This is my Beach Buddy Mail Center! It is one of the most popular literacy center activities in my class right now! My Children love writing letters to their friends and then mailing it in their personal mail box. A parent in my class several years ago made me this cool mail box. The children's photos are taped at the bottom of each mail slot for easy delivery. I have been busy making new stationary every month and I now have it available on TPT!

Kinderbykim's Let's Write a Letter to a Friend Stationary Pack!

The set includes 28 different cards and 8 letter writing frames.

My Children glue their friends picture on the “To” which matches the picture in the mail box. Then they write a letter inside and draw a picture for their friend.

Here is a sample letter I received. Be prepared you will get a lot of mail!

All my class photos are a Xerox copy of our class picture.Then I cut them up and put in each child’s little drawer.  I keep a big supply in this handy tool drawer from Home Depot. The best part about this center is it is so easy.I just supply the stationary and pictures and the children do the rest!

Mr.Seahorse and The Very Hungry Caterpillar! Plus a Freebie!

Eric Carle’s Mister Sea Horse! These are toilet paper rolls with tissue paper seahorses glued on. Inside they have seahorse facts!

This year we made a new project for Mr. Seahorse! Here is the cover. Inside we sorted “Cool Seahorse Facts” and “Opinions”. We created this activity to go along with our readers workshop unit “Powerful Partners” which my whole K team is using written by Kim Adsit. It is Amazing! The picture below shows how my kids sorted their facts.

Powerful Partners

The next step was to take the information they learned and write about seahorses. Then we glued it to the back. These activities were all completed during literacy centers. I did have a parent volunteer help with the reading of the seahorse facts.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Retell! This fun activity is in my Going Buggy Syllable and puppet pack. This year we made craft stick caterpillars for our retell.

After actually two fun weeks with Eric Carle we put all our activities in this pocket with Eric Carle’s picture. He is sure an amazing author!

Here is a picture of many of the activities we did. Here is a picture of Eric Carle that you can use for any activities you create.

 

Grouchy Ladybug, The Robber and the Foolish Tortoise! More fun with Eric Carle

Here are our Grouchy Ladybug clocks. The wings are made from a small paper plate painted and cut in half. Click this link for a Clock face and hands

On the back is a simple time story: 9:00 the aphids say “We love leaves”. At 10:00 the ladybugs say “We love flowers.” At 11:00 “We love aphids!”

At 12:00 “We love you!”

This was a fun literacy center activity. The children wrote the words, drew more bees, colored the bear and traced and cut out a bee hive.

Here is our literacy center activity for the Foolish Tortoise! My Kiddos traced the shell cut it out colored the turtle added the famous Eric Carle sun with a face and wrote about the tortoise.

I did not get this darling paper bowl turtle made this year but my team-mate did! So fun I had to share it with you ! I still have more Eric Carle goodies to post! So check back soon Thank you for telling your friends about my blog. I’m only two people away from 300 followers!! (I know baby-steps but I’m thrilled and flattered to have followers!)

More Fun With Eric Carle and his Friend Hermit Crab!

We had so much fun with Eric Carle we ended up spending two weeks.  Here is what we did with his book A House For Hermit Crab. We started off the week a mini book which included the sight  words will and one.

This darling flow-map comes from my dear friend Kim Adsit’s Ocean Animals  Math and Literacy Activities.

After we completed our flow map we used the information to write about Hermit Crab’s day.

We used the darling clip art from Kim Adsit’s Ocean Animal unit mentioned above and made this adorable class mural!

I had so much fun painting with all my kiddos. I don’t get to paint with them very often (I usually have a parent volunteer do it). Every child got to paint something for on our colorful mural.

We painted this fun crab with water bottles filled with red and orange paint.Then the kids squirted it on the shell. While the shell was drying they painted the decorations with dot paints. (Yes I’m working on a packet for this including the mini book ) I have so much more to share from our week. I’ll try to get it posted tonight. I’m off to swimming lessons! Have a wonderful weekend.

Eric Carle Literacy Center Fun! Plus A Freebie!

We started off the week with the

Greedy Python!

This is our mini-book for the week we reviewed the sight word was.

Lucky thing we did not get eaten!

The Very Quiet Cricket one of our Eric Carle Favorites!

This was a perfect literacy center activity. The children, wrote, cut and then glued the grass. Then cut out both the stars and colored their cricket.

Our Chameleon is really mixed up! We used markers, crayons, dot paints and tear art to create our chameleons. We are saving all our Eric Carle items in a special packet I forgot to take a picture so I’ll post soon

Here is our Mixed-up Chameleon!

In celebration of Eric Carle’s love for animals we made Zoo pizzas!

Eating through the Alphabet link!

We had so much fun with Eric Carle we are extending our unit to next week. More to come!

A Little “Tweet” for You!

Little Bird Link

Hello friends here is my last freebie of the week. I hope you have enjoyed them! Directions to this activity are also included on the link! I plan on making this little cutie tomorrow and I’ll post some pictures as soon as I get them. My theme next week is Eric Carle so check back for some fun Literacy Center ideas! Thank you for following my blog! Kim

Thursday and Friday’s Freebie Fun!

So sorry for not posting freebie last night, my little one got the flu. So here you go with two more spring activities! Living creatures who come from eggs color and graph! I have my kids choose 5 different colors or dot paints. Each creature needs to be the same color. (All fish blue all chicks yellow etc.) Its easier to count them this way and then they graph their findings.

Link to Spring Egg math activities

Help Chick and friends add their doubles! Children can use a variety of tools anything from jelly beans, to Cheerios to 100 boards or simply adding on in their heads. For fun you can put one half of the equation on a plastic egg and the answer on the other half. I always mix up the colors so they do not match. Enjoy! I’m so sad my spring break is ending it’s been fun having some time to blog!

Wednesday’s Freebie! A little Sight Word and Math fun…. from Kinderbykim!

Have fun doing a little Sight Word Rock and Roll and some dice addition!

Click here for Wednesday's Goodies!

Enjoy and stop by tomorrow for a few more goodies!

Tuesday’s Treat for You!

Come See Spring!

Mini book download

Check back tomorrow evening for another goodie and thank you for sharing my blog with your friends!