Literacy

Professional Development

6 Activities to Help You Teach All About Insects

Spring is definitely here and this is the perfect time of year to teach your little learners about insects! I love how our science standards help us tackle this, but I also thoroughly enjoy integrating it in reading and writing! These insect activities will help you engage students, teach standards, and reach every learner. Read […]

9 Must Make Anchor Charts for Science

These 9 must make anchor charts for science are easy to recreate! Students in kindergarten, first grade, and second grade will love using them. #4 is always a hit in my classroom! #science #anchorcharts

You have heard me talk here and here about my love for anchor charts.  It continues today as I highlight some of my favorite science anchor charts! This science anchor chart by Chalk Talk caught my eye quickly! It is great to create you discuss plant parts. My little scientists always enjoyed learning that the food they […]

4 Pumpkin Literacy Activities for Kindergarten and First Grade [+ A Freebie!]

One thing I have learned over the years is that no matter the child, drawing on a relevant, engaging topic that brings excitement benefits our learning environment. Depending on the time of year, it can be life cycles, animals, insects, or even pumpkins. The fall is so fun and is a great time to bring […]

All About Apples and a Poetry FREEBIE

Integrating Apples into science, reading, and writing is not only simple, but engaging! It's the perfect way to hook your little learners!

Fall is right around the corner.  That means pumpkin spice lattes, apples, and college football!  Usually by the third week of school, we are ready to move from back-to-school themed books to apples. My students always enjoy apple activities as I integrate it into our balanced literacy and science. Let’s take a peek!  Here are […]

Interactive Science Notebook Tips

Interactive science notebook tips for kindergarten and first grade that are genius! I love the elastic idea she shared!

I have been using science interactive notebooks since my first year of teaching.  I had a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful science teaching coach who was all about using science interactive notebooks in the classroom.  It was a bit of a struggle for me to get them going.  Some years were better than others for implementing them, but […]

Mammals, Insects, and Life Cycles

The spring time in the classroom is the perfect time to engage learners as they learn about mammals, insects, and life cycles. These ideas are perfect for kindergarten and first grade!

Spring is in full swing around here! We have had our days of crazy rain, thunderstorms, tornado warnings lately, followed by gorgeous sunny days like today.  I thought I’d take some time to share some Spring Science Classroom Resources with you all. It’s the time of year that you start dragging…the end of year count […]

Fun Earth Day Activities

These earth day activities are engaging, interactive, and perfect for your first grade and kindergarten students! They include a unit plan, help integrate reading and writing, and are sure to be fun for your learners! Everything is laid out!

Earth Day is just around the corner! April 22 to be exact! It is the perfect time to discuss what we can do to help save the earth and be better citizens in our communities. We talk about the importance of recycling, reducing our waste, and reusing things over and over. I always love celebrating […]

Learning All About Birds Unit: Engaging Activities and Ideas

Studying the characteristics of birds is made engaging, fun, and interactive with these bird activities for little learners!

If your science lesson plans are struggling a bit, listen up! Teaching your students all about birds in a fun bird unit can bring science to life in. your classroom. I have a few fun ways to also integrate science into literacy so that you can reinforce these skills all day long. I’m excited to […]

Integrating Penguins

Integrating penguins into your literacy and science time is easy with these penguin activities for kindergarten and first grade! There's everything from anchor charts, printables, sorts, interactive notebook activities, and more! #allaboutpenguins #firstgrade

Penguins are always a fascinating animal that the kids enjoy learning about.  They just get so excited!! I mean think about it, how often do they get to see penguins in real life? Maybe at the zoo…maybe.  Other than that, it’s like they are some sort of mystical animal that is funny in a movies! […]

Integrating Spiders into Your Curriculum

These spider activities are great for comparing spiders to insects, learning about different types of spiders, and integrating it into reading!

Often times I hear Texas teachers say, “I’d love to teach more thematically, but those things just aren’t in our curriculum.”  They are right. We don’t have scarecrows, bats, or spiders.  But we do have science standards and reading standards that allow us to work in these FUN and engaging topics! The Reading TEKS are […]

Insects Galore!

Insects activities for little learners as they step into research! Teaching basic research skills can be fun. Grab a few ideas for your classroom and try them out! #insects #firstgrade

Oh, how I have missed blogging lately! Life hast just been super busy with “nesting” both at home and school.  I have 4 weeks left. Count ’em…1…2….3…4!!!! AHHH! We are getting so excited about meeting our little guy! Anyway, on to insects! Lately we have been enjoying insects in our classroom as we have dove […]

Living and Nonliving Things

Teach living and nonliving things with your kindergarten, first grade, and second grade students with these fun ideas! Activities for experiments, anchor charts, and interactive notebooks. My students loved the craft! #firstgrade #secondgrade

Spring simply lends itself to exploring living and nonliving things in the classroom. It’s so simple to begin to explain the characteristics of each because they are easily found around us as animals and plants grow and change. It’s a concept so simple, yet the students always have so much fun exploring it! *Amazon affiliate […]

A Little Catch Up

I seriously have told myself about 100 times lately, “I must sit down and blog. I really need to blog. I should spend some time and blog.” As much as I want to, I just haven’t had time. When I have had time, I’m busy working on things for my classroom! With going back to […]

Science Journaling

One of my favorite things I started last year was a science journal.  I had tried it before, but it was never consistent, and it was always a flop.  This year, a teammate said, “I went to a workshop on science journaling and I’m going to do it!” Things are always more fun with you […]

Throwback Thursday!

Happy 4th of July!!!  What a privilege it is to live in America and be free!!! To be honest, I struggle at times with why the Lord picked me to be born and raised here.  Not all are.  It’s easy to be a Christian in America; that’s not the case in other places.  I am […]

Earth Day Writing Freebie!

Get your students writing about how they will save the earth with this free writing template! Follow the directions provided to complete a crayon resist, too!

When Earth Day is around the corner, we hit the ground running with some Earth Day fun! From integrating literature to writing to building things from recycled materials, we are all about talking, thinking, and exploring what it means and looks like to be a better citizen of our Earth! We started the week by […]

Problem Solving Problems!

I think they call it “problem solving” within the math realm for a reason! Ya’ll, this is TOUGH for my kids! Maybe it’s the just the way the problems are worded and how they have to secretly solve for “x”….(HELLO ALGEBRA IN FIRST GRADE!!!), but it is just plain hard. After teaching it for 3 […]

SALE, SALE, SALE!!!

Just popping in quickly to remind you all to hop on over to TpT and fill your cart for the HUGE Cyber Monday plus Tuesday Sale!! Thank you, Amy, for the super cute picture! 🙂 My cart has many, many things in it from several of my favorite bloggers and TpTers! If you are looking for […]

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