Patties Classroom – Good Stuff for Elementary School Teachers

Sherm the Germ and Washing Hands

We are learning about health this month. We will be doing activities with keeping our hands washed so that we don’t give each other germs that will cause colds and flu. Here are some of the fun activities we will do. If we keep our hands clean and use tissues when we cough, we won’t spread our germs around to others in the classroom

Germ Buster Girl Puppets for teaching about Cold and flu prevention….

Boy Germ Buster Puppet for teaching about germs, and Cold and Flu prevention….

We make a cute paper bag puppet with a hand and a tissue attached and the cute poem about sneezing and coughing attached. And we read a few books about Germs and Colds.

Here is a fun video I show the kids to teach them about sneezing, hand washing and how germs get spread around.

I read the kids 2 books; Germs Make Me Sick by Melvin Berger, and SHERM the Germ by Bobbi Katz.

Germs, Germs Germs, and Germs Make Me Sick are 2 really cute books. They are favorites of the kids too!

2care2teach has a cute poem. We usually use a poem with our art and find a familiar tune to sing it to (ABC song, Itsy Bitsy, Bingo, Jimmy Crack Corn etc.). Kidscoop had a really cute song to the tune of twinkle twinkle.

The Sneeze Song

(Tune: “Pop Goes the Weasel”) (Check it out HERE)

When I have to cough or sneeze

This is what I do. (Point finger.)

I hold my elbow up (Hold up elbow in front of face.)

And in to it kerchoo! (Pretend to sneeze in elbow.)

KKEERRCCHHOO! (Say this line as you dramatically pretend

to sneeze in your elbow.)

HERE at Livespeaklove I found a really cute ACHOO! BINGO game that has words that have to do with staying healthy (cover mouth, wash hands, sleep, exercise, healthy food etc.). I use this for a center game the week we study health.We made some paper bag puppets to go with out GERMS unit.

At First Grade Fever she had these cute tooth fairy puppets the kids made that gave me an idea for our puppets. I may do a cuter one next year. I have 30 students this year though so I’ll keep it simple for now.

A freebie I found on Teachers Pay Teachers that had a cute apple experiment and some printable true/false quizzes is HERE at TPT. It’s made by Cindy First Grade A-Z. I printed up page 2 and 3 of this 4 page minibooklet on Germs HERE at TPT. It has a fun lotion and glitter experiment for kids to see how germs spread. Then they wrote about 5 ways they can keep germ free!

Have you tried Glo Germ with your students? It is kind of like that stuff you use to get from the dentist that you would chew and it would show you all the places you had missed when you brushed… Glo germ works the same way. I think mine cost about $8.00 for the size below on Amazon.

I bought some of this glo germ in yellow for the black light experiment. It is fun and gets the message out how important it is to handwash and sneeze in our sleeve, not our hands, so we don’t spread sneeze or cold germs. But you could do the lotion and glitter experiment just as easily….

It sticks to germs and then they show up with a black light! It’s a great way to help kids understand how important it is to wash hands thoroughly to get rid of germs!

Shake hands with the first student and then the best demo is to have that student shake hands with a second and so on….the Glo Germ trace will usually go to 5 to 6 students.

You can get a small black light for less than $10.00 check it out HERE.

I got a lot of free curriculum from PUFFS Tissues from Proctor and Gamble way back in the early days of my teaching career. But I couldn’t find a link anymore to the teachers free stuff. But I did find an old lesson plan that I got a few good ideas and websites from. The link is HERE. A fun “Germinator” online interactive game is Here.

We also talked about how exercise can keep you healthy during winter months and NOT to become an inside couch potato. We did dodge ball for P.E. then listened to our heart beats with real stethoscopes to see how much faster they were beating after we worked out. We talked about healthy eating and getting enough sleep last month too when we studied nutrition and wrote our Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly innovations. Link is HERE at Patties Classroom.

The kids wanted to listen to each other’s heartbeats too. I have 4 class stethoscopes so we got around to everybody by the end of P.E. Here were the cute puppets we made and added the Ahhh-Choo Poem to the fronts.

“SNEEZE IN YOUR SLEEVE or ON A TISSUE” PUPPETS….. and Reading Sherm the Germ is a fun activity set.

