Engaging Games to Get Your Students Moving While Learning

Now more than ever, it's important to include some movement into learning. With schools limiting recess, free play, and even special area classes like PE, music, art, etc. This is one reason I developed my Fluency & Fitness resources a few years ago. I wanted to make learning more fun again! 

Fluency & Fitness allows students to work on essential reading and literacy skills, but then get a chance to move and exercise every few slides. Here's a sneak peek of some Fluency & Fitness in action in the classroom. 

These games can be used during your reading or math block, transitions, brain breaks, morning meeting, inside recess, etc. They only take about 2-3 minutes to play and are very helpful to give your students a fun way to review. Below is a preview from my Silent E Fluency & Fitness Bundle. This particular game has students turn CVC words into CVCe words. 

Students BEG to do these and don't even realize how much they're learning. Teachers love that not only are their kids having fun, but they don't have to lose any instructional time. This is the Money Fluency & Fitness Bundle.

I left these games so you can adapt them for your own classroom. You can choose to click through the slides manually or add a timer if you'd like to participate with your students. :) I like to click through so I can go slow as we are still practicing the skill, then a lot faster as they've mastered it. This Number Sense Fluency & Fitness is one my best sellers. You can find more Fluency & Fitness games here, including grade level bundles and my popular MEGA bundle!

Since teachers are loving Fluency & Fitness, I wanted to create something similar but with a team or small group aspect and Holiday themes. My new resources called Fluency Find It have students work in small groups. Students look at the screen and then find the answer on a worksheet at their table. They may find the matching letter, middle vowel sound, answer to the math problem, etc. That student continues playing until they see the "switch spots" slides, and then they go to the end of the line. Students may help each other with the answers if their friend needs help. I've played these games since October and really love watching how the students work together.

Each Holiday comes with 5 games that students should be fluent in for that time of the year. Here's a peek of the 1st grade St. Patrick's Day Fluency Find It in action. I have these games for Kindergarten and 1st grade, but will be working on the 2nd and 3rd grade sets soon. You can find all of my Fluency Find It game here. 

Read Alouds We Love {Valentine's Day}

Valentine's is one of my favorite holidays. I say this with a lot of holidays. I love the colors, the candy, the food, and the LOVE.

Here's some of my favorite books to read.

This is quite possibly my all time favorite. It's just a cute book with a cute meaning and cute ideas. I just like to read it. Nothing less. Nothing more.

You could make a lot of connections with this story. Predictions on who she's making Valentines for. You could extend this to the skill you're working on. For example, you could do a sheet with the day it rained verbs. Your kidlettes could make it rain verbs in hearts. You'd be able to tie in your skill and get some Valentine love all at the same time.

You're probably thinking why in the world did she choose this book? I absolutely ADORE this book. It melts my heart every time I flip through it. I had it as a "kinda" larger sized board book and the cover is squishy. It's a very neat book. It goes through and tells all the way that the baby's mom loves him. When's silly, when he's sad... that's how I feel about my classroom kids. I get on to the ALL the time, but I still love them regardless. I like for them to know that.

We made these really cute mouse Valentine's to go with this story last year.  I can't wait to read this book this year because my kids seriously think that everything has to be a competition. Life is so much easier when you just work together. We have been working on being a team the ENTIRE year and will probably keep working on that until the last day of school.

The book is about two little mice that are friends. They are going to make a Valentine and end up wanting to make the best one. Instead of working together, they decide to work separately to create a Valentine. It turns out quite funny and this story is great for predictions. I let my kids predict what they think is going to happen every few pages.

In the end, the two friends work together to make the biggest Valentine ever.

The entire mouse was made from hearts. The head, the body, the feet and the ears. So stinking cute.

If you made it ALL the way down here, be sure to join our giveaway. We love you all so much that we're giving away a pair of TIEKS!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

An InLinkz Link-up

Read Alouds We Love {Valentine's Day}

It's February 1st, are you getting in the Valentine's Day mood? Less than 2 weeks left to get ready for some LOVE themed learning with your little sweeties.  I'm assuming most of you will celebrate next week Friday since Valentine's Day falls on a weekend this year. But if you are celebrating on Monday good luck to your brave little soul. I could NEV-ER survive a party on a Monday...you'd have to pay me A LOT and then peel me off the floor at the end of the day.  If you are in search of some great books to read next week, I've got you covered.

This would be such a sweet book the day before your class party.  I remember how excited I was the night before our classroom celebrations. Getting my valentines box ready, making cookies, stuffing my face treat bags with candy. So much fun.  I also like to have my class write sweet compliment messages to a secret friend the day before our party. Then they stuff them in their friends box and everyone gets an extra smile reading why someone thinks they are awesome. I like this personal addition to the monster high, ninja turtle, crazy sugar rush of a day.

