Math and Literacy Activities using Scraps of Wrapping Paper [Freebie]

Today I was wrapping presents and as much as I tried to measure the paper to fit the gift perfectly, I inevitably had to cut strips of the wrapping paper off to wrap them just right. I was cleaning up the table and this pile of wrapping paper strips was staring at me. I couldn't let this cute wrapping paper go to waste! So I thought of a few fun literacy and math activities using scrap pieces of wrapping paper you have lying around.

I wrote letters on these strips of wrapping paper to practice letter name and letter sound fluency. It's about that time of year for another round of DIBELS or AIMSweb assessments and this would make practice fun! I wrote letters on several strips of paper and put them in the cute Santa bag. During small group, my little scholars can pull out a strip and say the letter names or letter sounds as quickly as they can. 

I wrote numbers on the scrap wrapping paper strips to practice number identification fluency. As a warm-up before small group math, my little scholars can choose a wrapping paper strip from the bag and identify the numbers as quickly as possible. 

I also wanted to use the scrap of wrapping paper to make a center my little scholars could do independently. I wrote a series of letters on each small strip with a missing letter. My little scholars will say the letters, identify the letter that is missing, and record the series of letters on the recording sheet. I placed the strips in a stocking for a little novelty--I know they'll love it! 

I did the same thing except using numbers for this next center idea. My little scholars will pull a wrapping paper strip out of the stocking, says the numbers, identify the number that is missing, and write the series of numbers on the recording sheet. 

I love including a recording sheet for accountability and you can download one to use by clicking the picture below.

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CVC Word Work Fun!

I'm so excited to be a part of this Teacher Appreciation Week Blog Hop with some of my best blogging friends! I'm going to share a little about how I teach my students CVC words. 

One of my favorite parts of teaching the littlest scholars is teaching them how to read! You work so hard to lay the foundation with phonological awareness and the alphabetic principle and before you know it your students are ready to read words! What an exciting time it is for both teachers and students! I created my bestselling CVC Word Mega Pack to give my students plenty of practice decoding, reading, and writing CVC words all scaffolded with pictorial support.

This mega pack includes over 130 pages of activities and printables! 

You can use these Elkonin box cards to segment the sounds in words using chips or other small manipulatives.  

You can increase the rigor by having students remove each chip (beginning sound, medial sound, final sound) and write the letter that corresponds with that sound--reinforcing the alphabetic principle! 

I use these cards as a part of my pocket chart center or for fun games during transitions! 

I use these word work mats at my magnetic ABC center. Just laminate and place on a cookie sheet and you're ready to go! 

I think my favorite part of this mega pack are these segmenting and blending cards! You can use them in a variety of ways and can increase the rigor by covering up the picture as your students decode the word. 

Your tactile learners will love moving the car along the sounds as they say them and then blending them on the road.

You can increase the level of rigor by covering the picture (I used an envelope cut in half). The student decodes the word and then checks by removing the card from the envelope. 

My students love this spin and graph or spin and find center! 

I included this spin and graph center as a part of my literacy centers. 

Adding the bingo daubers to this spin and find center just makes it more fun! :) 

These cards are used with CVC Bingo! There are a 6 different bingo cards for each short vowel so you can play in a small group without any students having the same card. 

And on top of all that CVC goodness...you'll also get a ton of printables! 

You can enter to win my CVC Word Mega Pack and a bunch of other great resources by entering the rafflecopter below! If you'd like to try it out with your little scholars, download my sample freebie by visiting my TpT shop. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Continue on The Best for the Best Teacher Appreciation Blog Hop by clicking the picture below.

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Giveaway Winner and Elf in the Classroom Freebie!

Coming back to work after a week of PJs and couch surfing has been exhausting so I just wanted to pop in to announce the winner of my Interactive Giveaway and share a freebie with you! Congratulations Carly...you won my Interactive Alphabet Bundle (a $78 value!), you should have an email from me shortly :) Thank you to all of you who entered! I loved reading about your favorite holiday children's books and I have even ordered some that y'all mentioned. You can still grab the Interactive Alphabet Listening Center Bundle for 28% off its already reduced price until midnight tonight :)

I also wanted to share an Elf in the classroom freebie I made. Our special visitor will be arriving tomorrow so I made a journal for us to document his adventure in our classroom. You can grab it [here] for FREE!

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Letter Rr and Spiders...Chock Full of Freebies!

Before a new week starts I want to share what we worked on last week! Last week we learned all about the Letter Rr. I introduced the /r/ sound by using beginning sound pictures and placing them on our beginning sound wall (it will be converted to a word wall later on in the year).

We also sorted pictures with the /m/ sound (Mm was the letter last week) and /r/ sound.

During centers my students built letters using this fabulous resource from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  

They listened to my All About the Alphabet: Letter Rr Interactive Listening Center. 

Last week was the first week I had used this interactive listening center. All but one of my 4 year old pre-k students mastered the Letter Rr on Friday--including identification, letter name, letter sound, identification of uppercase and lowercase, and word production! I haven't uploaded the Letter Rr set to TpT yet but Letter Ss (our letter this week) is ready to go! You can check it out [here] or by clicking the picture below. 

We also began our Spiders Unit last week! We read The Very Busy Spider and used these stick puppets to act out the story. I placed the stick puppets in a center and y'all should have heard my little scholars retelling the story...precious! You can grab the stick puppets for free [here].

