Choice Boards-The Who, What, Where, When and Why

Have ever wondered how to keep your students engaged while reviewing skills and solidifying learning?! Then choice boards are for you! My goal in this post is to breakdown choice boards and tell you why they are so effective to use in the classroom, at home during distance learning and even for homework. I will explain these strategies by using who, what, where, when and why.

The WHO of Choice Boards

Choice boards are for students as well as teachers.  Choice boards allow students to complete certain tasks at their own level, practice specific skills and to show you, their teacher, what they know.  They are for teachers because they will make your day easier by being able to assign students activities throughout the day.  

The WHAT of Choice Boards

You may be asking yourself, what exactly is a choice board? Well, let me answer that question for you. It is a board that has a varied amount of activities that students can choose from. The choice boards that I have created are differentiated at three different levels to best accommodate your students. My choice boards are geared towards Kindergarten and First Grade students. The activities that are included on most choice boards are a variety of Math and ELA skills such as reading, writing and language skills. You can choose between the 3 differentiated levels of choice boards based on your students needs. All activities that are on the choice board have recording sheets/worksheets as needed. You may even find that you want to give students all three choice boards and sets of activities to have them review various skills at different levels. 

The WHERE of Choice Boards

Many teachers who are unfamiliar with choice boards often wonder where these boards can be used and that is a perfect question! These choice boards are perfect for distance learning activities that can be done at home or for use within the classroom.  

The WHEN of Choice Boards

Choice boards can be done at anytime throughout the school day or even as a homework activity.  The choice boards are also perfect for classroom use for early finisher work as well as independent center work. You can simply tell the students to pick a specific number of boxes and complete those activities.  Choice boards are also perfect for students to complete at home during distant or virtual learning.  This will allow students different activities to complete and keep them engaged while showing you their knowledge of specific skills.  

And finally, WHY you should use Choice Boards

If you have read this far, I hope that you have a better understanding of what a choice board is and how it can help make your life easier whether you are in the classroom setting or teaching virtual. There are a lot of good reasons to use Choice Boards.  Choice Boards will help you, the teacher, to see exactly what skills your students know.  It will give your students the opportunity to practice skills at their own levels because the choice boards that I have created are at various levels.  Choice Boards will give your students activities to complete while you are testing, working with other students, or for activities to complete for homework.  My hope in creating these is that your life will be made easier because the boards and activities are completely prepared for you, all you have to do is make copies for students.  

You can view my January Choice Boards on TpT.  

You can also get a free copy of differentiated boards here.  

Halloween Sun Catchers

Since the weather is once again cooperating and feeling like Fall, I decided that we needed fun Halloween decorations for our windows. My thoughts were to hang them in the living room where the sun sets great, but my girls wanted them both in their room. These sun catchers turned out great and were a lot easier to make than I had anticipated!

I started by gathering all the materials. I had to make a trip to Target for the clear contact paper. FYI, it is found in the kitchen section for lining cabinets. I expected it to be in the school supply area. 

You will need contact paper, scissors, construction paper or card stock and tissue paper. The tissue paper is cut into squares so scraps or wrinkled sheets are perfect. I initially cut the tissue paper but then the girls wanted to help and it is actually great scissor cutting practice because the pieces don’t need to be perfect squares they can be any shape. 

Next, we decided what shapes to make. The girls decided on a pumpkin and a ghost. I freehanded them. They’re not perfect but they work. I cut the initial shape out then bent the paper to cut an outline out, so that only the outline remained. See the picture below. 

Then cut a piece of contact paper to fit on your shape. Leave the sticky side up so that the tissue paper can stick to it.

 

The tissue paper just sticks directly on the contact paper. Once the shapes are covered in tissue paper take another piece of contact paper and place it on top of the shape so that  both sticky sides are touching each other. Smooth the contact paper out. Then take scissors and cut around the outline. We learned that it is ok if the tissue paper is off the outline because you are going to cut around it. 

I would love to see what designs you come up with.  Please leave pictures in the comments or tag me on Instagram @pintsizedlearning or Facebook, Pint Sized Learning.  Happy Creating!

Theresa

Fall TpT Sale #falldealsprekto1

Happy Wednesday!  I am participating in a sale with some other amazing TpT sellers, we each picked 2 products in our store and marked them down to $1.  I searched before writing this post and there are so many great products out there.  Now is the time to stock up on Boom Card Decks, centers, worksheets and various activities that will help make your teaching life easier over the next few months.  

I have chosen two products that contain concepts that are taught throughout the year.  The Build a Number Sundae asks students to use number recognition skills and one to one correspondence to build a sundae.  The bowls display a number on them and students use ice cream sundae ingredients to build a sundae with the correct number.  

3D Shape Boom Cards are a great review for students to show you what they know.  They are self correcting cards that can be used to review and sort 3D shapes.  Specific skills included in the cards are sorting shapes by their physical attributes and sorting shapes when given two different options.  

Happy midweek shopping!

Theresa, Pint Sized Learning

Fall, Fall Everywhere! Fall Centers, Fall Boom Cards and Fall Google Slides

Happy Fall!  If you're like me you are so excited for the cooler temperature and all the good feelings and vibes that Fall bring.  As a family we have already been apple picking and are enjoying the unseasonably nice fall temperatures here in South Carolina.  Our windows have been opened for the last 4 days and I am loving it!  