Sherm the Germ and Hand Washing to Prevent Colds and Flu.

SOAP AND WATER AND HAND WASHING SONG.

We sang the Soap and Water Song to my percussion instruments. Look in my STORE above and check out the xylophone packs. They are only $20.00 and the kids ADORE playing them to music. They are also really sturdy. I’ve purchased 3 for my class.

WASHING YOUR HANDS AND SINGING SONGS ABOUT KEEPING HANDS CLEAN IS FUN.

WE READ 2 WEEKLY READERS ON COLD PREVENTION AND HAND WASHING AND HOW IMPORTANT IT IS.

And we also read some fun books about keeping healthy. We are about done with our health unit!

This is a great book to read when you are done with your mini unit; HOW DO DINOSAURS GET WELL SOON! It is a really cute story the kids love it!

The Jane Yolen Dinosaur books are really funny and a quick read that kids LOVE! This one is about taking care of a cold.

It is always a short but fun 2 day mini-unit LEADING INTO the winter months. Hope you all are staying healthy this sneeze and cough season! Don’t forget to drink lots of water and exercise too! Keep Well!

Back to School Minions

It is almost Back to School time! Here is a cute project I do for Back to School Minions of Reasons to Love your Grade. I’m in first grade this year. So I’ll change the little caption to read “There are MINIONS of reasons to love first grade!”

There are MINIONS of reasons to try this cute art project! It is easy if you cut out all the pieces for young children. First and Second graders could trace templates for the blue and black pieces. Kids rarely can cut a good circle so I’d use stickers or punch outs for those. I happen to have a roll of white 1 inch stickers we used for the eyes. And wiggly eyeballs inside.

Cute little Minions art project turned out fun and funny!

I cut out the black circle eyes, the black circle buttons too. Both were about 1/2 inch circles. I cut out a bunch of white teeth about 1/2 inch squares and the kids chose how many and added them to the tongue. It consists of a black background half of an oval shape, and then the tongue is an oblong oval with a cut on one end.

I had an idea for a cute banner too…..”Mrs. Moss’ class has a Minion reasons to love Kindergarten!”

I had a mom helper cut out the black eyegear strip, the tongues and the blue overalls. I cut out the yellow bodies. You could do them in different shapes like tall and skinny, short and fat. That would give you even more variety.

Here is our cute Back to School Minions bulletin board.

I LOVED these minions made into a bulletin board. But look at these CUPCAKES I found HERE on Pinterest! ! I have GOT. TO. MAKE.THEM!

Back to School Minion Art Project

It will be a great first day of school art project. I better get busy cutting out the pieces!

Dr. Seuss Art for First Graders

Cat in the Hat Art and Writing Project we did in my classroom.

We had Dr. Seuss Day and made some cute Dr. Seuss Art for First Graders. It was a lot of fun to do Cat in the Hats with whiskers and a striped hat.

We made Little Dr. Seuss Cat in the Hats after reading the story The Cat in the Hat.

These cute cookies were made by the school librarian to celebrate Reading Across America Day and Dr. Seuss’ birthday too.

We did an Author’s Study about Dr. Seuss whose real name is Theodor Seuss Geisel.

Here’s a close up of one of the cats we made. It is made with a black circle, a white circle a bit smaller, a triangle red nose, wiggly eyes, 6 little black whisker strips and a bow tie in addition to a white hat with red stripes and brim a bit larger rectangle.

Then I found this cute paper on TPT I really liked this Read the Room freebie HERE and this writing paper HERE at Seusstastic Classroom Inspirations HERE. We used it to write some really funny stories of what we would do if we had Thing 1 and Thing 2 show up at our house.

Our school has a yearly theme and this year our principal chose Oh The Places You’ll Go, another one of Dr. Seuss’ books. She made this cute little road sign in the pot to the left with a Cat in the Hat hat on top of it. It is in our foyer along with this bulletin board.

Great first grade writing.

More great first grade writing about Thing 1 and Thing 2.

Cat in the Hat day writing.

I loved reading everybody’s Thing 1 and Thing 2 stories. Then they colored everything red and black and blue. It turned out so cute!

All the kids wanted their chores done by Thing 1 and 2. Go figure. I’d want that too, wouldn’t you?

