All New September Holidays and Celebrations Free Resources, Poems, and Activities

There are many special days in September and of course the beginning of school that I've revised updated some some of my old posts to bring you these great websites with free resources and activities that you may like to check out. I've also included other resources that you may find useful.

First of all there is Labor Day which is celebrated on the 1st Monday in September. It is a great time to talk about the different jobs that people do. You can find some great free resources and free printables about Labor Day at Apples4theTeacher and thematic books about workers. You can find more free resources at Education World which would be great for grades 2-5.

Grandparents Day which is celebrated on the Sunday following Labor Day is a special day for children and their grandparents. Many teachers in the younger grades invite grandparents to their classrooms. I found this great website with a fun song at National Grandparents Day.com You will also find other teacher resources and free lesson plans. If you are looking for some fun crafts to make then you will want to visit dltk.

For those of you who want free resources about September 11th you may want to check out these at TeacherHub. I have a great bog post with lots of free resources that can fine HERE.  For younger students you may want to do a lesson about Heroes. I also have a Heroes unit which you might like to check out which is for Grades K-2. It has been revised and updated and includes a S'more Hero Book that students can make. Just click on the image below to check it out.

I have just added a new freebie for September 11th for K-2. You can download your free Hero Poetry Packet by clicking on the image below. I hope you will leave feedback.

September 17th is Constitution Day. Many 2nd and 3rd graders learn about the constitution. I found a website that offers teaching units about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights which you can access by clicking here You can also find free resources at Scholastic and apples4the teacher. You may also want to check out my "Celebrating Constitution Day" which has been my best seller since 2012. It has been revised updated twice so if you had purchased the original or first revision please be sure to go to your purchase page and download this latest one. When you download the Preview file you will see sample pages of all the reading activities and many of the other activities in this packet.

Of course fall begins in September although it may still feel like summer in many places in the Unites States. It is my favorite season of the year. I have not only written a few Fall Poems but a fun Fall Play called "How Will I Know When It Is Fall?" There are character cards for students to wear as they act out their parts. Some teachers used the play as Readers Theater. There are poems about School, Labor Day, Grandparents Day, Fall, and more. You can see all of these poems and activities in my new and revised September Poetry Unit by clicking on the picture below. The Preview file has sample pages of all the poems and many of the activities that go with each poem.

If you are interested in just my Fall Play and a new Readers theater Script called "The Signs of Fall" you may want to check out my revised and updated Fall Plays and Readers Theater Packet by clicking on the image below.

Did you know that September 19th is Talk like a Pirate Day? I have put together this free "Talk like a Pirate Day" Literacy Activities Packet.

You can download this freebie by clicking on the image below.

Wow, that's a lot of September resources. I hope you find something useful for your students. 

 Be sure to check out all my Pinterest Boards and follow so you can find lots of great resources and educational tips and information.

Thanks for all you do to make a difference for your students. I hope you have a wonderful start to the new school year.

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September 11th Free Resources and Activities

A few years ago I wrote a post about September 11th. It is not an easy topic to talk to young children about.  I think about all the heroes of that day that risked their lives to save others. A great way to honor them is to talk about Heroes.

September 11th is very personal to me as I grew up 18 miles north of NYC and several of my relatives worked in the city and were there that day and could see the towers burning from their offices. My sister-in-laws brother was the first fireman to go into the Twin Towers. On that day we were in Anchorage, Alaska and my daughter called and woke us up at 5:00 am because we were 4 hours behind east coast time. My cousin, who lived in New Jersey, described all the cars in the parking lot at the train station that were there for days after the attack of those that didn't survive. Whatever grade you teach it is important to remember that day each year. There are so many wonderful resources that I have put together some great websites with free resources, activities, and lessons which you can check out. They are great for all grade levels and parents, too.

To start with you may want to have your students read books about September 11th or do a Read Aloud. I found a list of books at TeachHub. There is also a great list at Amazon which you can check out by clicking on the picture below. This one is for K-2.

If you are looking for some free lessons plans for all grades K-12 then click on the picture below. There are Foundational Lesson Plans for K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 

9-12. You will also find Videos and Tips for talking to Children about 9/11.

You can also find lots of resources at Scholastic which you can access by clicking on the picture below.

If you are still looking for more you can check out Edutopia which is geared more for intermediate students and older.

To honor the memories of the fallen I wrote a unit called "Heroes" for grades K-2. I have revised and updated the original one last year and it is one of my best sellers. It has a Shared Reading Book, Mini Books at each grade level , Hero Word and Adjective Webs, Writing Activities and a Word Wall. . If you would like to see more of my unit you can click on the picture below.

Heroes is a Great Unit to teach Anytime of the Year! Not just on Patriots' Day.

Students will love making a S'more Hero Sandwich Book that they can make.

I have put together a free Hero Poems and Writing Packet for Grades 1-3 that There are 2 poems, 2 Adjective Word Webs and a 2 Writing Activity to choose from. 

