May Teaching Resources (Mother's Day, End of Year, and MORE)

Hello Everyone!

I know you are anxious for the end of the school year! My friends and I are trying to make it easy for you to find ideas you need for those last days of teaching. Look at all of the fabulous teaching resources below. 

Here is one of my Mother's Day resources and a FREEBIE SAMPLE of my May Morning Work to help you get started!

In this three page Mother's Day Read and Write pack, students will read the one page Mother's Day story and color the pictures. Then there are two pages with five sentences on each page about the story. Each sentence has a missing word. At the end of each sentence, there are two words for students to choose from to find the correct missing word to tell about the story. Students will circle the word that correctly completes the sentence matching the story on the first page, and then write the correct word in the blank.

This is a great reading and comprehension check for guided reading, a mini lesson, a literacy center, or homework. 

This is a FREEBIE SAMPLE of my MORNING WORK (MAY) - I changed each of these 4 pages slightly from the original product so that those who have already purchased can download and use also.

I hope all of you find some great resources to use in your classroom during May. ENJOY!

Please follow my TPT STORE and my FACEBOOK page to be notified of new products posted and FLASH FREEBIES. 

An InLinkz Link-up

Mother's Day Emergent Reader (Interactive with writing prompts)

Mother's Day is just around the corner! Have your students created their Mother's Day surprise? I always try to find something that the students actually do more of on their own rather than something that requires more work out of the teacher and becomes the teacher's work. When my boys were little, I always loved getting gifts from them that had their writing and drawings, so I try to have my students create these types of gifts also. 

This 16 page Mother's Day Emergent Reader is interactive allowing students to complete the sentence as they write to tell special things about their mom and by adding a drawing to match their sentence. It's always so much fun reading what they write and looking at their cute drawings.

Take a look at some of the pages from this Mother's Day Emergent Reader below with work from four or five of my students in action! This resource includes 16 pages (not all are shown below).

(This student is such a great little artist.)

"My mom likes to eat shrimp and spaghetti." 

(I love her spelling for shrimp and spaghetti.)

"My mom likes to eat watermelon like me."

"Her favorite color is green."

"She likes to shop at the mall and buy clothes."

"She works at home." 

(I love her broom and dustpan.)

"She works at CVS."

"She cooks me breakfast." 

(I love her detailed drawing and her speech bubbles.)

"She cooks macaroni. I love what she cooks." 

(How sweet!)

"My mom likes to play tic-tac-toe."

"My mom likes to play with me outside."

(I love her hearts.)

(another speech  bubble)

I hope you enjoyed seeing my student work on their Mother's Day Emergent Readers as much as I did. I hope you and your students find something to create to surprise their mothers. 

I you are interested in this Mother's Day Emergent Reader, you can find it in my three stores at the links below.

Teachers Pay Teachers: Mother's Day Emergent Reader

Educents: Mother's Day Emergent Reader

Teacher's Notebook: Mother's Day Emergent Reader

You may also want to grab my MAY MORNING WORK FREEBIE SAMPLE!

Thanks for stopping by! 

Leave me a comment below telling what your students create for their moms!

Plants: Planting Seeds and Writing about Plant Parts

Today was our first day back after our late spring break. We only have four weeks left of school, so we got busy planting today. We started discussing plants during the week before our spring break, so the students already had an overview of plants. 

The students planted sunflower seeds in plastic cups, and then they also put lima beans in a zip-loc bag with a wet paper towel. Hopefully they will be able to see all of the plant parts that we have been discussing when our seeds sprout.

My students love writing. They are always asking, 

"When are we going to write?" So, you know what they had to do. That's right. They are writing about plants. I have a great series of books on each plant part. So far, we have read and written about the roots, stem, and leaves. For the remainder of this week, we will write about flowers and seeds. 

Here are a few of their writing samples on plant parts that they wrote after we discussed our informational book. I am super excited about my writers this year. I think they are doing an awesome job! 

"Roots keep plants from rolling away. Carrots are a root to eat. Roots are under ground. Water lilies roots are in mud too. Roots help plants grow." (I love her carrot picture!)

"Roots help plants get water and nutrients. Water lilies have roots that are in the mud so the plant can not float away."

"Stems are like a straw. Stems are different sizes. Stems can be celery. Stems are awesome. You can eat stems" (on back of paper). 

"Plants need sun and air and water. Plants need leaves. Leaves give the plant food. You can eat leaves like lettuce. Leaves have veins." 

(I like how this student labeled what leaves need in order to make food in her picture.)

"Lettuce is a leaf that you can eat. Leaves give food to the plant. The leaves need sun, air, and water. Leaves help plants grow. Leaves need air so they can grow." 

Great job, students! 

Hopefully I can update or add another post when we finish with flowers and seeds.

