Back to School Free Resources, Books, Activities, and Freebies

Hard to believe that in 4 weeks my grand kids will start school. For some, you will be heading back after Labor Day. It's always nice to get a head start on some great resources no matter when you are heading back. I've put together some great free resources, books for the beginning of school, BTS Activities, and Freebies.

I can't imagine the beginning of school without Share Reading Books. Although many use David Shannon's, "David Goes to School" when talking about school behavior and rules there are many others. I found 2 great lists you can check out by clicking on the images below.

If you are a new teacher you may want to check out these tips by Scholastic. Just click on the image below.

I have also written one called "Creating a Classroom Vision" which may also be helpful to new teachers.

If you are looking for stores offering Teacher Discounts you can read all about them by clicking on the images below.

For those of you who are in states that use the Common Core Standards, I have found some wonderful Parent Guides To Student Success that would be perfect to hand out on Back to School Night. They have both Math and ELA Guides for Grades K-8. Just click on the Image below.

Scholastic has a wealth of free activities and printables for all your Back to School needs to help with Parent- Teacher Communication, Things you need to get started, Bulletin Board Ideas, Activities, and much more. Just click on the image below.

I have added a few new Back to School Packets to my TpT Store you may want to check out. Here is my 1st Bundle which includes my revised "The People and Places at School" Reading and Writing Activities and my "Back to School Literacy Activities." Save more than 20% on this bundle. Just click on the image below to download the preview files.

Here is my newest packet that I just uploaded today: 3 Emergent Readers and Activities. I have also revised my Preview files so you can see sample pages of 2 of the 3 Emergent Readers and Activities. Just click the image below.

I hope you find some great ideas and resources for your Back to School needs. I know that there are many more resources out there but these will definitely give you a head start. Thanks for all you do to make a different for your students. Hope you have a great start to the new school year.

Make sure you check out all my Pinterest Boards and follow. I have been adding lots of great pins with wonderful ideas and free resources for all your teaching needs. 

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Creating a Caring Classroom with Class Meetings

One of the best ways to not only get to know your students at the beginning of the year but also create a caring community is to have class meetings. As part of the Student Intervention Team at my Title I school in Alaska, I was often amazed at how little some teachers really knew about a student that they had referred. Many of the students being referred were ESL students and often I knew more about these students than their classroom teacher. Usually these teachers also had behavior management issues as well. For me, there was nothing more important than getting to know my students and for my students to get to know each other, especially at the beginning of the school year.

Although I've seen class meetings used very effectively in elementary intermediate grades it is just as effective in the primary grades. For younger children it is a great way to either begin your week or end you week, but it always should be scheduled on the same day and time each week as students like to follow a routine. Your 15 to 20 minutes a week on a class meeting will go a long way in creating a warm and caring class climate for the whole school year.

Here are some good rules for class meetings:

• Respect for everyone
• Put ups- (no put-downs)
• Be a good listener
• Student's right to pass when it is their turn    

You may also want to use a special signal to keep the meeting under control. One idea is to use "talking chips." I used these colored transparent ones that you can find at Walmart or Amazon.

There are always students in your class who do all the talking and those that don't talk at all. It may take a few times to practice this technique but they catch on really quickly and really think it's fun. Give each student a talking chip. They can only use their chip one time during the meeting. After starting the meeting with a prompt for everyone to share, pick a student to begin. Once they have finished talking, they put their chip in the middle of the circle. Students are not allowed to talk if they don't have a Talking Chip. It is a fun way to teach and practice good listening skills. Here are a few ideas for prompts for the primary grades:

• Say something nice about someone in our class.
• One thing I like about our class is.......
• My favorite activity was.......................
• Something nice that happened to me was...............
• Something I am good at is........................

Class meetings are also good for resolving problems that have occurred and teach about problem solving strategies. Many Title I schools had Guidance Counselors that do activities like this once a week but even if you do, I feel that it is such an important part of creating a sense of community in your classroom where students feel valued for their feelings and opinions. It is not only a way for you connect with your students but for your students to connect with each other.

