February Step by Step + Centers!

Hey and hello almost February! Today I will be sharing the ins and outs of four KinderLiteracy themes! President’s Day/American Symbols, Dental Health, Kindness and Bodies! I’m going to jump right into the first theme!

It was requested to add a KinderLiteracy President’s day units soooo here you go! This close read read is set up completely different from my other weeks! I help to walk you through that! This week uses TWO books! Both of these books can be purchased from Scholastic or Amazon! So sorry it took two … I just couldn’t find one nonfiction book I liked that covered both topics!

On Monday, you will be reading about the president and his job! You will also discuss the vocabulary words for this book on Monday. (This is different from all other KinderLiteracy weeks.) On Tuesday, you will read the second text and discuss the White House! You will also discuss the vocabulary words relevant to this book on that day as well!

Since we are using two texts… there are more vocabulary words! Below are suggestions for vocabulary actions!

Book 1:

Law: use your hand to represent a gavel

Speech: use your hand to make a pretend microphone

Countries: Use both arms to represent a giant sphere (Earth) and spin around to represent the Earth spinning

Military: marching motion

Book 2:

West Wing: Point west and then use your fingers to represent ‘walking’ as the presidents walks to the West Wing to work

Oval Office: use your hand to pretend that you are busy working and signing papers

White House: Use your arms to make a “roof”

Carpenters: use a hammer to build

The poem for the week!

On Wesdnesday, you will be completing the text dependent questions for book 1 and book 2! The essential question for this week: How can we use the text features to expand our learning? The students will be focusing in on text features! On day 3, the students will answer a mixture of text-dependent questions and text feature questions! On day four, the students will go on a “text features” hunt! If you have a doc camera then you can place the book on that so students can really see those text features: captions, labels, digraphs, headers, table of contents, etc. The students will also help you create a text features anchor chart!

I have also included this American Symbols teacher reader! This would be great to display on the smartboard or print and bind! The kiddos will be introduced to ten American Symbols!

To follow up with the reader, the students will help you to label each of the American symbols!

On Friday, the kiddos will be creating their own White House! Once finished, the project is “3D”.

That’s it for the KinderLiteracy President’s Day unit! This unit is part of both the bundle and KinderLiteracy Unit 8!

Up next is Dental Health week! This is another edition to Unit 8 of KinderLiteracy! This week pairs the main text, Bear’s Loose Tooth, with a nonfiction selection! This week’s essential question also focuses on looking closing at text features! With this week, the students will be noticing text features in both a fiction and nonfiction text! Below are some suggestions for the vocabulary words!

Nibble: pretend to eat something

Savor: save a bite and then make a satisfied sound

Fret: put hands towards face and look scared

Perch: extend one arm out and use other hand to pretend to”land” and sit on the branch (arm)

Pry: pretend to use a hammer to get a nail out

Flutter: use your hand an sway it back and forth

This week’s poem! This one gives me WAY too many visual of loose teeth in the classroom ha… pull that thing out already!

Also included in the unit are these adorable teeth headbands!

As mentioned above, this week the kiddos are focusing on text features! I include the pieces needed for your nonfiction anchor chart. However, I would also illustrate some additional fiction text features examples!

The kiddos also get to help you label the parts of a tooth!

This week’s craft is just TOO CUTE!

Again, the Dental Health weeks is part of KinderLiteracy and found in Unit 8 of KinderLiteracy!

The next two weeks are AWESOME for Kindness month! These two close reads ask that the students look inward … this can be TOUGH for kinders and can need a lot of modeling and front loading from us! Up first is A Bad Case of Stripes!

This close read week hinges on the use of the main text, A Bad Case of Stripes! You are also asked to use the nonfiction book, My Amazing Body! This week’s essential question: How do the illustrations alone tell the “story” in our texts? Again… working on using the book itself to gain additional learning! We learn from the words in the text, but we can also learn from the pictures alone! The “life-based” essential question tugs on the heart strings… How does the way that someone looks affect the way that you treat them?

Below you can see the included vocabulary words and optional vocabulary actions!

Lawn: use your hands to motion the sprawling lawn in front of you

Ointment: squirt ointment out and pretend to place it on your arm

Contagious: pretend to cough

Fret: pretend to be worries

Sob: Pretend to cry

Below is a look at the listen and draws (lawn and sob)…

Using the book, My Amazing Body, the kiddos will learn the different parts of the body and the body functions!

In writing, the students will be writing information reports about their bodies!

One of my favorite writings for this time of the year is The Best Part of Me! The books is great and so powerful!

I then take a quick picture for the kiddos and they write their own stories to match!

On Friday, it’s craft time! There are many different ways you can do this craft but this has been the easiest I’ve found! Give each kiddo a set of colorful strips. They will glue them down onto the paper.

Students will then draw a large circle for their face! You can have them color on the hair then or use additional scrap pieces.

Looks how adorable Daisy Days for Learning’s turned out!

This KinderLiteracy unit is found in the bundle and in Unit 4 as well!

Up next is one of my favorite books! It’s not a traditional kid book so make sure you read it before reading it to the kids or you might all end up crying haha!! Not really but the book is POWERFUL! I feel that with young kiddos they need to “see” situations to full grasp them and apply them to their lives! The week we pair two fiction stories, both revolving around kindness!

On the bubble chart we wrote ways to show kindness!

Below is a look at the day one independent task! The kiddos are asked to represent the changes throughout the book.

The poem for this week is about treating all friends the same!

There is also a piece for the students learning about their emotions!

