Miss G's Classroom Bits

My kids have been having lots of fun creating their own version of silly sentences. They enjoy mixing up colours or writing about objects in unusual places or doing unusual things. Even more than writing, they then love illustrating these silly sentences. All year I have been really encouraging them to have a go at drawing - we have provided all sorts of different drawing tools and shapes and colours of paper, but they just haven't been interested. I made up this activity for the kids to be a little creative with. The basis of the sentence is there for them (they just need to read it - great sight word practice) and they need to use their creativity and fill in the blanks. All the cards are laminated and the kids fill in the spaces first before copying the sentence into their books and then doing their illustration. This activity has been incredibly popular and even my kids who wouldn't normally seek out written activities have been having a go. Click here to open

We have been working a lot on differentiating between questions and statements. I made up this activity as a reinforcement of what we have been learning about. There are 2 header cards (one has a question mark and the other has a full stop) and the kids look at each of the other 16 cards and read the sentences on them. They then decide if it is a question (an asking sentence) or a statement (a telling sentence). They place them into the correct group and then write on the correct punctuation mark using a white board marker. All of the sentences use basic sight words or words that can be sounded out so hopefully this will be a fairly independent activity! Click here to open

My kids are MAD about Disney at the moment. They have been painting all of the Disney characters and love the Disney music that I play in the room. My preps are starting to become much more confident when adding numbers together up to 10 but I wanted to push them a little bit more to see how they would go to 20. To keep with their Disney madness, I made this game up using their beloved Mickey Mouse ears. The head piece has a numeral on it and there are separate ear pieces which have white dots on it. Their job is to place Mickey's ears on the head with the correct number of dots. Hopefully they will really enjoy this activity. Click here to open

I made up this game to help my kids practice reading o'clock times on digital and analogue clocks. The times on the call cards are written in words which also helps them learn the time in that way as well. Click here to open

This is a really simple and usually popular activity that has pictures of CVC objects on balloons. Kids match up the words with the picture. I found this really useful to help my kids break up words into single sounds and to reinforce the vowels. Click here to open

I found that a lot of my kids at the beginning of the year knew either the upper or lower case letters but not both. This was one of the games I made to help them learn to match the upper with the lower case letters. Their bingo card is filled with lower case letters whilst the caller cards are upper case. Instead of reading the letter out, I simply hold it up and then they have to find the corresponding lower case letter on their card. Click here to open

My kids have been working hard on correct letter formation so I decided to make them some handwriting cards to help them practise this skill. I also wanted to introduce them to the concept of writing in red and blue lines as well as the concept of letters having a head, body or tail. I chose words that my kids use a lot in their writing - words that they are always asking me how to spell. I have the words on one side with the picture in a bubble font so they are able to trace over it, then on the reverse side, I have just the blank lines so they are able to have a go at it on their own. So far the kids are loving this activity and they are doing a great job with their letter formation and writing in the lines! Click here to open

My kids at the moment love to sound out words when writing. For weeks I have been trying to convince them that if they can write cat, they can also write hat! They still insist on sounding out the words each time though! I decided to make a game where they could sort groups of words into word families so that they could visually see how similar the words are. In this activity, they create snakes by piecing together chunks of snake that have words printed on them. There are 10 different word families in this set. The head and tail piece give the word family clue to make it a little easier as well. Click here to open

I made a range of these cards to help reinforce basic maths concepts taught to my class. Each card is laminated. Kids answer the questions by clipping a peg on to the card. I placed a small dot on the back of the card to show the correct answer so that they are able to check their own work independently. Click here to open

I made up a heap of laminated number pattern cards for my year 1s to practice counting forwards and backwards in 1s, 2s, 5s and 10s to and from 100. So far they have been a really popular activity in my classroom and some of my preppies are even beginning to have a go at some of them. The kids really enjoy the coloured cards and laminating them allows the kids to reuse them over and over. They are actually becoming much faster at filling them in - we even have races to see who can fill in the most cards in 2 minutes. Click here to go to my TPT Store

A basic chace activity where kids match up the labels with the correct spinner or bag of counters. I have also included some blank bags so you can make up your own or use them for kids to create their own bag of counters if you give them an oral instruction. Language used for this activity includes: Will Will not Might Likely Not likely Equal chance The chance language is written in black and the colour words are written in the colour to help with reading. Click here to open

I created these addition webs to help my Year 1s practice the basic addition facts to 10. Once they mastered this, I added a few additional webs with numbers up to 100 and instead of adding just 1, 2 or 3, I changed it so that they could add 10, 20 and 30. I cut out and laminated each of the cards then placed a small velcro dot in the middle of each web for the addend to be attached so that each web can be repeatedly used but also allowing for different answers each time. It is also a great tool for differentiation as it's easy to make each of the webs easier or harder depending on the child. Click here to open

