Use the FREE literacy manipulatives to create a literacy toolbox for kinder, first, & second grade for small groups, centers, or at home.
Elements of Music Notation
Here's a simple way to teacher less than, greater than: with toys! Free printable included.
If you use Math-U-See and are looking for printable manipulatives and worksheets you can use for extra practice, we've got you covered!
Composition Manipulatives for Elementary Music. Organized Chaos. Where to find manipulatives to use for melodic and rhythmic composition, how to use iconic notation with young students. Strategies and tips for elementary general music teachers.
The design of these worksheets emphasizes effective systematic approach. ⦿ Sequential Progression ⦿ Multi-Sensory Techniques ⦿ Application in Reading and Writing ⦿ Engaging Materials ⦿ Various Exercises ⦿ Repetition ⦿ Consistency ⦿ Assessment Effective phonics practice involves a systematic approach to teaching and reinforcing the relationship between letters and sounds. It should include: 1. **Sequential Progression:** Start with basic letter-sound relationships and gradually progress to more complex ones. 2. **Multi-Sensory Techniques:** Incorporate activities that engage multiple senses, such as using flashcards, manipulatives, and interactive games. 3. **Repetition:** Provide ample opportunities for students to practice and reinforce phonics skills through repeated exposure to words with the target sound patterns. 4. **Application in Reading and Writing:** Connect phonics instruction to real reading and writing experiences, encouraging students to apply their knowledge in context. 5. **Differentiated Instruction:** Tailor activities to individual student needs, offering varied levels of difficulty to accommodate different learning paces. 6. **Feedback:** Provide timely and constructive feedback to help students correct errors and reinforce correct phonetic associations. 7. **Integration with Literacy Activities:** Integrate phonics practice into broader literacy activities, linking it with comprehension, vocabulary, and spelling exercises. 8. **Engaging Materials:** Use diverse and interesting materials, including books, games, and online resources, to keep students motivated and make learning enjoyable. 9. **Consistency:** Establish a regular routine for phonics practice to build a strong foundation and ensure sustained progress. 10. **Assessment:** Periodically assess students' phonics skills to gauge their understanding and identify areas that may need additional support.
When it comes to teaching music theory, I’m much more of a hands-on teacher than a workbook teacher. In fact, several years ago I stopped using written theory books with my elementary students and transitioned to a games and manipulative-based curriculum, supplemented by some computer drills. But… I do have a handful of students, mostly older, who really learn best through a written, … Continue reading →
Learn about place value, use interactive place value manipulatives, access free printables for your math instruction on place value.
44 Phonemes Flashcards were designed by Kayla Chew. These cards are simple and do not include pictures to help focus on the importance of hearing the sounds and reading the words.Includes 44 + 1 sounds of the English language and the corresponding graphemes (letters). This is a printable flashcard ...
These are cute little manipulatives that you can use with your little ones while working on the comparatives (fast/slow, loud/soft, high/low). Simply print on white card stock, cut down center, and laminate. Suggested ways to display: - I have these glued to paint sticks. You could put them with opposites on the other side or make two separate sticks. - You could also put magnets on back and put on your white board - Use on a word wall - Use on a bulletin board They are even on sale at my TpT store through today! Lindsay
Practice makes future perfect!
