Today, I’d like to share a few fun and effective reading and writing ideas from last week’s After School Link Up! Grandfather Tang’s Story was one of my favorites when teaching in the classroom. See how Jump into a Book used it as a springboard for more ideas. Ask kids to read and record ... Read More about Fun Reading and Writing Ideas {and After School Link Up}

The fact that punctuation marks are not used correctly and in place is the biggest factor that disrupts the integrity of meaning. For this reason, it is necessary to follow the rules of punctuation in order to express the desired message correctly. Period: The period is used at the end of sentences and in abbreviations. ∗ I love reading storybooks. ∗ Mr. Clark Comma: The comma is used between sentences and words that follow each other. ∗ I can speak English, French, Germany. ⇒ A comma is not commonly used before “and” at the end of a one-word list. ∗

Hey, there!!! I just finished my contraction unit.. so I’m going to show you everything that is included!! It’s also been added to the 2nd Grade Hands-on Reading LANGUAGE DOMAIN Bundle. This unit was created for second grade, but I think it would also work great for first! In fact, I’m using it with my […]

Marco Polo 1254 - 1324. Free lapbook and unit study with hands on ideas for studying the life of Marco Polo, the Mongol Empire | Silk Road

This is a PDF poster (24" x 36") that gives a simple definition and 6 examples of light sources. This resource correlates with science standards for first grade in most states; usually a unit on Light & Shadows or Waves: Light and Sound. I used a similar (hand-drawn) poster when teaching our Light & Shadows unit in 1st grade. I found it had a fabulous impact on students using the science vocabulary, "light source", and enabled students to use the words more easily when writing and reading. This was a great tool for science and reading integration in my room!

It's time for Five for Friday by DoodleBugs Teaching. This one will definitely be one of my favorite ones because I have some cool things to share. I took these pictures last week. Our kindergarten TAs are just amazing! Love all the colors and habitats! They turned out great! Do you see this pile? I got a new printer for Christmas and literally JUST hooked it up two days ago. I am in love! I'm trying to get ahead and get everything printed off that I'm going to need the next few weeks. Freebies? Did I hear that you wanted a freebie? Well, since Easter is coming up and unfortunately so is testing, I pulled out a few of my freebies from last year. I hope you enjoy! Do you like Brain Breaks? Well, I am in LOVE with The Learning Station brain breaks. I found them on YouTube last year. They are perfect for rainy days and my kids ask for them over a movie when we are stuck inside. Here's the thing. I ordered one of the DVDs a few weeks ago and thought, "I'd love to be able to share these with my followers." Guess what? We are doing just that! I contacted my friends at The Learning Station and they are letting me give away ONE DVD bundle! Friends, it is worth $80. You have a week to enter and I seriously can't wait to make someone's day next week. a Rafflecopter giveaway So, I've been looking for some fun things to do with my class that are more hands-on, especially after testing in a few weeks. Here's a picture of one of my favorites - walking on eggs. Why yes, we will be doing that in my classroom in two weeks. If you don't believe me, ask my friends. I'll try anything once. You can read more about how to do this on Playdough to Plato. Oh, and make sure you check out Quirky Momma on Facebook. She posts the neatest things to try with your kids and even in your classroom. Have a Fantabulous Friday!

If someone loses their glasses, are they as blind as a bee or a bat? This fill-in-the-blank worksheet introduces your child to popular similes.

Last Updated on April 1, 2020 We have prepared a list of worksheets based on synonyms for 2nd grade. It contains 4 pages. It includes answer key. You can download the PDF below, Download: Synonyms Worksheets for 2nd grade

Are you a teacher or a parent of a first-grade student searching for free printable phonics worksheets? Look no further! We have a collection of engaging and educational worksheets that will help your child grasp essential phonics skills. These worksheets cover a range of phonics topics, including letter recognition, sounds, blending, and segmenting. Designed for first graders, our worksheets offer an interactive and enjoyable way for young learners to improve their reading and spelling abilities. Whether you're teaching in the classroom or at home, these free printable phonics worksheets are a valuable resource for developing strong foundational skills in reading and writing.

Math games for elementary classrooms usually means pulling out all sorts of manipulatives, but it doesn't have to. Sometimes simple really is better.

