Letterland! Letterland! There is no better land!

My students love Letterland! I'll post more activities later this week!


You know you hear a song and it plays over and over in your head? Well, that is how the theme song to Letterland is with me and my students. We hum it all the time!

When we first started with Letterland last year I have to say I had some issues with the program! First, the accents were all British and I had to teach little Ks the letter sounds in English! AND nine of my students were ELLs! 

I started using it and really got into the program and now I love it!  The characters are cute! They call the characters, Letterlanders! They live in another land of letters, sounds complicated if you are new to the program, but as you get into the program you can see it does work! Students learn the sounds and letters!

We had a Letterland Parade on the 31st. Students had a month to get their costumes ready. Red Robot on the left hand side was the cutest little guy! They all had fun and parents walked along with us as we went in every classroom in the school.

The only thing I can that I wish Letterland would change, would be the activities and 'center' work that they have available.
I made some up with just Annie Apple and Clever cat.

Students cut out the pictures and sort them under the /a/ or /c/ sound.

The clip art all came from DJ Inkers and Whimsey Clips.

I wanted my students to identify the beginning sounds of /a/ and /c/ words. Of course, learning to write the letters correctly helps! The clip art all came from DJ Inkers and Whimsey Clips.

I made double copies of the picture cards that are in Annie Apple's center. My Kinders couldn't draw as well as some of the other classes I have had, so they put the picture of /a/ words under their paper and traced. They are getting a lot better now!

I love interactive emergent readers and this is printed back to front. I hope someone who is teaching using the Letterland program can use some of these supplemental centers. I have more centers, powerpoints and all that I have made up,  so please follow my store and I will put these up as I go. 

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https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Primary-Pam

Scrambled Squares - Math Puzzles - Have Fun Learning!

Drill and Practice! Oh how students groaned and moaned when they were handed a worksheet with problems to work out. They needed the practice though, Practice Makes Perfect! Right? I use Math Puzzles in my room and my students never, ever turn them down! They are aligned to the Common Core Standard that we are working on at the time. I can use them as an assessment or just as practice. I love color and cute, and these are both, but they are also a meaningful activity that incorporates some higher level thinking by having students think about the numbers and move the puzzle pieces around until they all fit together. 

Math Puzzles CCSS Aligned 4.NBT.4

First I took the regular Magic Squares that we have all used for years and “fixed” them up a bit. My Math Puzzles are designed for groups of 4, with each student getting a different Puzzle Sheet. No more having to cut the pieces out yourself and paper clip together for each student. Also, every 4 students will have a different puzzle and you will have the answer sheet for a quick check. This is how it works for me.

Math Puzzles 4.NBT.4 

In the picture you see a Teacher Answer Sheet #1 and a Scrambled Squares for Students # 1. The fonts match on the TA Sheet 1-4 and the Scrambled Student Sheet 1-4. I put the 4 TA sheets on a Clipboard to carry with me so I can monitor my students working out the problems.

Students working in journals using Math Puzzles 4.NBT.4

The picture above shows two different students' work. After cutting out their squares, they get to work. The math problems align with the common core standard 4.NBT.4. They are working the math problems out in their journals (showing their work.) I ask them to write the answers on the math puzzle pieces because it makes putting the puzzle together easier. 

Notice one Student pasted the I Can Statement at the top of her puzzle page. This is required and is included in the Math Puzzle 4.NBT.4 packet. ( I always include PAM somewhere in the  puzzle.) They love it!

This student went to another page where she had some extra room (to save her paper) and starting working her problems out. The journals are graded every 9 weeks and kept to show students growth.

You can see where this student has written her answers in with pencil.

The 4 different fonts keep the students from glancing over at what someone else is doing. All students have the same 31 problems that match 4.NBT.6 but they are scrambled up!

Some students work methodically. 

These are finished squares from 5th grade.

After finishing, I check their work by just looking at my 4 clipboard pages. Then they glue the squares and color. Some students never get to the coloring part because they might work slower than others. To differentiate by giving some students less problems to work with, just take off the bottom 4 squares from your Teacher Answer Sheet. When the student has cut all of his out, take those bottom pieces away. It gives the same practice but with fewer problems to do which would be helpful with some students who cannot process so many at one time.

Hope this helps with your classroom activities. Email me with any questions for comments! Next time I'll show of the work we are doing with task cards.

Happy New Year Blog Hop!

Join In The New Year Fun!

K-2 Blog Hop! 

Each blog will be featuring a Forever Freebie and TPT paid item. What to do: Check out the Paid TPT Item. Go to TPT, download my Forever Freebie, please leave some feedback as a thank-you!  Then just hop on over to the next blog to pick up a Forever Freebie and check out another item! 


Lots of fun and a great way to meet new TPT Sellers!

Oh, and have a wonderfully happy and content New Year!

My TPT Wonderful Winter Package! 

100 Pages of Printables, Centers, and Books! 

So many activities and printable for teachers to copy and have ready to Go! Meaningful work that will keep students busy and thinking! 

Fun and engaging for Math and ELA!

My blog post with student work from this package!

Winter Math and ELA Package

(Click on the picture for the link or click here!)

My Forever Freebie!

(Click on picture for link or here!)

(Click on the picture or here to go to the next blog!)