I have some fun Back to School Activity Packets for both K-1 and 2-5 with lots of activities for the 1st weeks of school to help create a caring classroom. Just click on either grade level to see all the activities in each packet. (download the Preview file)
                                          (K-1)                            (2-5)

You can also download this Freebie that includes 2 Fun Chants about Being Respectful. This one is for grades 3-5. Hope you will leave feedback. Thank you.

I just uploaded this Free "Getting Along at School" Poem and Writing Activities Packet which you can download by clicking on the image below. Don't forget to leave feedback. Thank you.

Thanks for all you do to make a difference for your students. Although most of you won't be going back to school for several weeks I hope you have a great start to the new school year.

Looking for some great Pinterest boards to follow? I have lots of great boards for all your educational needs. You may especially like my most popular one below. Thanks for following me on Pinterest.

                             

Thanks for all you do to make a difference for your students.
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What do you do to create a sense of community in your classroom?

Back to School Literacy Activities and A Freebie

Literacy activities help students become better readers and writers. Activities can target specific skills such as building vocabulary, decoding words, improving grammar and writing skill, and activities to  improve fluency. When literacy activities are used with thematic units they give students more opportunities to use the words associated with the theme and become more proficient at reading and feel successful. 

I have been busy with creating new "Back to School" packets for Fluency and Writing and just finished and uploaded my new "Back to School Literacy Activities" Packet. There are 9 Literacy activities included. All can be used as Literacy Center Activities and there are some Whole Class Activities to teach and review the skills to assess students' understanding. There are Picture/Word Card Activities and 2 different Noun Sorts: People, Place, or Thing and Proper Nouns, Compound Nouns, and Common Nouns. Students will also make Compound Words with word cards and write sentences using 3 of their words as well as Sort Schools Words into 1, 2, 3, and 4 Syllable words.

There is an End Punctuation Sentence Sort where students will sort sentences that end with periods, question marks, and exclamation points and then writing them correctly. There is a set of sentences for end punctuation only and one set where students will have to make the 1st letter a Capital letter as well as add the end punctuation. The final 3 activities include, ABC Order, an Initial Blend coloring activity and a Write the Room activity with School words. 

Just click on the image below to check out this packet. When you download the Preview you will see sample pages of all the activities in this packet.

I have put together a great Freebie packet of 2 "I Spy" literacy activities where students will match a clue with picture/word card or word card and then write their answers on their recording card as you can see below. (B/W copy included.) There is one activity with School Things and one with School People and Places.

To download your free packet just click on the image below.

Hope you will check out all my new Pinterest Boards by clicking HERE. You will find specific grade level boards from K-5 as well as preschool, seasonal boards and my most popular:

Thanks for all you do to make a difference for students. Have a great start to the new school year.

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Back to School Tips for Getting Started with Writing Using Sentence Frames and Free Activities

For many of you, you will be heading back to school within the next few weeks. Then you will be spending the first few weeks with getting to know you activities, class behavior expectations, practicing routines, and assessing students in reading and writing. For those of you who teach 1st and 2nd grade you will be reviewing the writing process. You may find many students who struggle to write a complete sentence. Students need to have lots of words and ideas to write about. I love using themes to help students with writing. Using themes gives students multiple exposures to rich and robust words and content vocabulary through:

• read alouds
• talking about the words and ideas during read alouds
• reading texts about a specific topic

Once students have lots of words in their word bank related to a specific theme or topic, they need to start writing about the topic. I always start with whole class Teacher- Directed activities with lots of guided practice and informal assessments before adding Student-Centered independent practice during literacy center time. Last year I created my 1st writing packet, "Fall Edition of Making Sentences with Sentence Frames" and wrote a blog post about writing which you can access by clicking HERE. I had such nice feedback on the packet that I made other thematic writing units. So, I decided to create a "Back to School Edition of Writing Sentences with Sentence Frames"  to help teachers get started with writing during the 1st month of school. 