The last bit, Kaleb and I have been reading through the Zoey and Sassfras series by Asia Citro based on a young girl named Zoey, her cat Sassafras, and

How much for a pen and banana? This money math worksheet gets your child to perform some simple arithmetic while prepping him to handle money in real life.

Hey everyone!!! I hope everyone is having a great start to the NEW YEAR! It's always great to have a fresh start and a clean slate...

Learning about landforms with a hands-on landform building and narrative writing project.

Blogger Maurice Elias shares the secret to effective classroom management.

Here's our Asia continent bag. As with each of our continent bags, I do my best to find a variety of things to represent the continent as a whole. This was tricky with our Asia bag, though, because we have family and friends from China and Japan and so most of our souvenirs are from those countries. Here's what's inside: Maps and landmark cards. Books. Some of the books are from China, gifts to us from my brother-in-law's girlfriend. She was so excited to find out about James being able to count to 10 in Mandarin (here's the language program we use) and so she sent us these books. I think she hopes James will continue to learn Chinese and that he'll someday learn to read these books. The blue book is kind of unintentionally humorous - it's a dictionary of American idioms... talk about getting lost in translation. :) Japanese souvenirs: a Mangekyou (kaleidoscope), a Daruma doll, and a San Kai Koma (3 layered spinning top). These items were gifts from our friend, Kana, who recently visited her family in Japan. Miscellaneous souvenirs: Tibetan prayer flags, a mask from Papua New Guinea*, chopsticks from Bali, and a Japanese hand fan - all of these were purchased at a local fair trade store. The silk scarf is from China and was a gift to me from my brother-in-law's girlfriend. *I can't seem to find a definite answer as to which continent Papua New Guinea belongs to. I've read mixed opinions all over the web and the majority seem to align it with Asia. Feel free to add your two cents. :) Music and artwork. I purchased the drum CD years ago at the World Showcase area in Disney's Epcot Center and you can buy the Putumayo CD here. I wrote more about the artwork here. I chose artwork to represent India, Japan, China and Thailand. Pictures and postcards. The pictures are from the continent kit from Montessori For Everyone. The postcards are from Singapore and Japan. Papers, cards, and stamps. The papers can be used for Origami - this site has some easy models for kids. The rubber stamps are from my scrapbooking stash. Chinese flashcards. I found these beautiful cards here and I cut and laminated them. I think James will enjoy looking at these and, someday, I hope he'll be interested in trying to write the characters on our Buddha Board. Three part cards. Animals. I've had those two stone carved animals since I was a child! Money, flags, and stamps. The stamps and most of the currency is fake and are simply images I found on Google. Here again I tried to represent a variety of countries. The Iraqi Dinar is real and was given to us by a friend of ours who was in Iraq during the war. The tiny coin is a real Hong Kong penny, but the other coins are fake - I think I found them in a craft store years ago. The flags (China & Japan) were purchased here. This is a great cookbook with simple, yet authentic recipes from around the world. For each recipe there's a bit of history, too. I'd love to know if you have an authentic and kid-friendly recipe that represents Asia. If you'd like to share it please email me at countingcoconuts(at)gmail(dot)com. Thanks! And speaking of food, one thing I think would be really fun to add to a continent bag is some felt food - in the case of Asia, something like sushi would be cute! I hope you've enjoyed this photo tour of our Asia Continent Bag! You might also enjoy these other posts from my Continent Bag Series: Our Continent Bags Our Continent Bags - Storage Our Continent Bags - North America Our Continent Bags - Antarctica Our Continent Bags - Europe Our Continent Bags - Africa Our Continent Bags - South America Our Continent Bags - Australia Also check out my Continent Bags photo album on the Counting Coconuts Facebook page. I'm linking this post up to The Preschool Corner and Montessori Monday. ~Thank you for your comments!~

Unit studies are very popular among homeschooling families. They work especially great for history and geography. I like how you can pick a specific theme and elaborate on that topic for a more immersive experience.