We were focusing on the number 6 last week so we practiced counting and numeral recognition with this I See Spiders emergent reader. We used a stamp pad and our fingers to create the correct number of spiders on each page. Our book only had numbers 1-6 but I've included a page that has a blank so you can write in any number you choose! You can find the free I See Spiders book [here] or by clicking the picture below. 

We're finishing up our Spiders Unit this week and I'll be back to post more pictures! 

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Phonemic Awareness Printables and an Organization Freebie

Happy Saturday sweet friends! I spent a few hours today finishing up one of my phonemic awareness products. Developing phonemic awareness skills is crucial in becoming a successful reader so I am spending a lot of time this summer creating printables and activities to address these skills. This product addresses the phonemic awareness skill of identifying beginning sounds in a fun and engaging way!

There are 25 printable pages included and they are all in black and white for easy (and cheap!) printing! 

You can use this packet as a center activity, homework, intervention, or assessment! Grab all 25 printable pages for  only $3 in my TpT shop! 

 Now, on to the freebie! I posted about my monthly theme boxes a couple months ago and I've finally updated the labels so you can have them too :) I laminated each of them and then used hot glue to affix them to empty copy paper boxes. You can grab them for free by clicking the picture below! 

Click the picture below for more organization ideas!

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Happy St. Patrick's Day and a Spring Freebie!

I'm spending this lovely day with my National Board portfolio. PTL the final submission date is May 31st. Lord knows this girl needs the extra time! How do you tackle large tasks? When are you most productive? I feel like every time I sit down to write I am daunted by the seemingly insurmountable task at hand. Please share your suggestions! :)

Anyway, I wanted to quickly pop in and tell you about the St. Patty's Day sale a bunch of bloggers are having...I have everything 20% off in my shop today!

I am super excited about my new Poppin' Pairs of 10 Packet1 I can't wait to introduce it to my little scholars tomorrow when I go back to school (sad face). Its 70 pages of Common Core fun and includes 4 center activities, 2 mini-books, posters, an original song (written by me!) to help your little scholars remember the pairs of 10, a chant, interactive posters to add to your calendar routine or math meeting and much more! Check it out :) And if you purchase it, I would LOVE LOVE to hear your feedback. 

You can also grab my Spring Math and Literacy Unit for $6.40. Its 149 pages of spring fun all aligned to Common Core!

Don't forget to download the Cracked Up! Sight Word Game for f-r-e-e! I have edited it to include blank cards so you can write your own words if you'd like!

Hope y'all have a lovely St. Patrick's Day! And don't forget to wear green :)

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No Sunday night blues!

Because I'm on Spring Break, y'all!  Just me and pups for the next 5 days...just think about all the crafting, cooking, and pinning I can do. I have never, ever stayed home when we've been on a school break. Since my entire family is in California, I fly home each Christmas and Thanksgiving. Spring Breaks usually consist of a vacation to a warm place where I can have a drink on the beach and get a tan! Oddly enough, I am thrilled to just stay at home for once! 

As I'm lounging tonight watching Gator Boys, I thought I'd recap my last week at school- and what a crazy week it was! 

 We segmented the phonemes in words with this fun activity. 

We practiced counting by 10s to 100 with this pocket chart center activity. 

Some of my little scholars practiced counting quantities with colorful pots of gold. 

We acted out subtraction stories with these subtraction mats. 

We wrote CVC and CVCC words. 

This sight word game was such a hit! 

Check out my St. Patrick's Day centers [HERE]. Since we're only a week shy of St. Patrick's Day, you can grab the entire unit for half-price! Already on Spring Break? Get it now while its on sale and file it away for next year! :) Grab the Leprechaun's Gold sight word game [HERE] for f-r-e-e. 

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Addition and Subtraction Story Sticks [Freebie]

Hi friends! I hope y'all had a marvelous Monday! We had a minimum day with professional development in the afternoon. Not a bad way to start the week :)

Yesterday I decided to drive the hour to the closest PetSmart and buy a class pet. I don't like anything rodent-like, so mice, gerbils, hamsters and guinea pigs were out of the question. Fish are boring and cleaning a tank out is WAY more work than I am interested in. I decided on a hermit crab and picked the biggest one they had. We brought the little guy home, set him on the kitchen counter so I could show my little scholars today. He didn't move much last night but I figured that the little guy was traumatized from being removed from his hermit friends and just trying to adjust to his new life. Well, I woke up this morning and my poor little guy still hadn't moved. Turns out I bought a DEAD hermit crab! Maybe I should take it as a sign that I'm just not meant to have a class pet? Or perhaps I shall use this as an excuse to go to my favorite Mediterranean restaurant that just so happens to be in the same town as PetSmart. Thoughts?

RIP Little Guy

I finally got my St. Patrick's Day unit together! Of everything I created, I must say I am most proud of this one. If you're in the market for a St. Patrick's Day unit and hey, even if you're not...go check it out! There are 7 math activities and 5 literacy activities including a book list and a fun leprechaun trap writing activity! The best part? ITS ON SALE! Click the picture below to check it out :) 

Back to the purpose of this post, I wrote about the addition and subtraction sticks I use in my classroom. We've been working on solving addition and subtraction stories lately and I created them to check for understanding before acting out the problems and writing equations. We used them again today in small groups with some math story mats I created. 

You can grab the addition and subtraction sticks [HERE]!

Off to eat some Thin Mints... PTL its Girl Scout cookie season! :)  

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