Teacher's Brain Blog

How To Create A Fun And Easy Virtual Calendar For Your Classroom

July 9, 2021 teachersbrain Classroom Decor, kindergarten survival, Teaching Tips

If you know me, you know I just love calendar time. It is such a great way to gather with kindergarten or first grade students, go over the calendar, review some concepts, read stories, listen, share, and maybe even sing some songs. For more info on why I love it so much, check out my post here.

I adore my traditional Calendar Time area. This fun beachy-themed calendar area has always been my favorite. Recently, however, I have been exploring Google Slides more and more and have found that it is the perfect tool for creating a virtual calendar easily!

Here are some benefits of using a virtual calendar in your classroom

It can be used in person or virtually. After the last couple of years in the classroom, we are realizing the need for resources that can be used in the classroom AND virtually for distance learning. Teaching resources that are versatile enough to be used in both is essential these days.
They are easily customized. Google Slides are so easy to play around with and make it your own.
It can be easily reused year after year. While you can reuse physical products too, reusing digital items doesn’t require you to store anything or take up extra space. It can also be edited and personalized each year to fit whatever theme you want.
It saves money. If you are printing your resources, it will save you money on paper and printing costs to just do it virtually. Saving money in the classroom is always a plus!

Ready to explore virtual calendars yourself? I have you covered! I created this Virtual Calendar template for teachers who want to simplify Calendar Time in the classroom.

These colorful Google Slides templates make it easy for you and fun for your students. They can easily be edited to add your own personal touch. This calendar comes with Google Slides to help you review time, days of the week, months, money, share your morning messages, birthday shoutouts, and more!

Check out my virtual calendar tutorial here!

Here’s what’s included in this calendar resource:

21 Colorful Digital Calendar and Math slides. Includes time, days of the week, months, money, a spinner game, morning messages, birthday shoutouts, patterns, shapes, and tally marks.
2 Review Pages (one digital and one black and white to easily print for pencil to paper)

Ready to get started with your virtual calendar? Check it out here!

Tips For An Amazing Meet The Teacher Night

July 2, 2021 teachersbrain Back to School, Teaching Tips

If you are here, chances are you are planning out your Meet The Teacher or Open House event for the next school year. Back to school night is a great time to meet and greet with parents and students, introduce yourself, show everyone around the classroom, exchange important information for the school year, and more.

Needless to say, it’s a big night! We all want to make a good impression on parents and our new students. Don’t worry, I have you covered whether you are doing an in person event or virtual!

Last year, a lot of teachers had to learn to do everything online. It was a huge learning curve for many but we made it through and now we know the magic of Google Slides. Google Slides is now my new GO TO resource when teaching. It is perfect because you can use it virtually or in person. You can easily customize them by adding your text, photos, videos, music, and more. This makes it the perfect teaching tool.

My Virtual Meet The Teacher Resource uses Google Slides to create a beautiful, cohesive, presentation.

It is so easy to pull your event together with this template for back to school. Just edit the text boxes, add a video or some personalized pictures.

This resource comes with 28 colorful and fun Google Slides with titles, edit text boxes, directions and ideas as well as 28 Google Slides with cartoon characters with the same titles so you can decide what you want to use and delete what you don’t. This resource also comes with a French version as well.

meet the teacher

The best part? It comes together easily and quickly so you can get it done and keep your weekends to yourself!

Check out my video tutorial on how to use this resource and your back to school event will be ready to go in no time.

Looking for more resources for the school year? Read my post here for everything you need to survive kindergarten!

Alphabet Worksheets for Kindergarten

July 1, 2021 teachersbrain Teacher's Pay Teachers

The old saying practice makes perfect holds true when learning how to id letters and sounds! Worksheets, crafts, and games during the day help students learn these basic skills without them realizing they are learning! These letter worksheets are the first of many to come this month. Each packet focuses on one letter of the week. Included are printables for centers, three crafts, and a spinning game inside each resource all focused on the upper and lowercase letter. You will never have to scramble again for an activity with letters with these printables when the bundle is complete. The units for letter A and B are complete. Buy them individually or grab, the growing bundle at a DEEPLY discounted price. Every time a new unit is complete, you can re-download the bundle purchased to get the new units for free.

Each unit has 16 or more worksheets with 3 crafts that can be used for:

centers
whole group instruction
small group instruction
homework

Students love to learn with hands-on crafts, games, and printables that are engaging!

Each week in kindergarten we would do a “deep dive” learning about one letter for the week. Students listened to sound songs, read books, made mini books, worked on a craft for the letter during centers and I would send home practice worksheets so they could get more reinforcement with families.

A is for Alien

A is for Alligator

You can get the whole GROWING BUNDLE for all 26 letters of the alphabet!

Sight Words Made FUN In Elementary

June 25, 2021 teachersbrain kindergarten survival, Reading, Teaching Tips

Learning to read is one of the biggest goals in the early grades. It sets the foundation for their entire education experience! To do this, we start with the basics, letter recognition, letter sounds, blending sounds, etc. Then we move on to a crucial step- sight words!

These words are words that students practice and become so familiar with that they recognize them instantly and don’t need to sound out. This helps them become more comfortable and fluent readers in less time.

But how do we teach students sight words in a way that they will remember?

We practice every day! The more students practice them, the better readers they will become. This can be done by practicing reading them in class, writing them out, creating sight word chants “T-H-E THE” to get stuck in their head, sending home sight word lists for students to go over as homework, and assigning books with sight words in them for students to read.

These are all great ways to practice them on a daily basis. However, if you are looking for something to really take it up a notch, I have you covered. Get students so engaged in learning their sight words that they won’t even realize they are learning because they are having so much fun with my Sight Word Escape Room!

This Mystery Sight Words Escape Room is perfect for kindergarten and first-grade students.

Use these step-by-step instructions to guarantee student engagement while they learn about sight words to solve a classroom mystery. With little prep, your students will work as a team to break into a box, which breaks them out of the classroom as they beat the clock!

Included in this resource you get one PDF file with step-by-step instructions, a link to incorporate a video to hook your students into the mystery, and 3 pre-made clues for your class to solve. The other file is an editable PowerPoint to make it easy for you to add your own team names to personalize the experience and allow the students to take ownership of the lesson. You can also change the mystery letters to create your own sight words, sentences, and riddles.

This escape room is guaranteed to be a hit with your students!

Looking for more fun ways to practice sight words? Check out my post here!

What are your favorite sight word activities? Let me know in the comments!

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