Ideal for shared reading these beautifully illustrated read-along poems have a high degree of repetition above and beyond high frequency words, allowing children to develop and extend their vocabulary and general knowledge. Each consonant digraph has a separate poem. Each poem is color coded to visually support the teaching of letter/sound relationships. Smart Phonics exploits the power of play and poetry! Display on an interactive whiteboard or print off. Smart Phonics Digraphs Teacher Manual with photocopiable black-line versions of the poems and accompanying teacher guide notes, phonemic awareness activities and activity sheets are also available:

Learn all about China and lots of intesting facts About Chinese culture with these coloring pages! Simply print worksheets!

Hello Everyone! We are working hard this week on skip counting. I decided I needed to put together some math tub activities for next week. We need the practice!! So this is what I came up with. Five different tub activities with an apple theme. I think the kids are going to love them!! The unit includes opportunity for kids to create their own skip counting pattern! Here are a few pics. For your free 24 page mini unit, SKIP on over to HERE!! :) Short but sweet tonight! Stop by again for a peek!! I've got some fun kid pics to show you later this week! Have a great night!! Joyfully! Nancy

Let's Write About Reindeer Food 4 comments Writing Today, we were in the holiday spirit and made some Reindeer Food. Don't worry, I threw in some academics too. ;) I put out trays with supplies needed to make this reindeer treat {oatmeal, glitter, spoons, small cups for scooping, and baggies}. I walked the students through the process of making a bag of food and then we completed a shared writing: "How to Make Reindeer Food." I do shared writing throughout the school year (not all the time, of course), but I love to involve the students in the process and I think it helps struggling writers to feel more successful. I typically use strategies like "think/pair/share" or tasking students with writing ideas on their mini whiteboards as we write. These are easy ways to keep them engaged in the shared process. Sometimes, I have the students write each sentence that we construct together immediately after I write it, but this experience was a little different. As the students copied the complete paragraph onto their own writing paper, I walked around and stapled a cute little poem to their bag (scroll down). My apologies for not taking any pictures of our shared writing. Sometimes, the day just gets away from me. But, you can download some FREE writing paper HERE. :) Or, click the picture: I found this cute little poem here. The kids are very excited to sprinkle it on their "lawns" {in the desert, most of us have rocks, not lawns}! Toodles! Share It:

