Spring Centers [What we are up to this week]

My students LOVE the Word Work center. They are always SO engaged. This month we had a ton of different skills going on during centers.

This week we worked on building, reading and writing sentences. 

They can work on the floor or in a pocket chart, wherever they feel comfortable! After they build their sentences, they have to use a pointer to read their sentences.  I usually have 2-3 students working together in a center so they will all take turns.

When they are finished, they will complete their activity sheet. They have to color the image, build their sentence, and write the sentence correctly.

We also worked on 'Farm Families'. We have an upcoming field trip to the farm so this center was perfect timing! Students had to look at the picture on the farm animal card and determine what word family it belonged to.

When they were done sorting, they had to sound out the CVC words to record them on their activity sheet (double sided). 

We are continuing to work on differentiating between long and short vowels.  This week we sorted images based on vowel sound. Some of my students needed to use the 'check it' card to complete this activity which was ok with me.  Just lets me know that we need to keep on working!

This next center is definitely one of my favorites. It works on reading CVC words and identifying rhymes (word families) at the same time!

Students will read the sentence on the rhyming question card, then they will find a matching card that rhymes. They did AMAZING with this!!

When they are finished matching all of the rhymes, they record them on their activity sheet.

Over at magnetic letters we worked on spelling our CVC words. Never enough CVC practice!

Then a new skill we have been working on is ending punctuation. We are forgetting it too often in our writing so hopefully these centers will help! Students had to read the sentence and determine whether a question mark or a period was needed to complete it. 

Another great center going on is reading simple sentences and finding the picture to match.  I am going to work on creating an entire pack just like this center because my students loved it and it is really helping my readers! 

I only have one reading group that still needs to work on beginning sounds; however, I left this center out for all of my students to complete. When they saw it they were all excited about it, so I figured why not? Let them all work together and have some fun building Easter eggs!

We worked on rhyming again! Same skill, different words!

Then we stepped up our magnetic letter center a little bit to work on digraphs.  My students are actually doing very well with these and this center was the perfect practice.

Most of these centers can be found in my April Word Work pack HERE on TpT.  The Magnetic Letter Digraphs pack can be found HERE.

What are you guys up to this Spring? What themes do you teach?

Don't forget to PIN the image below to save these ideas for years to come!

Test/Standards Review

I am always looking for different ways to make sure that my students are understanding the standards, or that they are ready for their upcoming test, or just different ways to have fun with math!

'Hot Seats' have been the BEST way to get students excited about learning and they have become an amazing review for us!

Before the students enter the classroom, I hide a hot seat or two under their chairs. The best part is, you can differentiate the questions for different kids. If you know one student needs to work on a particular math problem, then you can purposely give them that question.

Sometime during the day I announce that there are HOT SEATS!!! and the students all jump up and look under their chairs to see if they have a question...

If they do, then their challenge is to come up with the answer! If they are having trouble answering the question, then they are allowed to 'phone a friend' and ask someone at their table for help.

On this day, I had three hot seats! Here is another little one working on his counting...

My students absolutely LOVE hot seats. They literally asked me if there was a hot seat ALL.DAY.LONG for the first month I introduced them! I kept explaining to them that it was supposed to be a surprise!

I love these cards because they hit every common core standard and they are super easy to use! You can find them for different grade levels below:

Kindergarten

First
Second
Third
Fourth

Fifth

Let me know if you've tried these out!

Common Core is getting HOT, HOT, HOT!!

Are you ready to get HOT, HOT, HOT with Common Core this year?! I certainly am!! ;)

School is approaching and most of us are beginning (or continuing) Common Core in our classrooms. This pack is a wonderful way to have FUN with your students all while assessing them, reviewing skills, and making sure you cover all areas of the Math Common Core!

You may be wondering what exactly a 'Hot Seat' is.  Hot Seats are questions that are stuck underneath your students' chairs with a small piece of tape before they get to class. This is not done everyday...it is totally random, which makes it SO much more exciting! When students take their seats, you can choose your time to announce that there are 'hot seats'. Students will check under their seats and if they have a question...uh oh! They will have to show you how much they know by attempting to answer the question. If they don't know the answer they can grab a lifeline (a friend) to help them out!

There are 8 questions for EVERY kindergarten math Common Core standard. This gives you plenty of variety and plenty of questions to use ALL year long!! The students will have a blast!! They will be so excited and even start checking under their seats before you make an announcement! Who doesn't want their students to be excited about learning?!

Click on the picture below to check out the Hot Seat packet on TPT. 

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It is FREEBIE Friday!!! So grab a FREE page of the Common Core HOT Seat to use with your students by downloading the PREVIEW!! Click on the image below

If you teach another grade other than Kindergarten, don't worry! I have first grade and second grade on my to-do list and will get them done as soon as I can. Teach an upper grade? No need to worry either!! Fifth grade was created by  Little Lovely Leaders, and she will make fourth and third as soon as she has the time :) Click on the picture below (or send your 5th grade teacher friends) to grab you FREEBIE for fifth grade Hot Seats!

Can't wait to hear what you think!!! :)