Valentines for your Students

Do you know what profession receives the most Valentines? I'm sure you know, it is TEACHERS!! Each Valentine's Day teachers all over the country receive Valentines from their current students, former students, coworkers, administrators and any significant others they may have in their lives. It's so AWESOME! 

So, how about your students?  Do you give them a Valentine each year? Chances are if you are an Elementary grade teacher, you give your students a Valentine card and possibly a small gift on this day of love.

If this is what you do each year, I have a FREEBIE you might be interested in.

This packet contains free Valentines you can give your class. With three to choose from, you are sure to find one to fit your needs:

Quarter Page Size Card: This card can be printed on card stock and given to students.  You can even add a special treat such as a pencil, or lollipop if you want to. Just punch holes or use clear tape to attach.

Treat Bag Tag:  This card is sized so you can print on card stock, cut out and fold over a snack size zip lock bag.  Fill the bags with candy, Goldfish crackers, Teddy Grams or any other treat you would like.

Ruler Valentine: This last one is my favorite! I try to stock up on rulers in August when they are on sale at the beginning of school. Sometimes you can purchase them for as little as 50 cents each.  Then on Valentine's Day, you can use this card to give them to your students as a very special Valentine's gift. 

One year my daughter used these to give to her classmates cute colorful rulers as Valentines.  They loved it!

Activities:
This packet also has a couple of fun Valentine Activities you can do with your students on Valentine's Day:  a Graphing Activity (for which you will need a small box of Conversation Hearts Candy for each student.) and a word scramble:

If you would like to download this Valentine's Freebie   all you have to do is click on the picture below.

I hope you and your students have a great Valentine's Day.  Stop by and visit me at:

QUEEN of the JUNGLE

Until Next Time........

Journal Covers and Pages

I have a late Easter gift for all of you this week! 

 Now most of you have probably been on spring break the past week, well my school ran up until last Friday. I am sure all of you had this same feeling right before spring break. My last day of school before break consisted of the normal chaos and a special treat *sarcasm* of a girl having an accident during our Good Friday Mass. Kindergarten teachers do it all! This was me all Friday.

And this was me on Friday night 

This weekend I enjoyed over eating and spending some quality time with my husband. Now that it is Monday, I am starting my week out productive!

I got a manicure and pedicure,

I went to the dentist,

and ran some errands like a successful adult!

When I came home from my busy and productive Monday I checked my amazing Erin Condren planner and realized I have a blog post due! 

Because I kinda dropped the ball on my blog post,

I am offering everyone a free gift!

These journal cover pages are what I have been working on lately. They are designed for teachers to use as monthly journals or seasonal journals. There are horizontal and vertical styles for each month/season. 

Click on any of the pictures below to bring you to the freebie. 

This will only be free for a week so act fast!

I am now off to enjoy the rest of my spring break!

To 'Bee' or Not to 'Bee'....What's all the buzzzzzzz about HONEYBEES?

Every school year, in the spring, we study insects in depth in our Kindergarten and 1st grade classrooms. The children LOVE it! They are especially captivated (and sometimes scared) by all the bees we have 'visiting' our playground!  Well, bee-lieve it or not these fascinating insects are really a hit with students! Chances are they have eaten honey on a biscuit or piece of bread or eaten a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios! But they don't know where this delicious food comes from...honey that is....and no, it's not just "from the store"!! They really become great admirers of bees and not so frightened 'cuz they know how to bee-have when they see them and NOT swat at them!
                Here are some fascinating facts to share with your students.

Click {HERE} to download these pages. 

Here are some of our favorite books for read-alouds. They help build background knowledge. Click on the link bee-low the picture to find them at Amazon.com or check out your school or public library! You might be surprised at what you can find about bees! 

Books about Bees

Here is a song about honeybees & honey we wrote.  It is easily sung to the tune "Alouette" and comes with a song chart, song/poem journal take-home page, pocket chart cards for teaching the lyrics and a mini-writing book called "Yum! Yum!".  Students can create their own sentences based on the sentence patterns.  Ex. "I like  hamburgers.  My dad makes hamburgers." or "I like salsa. My mom makes salsa." etc.  

 Click {HERE} to download it at our TPT store. 

Here is a song by Jean Warren that we have been using for many years. It is a fun active song that gets your busy bees up and moving around. There are also stick puppets provided so the children can place their bee puppet on their toes, nose, and arms etc. as they sing the song.  Click {HERE} to download this FREEBIE!

BEE sure to reward your students' reading with a "BEE a good reader" bookmarks.  Click {HERE} to download this file. It comes in color or B/W so you can choose which ones to print. 

It is always fun to sample a few bites of delicious honey when studying bees. Try to get some that is locally made (if you can) and spread it on some crackers or small pieces of bread and enjoy!  

Well, we BEE-lieve you will make a BEE-line to 

download our free files!  We also have some 

Bee-themed products we've created.  Click each picture caption to link to the product page. 

 6 Guided Reading books (at 2 levels) with photos & clipart-C & B/W

Fun song with stick puppets, retelling cards etc.

Sight word Game with EDITABLE cards so ANY words can be added!

Path game practicing "ee" and "ea" words     

Song about farm animals (and BEES!) and the food they provide.

We hope you have a great time studying honeybees!  
We bee-lieve you really will!
Jackie & Kylene

Spring Break Freebie

Hello everyone! I'm Angie from Teacher's Big Helper and it's a pleasure to be part of this wonderful group of colleagues! This is my first time sharing some of my ideas with you and I look forward
to sharing much more with you in the future!

Spring Break is over for some of us and just starting for others. Hope everyone gets enough rest and comes back to school recharged and ready to end a great school year! I rested...a lot. I slept in, I shopped, I had lunch with family and friends, and I enjoyed every minute I had at home with my kids! Now, it's time to get ready to go back and listen to all the wonderful stories our little ones have to tell us. Although I know we love to hear all of their stories, we don't have have time to hear the long version from 22 kids. So, here's a little Spring Break Freebie to help your students tell you everything they have to say about their Spring Break.

Spring Break Freebie

Hoping everyone had or is having a wonderful, restful Spring Break!

Angie

Acting Out Positional Words {FREEBIE}

Positional words are a fairly easy concept for students to understand. Even thought it's a math concept, it can help them expand their vocabulary and use better describing words in their writing too. In the past, I've taught positional words with a student holding a teddy bear counter and having to move it around their body depending on the word I said. I decided to make it a bit more interactive and let the kids work together in pairs and act out their positional word to the class. 

 Students were allowed to use anything in the room as a prop to act out their word.

They thought it was really fun that they were allowed to even stand on the chair and tables if needed!

They had a lot of fun with this activity, so I figured I'd whip up a cuter set of flashcards as a FREEBIE for you! 

You can grab these FREE flashcards in my TPT store! 

Celebrating Ireland

Hi, this is Sandra from teaching Treks! With St. Patrick's Day just around the corner, this post is dedicated to celebrating the beauty of the Irish countryside. My daughters have been saving their pennies earned at part time jobs for years to take a magical trip to Ireland. I'd like to share just a few of their photos with you.

And to help bring a little bit of Ireland into your classroom, here are some free St. Patrick's Day resources you might like to use.  NO PREP Printables for the little kids and Thinking Treks for bigger kids!