LOTS of Cat-tivities and Freebies!

We are working our way though letters, and this week one of the letters was "Cc."  So, when my little sweetie brought in cucumbers and carrots for snack, my day was complete!  Of course I had to make the kids turn their cucumber pieces into a "C" before they could just enjoy them. They were probably thinking the work learning never ends...

Cat Cookie day  is favorite of mine, probably because it is another one of the my children's favorites. It's fun any time of the year.  "Cat" is always a word the kids are proud that they can write.  It is fun for Halloween black cats, too. You could just make the frosting black and be all set!

I always make a poster for the room.  The kids love love looking at it and remembering their cats.

I am doing a little throw-back post because it has ALL of my great Cat Freebies and At Freebies.  I refer to this post when I have my Cat Day, so in case you missed it, I wanted to share it again!

Here is the "recipe" if you would like it.  (Don't get too excited- it isn't an old family secret or anything.) Just click on the picture below!  I make some copies for the children to look at as we make the cookies, then I send a copy home with each child with his/her cat cookie picture stapled to it.

The children follow the directions and make their own cat cookie.  I take a picture of each child with the cookie before it is eaten and send it home stapled to the recipe. That way, they can remember their cat and eat it, too.

 Making these cookies is a great lesson about following directions, carefully spreading the frosting, using a plastic knife ( not licking the knife...), and counting. Most of the children have never spread frosting.  One little boy said, "This is the second time I have used a knife. The other time was with our butter!"

We do lots of "at-tivities" before we make our cookies. (Sorry- I couldn't resist...)
I have a box of Word Family files.  In each file, I keep the activities that I to use for teaching that word family, as well as photo-copies of the titles of the books I use for that word family. For example, here is a look at some of the things in my "at" file:

(I have Word Wall Roll games for each word family made and ready in each file.)



I like to  copy the cover of the books I use and slip them into the folder, so that way I don't forget what ones work well.

I also keep copies of the activities that go with the book inside the front cover of the book, so that if I pull a book, the activity is right there with it.  This is so helpful if you need a quick sub plan, or have an unexpected chunk of time to fill, because the activity is right inside the book. For example, these were a couple ideas I had in the front cover of Only the Cat Saw that may be great for another day:

Only the Cat Saw is a sweet story with beautiful illustrations.  We had great conversations about what goes on outside when we are asleep, or what we think happens inside the school when we are gone!  (Hmmm- that's a good question!)  Here is a sample of the inside of the book to give you an idea.  The text is hard to see, but father is singing to the baby, and mother is giving the little girl a bath and only the cat saw... the beautiful fireflies.  (This also starts the heated debate whether they are called 'fireflies' or 'lightning bugs.')

After we read some cat stories, we made an interactive writing "at" chart. (Don't judge the pictures- it was a quickie.  But even if I had all the time in the world, those would probably still be the way my pictures look, so- go ahead and judge. It's not pretty.)

                                                  

There are so many fun cat books to use in the classroom!  Here are some of my favorites:

We read Millions of Cats to begin our Cat Day.  I like using this book because the illustrations are black and white and SO detailed. It is a little different than lots of our read aloud books.  I am always surprised how much the children always love this book, because it is harder to see the illustrations in a group on the rug.  Today, I showed some of the illustrations on the Smartboard after we read the book, just so we could take a closer look.

We learn to draw a cat after we read the story.  I have them draw as many different cats as they can on one page! It is a fun activity that lets the children practice details and lots of creativity. Andertoons has a cute page to teach how to draw a cat. We do an interactive writing activity to practice drawing a few cats before we head off to experiment with our own.

Cartoon Factory has this one:

Here is a little Youtube How To:

Square Cat is another sweet book.

This is a good book for making connections with Spookly the Square Pumpkin when we read that soon- and an easy idea for a square cat craft.    Here is a review from Amazon:
Eula is the only square cat in town. Everything that normal cats do is hard for her -- she can't get her square paw into mouse holes, she can't wear her favorite circle skirt, and all of her friends are round! Eula is sad until her two best friends show her just how well a square cat can fit into this round world.

We did a little "chunking" with the "at" blend.

We made this little "at" cat.  I have had this for EVER. I got it from an old Mailbox magazine years ago.  It is a really fun little activity, and the children love making it. 

Next, I found some fabulous  word family freebies for "a" families at TPT!  There are so many wonderful things out there!

This Word Family of the Week "at" Family Book FREEBIE has LOTS of activities from From the Pond's TPT store- and is perfect for "cat" day! It is the freebie part of their big bundle of Kindergarten Writing Books from their TPT store.

Kinder Kids Fun has free Word Family Practice Sheets for the at, ap, et, ig, ug families.  Here is the "at" sheet.  It's a great little quick beginning letter sound activity- and some "at" words to read! You could make these into a book for each child to make.

 

The Word Family Sliders FREEBIE at Julie Van Alst's TPT store are perfect for practicing word families and chunking words.  She has sliders for 18 word families.

I Heart Literacy has a free Word Family Short A Onset and Rime Cards set which includes the following families: -at, -an, -ap, -ag, -ad, and -am. These have great pictures and would make a great center.

Amanda Cole made these cute little Word Family Rotating Houses!  They are really clever, and the kids would love them. This freebie includes a house for "at" and "an."

Latoya Reed has a wonderful "at" Word Family Mini Pack freebie with 14 activities in it!  