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Here are a my grade level boards you might like to follow:

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Thanks for all you do to make a difference for your students. Let's remember all the heroes of that day and all who are still fighting for our country overseas.

What activities do you do with your students on September 11th?

Valentine's Day Writing Activities and Free Writing Activities

Everyone loves Valentine's Day. It's a great holiday to get your students writing. I have had such great feedback on my seasonal writing activities packets that I decided to make one just for Valentine's Day. It is a smaller version than my other ones, but is full of wonderful activities to help students write complete sentences that are found in my other packets. It would be great for those of you who teach Kindergarten who are beginning to teach sentence writing.

To begin with, students need to know:

• What a sentence is
• How to construct a sentence-Word order
• What parts does a complete sentence need to have
• Capitalization, Punctuation, Spelling rules
• Lot of words

You can read a lot more about writing by clicking HERE.

You can download these free Sentence frames by clicking on the image below: They are included in my packet and can be used for whole class instruction with understanding the parts of the sentence as you see in the image below the frames.

In my Valentines Writing Activities Packet students will learn the parts of the sentence using this example:

In order for students to write they need to:

• Have something to write about (Themes are great for this.)
• Know the vocabulary words needed to make a sentence.
• Read and listen to books being read to them about the topic.
• Talk about the books related to the topic.

I have included not only Word Wall Words but also Picture/Word Cards to help students become fluent with the vocabulary. Then students will participate in a whole group activity to make sure they understand what a sentence is and isn't before Making Sentences with Sentence Frames.

There are several other activities such as Unscramble, Write, and Draw as well as 3 different leveled Writing Assessments.

You can read the complete description by clicking on the image below. You can see sample pages of all the writing activities when you download the Preview file.

 

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

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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.

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Here are few you may be interested in:

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

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Be an Earth Protector! Free Resources, Projects, and Activities

Earth Day is only a few weeks away and while I was researching my new product, "Why We Need Earth Day" I read some very disturbing facts about how we are harming our earth. Did you know that the average person throws away 4 pounds of garbage a day? Although the United states has only 5% of the world's population it contributes 40% of the waste. I decided to try to turn the negative statistics into some positive action. Although Earth Day is only 1 day a year, there are lots of things we can all do each and every day. They say that politics is local but I believe that helping our earth is local, too.

What We Know:
We know that we need to recycle, reduce, and reuse. That's easier said than done. The recycling rate of the United States is only 28%. We need to do a much better job. We know that recycling, reducing, and reusing saves energy, water, and land as well as decreases the amount of pollution in our air, water, and land. Here are some activities that your students can do with their families and hopefully get your whole community involved.

Take the Shower Challenge
We all like to take long, hot showers. Did you know that the average person uses 12,000 gallons of water a year. We can save water and energy that it takes to heat the water by taking shorter showers.

• Have students time how long it takes them in the shower from turning on the water to shutting it off. They can get another family member to time them. Have them write down the minutes and seconds and share it in class. As a math activity you can have students find who took the longest and shortest shower.
• Then have them try to reduce their shower time each day. Record the time and chart their progress. 
• This would be a fun activity for the whole family!
• This will not only save water and energy but can lower a family's utility bill!

Be an Earth-Friendly Detective:

Have you ever gone around your home or yard to find things that are not earth-friendly? Challenge students to go home and look in each room and outside and make a list of what they see. Were there lights left on in rooms, water dripping from a faucet, or things thrown away that could have been recycled? This is one of the activities in my "Why We Need Earth Day" Packet.

Keep an Earth Log:

Have students keep an Earth Log of what they do each day to recycle, reduce, and reuse. They would probably do a lot more if they had to keep a daily log. Here's my Earth Blog from my packet.

Saving Food Scraps for Composting

Find out if there are places that make compost near you. Apple cores, banana peels, and other food waste can be recycled into compost. Compost makes a rich fertilizer. Special bins can be set up in your school cafeteria to collect these wastes and then can be transported to one of the composting sites. A great science activity would be to learn how to make compost. Click HERE to get a free power point on how to compost with kids.

I found many Earth Day projects on Pinterest. Click HERE to see them. 

I also found some great lessons, projects, and activities at Education World which you can access by clicking on the picture below.

You can also check out my new product, "Why We Need Earth Day"  for Grades 2-3 by clicking on the picture below. There are a variety of reading and writing activities to teach students about the history of Earth Day and what we can do to help our earth. You can download the preview to see sample pages of all the activities in the packet. All the activities are differentiated at the 2nd and 3rd grade levels.

If you are looking for free resources, craft ideas, and free activities for K-1 just click on the picture below.

Finally for all of my followers and viewers I have put my "Be an Earth Detective" and "Earth Log" in a freebie that you can download by clicking on the picture below. Hope your students enjoy it.

Don't forget to check out all my updated Pinterest Boards by clicking HERE. Hope you will find some new ones to follow.

Thanks for all you do to make a difference for your students. I hope we can begin to do more to take care of our earth each and every day.

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