The list of inventions that are credited to the ancient Chinese is long and note-worthy. Several great series of picture books dramatize these moments of invention and are great books for inspiring your young inventors and artists. Books on Chinese Inventions by Ying Chang Compestine Chinese-American author Ying Chang Compestine has written a series of books about Chinese inventions. Each book features the Kang family: Mama, Papa, and three boys, Ting, Pan, and Kùai. Kids will love seeing how the antics of the three boys fits with these inventions. The Story of Chopsticks (2001) imagines the circumstances surrounding the invention of chopsticks. The three Kang brothers, Ting, Pan, and Kùai, are all hungry, growing boys. Kùai, the youngest, is frustrated by having to wait for food to cool down until it was safe to eat with your fingers. A few twigs later, he invents the first chopsticks! But when the boys bring their new invention to a wedding feast, they find themselves at odds with the elders. The Story of Noodles (2002) Though it seems unlikely that noodles were invented because, "'We wanted a food that is easier to clean up after food fights,'" kids will enjoy this story of how an accident with dumplings leads to the possible invention of noodles, which had originated in China by the first century. The Author's Note explains some of the history and customs of noodles and includes a recipe for Long-Life Noodles. The Story of Kites (2003) In this story, the poor Kang brothers are tired of constantly having to scare the birds away from their rice crop. First, they decide to try making their own wings, with predictably disastrous consequences, but eventually their designs lead them to the first kites. Kite-flying has been documented in China more than twenty-four hundred years ago. The book ends with an Author's Note and directions on how to make and fly your own kites. The Story of Paper (2003) The Kang boys are not doing well in school and are blaming the bugs and insects that distract them as they are practicing their writing in the dirt. After much experimentation, they hit upon paper. The Author's Note includes a detailed description of the oldest paper and its introduction to the Chinese emperor, as well as directions for making homemade "garden" paper. Books on Chinese Inventions by Virginia Walton Pilegard The Warlord's Puzzle (2000). An artist brings a beautiful blue tile before the Warlord, but it drops, breaking into seven pieces. When no one can put the tile back together, the Warlord agrees to hold a contest. This accident becomes the invention of the tangrams, so named for their connection to the Tang dynasty. The Warlord's Beads (2001). The peasant and his young son now live in the warlord's palace, but the father has been tasked with counting the warlord's vast treasure. Worried that they keep losing count spurs his son, Chuan, to invent the first abacus. The Author's Note describes the first documented use of the abacus in 14th century China and includes directions for making your own abacus. The Warlord's Fish (2002). The artist and his young apprentice, Chuan, are kidnapped by a group of traders and taken out across the wilds and into the vast desert (along the Silk Route and through the Takla Makan, though the names are not used). When a sandstorm blocks the sun and clouds block the stars, Chuan convinces the artist to use his south-pointing fish to help them find their way to the oasis. The Author's Note explains that the Chinese invented a south-pointing compass made of a magnetic spoon by the third century BC(E) and includes directions for making your own floating compass. The Warlord's Puppeteers (2003). Chuan tries to help a group of traveling puppeteers, after a bandit raid seizes their puppets. This book focuses on introducing children to the concepts of proportion and includes directions for making your own sock puppets. The Warlord's Kites (2004). Chuan and his friend Jing Jing are concerned about the approach of an enemy army and conceive of the idea of using flutes attached to kites to frighten them off. In this story, Jing Jing takes a starring role as the inventor and quick-thinker. Directions are include for handmade kites. The Warlord's Messengers: a mathematical adventure (2005). Young Chuan and Jing Jing are concerned when an invitation arrives for the warlord, but he will not receive the message in time. The friends brainstorm a faster way to travel and invent a wind-driven carriage. These "sailing carriages" were mentioned in Chinese literature 1500 years ago. The book ends with directions for creating a wind sock (another Chinese invention). The Warlord's Alarm (2006). This story seems to take place immediately following The Warlord's Messengers. Chuan and Jing Jing are accompanying the warlord on his trip to visit the emperor, but in order for the warlord to arrive exactly when the gates of the city open, they need to figure out a way to keep track of time during the night, when a sundial is useless. The invent a water clock, and the Author's Note describes some of the complicated water clocks used by the Chinese. There are also directions to make your own dripping water clock. The Emperor's Army: a mathematical adventure (2010). A bit of a departure from the rest of the series, this book tells the story of a father and son in court of Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang who are forced into hiding by the emperors proclamation against books and scholars. This leads them to discover the building of the emperor's famed terracotta warriors, and the Author's Note includes information about their eventual re-discovery.

Help Sam figure out how much his lunch costs! Money math word problems are great for addition practice as well as learning the concept of money.

POW-TIDE Whether you are utilizing POW TIDE, Write From the Beginning, Four Square, or a different program to build writing skills, the ultimate goal is to empower little hands to get their thoughts down on paper. As social beings, we have the ability to fluidly move between conversational topics and everyday niceties. Speaking and listening are the corner stones of topic development. Unlike social dialog, classroom conversations are intentionally designed to be learning opportunities. These experiences are utilized to build stamina. They build students' ability to focus on a topic long enough to get to "the details." For those using POW TIDE this is the "P," pull apart of POW. These conversations need to be quickly snapped up and recorded. This is where graphic organizers (the "O" organize of POW), Thinking Maps (TM), and other tools come into play. Students use tools to create landing pads for their ideas. This enables students to develop and manipulate their ideas without loosing their original vision. Finally, students take that leap of faith and begin to write (the "W" write of POW) down their ideas. With informational text, students have the opportunity to dive into topics that truly interest them. The signifigance of this transition from personal narrative to relaying information lies in the development of a larger vision. Maturing from a narrow egocentric vision to one where the story line is broader and allows readers and writers to share in common interests. In preparation and participation of a recent TNCore professional development day, there was an opportunity for TN educators to preview student samples and engage in discussion about K-2 student writing. This first set of student work is from a week long writing project in second grade. Throughout the week, students previewed several informational texts. They chose their favorite as the foundation for their writing task. After choosing a text, students brainstormed important words that they might need to know or use in their writing. They recorded this information on a Circle Map (TM) . Students then identified three interesting facts that drew them to this text. These graphic landing pads were used to help focus and direct their writing. POW ... It was time to write a rough draft. The focus thus far was on simply getting the words onto paper in a way that cohesively discussed the chosen topic. After small group conferencing to check for fluidity and focus, students made revisions to the content of their writing. Grammar conventions were not the initial focus of the project, but were discussed in a final one on one conference; again, corrections were made. Students built their stamina by staying focused on a chosen topic and in persevering to a finished product. As a reward, students could use "fancy pens" on their final draft. In this first grade sample, students read about apples and summarized what they learned using graphic organizers (webs). Information was then used to create sentences. Below are kindergarten/first grade samples. Here students used word wall words to create writing based on informational text. Notice that the word wall words have been highlighted. Another variation is to "butter" sight words with yellow. In the following first grade examples, students used pictures as inspiration for their words. The next set of samples shows the further development of these skills, as second grade students use sight words and pictures to inspire their writing practice. In conclusion.. "Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.” – Edmund Burke Writing is that liberating bridge that allows students to take ownership of what they have read and internalize all that they have learned. Special thanks to the following Tennessee teachers for sharing classroom samples: Deborah Holtzclaw, Kerri Surgenor, Kristin Hale, Christy Nelson, & Nancy Parker. You are amazing teachers and I am perpetually learning because of your willingness to share!