While Fall at home is fun, Fall at school is even more fun.  There are so many fun things to do that will help your students learn too.  I loved to make applesauce with my kids.  I would ask each student to donate one apple.  We would make applesauce in the crockpot and the classroom would smell amazing!  The picture is from our applesauce making at home this weekend but I have linked it to a simple crockpot recipe that I used in the classroom.  

Fall in the classroom can also mean fun centers that incorporate fall pictures and words but also learning.  This activity below is part of my Fall ELA Centers and simply has the students doing one to one correspondence to spell words.  It helps them seeing what the individual letters look like, picking letters out from a pile and placing them in the correct order to spell a word.  The beginning and ending sound cards are perfect for assisting student in how to spell various words and also using their letter sound knowledge.  

Letter tiles or magnetic letters are perfect for these centers.  I have created paper Letter Tile Manipulatives that you can download here for FREE.  Each child can get their own set in a sandwich bag and reuse them with different centers.  

If you are interested in a digital set of these Fall ELA Centers they are available in my TpT Store, Fall ELA Boom Deck and Fall ELA Google Slides.  They include syllable sorting, identifying isolated beginning and ending sounds and identifying combined beginning and ending sounds.  

I hope that everyone is enjoying the first day of Fall and continues to enjoy all fun has to offer!

Theresa, Pint Sized Learning

Email List Sign Up and a Freebie

 By now you are through half of the first week (for most) of the first week of school!  I'm sure it has been an adjustment and learning process for both you and your students.  Do you need help figuring out something for your virtual students to do if they are early finishers while you are working with small groups or individual students?  

Well look no further, I have created choice boards that are differentiated for you to give to your students.  They are available by subscribing to my email list.  They will be available as a PDF file individually as well as jpegs to make it easier to share with your students.  All you have to do is confirm your subscription and the choice boards will be sent to you.  

Being a member of my email list will have LOTS of benefits!  You will be the FIRST to be informed of new products that are posted, you will receive at least one freebie a month and there will be giveaways too!  What more could you want?! 

Five for Friday

I am once again linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for their Five for Friday Linky Party.  I have been on Spring Break this week.  It has been so great relaxing and attempting to get things checked off my checklist.  I had high expectations for getting a lot done this week.  

We celebrated Easter on Sunday by attending a sunrise service.  The Easter Bunny also visited.  She got a lot in her basket but her favorite item was bubbles.  They have been entertaining her all week!

I was determined to get a garden planted this week.  We don't do a big garden because our "green thumbs" are not that great.  Four variations of tomato plants were planted as well as four types of bell peppers.  Bugs or rabbits usually ruin half of our garden each year.  I'm searching for ways to keep them both away.  

One of the favorite memories growing up was going strawberry picking.  My mom made the best jam and pies with the freshly picked strawberries!  We got to introduce my baby to strawberry picking and she loved it!  

Even though I have been on break I have been working on addition centers for next week.  I am currently creating a carnival themed addition pack of centers.  Four centers are included in the pack and some of the centers can even be extended to multiple centers for differentiation.  I have also been prepping for my Plant Unit to start next week.  I am planning on writing a post about how we study plants next week.  

Lastly, we are prepping for my baby's 2nd Birthday Party.  We are keeping it simple this year and just doing a party with immediate family.  It's hard to believe that she is already 2 years old!
I hope that all of you had an enjoyable week!

Five for Friday

It has been SO long since I have blogged!  I have been busy with teaching , being a mommy to a busy toddler and life in general.  I am so excited to get back into blogging.  

In October we found out that we are expecting baby number 2, June 2nd.  It was a tiring first couple of months and extra tiring with a toddler.  This is a pic from last week's ultrasound.  I think it looks like she is praying.  

This week we have been busy doing Easter Activities in both ELA and Math.  I came across a great recording sheet for plastic eggs from Simply Kinder.  There were three recording sheets to choose from. One where the kids read the word and draw a picture, one where they can record on the eggs and the last one was for plastic eggs that have three pieces. I haven't seen these eggs, but according to the blog post they are available at Meijers.  These recording sheets helped create a quick activity for two centers this week.  

We also used Easter Addition Centers that I created.  My students enjoyed working at the three different centers that allowed them to add in different ways.  

In my Work with the Teacher center in the Daily 5 Rotations we used The Therapeutic Teacher's Comprehension and Phonics CVCe Books.  These books are a great resource and provided great insight into my student's abilities.  I realized that not all of my student's were ready to work independently in these books.  I loved that the book provided students 5 opportunities to read the book each week.  There were also pages for activities to do each day that related to the story.  I am planning on using these with my higher leveled students each week.  They should be able to do these independently with minimal assistance from myself or my assistant.  This will allow us to work with lower leveled students.  

I have been getting ready for the week after spring break.  We will be starting our Plant Unit.  Plant journals are ready, seeds will be bought next week and the living and nonliving center activities are ready.  

Next week is Spring Break!!!  I am looking forward to spending the week with my little family and my dad who is is town for the next two weeks.  I have plans to create centers that will get me through the rest of the school year.