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Today, I’m excited to share my new favorite Thanksgiving read-aloud, Balloons Over Broadway by Melissa Sweet, along with some ELA activities you can incorporate into your kindergarten, first grade, and second grade classrooms. (PS. I definitely think you could use them with your third graders, too!) I’ve talked a lot recently about the library of read-aloud activity sets that […]

Balloons Over Broadway Activities

This post shares several standards-based ELA activities you can use with the Thanksgiving read-aloud, Balloons Over Broadway by Melissa Sweet. Students in kindergarten, first grade, second grade, and even third grade will benefit from this collection of activities that cover vocabulary, comprehension, text-based questions matched to Bloom's Taxonomy, and differentiated assessments! It's the perfect Thanksgiving picture book with colorful illustrations and a great story to match! #ELA #babblingabby #tpt #inspiredapple #teacher #teach #thematicunit #Thanksgiving #holiday #kidlit #readaloud #picturebook #parade #elementary #kindergarten #firstgrade #secondgrade #thirdgrade #homeschool

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Educational Activities, ELA, first grade, holiday, Kindergarten, Literacy, November, Read Alouds, Read-Alouds, Reading, Second Grade, Teach, Thanksgiving, Vocabulary, writing

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Today, I’m sharing TWENTY of my favorite Thanksgiving books and activities that will fit right into your curriculum whether you teach kindergarten, first grade, or second grade. Each book shown below matches with a set of paired activities, so that your lesson plans are ready to roll and you can simply teach!  They’re Common Core […]

20 Thanksgiving Books and Activities

Today, I’m sharing TWENTY of my favorite Thanksgiving-themed picture books and activities that will fit right into your curriculum whether you teach kindergarten, first grade, or second grade. Each book shown below matches with a set of paired activities, so that your lesson plans are ready to roll and you can simply teach!  They’re Common Core standards-aligned, focused on comprehension, vocabulary and a variety of ELA skills, and include three differentiated assessments. BOOM DONE.

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Educational Activities, ELA, Fall, first grade, holiday, Literacy, November, Read Alouds, Read-Alouds, Reading, Second Grade, Teach, Thanksgiving, Vocabulary, writing

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February is a fun month in the classroom! There are plenty of thematic activities for February to incorporate into your curriculum, including Black History to recognize and celebrate, Ground Hog Day, Valentine’s Day, President’s Day, Dental Health and the Winter Olympics this year! And, you’re supposed to cover it all in the shortest month of […]

Thematic Activities for February in the Primary Classroom

February activities and freebies found here!

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crafts, Educational Activities, ELA, February, first grade, Freebie, Groundhog Day, holiday, Kindergarten, Literacy, Presidents' Day, Second Grade, Teach, Uncategorized, Valentines Day, Winter Games, writing

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As a first grade teacher, assembling literacy centers wasn’t always the highlight of my weekly preparations. In fact, it seemed downright cumbersome at times to find or create something that would hold the attention of my kiddos for ten to fifteen minutes and was engaging and could be completed independently so that I could work with guided reading […]

Literacy Centers: Word Work Activities

Check out these word work centers perfect for pre-k, kindergarten, first grade, ELL/ESL, and intervention. Each set includes 6 word work activities ideal for independent literacy centers. The activities remain the same for all sets in this series, so that your students can familiarize themselves with the expectations for each activity over time, thereby developing consistency and independence. They're perfect literacy station activities!

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Back to School, Educational Activities, ELA, first grade, Freebie, Kindergarten, Literacy, Second Grade, Sight Words, Teach, Uncategorized, Vocabulary, Word Work

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If you’re anything like me, you LOVE some good literacy center activities. You love seeing your kiddos engaged, exploring new skills, and excited about their learning. You’re also probably like me in that you’re a big fan of centers that are easy to introduce, skill-oriented yet basic enough for kindergarten and first grade students to […]

25 Free Literacy Center Activities

This is a set of 25 no-prep literacy centers activity posters. These were designed to compliment Kindergarten in a Flash and First Grade in a Flash flashcard sets, though you can use them with existing flashcards you already own OR you can easily use index cards to create your own flashcards specific to your curriculum. They're perfect for preschool, kindergarten, and first grade students and can easily be incorporated into you daily center rotations, small group activities, or ELA curriculum. The targeted skills include phonemic awareness, letter identification, letter-sound correspondence, writing, grammar, word families, vowel teams, r-controlled vowels, digraphs, diphthongs, homophones, antonyms, synonyms, and more!