Cute little cats lined the hallways at our school fir Dr. Seuss Day.

Cute Cat in the Hat art project for first grade. It was really fun. I copied off a sheet of eyeballs and each of the kids cut one set out. I got them HERE at Vector Magz.com.

Our Cat in the Hat bulletin board was very cute. There are 27 little cats and hats and stories here. It was a week of work editing and rewriting.

We also made some necklaces out of “Oh the Places You’ll Go” tags the principal bought us and I added them to black yarn and went and bought red black and white beads for the kids to bead on either side of them. They made some cute necklaces that I forgot to take a picture of. Bad me.

All in all it was a very fun day. Thanks Dr. Seuss for all the good fun that was funny this week.

January Poems of the Week and Flannel Fingerplays

I’m adding a new center to my first grade classroom this week. I know kids love to manipulate flannel and I have made or found a few cute little poems with darling things to go with the poems.

January Poems of the Week and Flannel Board Finger Plays.

I will introduce Poems of the Week at our rug time and I’ll teach them to a familiar tune. Then after all the kids have learned the tune and poem I will place them that week at the Poems & Flannel Board center. I will have flannel things to manipulate along with each poem.

Make a Snowman by adding the parts and pieces.

Here are my 4 poems for January:

JANUARY POEM (Tune: Itsy Bitsy Spider)
The month of January is finally here to stay.
We stay up late at night, to ring in New Year’s Day.
The snowflakes fall in the middle of the night.
And when we all wake up, the whole wide world is white.

Our class will set new goals to get better at some things
Like sight words and math facts and new songs to sing
But the best part is skating or sledding in the snow
So grab your coats and hats, and away we all will GO!

I will have snowflakes, skates, sleds, snow hats and Snowmen in flannel.

Snowman face parts and scarfs and hats to add.

SNOWMEN in the WIND
Five little snowmen big and fat
The first one had one big black hat
The second one had two mittens in blue
The third one had three fingers on arms made of twig
The fourth one had four buttons on his belly so big
The fifth one had five coal bits for his grin
When all of a sudden the wind and snows begin
To blow the stuff around again and what do you suppose?
Those things landed on my snowman, so I add a carrot nose.
And all that wonderful, winter snow and ice,
Sure make my Snowman look happy and nice.

January Poems (Here is a free poem to start your Poems of the Week and Finger Plays and Flannel Board Center!)

I found this cute SNOW ceramic and little tin mailbox from Hobby Lobby. So Cute!

It would be fun to cut out parts of snowmen from felt and just let the kids design snowmen to go along with the poems. The same thing with different snowflake cutouts I could make from white sparkly felt. There are also foam ones to purchase from Michaels like these here.

The last poem I got from TPT 5 Little Snowmen HERE and one on Snowflakes HERE. This pack is only $6.00 and the kids would love using them for counting too if I add some addition flashcard facts to the center.

These are really cute and I could tape a tiny sight word on a label to each one of the 24 snowflakes. Or I might check at Michaels or Joannes for similar snowflakes with a 40% off coupon and my teacher discount. Or I could go cheap and buy 2 little 33 cent sheets of white foam and punch out snowflakes at the district using die cuts.

Another fun set to choose from would be the 5 snowmen in felt that comes along with this CD of songs. I love that idea. I could use it to sing the songs and poems with the kids at the rug, and then put the snowmen and snowflakes at the center. It is $14.95. It looks super cute. And I have Amazon Prime so I could get free shipping.

The one I liked the very best was the winter scene flannel board set below. It is the most expensive at $16.00 but I think just placing it at the flannel board center with 5 poems would be a hit for the whole month. I could cover the poems with page protectors and put them in a January blue folder or small binder.

The students could sit on the rug and put pieces on the flannel board while reciting or singing the poems. They could also use little witch fingers or tiny pointers I have to point to the words together. They will LOVE this center.

I have some cute Snowmen out of fabric and Tin and this new book Snowmen All Year set up in my classroom to start the new year.

Some of my favorite books we will read this month too. Happy New Year!

Reindeer Art and Dear Santa Letter Writing

Well it is the season for Santa letter writing! And it is one writing project I never have to motivate anybody to do a good job on. The kids all want to tell Santa they have been good and nobody seems to worry about that old “naughty list” he keeps.

