Valentine's Day Syllables Center

As we all pull out our February files and begin preparing centers for the plethora of special topics in that month, I thought I would share about my syllables center for Valentine's Day.  

Friendly Frog is my students' syllabication friend.  He appears frequently in our centers, helping everyone learn the somewhat tricky rules for using syllabication skills in decoding and recording words.  For Valentine's Day, he is helping my students to focus on prefixes and suffixes.

Using these work mats, students sort Valentine cards.

There are 24 cards and a recording sheet, as well as labels for the center folder.  

This activity is aligned with the CCSS and is most appropriate for grades 1 - 3.  Did you know there are syllabication standards for EVERY elementary grade?  There are!  To help my class retain the syllabication rules, I have a permanent display of 16 rules. Naturally, they feature Friendly Frog and are available in Friendly Frog's Rules of Syllabication.

If you are interested in introducing Friendly Frog to your students, you can find these products in my TpT Store and my TN Shop.  Try them.  You'll like them.

Friendly Frog's products include:

      

  

Tooth Fairy Fun Freebie

It's about time, teachers, ...to say good-bye to February and Dental Health Month.  But before it's gone, I have another FREEBIE to share.  It's from my Destination Imagination unit on TpT.  It's called Tooth Fairy Mystery and is my alternative to Show & Tell.

Above is the assignment sheet that I distribute 1 week before the project is due.  Then on the due date, the children share their pictures and stories with the class.  Thus, they have the opportunity to exercise their oral communication skills, but with a purpose.  Participation is always voluntary, and encouraged, I have found, by giving out participation certificates.  (See below.)

If you teach the primary grades, then you have certainly experienced children losing teeth in school.  For years, I sent the teeth home in zip lock bags.  Then, once I reached the empty nest era of my life, I found the time to create little felt bags to keep the tooth extra safe on it's journey to the Tooth Fairy.  These tooth bags are super easy to make from a small piece of felt and some cording.  They can be done completely by hand, or speed it up by breaking out your sewing machine.

As my 2 beautiful granddaughters approach the time to start losing teeth, I have created Tooth Fairy boxes for them.  I think they are going to love them!

The boxes were $1 at Michael's.  I found the heavy duty stickers that trim them there, too.  Finally, I dressed up the exterior with ribbon scraps.  My first grandson will arrive in May; can hardly wait!!!  So, I'm thinking about a pirate theme for his Tooth Fairy box.  I guess I have plenty of time to mull that over.