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Alphabet, Back to School, ELA, first grade, Freebie, Kindergarten, Literacy

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I have always loved words and am a self-proclaimed word nerd. I actually read the book Word Nerds, met the authors at a conference a few years ago, and got to lead a PLC in my school all about it! Research shows that a child’s vocabulary is a key component to their success in school, on standardized tests, and […]

Vocabulary Activities for Any Word

This is a set of twenty different activities that you can use with any vocabulary word with students in grades kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade, and sixth grade. These engaging activities will give your students the opportunity to choose how they interact with their vocabulary words, giving them greater authority over their learning!

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ELA, Literacy, Vocabulary

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Check out this great list of activities for kindergarten, first grade, and second grade! Read all about this fun Meet the Teacher activity, along with several back to school anchor charts and class posters that are perfect for the start of the new school year Learn More About This Resource | Shop this Resource I LOVE […]

The Best Teaching Resources for Elementary Students

Check out some of the best resources for kindergarten, first grade, and second grade! They're perfect for the first day of school, the back to school season, or any time of year! Each activity is engaging, fun, and will help you effectively deliver content to your students. From teaching adjectives to celebrating reading to meet the teacher to making friends to learning number sense with crafts, this post has it all!

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Back to School, Early Numeracy, Literacy, Reading, Uncategorized

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I’ve just released my latest teacher tool that is ideal for accompanying your kindergarten or first grade ELA curriculum. It’s basic in principle, simple to prep, and will help support the ELA activities you’re doing in your classroom. Each resource will contain 50 sets of flashcards that you can use to for a variety of purposes […]

Kindergarten and First Grade ELA Flashcards

This resource is a growing mega bundle of 50 sets of flashcards for use in the kindergarten and first grade classrooms. Each set can be used to address a variety of skills, from phonics to writing to decoding to letter recognition and MORE! They're the perfect teacher tool because they're easy to prep, versatile, inexpensive and can accompany just about anything you're doing in your ELA curriculum. Use them during guided reading, small group instruction, intervention, partner practice or individual student differentiation!

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Back to School, Dollar Tree, ELA, first grade, Kindergarten, Literacy

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Are you looking for a great alternative to writing lengthy book reviews that is engaging, fun, and perfect for kiddos in first, second, third, fourth, and fifth grade? Check out these Emoji Bookmarks — a condensed book review idea where students can not only provide a quick review, but it includes EMOJIS! #everythingisbetterwithhearteyes #amiright GIANT-SIZED […]

Emoji Bookmarks – A Book Report Alternative

Are you looking for a great alternative to writing lengthy book reports that is engaging, fun, and perfect for kiddos in first, second, third, fourth, and fifth grade? Check out this condensed book report idea where students can write simplified book reviews. Included are templates, photographs and easy-to-follow directions that are easy for teachers to implement and great for students to complete after reading their favorite books!

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ELA, Literacy, March, Read Across America, Read-Alouds, writing

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Teaching adjectives and verbs was SO fun with this activity! To prepare for them for this SUPER fun and ENGAGING activity, I explained that they would be using their five sense to experience popcorn – from the popping, to the smelling, to the tasting – I really wanted them to pay attention to details of […]

Teaching Adjectives and Verbs

Teaching your kindergarten, first grade, and second grade students about adjectives and verbs has never been MORE FUN! You'll use popping popcorn (either in a microwave or with an actual popcorn popper) to teach your students about adjectives and verbs, encouraging them to use their five senses to really experience the popcorn. This resource includes an engaging lesson plan, student activity sheet to use during instruction, adjectives and verbs sorting center and response sheet, craftivity, and 3 differentiated writing extension pages. Many teachers have used this during a formal observation with rave reviews from administration, but - most importantly - STUDENTS! I promise, your kiddos will LOVE IT!

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adjectives, ELA, Literacy, Reading

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