All these kiddos in my class did such great handwriting to Santa. And they have done all those pesky chores at home too! They deserve some Santa loot don’t they?

Santa Letter Writing was so funny. This student “did his homework and cleaned his room!” So Santa, PLEASE send those toys!

Reindeer Art. We added red glitter to the Rudolf noses.

And He “sets the table…sometimes…” haha. So sweet.

Being “quiet in class” should get her lots of Santa points I’d say! lol.

I love that he’s been taking care of his baby brother for mom. What a good boy!

Reindeer Art projects. Gotta love those eylashes.

Santa Letter Writing and cute little Reindeer with curly eyelashes.

I found darling letter writing paper for this project HERE at TPT. It is FREE. There is a cute bunch of Elf writing paper too that had nice big first grade lined paper HERE from Moffett Girls. I really like their stuff.

Anyhoo, I hope every one of these darling kiddos gets what they want for Christmas! They are sure a cute bunch!

Star Wars Word Family Stars on a Stick

Every year I try to come up with a few new ways to teach a word family in a way the students will remember. I did this activity a few years ago and I think it helped solidify the Star Word Family. We made Stars on a Stick!

STAR word family “STARS on a STICK” activity.

I designed a cute STAR shape that had lots of points on it. It really looks more like a SUN but isn’t the sun actually a star? Yes it is. The reason being that each of the points on the star will become a place to write a “STAR WORD” or word with the “AR” chunk. Then we decorated them with stickers and markers and added wooden skewers taped to the backs.

I started by teaching the students this little story. Mr. A in the Alphabet made a deal with Mr. R. He said “If you let me be in front, I’ll let you say your name.”
So in every word where Mr. A is in front of Mr. R, you only hear Mr. R’s name.
So we call these words STAR words in my classroom. The words with the “AR” chunk or word family.

Yes I must admit that we had the word “Fart” mentioned and without batting an eyelid I turned and wrote it down. What was I thinking, really? Of course it ended up on every freaking star!

Then we brainstormed a list of AR or STAR words on the board. I showed the students the pretty poster I made to keep up in the room all year long to remind us of STAR WORDS.

Then we went to work writing our own choice of STAR WORDS and then decorating our stars. Short of breaking out the glitter which I have done some years, we added stickers and lots of cute marker designs. Here are a few cute ones. You KNOW I love my cutsie stuff.

Kids had fun reading their “STARS ON A STICK”.

Then came the fun activity. We got into partners and played the “STAR GAME”. Which is simply “I read a word to you, then you read a word to me”. Do this 3 or 4 times and then I ring a bell. You have to run to a new partner in the room before the bell dings again. Then replay the game with a new partner. They would have played the game for another 10 minutes. They were reading the entire time.

Think of ways to do these kinds of reading activities with harder types of word families like the IGHT words, or DIGRAPH Words. In our class we are using STAR WARS for lots of engagement in reading and writing. Our latest is using CHEWBACCA for the CH digraph practice. I found a fun package of Star War’s masks at Target’s Dollar section. I also found some free coloring pages with STAR WARS Characters HERE. Here are some masks you can purchase if you want to do what we did. Or you could try the Target dollar spot area. I got mine for $3.00 for 3 masks.

I forgot to take a picture of our Chewbacca brainstorm of words for the digraph “CH”. I attached the mask to the brown butcher paper and it has a prominent place on our front board to refer to these words and the word “digraph” which is coming up on our language arts benchmark. I will snap a pic today and add it tonight. It is really cute.

I’m going to find a little miniature CHEWBACCA and we’ll have to do him on a stick. haha. Chewbacca on a stick. Priceless!

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly

This past week we’ve been learning about the 5 food groups, the food pyramid, healthy choices for exercise, food, and washing our hands so we don’t get germs or sicknesses spreading around the classroom. Here are a few fun activities we did!

First we read the story There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly….after which we made our own!

I put the story at the listening post this week with the felt lady and animals activity and it has been super popular! Go figure. I used this store purchased felt lady to design our paper reproductions.

I drew this Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly freehand! Woot! The animals are below along with the rhyming text.

The kids had fun reading the story text along with dropping the corresponding animal down the lady’s mouth.