It all started with this pin: I have been obsessively thinking about this foldable for 2 full weeks. I need to make this with my class. I usually hate teaching transformations, but now I am looking…
Good bye, old hand signs! You have served me well for 7 years . Even though you were laminated, your thin pink paper is still curled on the edges and show years of use. You have been ripped by students who did not treat you with respect, and taped back together with care. But, the time has come for us to part. Hello, new hand signs! I look forward to using you in many lessons! I hope your freshly laminated yellow card stock and magnetic tape will be strong enough to last years and years! Sincerely, Mrs. Dennis These hand signs are magnetic and stay on along the side of my magnetic whiteboard. I use them often when singing solfege to songs. I like the fact that they are magnetic because I can slide pitches side to side only selecting the ones I need. When we are in pentatonic, I tell the students that fa and ti are on vacation. They think its so funny to put fa and ti in vacation. They make up stories about where they went. They think its amazing when we actually get to use fa and ti or when another pitch gets to go on vacation. You could spend money on a pitch ladder or posters of the handsigns, but I like that these are shaped exactly like the hands and are movable. Plus, THESE ARE FREE! I drew these and scanned them into a pdf. You have 2 options to choose from, one with the words and one without. ENJOY! FREE DOWNLOADS Curwen Hand Signs Without Words Curwen Hand Signs With Words UPDATE: Be sure to check out the follow-up to this post, "Follow-up: Magnetic Hand Signs"
These dominoes can be used to transfer the vocabulary studied while reading "Aaargh Spider!" by Lydia Monks. They enable to revise positional prepositions "on", "in", "under", "next to", "behind" and "in front of". - ESL worksheets
When I was younger, it was quite easy for someone to get me to do something, or behave a certain way, so they can fulfill an agenda. All they had to do was pull out the manipulative guilt trip card, and I’d have a hard time saying no to their request. I was a member of the 'perpetual niceness' cult, and would scramble to apologize, soothe hurt feelings and fulfill demands when a guilt trip manipulator would tell me that I was being selfish, mean and uncaring. But then I got older. Smarter. More experienced. Confident. Even somewhat cynical. And all that string pulling became a thing of the past. Now, I listen to myself and evaluate how a situation makes me feel. If I’m feeling pressured or oppressed by someone, or uncomfortable about doing something, I put on the brakes. I’ve learned over the years to tell the difference between a sincere person with a legitimate request, and someone who uses scheming and forceful tactics to get their way. And if someone accuses me of hurting their feelings and of being mean if I don’t give in, I simply bat it right back with questions such as “How am I hurting your feelings...?” or “Why am I being mean by not doing x,y,z...?” And life is so much better. Do you feel guilty easily?
I know it sounds absurd, but no matter what age your child or student is (if they are old enough to be in school and doing math), you should be using the words "equality" and "inequality" to describe numbers that are equal or not equal. One simple way of doing this is to use a pan balance. You can differentiate these activities to use with students in K-8! My students are regrouping when adding or subtracting 2 and 3-digit numbers. In order to help them understand that regrouping is not taking away or adding any numbers, but simply putting them in another place and form, I do something like this: If you counted, you'd see ten cubes on one side and a rod (made of ten connected cubes) on the other side. The arrow points to the middle because the scale is balanced! To show greater than and less than, all you have to do is have the children count out the number of cubes and / or rods (or flats if you're working with hundreds) and see which side is heavier (goes down). You can also do this with "missing number" or pre-algebra problems. Using the above picture, I would write a missing number sentence: 5 + __ = 10. Students would add cubes to the higher side (meaning that side of the scale is lighter, and thus represents a smaller number) until the balance showed both pans being equal. They would be able to find that 5+5=10. No more frustration, and no need to show students that they can use the inverse (10-5=___) to find the answer! You can try this without having a pan balance or base-ten blocks / place value blocks at home...because I have found the websites for you! This site is called the Illuminations Pan Balance and it was created by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. You can start out by showing students how different shapes (instead of numbers) can have different masses. Therefore, the square is greater than / heavier than the triangle. I have used this with kindergarteners and they understand it! I used to have a worksheet that was made specifically for this site, but can't find it at the moment. Next, you can show them that they have to add to the side that weighs less to balance it. Students can reset the balance or complete different "sets" where the shapes have different masses OR you can have them try it with numbers. As you can see, we just demonstrated the commutative property of addition - the order of the addends doesn't change the sum. We created an equality! Now we've used the associative property of addition! Download some practice sheets here! This document is a pdf that includes harder problems and blank scales for students to create their own equalities. Check out my other Making Math Memorable Posts!
Here's a simple way to teacher less than, greater than: with toys! Free printable included.
Experiment #1 What will happen when I put raisins in a cup of sprite? After you do the experiment, you will find out that the raisins DANCE! My students L.O.V.E this experiment and think that it is hilarious that the raisins dance up and down in the Sprite! Click {here} for the raisin experiment Experiment #2 What does our heart do for us? We talked about the heart and it's purpose! Then, we observed our own pulse using a marshmallow and toothpick. What a great time to learn about the heart (Valentine's Day)! Click {here} for the heart experiment Experiment #3 Which object lets the most light through from our flashlight? Using a flashlight, we determined which objects (dollar, black paper, net, plastic wrap, and tin foil) let through the most light. Click {here} for the light experiment clipart and/or fonts by DJ Inkers. www.djinkers.com Is your school heading to the land of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) or STEAM (Same, but add art)? Last year, our school committed to becoming a STEM+A (plus Art) school. So far- I'm loving it!!! It has really got me thinking outside of the box for sure. I'm excited to share with you some ideas that I have with STEM in the future. For now, I've got some posters that I made for our 1st grade STEM+A Intro Day! For our STEM+A Intro Day, we rotated all of the first graders (split into 5 groups) through our classrooms. Each teacher took on one of the letters and taught the students about the meaning of that letter and how we use it in every day life. We want our students to know that STEM is everywhere! Then, we did an activity based on the letter we had. I had Math and we played Pokemon Go Addition (totally made the game up...haha). These posters are great for my students to refer back to. Click {here} to check these posters out!
