Flapbooks & Foldables

It's been a while since I've posted a new product on TPT and I guess that's why I'm so stoked about what I just posted.  I actually created a ton of flapbook and foldable templates quite a while back but couldn't quite figure out how to package it for other people to use.  Now that I figured it out, I'm so excited to give everyone the opportunity to check this out!  

I like using flapbooks and foldables to get my students more engaged than the standard boring worksheets.  Here are a few examples of ones I've created for my classroom:

If you like this Native American one, you can check out my Native American packet by clicking {HERE} or on the picture above.

If you like this telling time flapbook, you can check out my telling time packet by clicking {HERE} or on the picture above.

Anywho . . . if you want to create your own flapbooks, you can grab a few freebies by clicking {HERE}.  If you want even more templates, click {HERE} or on the picture below to see my 29 templates that I just posted on TPT.  

To celebrate my new product, I'll be putting my entire shop on sale for 20% off through Friday!

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock!

This week we've been practicing telling time.  We started off by making this amazing little cutie:

This is a freebie that I found through Pinterest from Adventures of a Third Grade Teacher.  We practiced telling time for a few days using this craft and it seemed to really make it click that you count by fives to tell time.  I phased it out so they wouldn't be dependent on using this, then we played some fun games that I had whipped up.

We played a little board game I made up using these AH-MAZ-ING board game cliparts from Krista Wallden's store TPT.  Have you seen these?!  You should definitely check these out.  Click on the picture below to head to see these at TPT.

The board game I made basically involved kids reading clocks to tell the time.  

We also played a quiz-quiz-trade for telling time, as well as go fish for the same.

Yesterday and today we practiced telling time before and after the hour and this is proving to be a little trickier for my kiddos.  Today we created flapbooks to practice this.

This is what it looked like from the front.

Here's the inside.

Monday I'm going to have everyone set their flapbooks out and we'll all walk around and record answers from each other's flapbooks without peeking.  

To get your hands on these fun games and flapbook, check out my What Time is it? packet on TPT.

Money, Money, Money, Money! Plus a Freebie!

We have been practicing counting coins lately and we've had a lot of fun with it!  I whipped up a couple of games because who wants to do tons of boring worksheets to learn how to count money?  No one, that's who.

One game my kids had a lot of fun with involved them using playing cards and money to create different amounts.  On their turn, they flipped over two cards and made a number with it, such as 57.  Then they used coins to figure out how to show that amount in cents.  Such a simple idea for a game, but they were totally into it!

We played a lot more games with coins all week and they are now rockstars at counting money!  I'm so proud!

If you're looking to spice up your money unit with some fun games, you can find this game plus several more, along with recording sheets at TPT.  Just click on the picture below:

I'm giving away part of this packet (a coin value flapbook), too!  Just click on the picture to get it for free!

Turkey Day and a Freebie

 

Turkey day is coming up.  What are you thankful for?  It’s really fun to help kids remember to think of all they have to be thankful for.  That’s what I did with these cute little turkeys.  Click {HERE} if you want to download this turkey for FREE!

Here are some of my kids' examples:

 

First, I had kids list 7 things they were thankful for.  Next, they circled the thing they were most thankful for and plan a paragraph about it.  They wrote a rough draft, then the final draft on the writing paper.

This week I think I’ll let them write to the prompt “Save a turkey, eat more. . ."

You can click on the picture below to get all of this for free.

While you’re at it, you can check out my Wonderful Winter Fun activities by clicking on the picture below.

Here are a few things that are included:

Spiders + Native Americans = Fun!

There is something to be said about getting the scissors and creating things when you’re talking about 8 year olds.  The engagement level goes right up.  Today we made a few things that I was pretty excited about.

First I did one of Amy Lemon’s (Step into 2nd Grade) super cute and, as a bonus, free, activities.  We created spiders and wrote poems about them. This was perfect because we’ve been learning parts of speech, well, all year, it seems and these poems involve using verbs and adjectives.  Here are a few examples of my students’ work:

If you want to snatch this up, head to Amy’s TPT store {HERE}.

The thing we did later in the day wasn’t quite as cute but it was fun for my kids.  I whipped up a flipbook Venn diagram for Woodland and Plains Indians to go along with our Native American unit.  We’ve watched a few United Streaming videos about the Woodland Indians and the Plains Indians, created an anchor chart (I gotta say, that anchor chart is ugly as sin.) and discussed the characteristics at length, so I thought I’d see what the kids could do as far as comparisons. 

If you do a unit over Native Americans my unit on TPT might be helpful to you.  You can check it out {HERE}.  

If any of you want the Venn diagram flipbook for free, please just leave a comment and I’ll link it to this blog post so you can download it. 

Adjectives and Place Value

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You ever have those days that feel as if you’ll never be able to accomplish anything of importance?  Well, today felt a lot like that to me.  But then, low and behold, we got things done.  We buckled down and pounded out some good work.

We had an assembly for Red Ribbon Week (do you celebrate Red Ribbon Week?), then we made cards for my principal who had an awful motorcycle accident (prayers would be very appreciated) and then I had kids complete this reflection page for conferences:

This reflection page is from Seven Strategies of Assessment for Learning by Jan Chappuis.  I just made it a little cuter. :)

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Click the picture if you want to grab this (for free!).

Anyways, once we finally got to real work, we had some fun.  During ELA we’ve been focusing on adjectives.  Pinterest inspired me to try out this little guy:

 

My kids really enjoyed this activity.  First I had them complete a web about themselves, with adjectives.  Then they created the adjective guys using those adjectives.

In math we’re learning about place value so today we used playing cards to create numbers.  They drew three numbers and made both the biggest and the smallest numbers they could with those numbers.  It’s funny how “in” to math kids get when you add cards to the mix.  Call it a game and it’s like magic.

 

If you’d like this and other fun place value activities, click {HERE} for my place value activities pack.  It’s got a ton of fun ideas.

Singing Songs

Last year several staff-members from our building went to PD with Tim Rasinski.  He’s huge on building reading fluency and one thing he suggests is singing songs.  So since then I’ve had fun finding songs for my second graders to sing each day.  I put together some that I found for Halloween.  If you want to grab them up for free, just click {HERE} or on the picture below.

 Here are some of the songs.

If you download the file you’ll see the website I found the songs at.

Do you have any fun fall songs you’re singing with your class?

Money, Money, Money, Money!

I'm in the middle of teaching money and I'm on a foldable kick.  I was just in the mood so I whipped up a little foldable for coin value even though my kids are past that.  

 

You can click {HERE} if you're interested in using this with your kids for FREE! 

It will fold up similar to this one if you have kids fold on the solid lines and cut on the dotted.

 

This shape foldable can be found as part of my Geometry Foldable packet I have on TPT also.  I loved using those foldables to review 2-D and 3-D shapes.

Now I just need to come up with some more fun money ideas.  :)