I had a parent helper cut out the “tummy” and put a piece of old overhead projector acetate behind it and tape it up. Then the kids colored them and we backed them with colored paper, leaving a little place from her hand down to her hemline open to retrieve the “animals”. They colored animals that went along with the story.

I also typed up the words to go along with all the animals in The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly….

These have been very engaging for the students. They really loved doing this activity to go along with our Healthy Lifestyles unit.

I am going to have the kids write their own “I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a ______” innovations. I have typed up a story frame. We will work on it for a few days and I can’t wait to see what creative things the kids come up with!

Everybody’s Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly looked a little different.

Then we did a fun activity putting different foods in the “Old Lady Who Swallowed Stuff’s” belly. I had each table of kids discuss what should go in the trash and what she should eat to make her healthier. We talked about things that we should eat sparingly like cookies, french fries and candy.

We have read all of these innovations on the original “There Was an Old Lady” books. Some of them were really funny. i There was an old lady who swallowed a fly

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly

This Activity was really cute for a CENTER GAME. Use a MRS. BUTTERWORTH’S empty syrup bottle to “feed” the old lady words using beads and pipe cleaners. I saw a cute picture of it on Pinterest. It’s from Housingaforest.com.

Some of my collection of “There Was an _______ Lady who Swallowed _______” books.

Check out another book title THERE WAS AN OLD LADY WHO SWALLOWED SOME CLOVER and activities to go with it HERE. She makes the old lady to “feed” by placing this picture in front of an empty tissue box.

We could have been saving tissue boxes all year. This would be cute to do in March to go along with St. Patrick’s Day! Another one I found is HERE at kidzclub. It is free and printable. Click here then go to black and white. Don’t click on the picture. Another activity I had for a fast finisher is this wordsearch HERE from Buildingstrongchildren. The book text you can use to sing along is HERE at bogglesworldesl.com. Just click on the old lady page links. Cute pictures too! A MATH roll and cover “Old Lady” is HERE at TPT.

Then we watched this Youtube on Healthy foods and we listened to a 5 a Day song tape from DOLE while we worked on coloring and cutting out our Little Old Ladies. HERE are a bunch of printables for kids on Healthy Eating topics.

We read this reader’s theater on Mr. Energy and how he keeps his body in good shape by eating right. We didn’t have time to do the puppets.

Here is a list of book to read kids to help them understand the good things we can eat to make us healthy and fit. Check them out HERE at Babble.com.

I Know and Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly

I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly. Here our our own ladies ready to eat those animals!

We read this scholastic news, watched the Magic School Bus video to go along with it. Then we used my two classroom stethoscopes and listened to our own hearts beating after we came back from P.E. on Thursday. Some of the kids listened to their neighbor’s hearts. They were amazed!

Stethoscopes for listening to our healthy hearts and pedometers to count our steps at recess. We talked about how important exercise is and how eating lots of fatty, fried foods can line your arteries with yucky goop called cholesterol that can block your blood’s flow from your heart and cause heart attacks. Everybody had a relative who had heart issues. They were very interested in heart health! Amazing!

Just some of the 8 books I have depicting The Old Lady Who Swallowed a …….

Well our Government is going from the food pyramid to the “food plate” thinking it will be easier for kids to understand. Maybe it is. Check it out above. A fun online interactive game we will play in computer lab is HERE.

We colored this “food Groups” worksheet and stapled it and the foolish old lady on the back of their Little Old Lady health projects so they could read them to brothers and sisters at home and replay and act out the story.

This was a very funny poem about a lady who overeats on junk food that the kids LOVED! And we also read the riddles and they figured out what food groups were the answers.

A fun center that the kids loved was my felt food pyramid with felt pieces to place in the right places. Then they each made their own pyramid for their desk as a fast finisher this week.

The Food Pyramid Flannel Board activity center……

Good nutrition Worksheet we did this week.

HERE are a few more free printables I found at TPT.

We also used the vocabulary words Nutrition and Healthy this week as part of our 10 vocabulary words. Everybody got 100% on the test too! Woo Hoo!

These were really cute made up on the kids’ desks….I think I got this from 5 a Day at Dole. Check out Dole’s Website HERE. I’ve gotten lots of free activities from them because I asked.