Thanks for visiting!

We Joined A Christmas Card Exchange!

When my energetic co-worker, shown below wearing  her Turkey Hat!...

 told me about a Christmas Card exchange I wanted to say nope... not with all that we have going on. I went ahead and signed up and hoped I would be able to keep up!
First I signed up using this link: http://projectsbyjen.com/Projects/HCE2014/HCE14Welcome.html
The whole thing was so organized and I was very impressed!

The theme was Christmas Lights so I made up a card that would fit nicely in our school envelopes. I colored in the tree and reindeer... yes 30 cards! My students colored in the lights and details. I let them use new glitter crayons and they were thrilled!

I made the cards 3 up on one sheet of cardstock. I let them color until they were too tired! They would shake their hands and say I just can't color anymore!

This really didn't take as long as I thought it would and my students had fun!

I sent out 30 cards and we received 29 back... from all over the US and Canada! I waited until the last day of school to open our cards and talk about each of the states. We also graphed the states to see which state sent the most cards.

We don't have a Smartboard, but I can still use the software so I pulled up a map and we made a tally mark on each state as we opened the cards.

Each student opened a card and we read where the card came from and basic info that we all included with our cards. (there was a template to print out)

My TA is holding up a card that had a picture of each student on the letter. Very pretty. We received some very nice cards.

We displayed the cards on our door! My students loved doing this project! I am signing up for sure next year. The hardest part was figuring out how to take the excel file and make labels up! I was pretty proud of myself when I did this!

Merry Christmas to everyone and I hope each of our students has a safe and loved filled holiday!

Dodecahedron Frenzy!

I love group projects! Makes me feel so good to see my students all working together and having fun!
The Dodecahedrons are so fun and do not require writing a ton of copy or coloring for hours. My Kinders love them!

My Kinders are learning to color while they are learning CVC words. I think they are doing a better job than at the beginning of the year. They enjoy making the dodecahedrons.

My kinders pick which family they want to make. They trace the words first, since the pictures might be hard for some to figure out. (Like wed.) Then they color and write the word on the dodecahedron circle. When they cut them out, they place them on my desk for me to put together. They watch me, but it is really hard for me class to put the tabs exactly right.

If you would like to make some with your students, I have this for sale on my Teacher Pay Teacher store along with the Dodecahedron for Digraphs! 

Click on this link or the pictures below to check them out.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Word-Family-Dodecahedron-Cooperative-Learning-Project-1596326

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Digraph-Dodecahedron-Cooperative-Learning-Project-1604146

Hope those links work for you. I am still learning this blogging business, but it is fun! 

They are really pretty just like this, but look nice hanging from my window. I'll take a picture of my window this week and post it! Hope you are all ready for this coming week! Most of us will be out of school for our Winter Break. We are out Friday at 12:45 and then will meet in our Media center for a Staff lunch! Can't wait. Thanks for visiting! Pam

A Tad Behind, But Here Is Our Native American Writing!

We spent more time that I thought we would on our Native American unit. There was just so much to do and my students were really enjoying this! (And isn't that the whole purpose of teaching a unit!) By the way, most of what I used can be found in my Native American Writing Unit on TPT. There's a huge sale tomorrow and my entire store is 20% off, plus the 8% TPT gives you. So that is almost 30% off every item in every store on TPT that is participating! 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Native-American-Writing-and-Craft-Unit-Vocabulary-Graphic-Organizers-1544013

We made canoes and teepees. My students love using markers and I usually don't let them because the colors bleed through on paper. This activity was great. The idea came from Pinterest! The original idea just had a canoe and painted paper plate. We used the grass and a teepee to add a little more to the activity. I also used a blue paper plate instead of painting the plate. Gluing these with the glue gun was a difficult task! You  had to hold the canoe till the glue set or it would fall over.

After reading a few books and watching Scholastic news, I had my students use this anchor chart to show what they knew about Native Americans. I have to give my students background information at the beginning of a unit before they can start their Know/Wonder/Learned charts. They know a lot more than they think, but it has to be sparked a little!

I think my students loved the headbands the best. They spent a lot of time on these. I let them wear these headbands the entire week when they were writing or crafting! (Not on the carpet though, too many little ones couldn't see!) We also made paper vests and wrote sentences using the words in my Native American Writing Unit on TPT. In art students made patterned bracelets that were colored in using construction paper crayons. Love these!

We made our Anchor Chart. We had read many of the books and studied using Scholastic Online's Thanksgiving Unit with videos of Native Americans. I give my students post-it-notes and they write/draw and color what they are learning. They love this! 

We used the writing from my Native American Writing Unit on TPT to complete our writing about Native Americans. 

These were hung outside our room for all to see! We try and hang up writing samples from our classroom since we are focusing on writing and academic vocabulary this year. 

There's a lot more included in my Native American Writing Unit. I didn't take pictures of the Emergent reader and Teacher Read Aloud. There are vocabulary picture cards and so much more included. It would take two weeks of instruction time to go through everything included. I think with first graders, who already know how to read and write sentences, this unit could be completed in one week.

My students are working on writing what they are saying. This takes a while. We are doing a great job on coloring which is also an important part of being a Kindergarten student!

Well, now comes the Holidays! Hold on tight for this fast ride!