Below is this week’s vocabulary words and optional actions!

Brilliant: pretend you are seeing something shiny or bright

Ragged: pull on your clothes

Thawed: Make a fist to show an ice cube and then slowly open your hand to show it melting

Ripple: Use your hand to make a wave/rippling motion

Announced: Use your two hands to represent a megaphone

*Vocab Tip* tab your book so you know what pages you’ll find a vocabulary word! Move the tabs on day three to match the text-dependent questions!

This week also offers a couple powerful whole-class activities! Up first is the “wrinkled heart”. For this activity you’ll need to cut out a large heart! Each kiddo will come up and tell a time someone wasn’t kind to them. They will then get to wrinkle the heart. After all students have had a chance to tell their story… you’ll try to smooth out the wrinkles. The students will see that no matter what you try… the wrinkles remain! This helps kids to understand that unkind words can never truly be “erased”. Often times kids think a “sorry” makes everything all better. We want them to take responsibility for their mistakes and apologize… but stopping to think before actually making the mistake is even better!

The Ripple Effect, is the next activity! For this activity you just need small stones (can be purchased from the Dollar Store) and a bucket of water! I chose to do it outside because it will make a small splash! For this activity, the students will state something KIND they did for someone. As they throw the stone into the bucket they’ll watch and see the “ripple” the stone makes! This ripple is the same in real life. When you do something nice for someone they feel loved and will do something kind as well. This ripple continues on and on!

Let’s keep our February chat going with some freebies and fun!

Up first? How about an instant freebie! Download these adorable number puzzlers **HERE** or by clicking below!

Next, I would like to share about my “go to” resource each month, Taking Back Weekends! I now have the packets in Kindergarten, First Grade and Second Grade!

I know when I purchase material …my biggest thing is seeing what I am getting! I always want to make sure that you are able to view my resources so that you can see if they will work for your kiddos! You can view the video below to see the February K and 1st Taking Weekends up close!

Again, in each month you receive writing materials, word work centers, math centers, additional literacy and math practice sheets, content based material, and a simple print sub plan!

You are able to purchase each month separate but I am also currently running a special on both bundles! The kindergarten bundle is on sale for 50+% off! You can view that bundle more **HERE**

The first grade bundle is also on sale for 50+% off! You can view that bundle more **HERE**

Last but not least… the second grade bundle is also on sale for 50+% off! You can view that bundle more **HERE**

Alright, let’s talk CENTERS! I’m excited to share with you a set of freebie PREVIEW centers for Valentines’s Day! Having a set of hands-on and engaging centers is a must to get through the month! All of the centers I share below will be part of the free preview! Please note that these are a condensed version of the centers meaning the actual center will have several more pages/pieces! My center bundles are HUGE and all deeply discounted! Each of the center bundles are on sale for $50 from the $125 regular value! The packets are linked below!

Up first are my Pre-K centers! This center is called Petals Full of Love! The center covers letters A-Z and includes sorting font letters and a beginning sound picture!

Love Bug Shape Clip It! This center has the students look at the “love bugs” and clip the matching shapes!

Let’s talk kinder centers! Up first is Roses for My Valentine! This centers helps student work on number sense for numbers 1-10!

Each of the centers come with an included recording sheet!

Key to My Heart has students work on reading CVC words!

Recording sheet attached!

Now let’s visit about the firstie centers! This center is called Sending Ending Blends! The students will sort the ending blend cards to the correct mailbox!

Recording sheet is attached!

Rosy Place Value! The students pull a card and build the place value on the mat! They use the groups of 10’s and 1’s.

Students record their answers on the sheet!

2nd grade centers! Sweet Resources! This center has students sort the hearts to the resource they should be looked up in (Dictionary, Thesaurus, Encyclopedia)

Place value valentines! The students will add using place value and match the valentines!

Now it’s time to snag your FREEBIE! Grab all of the centers pictured above by clicking HERE or on the image below!

*****You can snag each of my themed center packets for $50, which is $75 off! Each of the themes are $5 each x 25 themes = $125*****

All of my themed center bundles are currently on sale for $50 …an absolute STEAL! You can view more of them directly below!

I also wanted to share with you about FREEBIE these skill focus sheets! They contain the skills covered in each of the center packets! They are great to reference for a quick way to see what skills are covered in both the kindergarten, first grade, second grade, and K/1 themed centers packets! You use the quick access guise to click and go directly to the grade level you need!

Once you have clicked on the grade level you want, you’ll then hit the landing page like this! You’ll want to click on the theme you’re accessing!

You will then be able to visually see what centers are included in that packet and read to see what skills are covered!

You can download these FREEBIE center skill maps for all of my center packets HERE or clicking the image below!

If you remember back to my post after Christmas, Amber, posted a teacher life-changing video in our Facebook group! Amber introduced us to the Brother Scan and Cut machine! The machine is just about as amazing as it sounds! Amber said, “My mom gifted me a scan and cut- I had no idea such thing existed but I’m in love!!!”

Here is a detailed explanation on the machine!

Of course the Scan and Cut wasn’t necessarily designed with teachers cutting centers in mind (darn) but it WORKS for that! You can use it for many additional crafting projects! Just a FYI that I am not sponsored for this post, just something that I can see being beneficial for teachers! I also want to advise that it’s possible that is might not work for every job you have, but it worked perfectly for the samples I tried! I found this additional video to assist in additional options for cutting centers! I purchased this model from Amazon! OH YEAH! DID I MENTION THAT A LUCKY TEACHER WILL WIN A SCAN AND CUT?