We will keep writing our innovations on the book The Little Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly and post them next week when we are all done! I can’t wait to see the finished stories!

Fry Phrases

I use Fry Phrases every day in my reading groups. I have little sets of 24 small 4 x 4 cardstock pages on rings that I keep in a little bucket on my reading table. Every day during reading time we pull them out and I do one minute timings with them. The kids try to get down to the 25th Fry Phrase on each card within the 1 minute timing. Sometimes they do!

It is very motivating. It also is great sight word practice. It is also great speed and fluency practice. I highly recommend doing anything with Fry Phrases. I wish I had done this all throughout my 22 years of teaching reading. HERE is an EASY LISTING.

And here is what I’ll be working on soon as my parent gift. Check it out HERE.

I have found some really fun resources on the web for practicing Fry Phrases. HERE is One of them. It is a fun game to roll dice and then read one of the Fry Phrases. It is from Petersons-Pad.blogspot.com. She suggests using 10 sided dice. I didn’t have any of those so I just give the kids multiple regular dice and they add them up before getting a number to read that phrase. That way we are doing math addition as well as reading practice.

Fry Phrases I use in my classroom every day.

This would be a GREAT quick start activity to your day. I do a quick start every single morning. When the kids first get in and put their stuff away they spend 15 minutes doing a quick start. It can be reading or math. And when they are done with it they use the book boxes and read. I have time to go over something a few missed the day before in math. That is the time I do 1 on 1 reteaching at my reading table. I also can take roll, send back emails to parents, and return notes to parents while I’m watching my students redo work they missed and help them relearn.

For beginner readers that are in A to D books I use these CVC words Every Day. They get a stack. They read the stack, then they pass the stack to their neighbor. It takes about 3 to 5 minutes to go through 3 stacks per child.

I highly recommend the Fry Phrases. Get to know them. HERE ARE A FEW more resources from TPT that you can use. But the best is just to copy and laminate them in small sizes and put them on rings. Use them daily during your reading hour. Your kids’ sight words will explode through the roof. I have 23 students. And all but 1 of them have gone from not knowing but a few sight words to knowing 75 or more since just September. That is in only two months time. And one of my kids didn’t know hardly any sounds when he walked through my first grade door. Now he is reading in a D book. Sight words are the name of the game. They make a GREAT intervention that is research based too. Try making up flash cards with FRY PHRASES. This will be one of the best things you can do in teaching reading to young children.

Thanksgiving Songs and Art and Writing for Kids .

Thankgiving Song, Art and Writing for Kids.

This Thanksgiving Song looks like a fun way to introduce the Pilgrims and the Indians information this week as we begin studying the first Thanksgiving. We will also do Thanksgiving Writing and Art.

I’ve done these mosaic indian corn art projects for many years. It always turns out pretty.

I have a few books I like to read the kids too. A new one this year that is kind of crazy but fun is called Pete the Cat Thanksgiving Story. I know kids love this character so I’ll add him to my list of books to retell the story of the Pilgrims and Indians. I also have Thanksgiving Stickers (below) on hand to add to the completed writing papers we do retelling the Thanksgiving story.

Then I want to do a Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting Pilgrim Children and American Children of today before we start our writing. I found a cute one on TPT HERE. . I want the kids to realize how much harder pilgrim children worked and how much less fun and free time they had.

We write about Native Americans and Pilgrims on Thanksgiving.

Then we will do similar informational text reading about the native Americans and what they wore, what jobs they did and how they came across from England on the Mayflower.

Here are the papooses we do out of a paper plate hole punched and the tie is made from a pipe cleaner and some beads.

I have many art projects I like to choose from. We can make Indians and write about the tribes. We can make Pilgrim Puppets. We can make Indian papooses or canoes. Or we can make Pilgrims faces out of paper plates.

I will probably do these this year. I like teaching the kids about Squanto and how the native Americans helped the Pilgrims plant corn and hunt duck and quail and wild turkeys and gather berries.

You can also make a paper canoe and add items to go inside. I usually make a few hole punches and have kids lace yarn through them too. HERE at Wacky Kids is a free printable.

In the past we write about fall activities we do at home and our favorites.