I hope you enjoyed reading the writing of some of my students. I hope your students enjoy writing about plant parts as much as my students did. 

Leave me a comment below stating what your class is doing as they learn about plants. I love to read your comments!

Thank you for stopping by!

Are your students struggling with SIGHT WORDS?

Learning sight words seems to always be a struggle for some students. I try to find every way possible to help my students learn them. I even made a PowerPoint slideshow with each student holding one of the 75 Fry Words they are required to learn. They love seeing themselves and their classmates on the Promethean board.

These sight word emergent readers that I created have also been a big hit. They are great for guided reading groups and take home readers. My students love reading to their parents each night. These readers are just one more way of helping my students who struggle with learning sight words.

Here is my newest Bundle of sight word emergent readers which includes the first 25 (List 1) of the First Hundred most frequently used sight words. 

Students can benefit from these readers by tracking print, identifying spaces between words, identifying particular letters of the alphabet, recognizing sounds (beginning, middle, and ending) in each word, and reading sight words and grade level text. For extension activities, students could add another sentence to each page giving details about each picture shown. The black and white pictures allow students the opportunity to color the pictures. This reader is great for guided reading groups, homework, or literacy center activities. 

This 650 page bundle includes five bundles of five emergent readers totaling 25 readers. One reader is included for each of these sight words: the, of, and, a, to (bundle 1), in, is, you, that, it (bundle 2), he, was, for, on, are (bundle 3), as, with, his, they, I (bundle 4), at, be, this, have, and from (bundle 5) which are connected to several CCGPS listed below. 

These readers are also available in bundles of five readers and individual readers as shown below. 

You can find PREVIEWS for each of the emergent readers included in this bundle 

at the links below or by clicking on the pictures above:

Emergent Reader Sight Words BUNDLE (at, be, this, have, from)

Emergent Reader Sight Words BUNDLE (the, of, and, a, to)

Emergent Reader Sight Words BUNDLE (in, is, you, that, it)

Emergent Reader Sight Words BUNDLE (he, was, for, on, are)

Emergent Reader Sight Words BUNDLE (as, with, his, they, I)

Each of the 25 readers includes this description: 

This 13 page book includes a title page with bubble letters spelling the focused sight word for students to color, and then 10 pages include a black and white picture at the top of each page with a sentence using the focused sight word. There are two more pages asking students to draw a picture of their own and write a sentence of their own using the sight word. The final page asks students to trace the sight word three times, and then write it three times on their own on the blank line. After this, there are 13 additional pages with the exact pictures and words as the first 13 pages. The only difference is that on this second copy of the book, the sight word being focused on is dotted on each page for students to trace.

The photos below show a few of the individual readers IN ACTION! Only four pages are shown for each reader below. Each reader has 26 pages with the two versions for differentiation as mentioned above. 

The pages of the book are not numbered giving the teacher flexibility of removing pages not desired when using in small guided reading groups for differentiation. 

Each book is designed so that you can copy the book, cut in half, staple, and then it is ready for use.

Here are previews of some of the individual readers.

Each reader is connected to these standards:

ELACCKRF1a. Follow words from left to right, top to bottom, and page-by-page.
ELACCKRF1d. Recognize and name all upper and lowercase letters of the alphabet.
ELACCKRF1b. Recognize that spoken words are represented in written language by specific sequences of letters.
ELACCKRF1c. Understand that words are separated by spaces in print. ELACCKRF3a. Demonstrate basic knowledge of one-to-one letter-sound correspondences by producing the primary or many of more frequent sounds for each consonant. 
ELACCKRF3c. Read common high-frequency words by sight. 
ELACCKRF4. Read emergent-reader texts with purpose and understanding. 

I hope you and your students find these readers to be useful for helping your struggling readers and for sight word practice and reading fluency. 

I appreciate you taking the time to stop by! 

Leave me a comment below telling me what you do to help your students who struggle with learning sight words.

Giveaway for your DREAM CLASSROOM!

To celebrate Teacher Appreciation month, Educents, FreshGrade and the Sellers of Educents have partnered to give educators funding for their dream classrooms. The 7 educators with the most votes will win a combined $10,000!

How to Win

Educators get pretty creative when it comes to raising money to cover expenses for classroom supplies. Many host bake sales, ask the community for second-hand supplies, or pay out of their own pockets. However, there's a new way to get money for your classroom... and it doesn't include raiding the aisles of your local dollar store. It's easy to enter to win the Educents Teacher Appreciation Giveaway, and it still requires a little creativity (see Step 3). Step 1: Save up to $5,000 in products for your dream classroom in your Educents wishlist. Step 2: Click “Enter to Win” on your wishlist page and create your voting profile. Step 3: Share with your friends, family and community and ask them to vote for you every day until May 6. This is your opportunity to get creative - how will you share your wishlist, and how will you involve your community to vote for you?? Ready to get started?