Eggcellent ideas for Spring

 I have ideas for activities with eggs for you.  The #kinderfriends are doing a give away too, so be sure to enter! I also have a sweet freebie for you. Keep reading so you can grab it.

I love doing a mini unit on spring with my class right before break.  Part of that unit is learning about all the baby animals being born.  It is really fun to learn about how many different animals come from eggs!  That's why I made this sweet little emergent reader:

My kiddos LOVE this book!  You can grab it right here:  Emergent Reader: Oviparous Animals - What Comes From an Egg?   We really enjoyed learning about a new animal each day for the next page.   I did a Google search each morning to show the kids real images for the eggs.  I projected the images on the big screen in our classroom. 

I also had some great books to read to my sweet students on this topic.  You can find lots more ideas for books and other activities about eggs and spring here:  Baby Birds! Spring ideas from Mrs. Byrd   You can also grab some tips on coloring eggs in your classroom and grab a FREEBIE for spring word work with plastic eggs here: Coloring eggs in the Classroom .

It's fun to have your students design a colorful egg for spring.  This is my teacher example that I show my students as I explain the art project to them.  You can see how we made these eggs on this blog post: Melt Art Fun!  I had a cute little bird in my egg.  But, it's fun to let your students pick whatever animal they want to come out of the egg.  

It's also really fun to hatch real eggs in your classroom.  Last year, some kids at school found these little yellow eggs and we hatched  them in our room.  We watched them go from eggs to larvae to pupae and finally we had live adult ladybugs.  It was an adventure every day finding aphids.  I am so glad I happened to have a great little habitat for the buggies!  I posted pictures and videos about the ladybugs on Instagram.  I try to post something on Insta from my classroom each day.  You can find me on Instagram here:  @mrsbyrdslearningtree

This year a sweet parent brought in some tadpoles from her pond.  It's been a learning experience keeping them.  None of us had ever tried to watch the frog life cycle in a classroom before.  Thankfully another sweet mom brought in a great bowl to keep them in.  

I was worried about how they would do over spring break and I was THRILLED today when they were still doing fine.  Yay! 

 Isn't this little guy cute?

OK, it's FREEBIE time!!!

I wanted a fun little number, counting, and number word review for my class this spring.  So I put together this little math station activity.  It is FREE this week only!  Grab it by Thursday April 13th 2017.  It will turn into a regular priced item on Thursday night.  The link is below.

I have kids work collaboratively to put the numeral cards in order first.   Then they take turns matching the nests and word cards to the numbers.    This set also has two worksheets to reinforce the concepts.  One is to practice the number words and neat handwriting.

The other sheet is a cut and paste matching numerals and number of eggs.  It's a cute one:

I hope this is a big help to you!  You can grab it in my TpT store here: Spring Eggs Number Match

Don't forget to enter the #kinderfriends giveaway.  Some buddies and I are giving away some "EGGSTRA" special spring products.  One lucky winner will get all 7 packs!  Woo hoo!  Hope you win:)

 

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Thanks so much for stopping by!

Happy teaching!

Spring ideas and a FREEBIE blog hop!

I am so happy to be joining my #kinderfriends for another blog hop!  This one is loaded with lots of FREEBIES for you to use this spring.  We are having a sale too!  Just search on TpT using #kinderfriends and you will find all of our special spring deals.  Make sure you read through this entire post so your grab all the freebies I have for you.

We just had our first warm week last week and I am so ready for the warm weather.  But this week is another filled with cold and rain.  Spring is here, but it may be a while before it totally kicks in.  Spring fever in my classroom has kicked in, though.  Oh my goodness, we have been working on behavior!  If you want to grab a free printable that I use in my classroom to help with spring fever, you can grab it right here: Spring Fever FREEBIE!

The kiddos are excited and I am too.  I am getting excited for the fun spring themes coming our way.  Flowers are popping up everywhere, so I made a little hands on center activity for subtraction practice.  It is FREE through March 23rd only!  Check it out...

It's a subtraction sorting activity.  Kids sort the leaves onto the flower with the answer to the problem.  My kids will have manipulatives to do the problems hands-on if they need them.  I will encourage mental math, but subtraction can be tricky for our kindergarten darlings, so here is an example of the additional support using manipuatives:

The problem on the leaf is 8-4, the child starts with 8 flower erasers on the ten frame, and then takes away 4.  She is left with 4.  Then she places the leaf on the 4 flower.  The ten frame in this photo is perfect for those little erasers that we all love to use as math manipulatives.  They are a part of a ten frame cards set I made to help with math and number talks in my classroom.  You can grab those right here: Ten Frame Number Cards 0-10

The subtraction sort activity has problems with answers 2, 3, 4, and 5.

