I Love You to the Moon and Back Again, Mom!!

How fast is this year flying by for you?  We are down to 34 days left in Pittsburgh and I must say I am super excited for summer vacation.  May and early June are absolutely packed with activities for the end of the year, but in the midst of all the crazy, we cannot forget about the most important people in the students and our lives!  Mother's Day is on May 8th, so why not have yourself prepared with activities to do in your classroom?  I have prepared a Mother's Day Math and Literacy Pack that can ease your mind for the holiday, and focus on the rest of the activities for the end of the year!  Find the activity pack through the link below:

Mother's Day Math and Literacy Activities

The first part of the Mother's Day Activity Pack is a Literacy Center that focuses on Bossy E or Magic E.  At this point in the Kindergarten year, mostly all students are reading CVC words with ease, so it is great to challenge them by manipulating the vowel sound.  This center aligns with Mother's Day because the Mom on each card is there to help by giving a hint: "Make the A say it's name!"  The follow up worksheet allows the student to prove their success by drawing picture to align with the new CVCe word!  The CVC center can be sold separately through the link below!

Mother's Day Bossy E Center

I absolutely love this picking flowers center.  Students start with 45 different flowers in the basket.  They have to sort the flowers by color and then bundle them into a bouquet.  The ribbon for the bouquet has a tally mark on it, so they need to put the correct bow with the correct bundle of flowers!  There is a follow up worksheet for early finishers to cut and glue to match!  This center is great because it can be used for other times than Mother's Day also!  It is sold seprately through the link below.

Mother's Day Picking Flowers Center

 One of my favorite Mother's Day books to read my students is "The Night Before Mother's Day".  I have included several extension activities for the "The Night Before Mother's Day" that can also be sold separately through the link below.  The product's craftivity is a coupon book that the students can make for their Moms, Aunts or Grandmothers.  There are two options for the coupon craftivity: the students can create their own coupon ideas or they can use the provided coupons and draw a picture to match!

The Night Before Mother's Day Extension Activities

The coupon book also includes different clip art that the students can choose to look most like their mother, aunt or Grandmother!  They are not pictured below, but are pictured on the product preview. 

Growing up, my mother always used to say to me, "I love you to the moon and back again, and then some!" so I decided to make a card for students to send to their mother, aunt or grandmother for that!  The card includes a picture of the student inside of the spaceship traveling around the moon and back again!  The note on the inside can be traced with the given note or written independently by the students.  The Mother's Day card is sold separately through the link below.

I Love You to the Moon and Back Again Mother's Day Card

 The Mother's Day Pack includes a few fun other pages to use during your Mother's Day celebrations.  There are handwriting pages, writing prompts and even coloring pages.  The coloring pages in the product include four different versions so students can pick which one looks most like their mother!

Have a very Happy Mother's Day to all of you amazing mother's out there!

We're going to the Zoo!!

At the end of Kindergarten every year, we always take our students to the Pittsburgh Zoo as final field trip.  It is so much fun for the students and the adults!  I am so excited to continue to use this unit and get the students even MORE excited about the trip!!  The "We're Going to the Zoo" pack includes centers, readers, games and even things to use for the field trip!

We're Going to the Zoo Pack!

The first center included in the pack is a Zoo Animals Syllable Sort Center.  In this center, students will clap out the syllables of the different zoo animals and sort them into the various enclosures.  However, the animals in the enclosures will not make real-life sense to be together, but only because they have the same amount of syllables! There is also a follow up worksheet for early finishers. The follow up worksheet directs students to cut and glue the zoo animals to the correct number of syllables!  The syllables sort center is sold separately through the link below.

Zoo Animals Syllable Sort

The second center within the Zoo Pack is the Zoo Animals Teen Ten Frame Game! In this center, students can read the teen ten frame and then sort between if the ten frame is true or false.  Some examples of the teen ten frames are shown below. There is also a follow up worksheet for early finishers. The follow up worksheet directs students to fill in different teen ten frames!  The Zoo Animals Teen Ten Frame Game is sold separately through the link below!

Zoo Animals Teen Ten Frame Game

One of my favorite books to read for the zoo is "Animal Strike at the Zoo! It's True!"  The book definitely has some silly components and is perfect for the Kindergarten age level, which is why I incorporated it into the zoo pack!  The Story Extension activities include graphic organizers for text-to-self connections, predictions and sequencing the story!  The craftivity is for the kiddos to make zoo animal puppets!  The "Animal Strike at the Zoo! It's True!" extension activities are sold separately through the link below.

Animal Strike at the Zoo! It's True! Extension Activities

The animals included to make the puppets are: elephant, giraffe, hippo, lion, monkey, panda, penguin and zebra!

Before you go on your trip to the zoo, there's also an emergent reader for the students to read that will teach them unique facts about certain animals from the zoo: elephant, giraffe, hippo, kangaroo, lion, monkey, panda, peacock, penguin and zebra.  The students enjoy the title of the book "Zookeeper in training" as if when they go to the zoo, they are masters of the zoo animals! This text can be challenging for Kindergarten, however, I still have them search for sight words that they know as we read it together.  They love to learn the fun facts and they're even more excited when they see those animals at the zoo and shout out the facts!

After reading and learning all the new facts about the different animals, they love wearing the Zookeeper in Training name tags!  The front looks like the picture below and the back has slots for teacher's name, school name, address, phone number and chaperone information.

Students can work together as a class to tally their favorite zoo animal to see as a class at the zoo.  The "We Are Going to the Zoo!!" roll and color game offers a fun independent or paired activity!

Finally, after the zoo field trip, you can use the following days to create a "My Zoo Field Trip Memory Book" to allow students to write about their favorite and most memorable parts at the zoo!