This game has many variations but the basic aim of the game is to complete the words on your card with the letter cards. I usually place the smaller letter cards into a pot in the middle of the table and let kids pull a scoop out. Any letters that they do not need get placed back into the pot. I have also used a memory style idea as well with all the letter cards upside down on the table. Click here to open

I made these cards to help my kids form the letters of the alphabet correctly. I print them out double sided (capital letter on one side, the lowercase letter on the other side), chop them up, laminate them, then let the kids trace over them. They are in QLD Beginners Font and I love this outline font because it has a dot where they need to start writing and also an arrow showing them which way to go. Click here to open

I made these cards a couple of years ago for my Year 1s to practice putting things into alphabetical order. My preps were really eager to have a try so I added some pictures as prompts and then they had a go. There are a number of different themed sets - each has only one of each letter. A couple of weeks after I had this activity out, one of my preppies came to me during writing time asking for the cards - not knowing what his motivation was, I decided to give them to him and see what he was up to. He searched through the cards until he came across the ice cream card. He took it back to his place and continued writing. He had been wanting to spell the word ice cream and had remembered that he had seen it in the cards! I have another set which is a bit harder which I will eventually upload as well. Click here to open

A simple place value bingo that I created to help my kids practice the concept. It includes numerals, words, expanded form and MAB blocks. Enjoy Click here to go to my TPT Store

As my kids were starting to become more familiar and confident with sounding out and recognising basic sight words, I decided to make a fun game that would really help to boost their confidence. My boys at the time were obsessed with anything pirate so I made it with a pirate theme. Each child takes a treasure chest (they each have different sentences on them). All of the coins are placed into a special treasure chest in the centre. They take turns pulling three words out at a time. If they have the word on their treasure chest, they place the coin on top of it. Any cards not needed are returned to the centre chest. The winner is the first player to complete their sentence with coins. Click here to open

I made this activity to help some of my kids identify and sort colours. I print out enough of the plain jar templates then print the half jar pictures with the coloured labels on them. I laminate all of them and then staple the coloured labels on to the bottom of the whole jars to create a slit where the paint brushes can be placed when sorted. I made labels with both coloured prompts as well as plain coloured prompts so that eventually it becomes a word recognition activity as well. Click here to open

My preppies have been working hard on expanding their bank of sight words. My boys in particular love anything to do with cars, roads and maps so I made this activity with them in mind. There are 5 maps with roads/paths on them. On each road there are a number of blank stop and go signs. I laminated each of these sheets and then  I choose 3 sight words and write them on randomly  on each of the signs with a sharpie (they wipe straight off with a magic eraser!). Because there are only a few words and lots and lots of signs, it gives them a chance to really reinforce each word. I bought some tiny cars from the $2 shop and my boys (and some of my girls too) drive the cars around the maps, stopping at each sign to say the word. It doesn't matter how many times I get this activity out, it is always popular. Click here to open

I am constantly looking for new ways for my Year 1s to practice their basic addition facts. The kids have been playing a boggle style game making words out of the letters. I decided to mix things up a bit and give them some number boggle cards. Instead of making words, they make sums from the numbers (both addition and subtraction). The catch is that all the numbers for each sum must be touching - either by the sides or by the corners. Click here to open

I initially made these ice cream cones for my kids to practice matching upper and lower case letters. They worked really well for that purpose. I got this activity out again this week to give some of my kids a little more practice, only to find that some of my more advanced kids were making "Word Sundaes"... they had used the letters to make different words and then put the ice cream cards into some coloured bowls that were in the room. They had a great time. I think I'll make up another set and include this activity into my literacy groups this week. Click here to open

Here are some dominoes that I created for my preppies to practice reading o'clock times. There are 3 sets, each in a different colour to allow for easy identification. I laminated them, chopped them up then watched the kids go. They really loved this activity and have become really good at reading both the analogue and digital times. My next goal is to make up some half past ones for them to use too. Click here to open

A fellow teacher has been using laminated keyboard print outs to help her kids learn their sight words. I took this concept and converted it into a mobile phone instead where kids pretend to press the letters on the keypad to make words and form a "code". They then record the word as well as the numeraical code that the word makes. I have laminated these sheets so they can be reused a number of times. Click here to open

Here is a set of word searches based on basic sight words. I laminated them and then included them in my literacy rotations. I teach a prep/year 1 class and originally made them to help my year 1s learn their sight words but recently my preppies have been having a go at them as well. They are a really popular activity during literacy activities and I am really seeing a big improvement in my kids ability to read and write the words. Click here to go to my TPT Store

This is the phonemic alphabet chart that I use in my classroom. It has the 26 letters as well as some digraphs. It is currently in QLD beginners font but I plan on doing some alternative fonts in the near future. My kids find it really useful (especially the digraphs) when writing. I have smaller desk-sized ones that we use too. Click here to open