It also has two cut and paste worksheets for students to do as homework or extra practice.  I hope this is helpful to you!  This subtraction sort is FREE until March 23rd only!  You can go  grab it right here: Spring Flower Subtraction Sort
 
Spring means active learning is more important than ever.  Subtraction is such a big math concept for kindergarten kiddos, we will need fun ways to practice for the rest of the school year.  So I made a fun little recording sheet to do subtraction bowling in your classroom.  I wanted to start with only 6 cups in the beginning because that's what my students needed.

 After making this for 6, I decided to make it for 10, 15, and 21 as well.  That way, I can differentiate for my class and my first grade friends will be able to have fun with this activity too.  I make double sided copies of this sheet and kids have them on clip boards while doing the activity.  I like to do this as a small group station.  Kids can write number sentences for every turn or just their own.  It is a fun way to practice math facts and solidify those subtraction skills.

This is another spring FREEBIE for you!  You can grab the number 10 recording sheet right here: Subtraction Bowling FREEBIE   If you want the recording sheets for all the numbers, you can grab it in my TpT store right here: Subtraction Bowling ~ Number Sentence Recording Sheets

Don't forget that we are having a Spring SALE through March 23rd.  Just search the #kinderfriends hashtag in the TpT search box at the top of the screen to grab some great things to make this your best spring ever!

Hop along to my friend Cara over at Kindergarten Boom Boom
for more FREEBIES and fun!

Thanks for stopping by!

Earth Day Blog Hop

Hi there!  I am so excited to be doing a blog hop with some of my #kinderfriends today.  We are bringing you lots of ideas and some freebies to help you with Earth Day in your classroom.  I am giving away a craftivity you can do with your kindergarten or first grade sweeties.

It started as a simple art activity for our April number writing calendars this year.  The kids cut out the earth and glued it to the purple paper.  They then painted VERY carefully.  You could also have them paint first and let them dry before you cut and glue to the background paper.

I wanted to give you the earth and the little "Everyday is Earth Day" sign which I'm sure could be useful for other things too...
But it needed something else....

So, I added a writing prompt.  I use it as a culminating activity for my Earth Day unit.  It gives  students an opportunity to tell what they learned by writing about new earth friendly habits they are going to try.  The kiddos' writing is always so sweet on this topic.

It would go under the art like the calendar above.  This is what it looks like all put together.  You can see my promise, too.  I am really trying on the shorter showers...

You can go grab the pages for this craftivity right here: Earth Day "my promise" FREEBIE

This is a part of my Everyday is Earth Day unit.  It's a resource to help you teach about conserving natural resources so that our little learners GET IT!  It has loads of activities and writing prompts to teach these important science concepts any time of year.  Here is a little preview:

It also has great sorting activities with color photos to help your students learn about natural resources and how to conserve them.  My kids learned so much from these!

There will be a link on each blog to take you to the next #kinderfriends  Earth Day post.  There are lots of great ideas and FREEBIES.  Have fun!

Go check out my friend Brittany over at  A Kindergarten Love Story.

Thanks for hopping by!
Happy Earth Day!
Happy teaching!

It's a Spring FREEBIE!

Hello there and happy first day of spring!  I am doing lots of fun things with a spring theme in the classroom this week and I just wanted to share this fun math fact number bond activity my kiddos will be doing on Friday.

You will need some plastic eggs and candies to do it.  I am using the m&m candies as you can see in my photo above.  You could use any little candies that fit in the eggs.  When you fill the eggs with candy, you will need to put only two colors in each egg.  That way you will have two parts for the number bond.  The example above is 3 green and 4 purple make 7 altogether.  You can see pictures of the candies in the egg and the matching number bond next to it on the recording sheet.

I don't let my students eat the candies while they are working, but maybe you do...  mine usually have a little basket they have made to put them in to go home.

This is a fun activity and it is great practice for math facts and number bonds.  Yay!