Featured Product Ser With Adjectives Flashcards Get your students practicing descriptions with this manipulative activity where students put together the correct flashcards to make the phrase. Copy…
Today we were learning how to add and subtract positive and negative numbers. Just the thought of it gives me the shakes ;) So I did a few things to *try* and make it a bit easier for the kids to grasp and thought I would share with you all. We began talking about number lines, as we were going to be using them throughout today. Using a number line as our starting point, I broke the equation down like this for the kids. OK..that is probably confusing to you, as you don't exactly know what was going on in class. I had the students create a human number line. One of my students was the "walker". He stood on the number line at the 6. The subtraction sign told him to then face the negative side of the number line, so he turned around to face negative. the -4 is a negative number, so it says to walk backwards 4 spaces. So, while facing negatively, he is walking backwards (which actually puts him more positive). Got that?? We did a few of these problems, and with the kids actually turning their body in the right direction, then walking, the students seemed to grasp it. Next, each student made their own number line on their desk. I created this document for them so it would be easier. The kids cut out the pieces, glued them together, and had a big number line. They also cut out the little man. If you notice, he is facing opposite directions. They cut him out in a little square, then glued the two pieces back to back. This gave them a "walker" who could be turned in either the positive or the negative direction. Once the number lines and men were made, we worked on a few problems together, using the manipulatives, until they seemed to grasp the concept...and they did! It all seemed to fall into place for them, much better than it did last year when I just tried to teach them a whole bunch of rules. ;) We will get to that, but for now, I am happy that they are understanding how to use the number line to help them! Again, here is the document, in case you want to give it a try.
Include these animal themed pattern block puzzles in your preschool unit study! This listing is for 49 printable animal themed patterns that you can use the available cutout tangram to make the animals. 1 page of tangram shapes to cutout and if you like laminating would make them very nice and reusable. There is also 3 pages that have the solutions to all 49 animals. If you have the wooden blocks in tangram shape those are also very fun to make all these awesome animals. To make your puzzles more durable, I suggest you print on card stock and laminate them. Block pattern puzzles are a classic math manipulative and learning activity. Great for spatial awareness, hand-eye coordination, and problem solving. They also teach children three and older matching and sorting skills, color recognition, geometric shapes, counting, and beginning math skills. Fitting the pieces onto the puzzles helps develop fine motor skills, concentration, and memory. Animals that are included are camel, swan, bird, cat, pig, dog, penguin and a lot more that your child can have fun making. Blacked out animals are how the puzzle looks . The colored animals are the solved version of the puzzle. Blacked out and Colored animals are for reference and are not the same size as the puzzle pieces. Shapes include triangles, trapezoids, and squares. Also included is my newest version of the animal tangrams that are in black and white so printing will be a lot friendlier and tangram pieces that are closer to size of the animals. Print as many times as you'd like!
Check out our handful Mental Math Worksheets which will help your child practice their mental arithmetic. More practice on mental math tests will develop your child’s mental arithmetic and problem solving since extensive practice is required to develop mastery in basic math skills.
. {Teaching Prepositions & Spatial Concepts} Most of the kids on my caseload have Autism or other special needs that tend to make understanding spatial concepts and using prepositions very chal…
Give your students a head start in math with this lesson that teaches them how to add single-digit numbers together using manipulatives.
Use this FREE printable visual-spatial reasoning resource to help improve visual-motor skills in your kids.
MimioMaster Meredith Williams shares her hands-on lesson on waves using the MyStemKits Waves Kit.
Time for school! Have your first grader take a look at this school (school of fish, that is) and solve the addition problems. Download to complete online or as a printable!
8 spring ad libs word games for kids, free to print and in full color!
Incorporate fine motor skills and math with these great hands-on activities that kids in preschool and elementary school will really enjoy!
