound Bingo.

• 6 – 3 x 3 boards with Short Vowel Words (cvc and some short vowel ending blends; wish, rest, past..)

• 6 – 5 x 5 boards with Short Vowel Words (cvc and some short vowel ending blends; wish, rest, past..)

• Letter Cards for Short Vowel Word Bingo.

• Heart game pieces, 2 sets, one for 3 x3 boards and one for 5 x5 boards.

A fun activity for reinforcing medial sounds!

Both of these sets are on available in my TPT shop! 

TPT Seller Spotlight for K-1 Resources

 

My shop is featured this week in TPT's newsletter in the Seller Spotlight, it was a lovely way to start of 2022!

One of the resources featured is my Kindergarten Bingo set.

 

This set includes 7 math and literacy skills: Uppercase and lowercase letters, number words, numbers 0-10, numbers 0-20, color words and shapes. Each skill has 6 bingo boards for a total of 42 boards!

I use this in centers and as an alternative to worksheets for homework. 

The other resource is my Short Vowel Games Bundle.

This set features 6 different games all with short vowels. Some sets are decodable cvc words, while others contain blends and digraphs. 

This allows you to easily differentiate activities for ELA centers and homework.

Thanks to TPT for this feature and a Happy 2022 to all my readers!

Adding Within 10: Addition Anchor Chart for K-1

Getting K-1 students to understand the commutative property of addition can be tricky.

 

Brain Breaks in the Classroom: Puzzle Table

I have always loved doing jigsaw puzzles as the amount of concentration it takes is really soothing. I have found over the past 15 years of teaching that my students find them relaxing too!

K-1 Bingo Games for Literacy and Math

My first grade class enjoys playing games during morning arrival each week.

Skill Games for Homework

Homework is such a hot topic these days - I know I have never been a fan of it for Kindergarten. 

Building Number Sense in K-1

As you know, number sense and mastering the 100's chart are important skills for K-1 students.

Cookie Monster Subtraction Craft

We have been focusing on subtraction this month, so I knew the time had come for a math art project to show what they have learned.

Subtraction is always harder to demonstrate visually. I spent a lot of time thinking about how we could do this and then it occurred to me...Cookie Monster! Who doesn't love Cookie Monster? And he is the perfect subtracting tool!


I hopped over to Sesame Street's website and found a directed drawing. He was actually a lot easier to draw that I expected!

Kindergarten Math Centers - 100's Activities Tuesdays Part 3

When I returned to Kindergarten last  year, I knew that I wanted to focus on mastering the 100's. Not just counting to 100, but truly understanding the 100's chart and how it works.

Kindergarten Math Centers - Part 1

Our whole day is centered around workshops, so I like to keep the trend going for Math as well.

 

Kindergarten Math Centers - Exploration Thursdays Part 5

Exploration Thursday came about after watching my class explore all the new materials in the beginning of the year.

Kindergarten Math Centers - Buddy Games Wednesdays Part 4

I decided to include Buddy Games Wednesday into my math centers to increase teamwork and communication skills, as that is an area Kindergarten students always need to work on.

Money Games for K-1

Updated for 2022 with a new, clean look!

The time my Kindergartners have been eagerly awaiting has arrived...our money unit! They are consumed by all things involving money right now!

So, I created some fun games to fit into our centers that will help to reinforce the names, coins and their value.

This set includes:

 Money Puzzles

• 4 way puzzles matching coin front, back, name and value
• 2 way puzzles matching coin with its name
• 2 way puzzles matching coin with its value

Game boards

• What’s the Value? (name the coin and value you land on)
• Name that Coin! (read the value and name the coin)
• How Much Am I Worth? (read the coin name and state its value)

Bingo

• 6 boards (5x5) featuring front and back coin clip art
• call out cards featuring coin name or value for easy differentiating!

These games are excellent resources for math centers, summer skill packets or take home resources!  Click the pictures above for more information!

Happy Sunday!

100th Day of School

Updated for 2022 with a new, clean look!

We are rapidly approaching the 100th day in our class, well we were until we were stalled by two snow days. Nonetheless it is lurking around the corner!

I decided to spend my snow days (the first of the season!) creating activities that would be fun, yet still stick with the objectives we are focusing on in Kindergarten.

For Math, I wanted to focus on counting, graphing and patterns. There are 3 games:

Roll to 100, with one dice and two dice options. The two dice version allows students to add for an extra challenge. They also get to predict how many rolls it will take to reach complete a hundreds chart!

Graph It, where they will graph the number of times that they rolled each number on. This includes a one dice and two dice graph template.

Daub a Pattern to 100 - this has 3 options, AB, ABC, or ABCD. This allows your students to self differentiate based on ability and the challenge they seek.

Daub a pattern has the students explain the pattern they created, as well as write a number sentence to go with their pattern.

Each activity comes with samples!

For ELA, there are 3 writing topics: If I had $100, I would buy..., 100 Things I would like to do this summer and 100 School Moments.

Each writing activity comes with graphic organizers to help beginning writers gather their thoughts and generate ideas.

These graphic organizers can be used as a final piece. Students can also choose to write a few sentences about their favorite school moments, or what they hope to do the most this summer, on the writing template paper.

Now I just need 100th day to arrive so we can celebrate!

For additional information, click here, or on any of the pictures above!

How will you be celebrating 100th day? Let me know in the comments below!

Fuzz Bugs Fever

Our current Kindergarten obsession (for the past month!) is Fuzz Bugs!