This post is part of the 31 MORE Days of Literature Unit Studies series. You can find all of the links to the thirty-one studies in this post. If you’d like to use these ideas to create your own unit study, this post has step-by-step instructions as well as a free unit study planner. (Want

Numbers: smaller, greater and equal are words that allow us to understand comparisons between the natural numbers. Your kids will have fun ...

Along with all my other usual Valentine's activities I do this time of year.. I like to do a mini unit on magnets! Here are a few aweso...

Learn more about the Terracotta Army of the first Emperor of China with a picture book and online resources. Perfect for a unit on Ancient China.

Learning about landforms with a hands-on landform building and narrative writing project.

Fall activities and ideas for second grade include place value scarecrow and free second grade math worksheets.

Happy Sunday friends! I hope you are having a fabulous weekend. I have my first observation on Monday morning so I’ve been stressing about it this weekend. I’m ready for Monday to be over. Fall break starts on Thursday so I am definitely ready for that. We only get two days but it’s better than...

This is a beginners / lower primary English as a Second / Foreign Language (ESL/EFL) examination focussed on BODY, FEELINGS and IS THIS...? If you're finding it difficult to have to put together an ESL/EFL test for such young or low level learners, this will take the pain out of it for you. The exam starts with a READING PASSAGE about a girl, her name, age, her parents, and her pet. There are 10 multi-choice reading comprehension questions. The next section is DIALOGUE, firstly about "WHAT IS THIS?" relating to BODY PARTS [5 multi choice questions]: ✿ This is a hand ✿ finger ✿ foot ✿ eye ✿ mouth ✿ shoulder ✿ arm ✿ ear ✿ head The second part of the DIALOGUE section [another 5 multi-choice] asks, "IS THIS A...?" The vocabulary is items such as: ✿ Is this a ball? No, it's a... ✿ a kite? Yes, it is. ✿ a car ✿  a bicycle ✿ teddy bear   The third section is VOCABULARY. For the first five questions here, students have to take the vocabulary words from a box and write them to match up to a picture. It's about FEELINGS: ❂ happy ❂ sad ❂ scared ❂ angry ❂ tired   The next part of the vocabulary section [5 more questions] is about recognising the written form of NUMBERS. It is fill in the blanks from a box. For example, a cat has ______ legs.    The next section is GRAMMAR of ARTICLES (A/AN). For 10 questions students have to fill in A or AN. For example, This is ______ (A/AN) egg. The final section is a WRITING section where the students are prompted to write about LIKE and DON'T LIKE, This test is given annualy to primary-school grade 1 EFL learners in south east Asia. The test is 1 hour in duration. Results range across the board in a fair spread representative of ability (and representative of effort/concentration in class!).  The file is in Microsoft Word and you can edit it if you require.  There is an answer key too. I hope it's useful to you.  b.t.w. I'm aware that it's not the best idea to formally test kids so young, but unfortunately you like I may have to follow the education system of the country in which we are teaching English. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Click here to get notifications about my new resources and free products. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ***************************************************************************** You might also like these: Lower Primary Beginner ESL English Language Exam Sea Animals / This/That/These. Primary 1 Math Exam Basic Addition and Subtraction. Primary Grade 2 Math Exam: Place Value, Counting Forward/Backward and Ordinals. ***************************************************************************** Thank you!

