Saturday, September 29, 2012

Fall Fun

I have blogged about Musings Of Me's great units before. Well, she has done it again!! Check this out. It looks fantastic.It has over 180 pages of differentiated maths and literacy activities including emergent readers. R is just beginning to read, so he loves emergent readers, especially ones that he can colour orange (his favourite colour...and he colours entire pictures orange!) :) The unit is available here.

The only problem is that we are just entering Spring here, so I will have to hold onto it for 6 months! :)

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

First Grade Common Core

You might remember that I posted about the Kindergarten Common Core Workbook a couple of weeks ago. Well, this book did not disappoint. It contained so many great and usable activities, posters and ideas. I have already used the rhyming words activities, with great success. It will be a resource that I will use many times over. I was excited to see this...
 

The same author has created a similar resource, but geared towards Grade One. The sample pages, available here, show what an invaluable resource this will be. Again, each activity is linked to the First Grade Common Core. It includes both Math and English activities. For just $39.99, you can get 550 pages of fun and learning which are great for students, and reduces teacher workload.

If you are a blogger, and would like to see how you can get this fabulous resource for free, click here.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Apples

We have just finished a mini unit on apples. R is 3½ and M is 18 months.

Firstly, I printed some 3 part cards from abcteach, but I do not think they are available anymore, as I was unable to locate them. We used these to complete the apple labelling sheet from 2 Teaching Mommies.


We also used the apple observation sheet from 2 Teaching Mommies. I had a selection of apples to choose from. R chose one apple and we completed the sheet. M just joined in with the eating of the apples. :)


R chose another apple to draw. He placed it on his table and used it for inspiration whilst drawing. The apple card was also on his table, and he decided to write the word 'apple' on his picture. This is the first time he has purposefully written a word. We have had lots of letters come out in his drawings, but they have all been random. So this was exciting for me. I have had it stuck to the fridge ever since and have been proudly showing all the visitors that come to our house!!


We made apple trees from paper plates, toilet rolls and stickers. This was something the M could join in with, and boy, does he love to paint.


Both of the boys are into signing and nursery rhymes at the moment, so we sung "5 Red Apples" several times. I don't know where this came from. I made it a few years ago, and was unable to find it.

I made a little 1-5 counting book for R. He glued apple seeds onto each page to match the numeral on each page. He quite enjoyed this activity, next time I will make the book to go to 10, as he knows the numbers 1-5 well.


I printed the Roll and Colour Apple Tree from Kindergarten Hoppenings. This is a fantastic blog with loads of functional activities...one of my favourites! R is really getting into colouring in these days. He quite often asks for a picture to colour.



R is just beginning to understand patterning so, I made a couple of activities for his to practice this. These are from Confessions of a Homeschooler and Engaging Toddler Activities.





Also from Confessions of a Homeschooler, R did the shape matching and they both did the magnet page with pom poms. R also did the 6 piece puzzle.




R did apple size sequencing from Childcareland. Riley really gets this now, and was able to do this experience independently.


From 1+1+1=1, R did the Aa letter find with dot markers, whilst M did a dot painting. M absolutely loves the dot markers, and uses them almost everyday. Lucky they last forever!!!

We have started doing a few activities from the Ready2Read bundle by The Moffatt Girls. I love this idea and we are slowly working through the first few units. Here R coloured the -at and -an word families on the apple tree. 

Lastly, I made the boys an apple book that they completed with the dot markers. M had only 3 colours, whilst R's book contained a few facts about apples to make it a bit longer. They both loved having their own little books. 


This unit took almost 2 weeks to complete. We did a few other things too, but these were all the photos that I took. You can see my previous apples post here


I have just seen a wonderful apple pack from Musings Of Me. Here is the link to purchase the unit. I wish that I had seen this prior to our apple unit, I might just have to extend it another week to squeeze in some of these activities. There is a free apple book which we will do this afternoon. It uses dot markers...so I am sure it will be a hit in this house!!!  You can check out some of Michelle's other cute creations here, you will not be disappointed.

Thanks for reading


Friday, September 14, 2012

Kindergarten Common Core

Wow! I just downloaded the free preview of this workbook for teachers implementing the Kindergarten Common Core in their classrooms. Check it out here. I love the number cards included in the preview...they contain the number words (one-ten), numerals, tally marks and a card with the corresponding number of buses on them. Awesome!





















If the preview is anything to go by, this high-quality 600+ page document containing Math and English strategies and ideas for implementing the Kindergarten Common Core will be amazing. It is a comprehensive and practical guide to implementing each of the Math and English Standards, a must for all K teachers! All Kindergarten Common Core Standards are covered, and it contains activities, centers and worksheets.

The whole download (usually $39.99) is free (for bloggers) for a few more days...check out the details here.