I like to start with an activity to find out what school-related words my students already know. I like to do "Shout Outs" and write all the words on a big piece of poster or butcher paper with the word School in a big oval in the center. I try to keep it up all during the unit and have students add more words to it. Then I do activities to build background for them. I introduce the Word Wall Words to see which ones they know and go over the new words. I like to have them act out the verbs like "carrying, eating, writing, reading, listening etc. to assess their understanding. I also use picture word cards for matching in different ways. One fun activity is to give out one picture or word card to each student. Then they would find their partner with the matching word or picture. Then each student would have to use the word in a sentence. This can be repeated for several days and then added as a picture/word matching center activity to give students more practice with the target vocabulary.

Then I would start each day with a Read Aloud of a "Back to School" themed book and give questions for students to discuss related to the book. There are so many great books for the theme of "Back to School."

Now it's time to start teaching about writing sentences. Most important of all is to teach what a sentence is. 

Then I would write phrases and sentences on sentence strips. I'd hold up each strip and have them give a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" to assess their understanding of a sentence. I make a set of the 3 sentence parts, laminate them, and give a set to each student. I have a larger set in my pocket chart.

Here are samples of the sentence frames from my packet to hold up one at a time. After holding up a part, students will hold up the sentence part card. When you hold "is sitting" students should hold up the "is doing or did" train part. Then put that part in the pocket chart under the "is doing or did" train part.

For a 4 part sentence you would use the one below.

It is also important to talk about Capitalization and Punctuation. After making sure your students under the parts of a sentence they can practice making sentences with sentence frames in a literacy center. Students will make sentences from cut up sentence parts and then write them on their writing sheet. Here is a sample from my packet below.

It's important to begin each new lesson by reviewing previous learning. This is especially important for your ESL and low performing students. Each of the activities in this unit builds on the previous ones. Next students match picture/sentence cards to assess their comprehension and then unscramble sentences, write the sentence, and draw a picture. Here is a sample below.

Finally students are assessed with a group of words that they can use to write sentences. This is 1 sample of the word list. Each group of words is differentiated for 1st and 2nd grade.

To check out this packet, you can click on the image below and download the Preview file.

I hope you will check out all my new Pinterest Board and follow. Just click HERE
Here are few you may be interested in:

Thanks for all you do to make a difference for your students.

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Bright Ideas: Behavior Management Ideas for the Beginning of School

It's hard to believe that it's July and that many of you will be heading back at the end of this month for training and in- services before the start of the new school year. Whether you had a great group of students last year or a difficult group to manage, you will soon be faced with a whole new group of shiny faces for the new school year. Class management is critical during the first 2 weeks of school to ensure that the greatest amount of time during the day will be spent on teaching and learning! I'm so excited to be part of July's Bright Ideas Blog Hop. I've put together some Bright Ideas about Behavior Management to think about over the next several weeks. 

Tip #1: Decide what your behavior expectations are and how to manage your students during  class time, moving to different activities, lining up, walking in the hall, bathroom, etc. 

• Read alouds are fun for primary grades- I love David Goes to School  by David Shannon for establishing class rules. I  actually have used this with older students, too.

• Let students be a part of the rule setting.
• Keep rules simple and easy to understand.
• Phrase rules in a positive way.
• Establish different rules for different activities.
• Chants and songs work well for changing activities for primary grades.
• Behavior raps and chants work well with older students. Here's a sample of one I wrote.

• Choose a quiet signal- and teach it to your students.
• Post the rules so they are visible for students.
• Review rules periodically.
• Remind students of the rules when they misbehave.
• If a rule isn't working, change it!

Tip #2: Practice behavior expectations.

• Practice walking in the hall, moving to centers or changing activities. If you don't get this under control during the first few weeks of school it will be a long, difficult year. This is critical in Title I schools or those that have students with lots of discipline issues.  
• Be prepared to spend a lot of time teaching and rehearsing the rules and procedures at the beginning of the year so that they become routine.

Tip #3: Be consistent with your behavior expectations and consequences!

Hope I've given you some Bright Ideas. If you have enjoyed these Bright Ideas I hope you will consider joining me on Pinterest, Facebook, or Bloglovin to see more Bright Ideas.

Thanks for all you do to make a difference for your students. For more Bright Ideas from more than 80 bloggers, browse through the link-up below to choose a topic/grade level that interests you. Thanks for visiting.

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