Katie Mense made a great Dinosaur Literacy Word Family Center freebie!  The children use magnifying glasses to find the hidden word family word on each bone, then record it.  My kids will love this center! SO much fun!

Valerie Downs made a Smartboard Interactive Lesson for Word Families that is free at her TPT store.  The children can write in the beginning letter to finish the word. This picture is the "an" family, but it also includes -ap, -at, -en, -et, -ig, -it, -og, -op, -ot, -ug, and  -un.     I haven't tried it, but it looks like fun!      

K is for Kinderrific made this cute Write the Room Freebie. You put the bubblegum words around the room ready for the children to find and record.

    

My Chunky Monkey Prezi is FREE at my TPT store.

It has links to some fun word family and blend games and videos.  It is the preview to my Beginning Reading Prezi.  I also bundled my Beginning Reading and Writing Prezis. I use these almost every day!

Have a wonderful day! And thank you for ... checking me-owt.  (My son has this shirt, by the way...)

Five For Friday- October 11th

First of all, I just found this quote and loved it, so I had to share it.

Happy Friday! I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for  Five For Friday! 

Here are some fun things we did this week!



TREASURE BOXES

Treasure Boxes are a quick and easy literacy activity that you already have and don't even know it!  Just gather "treasures" from your classroom into a box- and you are ready to go. (See where the name comes from?! :)  This is a SPECIAL treat for the kids that I only use every so often, and they love it. I love it.  We all love it.  Here are my two treasure boxes just to show you the randomness/simpleness.

This week, I used it for hearing sounds in words.  My top groups

s t r e t c h e d the words out already and wrote lots of sounds they heard.  My beginner groups were able to tell me the beginning sound of the treasure- and many times the ending sound.  Here are some samples from my top groups.  I had my beginners just tell me the sounds they heard this time, not write them. 

The order on front was turtle, baby, snake, pizza, egg.  The back was banana, chip, noodle, fish, frog.

They were ready to hear about the "ch" and "sh" sounds, as well as the "oo" in noodle. They love learning these new grown-up things.  It is a great exposure to new sounds in a small group.

These treasures are great for syllable practice, too. 

Sometimes for morning work, I have five treasures on the table, and the children have to write what they hear in those words on their paper, using their stretchy snake strategy!

You can also use your treasure box to have the children write  a sentence about one of the items you lay out.

Later in the year, I like to lay out five or six items, and  have the children write about and describe one of the items I have out. I have the children share their descriptions with class so we can all  guess which item was chosen from the description. I like to share their writing on the Elmo, so I can praise it up and point out all the wonderful letter formations, spaces, details...  This is a great activity that requires the children to add detail to their writing and write more than a few words- and it helps the children realize how important writing is for sharing information. 

This weekend,  we are shuffling off to Buffalo to stay over night and to watch my Emily swim in her first swim meet of her last season of college swimming! Go Niagara Purple Eagles!  I had to put that one in there!  

SUPERMAN!

This is Jeff's masterpiece for his school district's town's scarecrow contest.  I wanted him to name it "Superintendent Man."  He didn't love that as much as I did. He was disappointed that Superman had to sit on a hay bale, but we could NOT get him to stand-let alone fly anywhere.  He is taking a break before saving the day.

A BAD CASE OF STRIPES

I found this idea from I (heart) Crafty Things. I loved it!  We read A Bad Case of Stripes, and talked about how special and wonderful it is that we are all different.  We learned the word "unique."  We talked about how even though we all like different things, grow at different times, are able to do some things sooner or later than our friends, or look different on the outside,  we are all alike because we want to have friends, we want friends to be kind to us, we want people to fill our buckets.  We are all alike because in our classroom we are kind friends and we try to fill other people's buckets. 

We read ABC I Like Me.

During small group time, I had each child write, "I like me!" on his/her striped pictures.  We talked about starting with a capital letter, leaving spaces between words, neat printing, and that fabulous exclamation point!  They did a great job!

After this activity, we did our little M&M's character ed activity.  First the children get to choose their favorite color m&m and eat it.  The next time, they have to close their eyes and pick an unknown color and eat it.  THEN, they have to tell me what color they ate. 

After they decided they can't tell the color- we talk about how that outside color doesn't matter, but we are all the same on the inside, like those M&M's - no matter what we look like on the outside- red hair, brown hair, blue eyes, tall, short... (Don't you just want to sing, "Red and yellow, black and white, we are precious in His sight?" right now? :) I do!)

We model how it is NO FUN to cheat because it ruins the game. It is easy to tell the color when you open your eyes and cheat... They sort of need to be reminded of that.  After that, I didn't have anyone even try to cheat.  I learned that once the jig is up- you don't even try to pull it off.

Without further ado...# 5...  If you haven't gotten a chance to see my TPT FREEBIE Posts- you can click on the pictures below to check out some  LOTS of awesome freebies for Halloween!

(These were for my cat cookies or for your Halloween cats!)

OH Wait- a couple more quick "ados"  (is that a word?! no. Pretty sure. no.) Anyway, I just started a FACEBOOK PAGE!!  YES I DID! 

I was so nervous- not quite sure why I was so nervous, but to give you some idea, I made it in July and just got the nerve to publish it.  I KNOW.  WHY?!  Anyway, if you would like to stop by and like it, I would love you for it.  It is Kindergarten: Holding Hands and Sticking Together.   Thank you. :) 

Have a WONDERFUL weekend!