If you are looking for more ideas for spring in the classroom, you can find books and art here: Baby Birds!  You can find fun learning activities and games here: Spring is here!l  You can find some adorable egg art here: Melt art Fun!  There are lots of ideas on my spring Pinterest board here: Spectacular Spring

Here is a picture of the recording sheet for this number bond activity:

You can go grab it in my Teachers Pay Teachers store here: FREEBIE! Spring egg number bonds

Thanks so much for stopping by.
Happy spring!
Happy teaching!

New Blog Design ~ Celebration and Giveaway!

Woo hoo!  What do you think?  I have a new look thanks to Kassie Garlock at Designs by Kassie.  She is wonderful!  Kassie is great to work with and very creative.  If you ever get your blog re-designed, put her at the top of your list.  I hope you like the look as much as I do.

So, in order to celebrate, I am having a 20% off SALE all week in my TpT store (through Friday) and you can enter to win some great prize packs from my store as well.

If you go visit my Facebook page to enter the contest,  consider clicking the LIKE button and following my page.  I post daily with free ideas, inspiration, flash freebies, and more.  If you are a fb person, you will want Mrs.Byrd's Learning Tree in your feed.

Here are the goodies you could win:

Prize pack #1:  Print and Go! packs for the entire school year.  You can win all three of my Print and Go! bundles: Fall, Winter, and Spring.  Woo hoo!  Enter to win below.  This giveaway will last until Friday Sept. 25th at 6:00pm Eastern Time.

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Prize pack #2: Some great products to help you tackle foundational skills in your classroom this year.  You can win my Print and Go! CVC Bundle, my new Number Cards 1-20 pack, and Color, Cut, Sort Numbers 1-10.  Enter to win below.  This giveaway will last until Friday Sept. 25th at 6:00pm Eastern Time.

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Prize pack #3:  Get ready for fall with these fun packs for Halloween and fall themes.  You can enter to win Print and Go! Halloween, Print and Go! Apples, Pumpkins, and Leaves, and What can I be for Halloween Emergent reader and Literacy Center.  Enter to win below.  This giveaway will last until Friday Sept. 25th at 6:00pm Eastern Time.

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I will announce the winners on Saturday Sept. 26th.  Good luck!

Thanks so much for stopping by and helping me celebrate!  Hope you have a great week.
Happy teaching!

Baby birds!

Spring is here!  Flowers are blooming, birds are busy, and eggs are everywhere.  We had fun learning about spring in the classroom last week.  The kiddos made little spring baskets using berry baskets from the farmer's market.  They used 1/2" strips of colored paper to weave through the sides and two standard pipe cleaners twisted together for the handles.  It sure is good fine motor work for young students.  They were excited about the baskets and what we would make to go inside.

We read some fantastic books about spring and the signs of the season in nature and the world around us.  This topic always includes baby animals and eggs, so, we learned a bit about them too.  This is my all time favorite non fiction book on eggs:

 

It has lots of interesting information about eggs and the many animals that are born from them.  The illustrations are absolutely gorgeous!  If you don't have this book in your collection, it is a must have.  And I just found this one below as well.  It is brand new and will be released on April 14th, 2015.  I have ordered it for my classroom and can't wait for it to come.  I have most of the books in this series.  They are all wonderful.

 

They are a perfect compliment to these oldies but goodies:

 

 

 

 

 

This year, we decided to make baby birds to go in the spring baskets.  We cut toilet paper rolls in half.  The kiddos painted them as an independent center one day.  Each child did two.  Then later in the week, the kids added eyes, beaks, and feathers with an adult.  These items were glued on using a low heat  hot glue gun, which is why it is an adult supervised activity.  The adult does the gluing, but the child is the creative director regarding color, size, and placement of the items.  If you have a way to make these kinds of projects happen in your classroom, they are very special to the students and will be treasures for years to come.  Here are a few of ours:

Aren't they adorable?  The kiddos also added colored eggs and some sweets used for math problem solving to the baskets as well.  You can see more about our colored eggs on this blog post: Coloring Eggs in the Classroom.  Our last day before break was super special because we also got to see and touch these cool things:

A big thank you goes out to my AMAZING instructional aide, Stacey Grant, for bringing in those cool eggs to share with our kiddos.  I also want to thank the student in my class who brought in the baby chicks.  He was so excited about them hatching at home and I am so happy that he was able to share them with our class.  Thanks so much!  It made our day!

I have so much more to tell you about our studies of spring.  This post is getting very long, though, so it will have to wait for the next one.  Hope you are enjoying all the fun curriculum connections that spring provides.

Happy spring!
Happy teacing!