Love Letters Freebie and Link Up

Welcome to my FIRST "ITeachKinder" Linkup!
In these monthly linkups, I will be sharing timely tips, teaching strategies, resources, and some freebies with you.  If you like what you see in this blog post, be sure to follow me (or any of the participating bloggers) and check back at the beginning of the each month for a new link up. Today, I will be sharing a free and a paid teaching resource with you that I use during February to keep my kiddos engaged in learning! 
For me a classroom should be built on a community of friendship and love. My kiddos know from day one that we all treat each other we love, respect, and kindness.

 One of the ways that we continue this throughout the year is by writing "Love Letters" to each other. {This unit is perfect for Kinder or First.} 

 I begin this unit in February because it is perfect for Valentine's Day. We learn what a letter is, how to write one, how to address one, and what types of things we would put into a letter.  I begin by reading this awesome book. It is a great way for kiddos to get their "hands on" a real letter. It is called The Jolly Postman by Janet and Allan Ahlberg.

Then the kiddos use a planning sheet to "interview" a friend.

 Finally, the kiddos get to write their letter and "mail" it to their friend.  We make our own envelopes out of construction paper. We also address the envelopes and add a stamp. (All of these things are included in this FREEBIE!) The kiddos are hooked on writing letters after the first time of doing it whole group.  They want to interview and write letters to each other ALL. THE. TIME! It's fabulous! If you would like to try this FREEBIE, just click Love Letter Freebie!

When our kinders and firsties are writing anything, they need a good base of sight words to help carry their stories or letters. Sight Word Hunts are a great way to practice identifying and writing sight words that the kiddos will want to use in their letters. I use this activity every other week in my class. The first week we use it, it is done independently. Then I place the center version of the hunt in a center for the following week. There are 12 different versions of the game so it can be played many times. The particular Hunt that I use to support the above letter writing is called Valentine's Day Sight Word Hunt. The kiddos use magnifying glasses to hunt for sight words.  When they locate a word, they cross it out  on the paper and then write it on the blank provided.Super easy to make, super engaging, and super fun!

If you would like to try this word hunt out in your classroom, just click Valentine's Day Sight Word Hunt.

Do you wanna build a snowman? {How To Writing FREEBIE}

How do you teach "How-To" Writing? I use tons of my own ideas, different ideas found all over Pinterest, and ideas from blogs.  This year I began the unit like I usually do each year, by writing a whole class story about How To Brush Your Teeth.  This is super interesting because the kiddos forget all the little details involved in actually brushing your teeth. Of course I brought my own toothbrush and tooth paste in and proceeded to brush my teeth following their steps. They thought this idea was hilarious.  It's like they thought I NEVER brush my teeth.  As the lesson goes on I do exactly what they say to do in order to model how to slow down and THINK ABOUT every little detail involved.  They were laughing historically throughout the whole process but, when they got to the part where you spit it out, they forgot to mention to spit it IN the sink.  Can you just imagine what happened next? YEP, I SPIT ON THE FLOOR!!!! They were insanely excited at this point of the lesson, telling me how wrong I was.  Of course I had to point out that I only did what they told me.  It was amazing to watch all the little light bulbs come on ALL around the room with comments like, "oooohhh" and "we forgot"! Their faces were PRICELESS!!! (Of course after this we went on to learn about steps, materials, more details, comparing How To stories to other stories and publishing. This was so much fun that I thought I would bring in a sweet treat for our next lesson on "How-To" writing.  I began by stating, “ How would you like to build a snowman?” and after several excited SCREAMS and “NO WAY'S" (because we live in FL and have NO snow) I pulled out several materials: (We completed one whole class before they received their own.)

1 long rope twizzler, 3 large marshmallows, 2 toothpicks, ten mini chocolate chips, 1 small orange tic tac, 2 pretezel sticks

After several more excited screams, we worked together to build this little guy. Then we listed the materials and the steps we took to build the classroom snowman on chart paper. (Of course there was lots of turning and talking to discuss those tricky missing steps.)

Day 2:

I gave them all their own materials and off they went to build and write. Of course at the end of today’s lesson they got to eat their yummy snowmen!

Days 3-7:

We wrote some more, talked some more, and learned to transfer from the planning sheet to the “Fancy” sheet.

You can get this writing FREEBIE by clicking Do You Wanna Build A Snowman?