Freebies I've actually used this month: may 2016

A few weeks ago, I started this series about the freebies I'm actually using. It can be a bit overwhelming to look at the selection of free resources online, so I wanted to help get the word out for the ones we actually use.

We have been working on a large unit study of continents and animals for a few months. We do most of our study through books, visits to the zoo, Wild Kratts, and documentaries; but I found this sample from Mercedes Merrell to add to our science notebooks. I like the picture part of it well enough. A couple of the amphibians looked a little more like reptiles, but they were close enough. I didn't love some of her wording choices for the characteristics chart, but we made it work. An unexpected benefit of this activity was seeing Zeke step up to help his siblings correctly sort the animals.

Quinn (5) finished working her way through This Reading Mama's Reading the Alphabet this month. When we first started, she did each of the activities, but as she learned more of the sight words, she wanted to move faster. Quinn loved the books, rhyming mats, and syllable cards, so as soon as we completed those activities, she wanted to move on to the next lesson. I did print everything though, because I plan to use the program with my younger kids as their first formal lessons.



After finishing Reading the Alphabet, we moved right into This Reading Mama's Learn to Read. The Learn to Read program isn't entirely free, but she offers enough of it free to suit Quinn's needs. The books are a perfect continuation of the Reading the Alphabet program, but speeds up the pace a little by introducing two new sight words per book. The first three books in each short vowel unit focus on a word family and the forth book is a review. As of writing this post, Quinn has only used the -AT, -AD, and -AN family books. I'm purposely trying to take these slow and really work on each of the word families as we go.
Aside from the activities that come with the books, I'm using these roll and read word family worksheets that I made.

Quinn and I are working on counting to 100. She can count to twenty nine pretty well, but after that her speech delay makes things difficult. We just started using these skip counting by 10s puzzles by Klever Kiddos that should help her solidify the names of the tens places. I also found this "I can" game from One Stop Teacher Shop that has the player filling in the blanks on the number line, but she has not wanted to play yet. 

Last, but not least, we used this Memorial Day emergent reader. It made a good introduction to Memorial Day and why and how we celebrate it. It's interactive, so the kids can personalize it.

Did you use any fabulous freebies this month?

Free Roll and Read Beginner Word Family Worksheets

I have two kids working on word families right now and after scouring the internet for resources to help them practice in a game-like setting, I ended up just making my own. I've had to divide them into smaller files to offer for free on Teachers Pay Teachers, so I currently have two options featuring beginner word family fluency sheets for free. I also have my entire collection of 30 word families available in one easy download for $1.

These word family sheets are great for some aspects of speech therapy as well. Quinn (5) has a range of speech delays including some beginning and final sound deletions and these worksheets are great practice for her.

I made these without pictures, but there is enough space that your kids can have fun drawing a picture or two to go with the group of words.

To play, have your child roll a die and read the words in the line with the same number. Repeat as many or as few times as your child wants. We do a minimum of three rolls, but probably average five.

I am a fan of keeping these sorts of activities in page protectors in binders with other activities that work on similar skills. I keep all of my short vowel words together, because it makes it so much easier to work on the skills, because I can always flip over to one more activity if they need the work and attentions can handle it.

Click here for the beginner a,e, and i word family sheets.
Click here for the beginner o ad u word family sheets.




These are the items I use with these worksheets.



What's your favorite way to practice word families?

Freebies we've used this week: 4/29/16

The other day I started writing this totally great blog post about some of my favorite free resources around the web, but then it occurred to me how much better it would be to show you all the great stuff I'm finding instead of just the treasure troves. So from now on, if I use any freebies, I'll share them here and let you know what I thought.

I'm currently teaching Quinn (5) to read using This Reading Mama's Reading the Alphabet program. We work entirely at her pace, but she is extremely motivated and wants to practice several times a day. We worked through lesson 20 (the -ot family), lesson 21 (Qq), and lesson 22 (Jj) this week. To accommodate her rapid pace, we skip part of the activities. Quinn always uses the books, rhyming words, sight word activities, and syllable count.




Zeke and I are reviewing some word families right now, so I found these free readers from This Reading Mama. I printed the readers in black and white on regular paper and they are still cute. The freebies also include three extra pages of coordinating activities. I printed them all off, because I'll use them with Quinn soon.

Zeke is working on blends with his speech therapist, so I pulled out these blend cards from The Measured Mom. I like that they force the child to isolate and really think about the blend sound. The cards come in color, but I printed them in black and white to save on ink. Sometimes, I go through all of the cards and other times, I only grab 10 or so.


What freebies have you used or discovered this week?