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“Chocolate Chocolate” Shared Reading Poem

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Valentine’s Day is coming and who doesn’t love chocolate?  I do have a couple of friends who are pretty ambivalent about chocolate.  They can take it or leave it and I think they are….let’s just say I think they’re nuts!!

 We found this fun poem a few years ago and use it every February.  We write the lines on sentence strips and placed them in a pocket chart with some clipart pictures.  Then we read and reread the poem for a few days.  They LOVE taking turns using some fun pointers.  The pointers help students engage with the print and help them learn to use one-to-one matching on the words. 

Some students illustrate a BIG BOOK of the poem.  We made a large book using a chocolate kiss as the “shape”. We wrote the lines of the poem on sentence strips and glued them at the bottom of each page.  Students illustrated the lines of the poem.  They enjoy reading the book in the Library Corner.  

One day we brainstorm list of favorite chocolate treats.  The students pick their own favorite and use the extension paper above.  They add their treat in the blank space and illustrate it.  Some years we make a class book using this cover.  Other years we just send the paper home for their parents to enjoy. Here’s a sample of one student’s paper.

 

All these “pieces” are available on our FREE DOWNLOADS page.

 

 

 

Well, we hope you enjoy a little “chocolate” in your classroom this month….oh, AND a little chocolate in your “mouth”…maybe one with nuts!!

 Jackie & Kylene

“Sweet” Learning Games for Valentine’s Day Fun

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It’s nearing Valentine’s Day and the kiddos are getting soooo excited!  They LOVE writing out their Valentines and passing them out to everyone….even if they need help reading their friends’ names! 
We love to use this time to play lots of fun learning games so we have created quite a few! We just posted a new FREEBIE at our TPT store. It comes with EDITABLE cards so ANY content can be added.  Click {HERE} to download the file. 

It is easy to differentiate skills being practiced with this game by just adding content to match the skill levels of your students.  Here you can see we added math facts, sight words, letter recognition or sight word phrases.  If needed, make different sets of cards for each level (print them on different colored paper!) and every student gets to play the “Candy Shop Game” in a Literacy Center but with cards that are “just right” for that group. 

Here is another of our most popular games.  It practices SIGHT words and the students LOVE bumping the other players off a word so they can place their marker there…after reading the word aloud,  of course!! Plus the mats & cards are EDITABLE so again, you can add any words that match the ones your students need to practice!!

This TRICKY game is also a favorite of our students!  They really like it when we bring out another TRICKY game based on the “theme” we are studying in class at that time.  And you know, if the clipart on the cards changes…like Tricky Spiders or Tricky Ghosts or Tricky Pirates...it’s a DIFFERENT game to the kiddos!  The beauty of using games that have a familiar format is once you’ve taught them how to play a game like Tricky Love Bugs,  you never have to teach the format again…just whip out a new “themed” game and off they go!  

Well, we hope you have a sweet and fun Valentine’s Day this year!  Have fun playing some great Learning Games!!

Jackie & Kylene 

 

Fabulous..and frantic(?) February!

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Slide2 You’d better get your track shoes on!  February is a very busy month and it is sometimes a challenge trying to fit it all in! 

First out of the the gate is Groundhog Day (Feb. 2)  What a tradition this has become…especially since the funny movie “Groundhog Day” with Bill Murray! Groundhog Day moviePunxsutawney Phil has been predicting the weather in Pennsylvania as the official oracle since 1887!  Not sure why he is so honored as he is only right about the weather 40% of the time! Oh well, it sure is fun to see what he will predict!  Of course, we have a song about Phil and some other activities in our product pictured below!   

Click {HERE} to link to it at our TPT store. Slide3

 

 

 

 

 

Some time in February, Kindergarten and 1st Grade classrooms celebrate the 100th Day of School with lots of activities such as counting collections of small objects and enjoying snacks made with 100 pieces of different foods like Fruit Loops, Skittles and popcorn.  We always look forward to this day of fun since we started counting the days in school from DAY 1 sometime in August ! We often wonder if the 100th day would EVER get here! And of course, it comes in one of the busiest months of the school year…February! Whew! Here are some of our FAVORITE books to read aloud to help celebrate this fun day! 

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Our U. S. Presidents are honored next in February! Boy, it sure would have been helpful if Abe Lincoln had had his birthday AFTER Washington.  The little ones have such trouble getting the concept of who came first…but with Lincoln’s birthday on the 12th and George Washington’s on the 22nd,  they are both celebrated as important figures in our American history. We are very proud of our product that highlights their lives in an engaging song. The larger product comes with a ton of literacy and math activities but check out this FREEBIE to get a hint of the bigger product! Click {HERE} to find it!  Below is a sample of a mini-movies of one of the Singable poems included in the FREEBIE….Abraham Lincoln.  

The larger product has a Mini-movie for the Singable poem about George Washington AND a longer movie that features BOTH entitled “Two Presidents”! Oh, we also snuck in some Math activities that include counting by 10’s and counting pennies so these activities blend with 100’s Day…’cuz chances are these celebrations are happenin’ pretty close to each other! Click {HERE} to check it out!

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Guess what else! This is a Leap Year so at least we get one more day in February to fit it all in! YAY!leap-day

But wait…there’s MORE! Valentine’s Day pops up on the 14th and we gotta get in some LOVE! Our students always go bonkers over Valentine’s Day…..guess it might be because of the bits of candy that come with their Valentine cards now!  Slide1Our Freebie game has easy peasy prep…just print and play! It provides lots of practice building and reading C-V-C words…just right for this time of year in Kindergarten OR some extra fun practice for 1st graders!  Click {HERE} to find it at our TPT store.  There’s even a black and white version with a Parent Directions Letter you can send home for some ‘at-home’ practice!  We have lots of singables and learning games for Februry so check out ALL our February products by clicking {HERE}!

PrintNow, in order to survive this hectic month, you MUST eat a small piece of chocolate every day! Doctor’s orders!  

Have a fun, fabulous, and hopefully not TOO frantic February…and we’ll see you again soon! logo
Jackie & Kylene

 

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