To make the outfit just fold a paper into 4ths diagonally and then in half horizontally. Then cut off 1 squares off each lower end and glue them as arms on the back of the upper top ends after you fold the rest of the page in. Then cut a slit for the legs and fold down a triangle for the “collar area”.

I have the kids cut the fringe on the Native Americans and decorate their heads with a pattern of small 1 centimeter squares of colored paper. Then they draw indian designs on the outfits. We do a few ideas on the board like a zig zag pattern, a moon and stars pattern and some arrows and triangles.

Hope you are getting excited for Thanksgiving Holiday break too!

Thanksgiving Writie the Room Center Activities

I’m working on revamping my Write the Room Center Activities this week. I have had a few cute Fall activities up, but I want to do more sentence writing.

Thanksgiving Write the Room Center Activities

A good one I found that has no punctuation that the kids can write on any white boards, chalk boards, or on paper I found HERE at Teacher’s Notebook from Learning from Superstars! Thanks so much!

Thanksgiving Write the Room Center Activities

I will put the sheets up on the wall with some sheet protectors. Then the kiddos can write the sentences of their choice out on paper, or on the whiteboards provided in the center. They will have to choose the correct punctuation.

Here is another cute one HERE.

A few generic Write the Room pages that would go cute with your centers I found HERE. and HERE at TPT.

I like to WRITE EVERY DAY. I’ll do a blog post of each of my days of the week and how I incorporate writing into our daily themes. The first day is MONDAY. We do Weekend News on Monday. I use dotted lined 2nd grade paper and I have a bigger rectangle for an illustration. I also have lines all down the backside for my really good writers.

Writing about our Weekend News in 2nd Grad

We call it Weekend News because we write about what our family did on the weekend; whether it was a birthday party, a soccer game, shopping at Walmart or a trip to the movies, we write all about it. I always start with a REAL MINI lesson on one of the 6 traits of good writing. I ALWAYS start with IDEAS, then move to CONVENTIONS. I probably work on these 2 for at least 2 months.

I’ve always used the 6 Traits Writing Model. Our district is moving to the 4 Blocks method which is easier to teach, but it doesn’t have enough breadth for gifted kids, so I’ll be using both. It is an unedited weekly writing project, but I help with spelling harder words as I peruse the room.

Thanksgiving Write the Room Center Activities – Here are some of my table decorations I’ve been putting up this weekend too. CUTE!

I do a brainstorm on my white board of activities the kids dictate to me. The other thing I have always done is write out a sentence frame;

On Friday I played…. On Saturday I went…….. On Sunday my family and I……

That way the kids get some sight words memorized and have a way to cut up the weekend into 3 simple paragraphs. Each week I write a new brainstorm. A great website for graphic organizers to write on just about any topic can be found HERE at vrml k12. They have lots of powerpoints on lots of subjects good for kids brainstorming in 1st and 2nd grades. I teach ORGANIZATION mid year.

Did YOUR family go out to eat like we did? Did you go to Jimmy Johns too? It’s super yum!

An easy way to design the paper you want your students to use is to go on this website and peruse her various grades and styles of writing paper. Check out Donna Young.org. It is all free and I loved the different sizes of dotted, lined paper you could print out for a booklet of “Weekend News” or for a Journal. You could just add a small rectangle for an illustration and the words WEEKEND NEWS across the top.

Thanksgiving Write the Room Center Activities. Here are my cute little handmade pilgrims.

A good CHECKLIST for students to use when they are done with their Weekend News can be found HERE at Read Write Think. This is a silent, at your desk, unedited writing activity. Kids can use their personal journals or the word wall to help with sight words. Otherwise they are sounding out words they write.

This was an idea for “WORD CHOICE” from Cheryl Sigmon’s website on 4 Blocks Method for writing…. link is HERE.
I teach Word Choice the 3rd month of school. It reduces how many “good” and “nice” words you get in student writing…..and you get spectacular “$100 words” as we call them!!

Some fun books I use to teach kids the story of Thanksgiving. It is a good one to get them thinking about if mom has put up the decorations for Thanksgiving yet around the house. As you can see I decorated mine all up already. Woot!

Weekend News is a very valuable and simple way to start your week writing on Monday. Check out what I do on Fridays HERE. Check back to see what I do the rest of the week!!