December Odds and Ends

This is such an easy center to set up.  I have different pages hung on the board.  Below each set of words is a basket with all the magnetic letters they need to complete each word on the list.  Once they complete one set, they can move on to the next set. Easy peasy.

 

 

We love reading to our fifth grade buddies!  This month we read a Christmas book with the phrase "can you see".  They read for about 20 minutes and then we played on the playground with our buddies!  It was a great end to our day!

 

Train Names

Here's a great activity that would go well with the Polar Express if you are doing anything with that!  First we cut 12" X 18" gray construction paper in half to make it 6" X 18".  Then they drew two horizontal parallel lines and lots of vertical lines to make the tracks. 

 

Ahead of time I cut 2" squares for the engine, and cut a 1" square out of one corner.  I also cut a small window and triangle for the front of the engine.  In addition I cut LOTS of 1" squares for the cars, and two different size circles for the wheels.  I just colored the smoke stack with a Sharpie for the engine, instead of cutting out construction paper.

 

My students wrote the first letter of their name on the engine (capital letter) and then we counted how many cars they would need for the rest of their name and they wrote one lower case letter on each car.  Using glue sponges, they glued the cars and wheels down.  Then I drew 3-4 dots where they should glue down their cotton balls.  I did this because we've been practicing "a dot, not a lot", so this was the perfect opportunity for them to see about what size glue dot they needed!

 

 

 

 

Here's a close up of the train I got the inspiration from.  I'm sorry I can't give credit to the original poster, but it only links to the image and doesn't have any identifying information.

 

 

 

All About Me and Family and Pets Themes

This year we had an All About Me weekly theme as well as a My Family and Pets theme.  During these two different weeks we did a couple of different projects that I remembered to take pictures of!

First name assessment of the year.  We'll use this same page 3 times during the year to see the growth of how students wrote their names when they came to us and how they are able to write their name before they head to kindergarten!  I'm super excited to show students their page at the end of the year!

We put some faces and bodies out for students to decorate with playdoh, pipe cleaners, wiggly eyes, beads, and other odds and ends.

 

After reading the book "A My Name is Alice" by Alice Lyne we provided students with heads and half circles.  They got to choose which pattern to use for their half circle.  Once they had the head and shirt glued on their paper (they used glue sticks), we wrote up the saying "____ my name is _____ and I like ______."  This got glued on next.  The next day we provided pieces of construction paper for mouths and hair.  They decorated their person as they saw fit using glue sponges (BEST THING EVER!)  Once they were done I gave them their initial letter (which I had cut out) to glue onto the first blank of the saying.

 

Once we finished our people, we went to work on our names in small groups.  Students were provided with a paper that had their name printed in gray on it.  They then used bingo daubers to cover the letters.  This also helped me gauge fine motor and color identification skills.

 

When we finished both components they went on our bulletin board in the hallway!  They look amazing and we've gotten so many wonderful compliments!  I got the idea from Pinterest.

Another activity we did during our family theme was to provide students with sentence strips and ask them to draw their family on the sentence strip. 

Spelling with Spoons

A while back, and I do mean a while, I saw a really neat idea on Pinterest with spoons and the alphabet.  I've been wanting to make a set, but really had no reason to do so as I teach fifth grade.  WELL...my youngest is going off to kindergarten this month so I thought to myself - what a great back to school gift for his teacher!  So after a bit of searching for white and clear spoons that were both the same size (which was not as easy as I thought it would be!), this weekend I made five sets for his teacher.  I put uppercase stickers on the white spoons and lowercase stickers on the clear spoons.  I will say I'm not thrilled with the lowercase "a" or "q", but I think students do need to be exposed to both styles.  It'll be up to her to decide if she wants to use them or replace them with other stickers.  I've given her blank spoons just in case.

 

It was late when I finished, so I just put them into five different bags and left them on the table to take care of in the morning.  This morning my son came downstairs and wanted to make words with them (which gave me another idea...but we'll hold that thought for a few more minutes.)  So he gets them out and the stickers are already falling off!  YIKES!  I'm so glad he wanted to play with them.  So I pulled out my Mod Podge and coated every single last one of those 260 spoons!  Problem solved and they're all back in their bags!  YAY!

Now onto the light bulb that came on when my son asked to make words with the spoons (he already knows his letters, so matching upper and lowercase letters isn't something he's interested in doing.)  Now I'm a little embarrassed that I didn't think of this on my own - but DUH...sure, my fifth graders know their letters, but why not use them for spelling words?  I mean currently I have a pretty good great collection of activities for my students to use to work with their spelling words that I'm constantly adding to.  Why not add this one to it?!  So here are some of the spoons I made for my classroom. 

 

And here's the direction sheet students will get.  You can click on the image to download this fun Freebie!

 

 



 

Here are some of the other direction sheets for a few of the extensions we do.

 

 

 

If you're interested in purchasing the entire set, you can get all 30 Spelling Activities as well as forms, tips, and other resources in my TPT store.  Just click the image below.

 

 

 

 

If you are looking for more freebies then check out Manic Monday at Classroom Freebies by clicking on the image below.



Word Wall Cards - Sports Theme (kind of....)

In anticipation of Monday's freebie linky hosted by the Organized Classroom, I've been working on some Word Wall header cards to match my sports theme.  Since I'd like to be able to use them from year to year, they aren't actually sporty at all - just the same cute style and colors I used for my job chart, student name cards, and schedule cards!  I teach fifth grade and I've always wanted a word wall in my room, but could never really come with an idea I liked well enough to justify the amount of space it would take.  During a professional development workshop this summer, merging some of the activities we were doing, an idea came to mind. So this year I'm going to try doing a Social Studies word wall.  I teach US History, so I'm going to do a Historical Figures Word Wall.  I'm going to take people like Abigail Adams, Crispus Attucks, James Madison, Robert E. Lee, Susan B. Anthony, etc. and make cards for each of these people.  I'm then going to assign different colors to differents eras of history like Colonialism, American Revolution, Early Republic, Sectionalism, Civil War, etc. and mat the historical figures according to what time in history they played a major role.  As we learn about each person, I'll hang their card on the word wall. If they were in more than one era, they'll get pulled down and we'll add another colored mat to their name.  I don't know how well this will work, but I'm forward to giving it a try this year!  I'd say my biggest concern is having enough different colors as I have 17 eras to include!  Wish me luck!
To download the freebie, click on any of the images below.

 

 

If you are looking for more freebies then check out Manic Monday at Classroom Freebies by clicking on the image below.