Hello again! Today I am linking up with tons of great teacher bloggers for Five for Friday. I may be a day late, but hey, no judgements right? We just finished up week 5 and you know what that means- back to school germs are full swing. It amazes me every year how many gallons of hand sanitizer and cases of tissues we seem to go through in just a few short weeks. Now that my turn with with germs is done, I can finally see straight long enough to share about our week :) We began Monday with our school's annual Pinwheels for Peace event. Every student in the school creates and decorates a pinwheel in art class. The music teacher also teaches everyone a song about peace. Our entire school community gathered in a circle to watch the pinwheels and sing for peace. Something about all of the children dreaming about a peaceful world always brings a tear to my eye. It's such a powerful event and one I look forward to each year. Last week I got a little "Pinspired" and made a bunch of anchor charts for writing. Now like I tell my students, I went to teacher school, not art school, so they're not perfect. But, I do think they got the job done. I love using anchor charts with my students as a tool to help them recall important information. I usually end up creating basic charts with my students during my lessons, but occasionally I like to fancy them up a bit. Other times I start the basic frame (cute part) before the lesson and create the remaining part with my students. They love having ownership over the work hung in our room and tend to see more value in it compared to something like a store-bought poster simply hung on the wall. After using Pinterest as inspiration for my writing anchor charts, I decided to try my hand at creating my own. This week in science we continued our unit on Force and Motion. Our focus was on the difference between push and pull. We spent the week talking about real life examples while searching our classroom and playground. I introduced the concept of a hard and soft push/pull by having students pass a balloon, koosh ball, and kickball. They could see the amount of force needed to keep the ball off the ground differed.We also used an example of the amount of force it would take to push a baby on a swing compared to an adult. Their favorite example was when we pretended to be super heroes stopping the world from a meteor- they pretended to use a huge amount of force to push it away. The unit 1 theme for our literacy standards focuses on ABC books. We spent the last few weeks reading dozens of them. Who knew there were so many! My students are really enjoying the different books. The unit works well for reinforcing beginning letter sounds and brainstorming words for each page. I am also tying it into our writing standards by focusing on the concept of topic and details. This week we are using the ABC books as inspiration for our own class book. Students chose to create a class ABC book about animals. After brainstorming a list of animals for each letter, students each began creating their own page. I will add pictures next week once we get past the rough draft stage. They are also using informational texts to research additional details about their animal. Although I have enjoyed reading many of these books, I have to say one of my favorites is ABC of Jobs by Roger Priddy. Each page shares a different job description, the clothing required, and a fun fact. My students loved learning about the different career options and it tied in perfectly with preparing students to be college and career ready. I don't know about your class but my kiddos seem to go through pencils at an unbelievable speed. Keeping pencils sharpened seems to take up more time than it should each day. I set up a system where students put their broken pencils into a cup and take out a sharpened one. Now that I had a system in place it was time to find the perfect pencil sharpener. I heard about "the best classroom pencil sharpener" from Classroom Friendly Supplies. I placed an order for the cool blue one and it came in this week. I absolutely love how sharp it makes each pencil. The fabulous reviews are true and it was well worth the money. I am happy to officially welcome fall. In honor of the cool(er) weather, I created a new word problem set. My focus was on addition and subtraction word problems with numbers up to 10. What I love about this product is the ability to use a QR Code reader to self check work. My students are loving the integration of technology! I am having to read the problems out loud for now (lots of non-readers) but they still enjoy it. Thank you for following the randomness of my week. I hope you have a great Saturday!

K-1 NONFICTION WRITING My nonfiction writing unit is here! This is the perfect way to introduce kindergarten and first grade students to what informational writing is. This unit is so engaging for students because it uses real life photographs and animals. We discus

Help your primary grade students explore, learn, and write about landforms. See our hands-on landforms activities plus our culminating writing project!

Well hello everyone, sorry about the six month long break…I guess it was a little harder than I expected to keep up 2 blogs. However, I’ve been posting a little less frequently in my ot…