Next up,  Love, Splat.  Have you met Splat? If not, you NEED to stop reading and grab one of his books. Like, now...seriously, he is just about the cutest stinkin' cat ever (Sorry Pete). He's always so worried, and nervous and I think the kids just love that they can relate to his predicaments.  Which makes this a perfect book for making connections. I also made a super sweet craftivity with my friend's class this year, and I just LOVE how they turned out.

"Love is...When my dad has time to play with me on the wii" So sweet!

My next recommendation is a classic, The Valentine Bears by Eve Bunting.  I remember my teachers reading this to our class when I was younger and its such a sweet story about Mrs. Bear who takes extra time and care to make a very special Valentine's Day for Mr. Bear even though they usually hibernate right through it.  A great message of showing the ones we love how much we care. I like to use it to have students practice inferring.  On the second page students learn that Mrs. Bear wakes up early from her hibernation. I find that this is a perfect place to stop and have them make inferences about why she would wake up early.  There are a lot of great clues in the text, pictures, and even the title/cover that support students making logical inferences instead of random predictions and guesses.

This book is a nice quick read, with simple text, great pictures and an imaginative storyline.  The father racoon is putting his baby racoon to bed and asks what type of kiss he'd like then suggests all sorts of kisses such as circus kisses, butterfly kisses, witch kisses, and more.  I like to read this book to my students without showing a few of the pictures and have them visualize what a particular kiss may look like.  Circus kisses always bring out some cute ideas.  There is not a lot of descriptive text to lead their drawings like many of the other books I use for visualization, but I love the variety that this activity brings.

And my last suggestion is sure to bring a tear to any parents eye.  This book is told from the perspective of a parent reassuring their child that no matter where they are, the child is always in their heart. I like to have students tell about all of the people that they have in their heart.  This book is especially perfect for military families that may experience longer periods of time away from their child.

Thanks so much for checking out my favorite Valentine books.  If you are interested in any of the activities I described above, be sure to check out my Read & Respond: Valentine's Day Pack here:

And just to show you how much we LOVE all of our teacher friends, we are having a little giveaway! One lucky winner will be able to pick out their very own pair of Tieks!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

An InLinkz Link-up

Secret Admirer Blog Hop

 Welcome, Friends!

Over the past 4 months the ladies here at The Elementary Entourage have been having a great time collaborating on this little blog and although we live all over the country we are becoming our own little teacher family. We decided we wanted to do something fun to spread the LOVE for Valentines day and came up with the idea of a Secret Gift exchange! Now of course we didn't want to leave our sweet followers out so while we sent gifts and surprises to our buddies via snail mail, we wanted to share Valentines freebies with you via TPT.

We are linking up our Secret Valentine fun below so be sure to check out everyone's blog and share in the LOVE!

How to get in on the fun:

1. Start at Mrs. Plemons' Kindergarten {click on her blog button in the link up}.

2. Visit the blog, read about her secret valentine, and check out her freebie.

3. Leave some feedback so we know you stopped by, we love reading comments from our friends in bloggy land!

4. Click on the next blog to read and grab the next freebie.
5. Spread the LOVE and share this post with all your favorite teaching friends!

From all of us here at The Elementary Entourage, we'd like to wish you a Happy Valentine's Day!

An InLinkz Link-up

Valentine's Day Ideas

Hey friends!!!!

Valentine's Day is probably one of my favorite holidays to celebrate at school. (Thanksgiving is my favorite overall.) I love alllllll of the pretty colors, the candy, and ideas of things that you can do at school with your kidlettes.

Here's a few ideas to squeeze in before the BIG DAY!

Shirts.

So simple. So cute. Yet, SO much fun! Have your students bring in a used white t-shirt that is a little bigger than they are. I usually ask for adult small or youth large for my kinders. Dye it in either pink, purple, or red for Valentine colors (to mask any stains lol). Then, decorate. The ideas are ENDLESS. Here's a REALLY cute and easy one that you wouldn't have to dye shirts for...

How To Writing

After your kiddos are all decked out in their shirts, there are SO many great things to do besides exchanging cards and candies. I really LOVED our How To writing last year. We wrote how to make a heart. So simple, yet they REALLY had to think about it. I taught them how to make a heart before we did it the writing. They have to tell me the correct steps. I had a different child come up to write each step. on a large heart. I forgot to take an after picture, but it's so cute and easy to do.

Decorate your classroom

Dollar Tree. Target. Walmart. Dollar General. Family Dollar. ALL of these places have so many cute trinkets that you can easily decorate your classroom to fit the theme for two weeks. I don't like to leave Valentine decor up longer than the actual holiday, so I make sure the room is decorated on the very first day of February. We create most of our Valentine crafts that first couple of days to hang in the room. It creates such a loving environment... even though I'm sure your classroom is always loving. :-P