Cinco de Mayo in the Primary Classroom (Including Two Free Resources)

Since we're getting close to the beginning of May, I want to share a few ways to incorporate Cinco de Mayo into your classroom.  

Of course one great way to integrate Cinco de Mayo and Mexican culture into your class is through read alouds.  If your students are not familiar with Cinco de Mayo, fun and informative read alouds are a wonderful way to give students background knowledge for this holiday.

Some Cinco de Mayo themed read alouds you may want to check out are:

Marco's Cinco de Mayo by Lisa Bullard

Celebrating Cinco de Mayo by Sandi Hill

Next Stop: Mexico by Ginger McDonnell

Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with the Mexican Hat Dance by Alma Flor Ada and F. Isabel Campoy

Cinco de Mouse-O! by Judy Cox

P is for Piñata by Tony Johnston

Rookie Read-About Holidays: Cinco de Mayo by Mary Dodson Wade

Chicks and Salsa by Aaron Reynolds

After developing some background knowledge, students can complete a writing piece about Cinco de Mayo.  My students have be working hard on topic sentences and supporting details.  By this time of the year, they should be ready to fly with this project.  

Students will be prompted to write information they know about Cinco de Mayo.  When the writing is complete, students will put together their Cinco de Mayo kid peek overs.  

These projects will be a colorful and enlightening display outside of our classroom.

If you would like to make this project with your students, click here for a free copy of the pattern and writing sheet.

In addition to literacy opportunities, Cinco de Mayo can also be incorporated into your math time.  

A few years ago I made this Cinco de Mayo math mini book.  I've used it every year since then to give my young learners extra practice with word problems.

Skills included in this mini book are addition, subtraction, fractions, tally marks, time, nonstandard measurement, calendar, and patterns.

If you would like a free copy of Celebrate Cinco de May: A Math Mini Book, you can click here.

In addition to Cinco de Mayo word problem work, I also incorporated Cinco de Mayo into some of our monthly center work.  

In math centers students will practice Cinco de Mayo themed fractions and coin counting.  In literacy centers, students will work with Cinco de Mayo themed synonyms.  

The math and literacy centers we will be using in May have been newly updated.  If you already own these sets, you will want to download the newest versions.

Flower Power {10 Math Centers for May} includes work with missing minuends, balanced equations, fact families, time to the half hour, place value, mixed addition and subtraction, fractions, and more.  You can click here for more information.

Flower Power {10 Literacy Centers for May} features practice with contractions, synonyms, antonyms, parts of speech, sight words, fact and opinion, vowel teams, compound words, and more.  Click here for more information.

The last weeks of school can be a little much.  Keeping your students engaged and moving forward with their learning will truly benefit them (and help you keep your sanity).  I hope some of these ideas will help you get your May started on the right track.

Best.

Ringing In the New Year, Classroom Style

Are you a New Year's resolution person?  Well, I am.  I have had the same resolution for the past few years.  Start going to bed on time.  I'm sorry to say, like many resolution makers, I've already broke it.  We were in school a total of three days this first week back from winter break, I did not go to bed on time once.  Oh well...I'll try again next week.

During our three days back this week, my firsties rang in the New Year with style.  We did some retraining, some reviewing, and some fun New Year's themed activities.  Here's a peek at a few of the New Year's resources our class enjoyed.

We built background knowledge by reading the few New Year's themed books I've been able to get my hands on.  For some reason, there are not very many of them. 

We read P. Bear's New Year's Party by Paul Owen Lewis.  This book is a counting book about the animals arriving to Polar Bear's party.  (If you would like a copy of a free activity I used with this book, a few years ago, you can click here.)

We read Squirrel's New Year's Resolution by Pat Miller.  This story is super cute.  It does a good job explaining what a resolution is.  It follows Squirrel as he tries to figure out what his resolution should be by asking the other forest animals about their resolutions.  I like reading this book in class just before we do any resolutions writing or set any goals for the New Year.

Another New Year's themed book I shared with my first graders was The Night before New Year's by Natasha Wing.  This edition of The Night Before... books is true to form as it stays consistent the pattern of The Night Before Christmas, but inserts the symbols and traditions (this time) from New Year's.  It's a great jumping off point for students to share their family traditions for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

New Year's Day (Celebrations in My World) by Lynn Peppas and New Year's Day (Holiday Histories) by Kathryn Imler are two nonfiction explanations of New Year's.  They are a great way to explain traditions and facts about this holiday.

Shante Keys and the New Year's Peas, by Gail Piernas-Davenport, is a wonderful book to use with your young learners.  This rhyming story tells the story of Shante as she visits neighbors to borrow some black-eyed peas.  She learns about different New Year's traditions from around the world from her neighbors.  I love this book.

Throughout the week, as we read these stories, we created a New Year's anchor chart to display and reference in class.

Having the anchor chart helped students with a couple of writing assignments they completed about New Year's.  One of the writing assignments went along with a cute New Year's craftivity we completed to share our resolutions.  Our New Year's Kids look totally cute as a hallway display and the kids love, love, love the blowouts.

If you are interested, this writing craftivity is available at my Teachers Pay Teachers story.  You can click on one of the pictures for details.

We started our January math and literacy centers this week.  Some of the centers are New Year themed.  The one pictured below is a review of the short and long a sound.  

It's amazing to me how improved my students are with centers at this point in the year.  They are so much more independent and willing to problem solve each month.  It's really rewarding to see.

Below is a FREE New Year's math center that I've incorporated during our center time during the past couple of years.  Students practice matching the numbers that are 10 more, 10 less, 1 more, and 1 less.  If you would like a free copy of this center to use with your class, click on the picture below.

Another free New Year's math resource you may want to check out is my Out With the Old and In With the New: A Happy New Year Math Mini Book.  This little booklet features word problems that review some of the skills that we've covered so far this year.   I'm all about holiday inspired math mini books as we continue to learn how to tackle word problems. 

I've updated it through 2025. You can click on the picture below for a free copy of this booklet.

Although New Year's Day has past once we return from break, I still really enjoy finding ways to integrate it into my classroom.  It makes the beginning of the second semester start on a really positive note.

I hope you had a great first week back from break.  Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers to a great rest of the year!

Thanksgiving Tidbits (Activities and Freebies)

It's a little less than a week until Thanksgiving.  I cannot believe it.  It seems like Halloween was just last weekend.  Craziness!  We'll have a couple of days in school next week to wrap up some of our Thanksgiving activities, then we're off for a little break.
Traditionally, my first graders get a little (let just say) spirited the week or two leading up to a holiday/break.  Being prepped and ready with plenty of engaging learning activites is super important.  Here's a peek some at a few Thanksgiving inspired math and literacy activities we stayed busy with this week.

We started off by making our Pilgrim Writing Craftivity.  Our class cabinets have been embarrassingly bare for the past couple of weeks and these little Pilgrims look great.
On the backs of the Pilgrims, students wrote about what they are thankful for.

Some of our literacy time has been devoted to Thanksgiving themed literacy centers.  I am so happy to see how much independence most of my students are gaining as we work through our year of math and literacy centers.

Speaking of math centers, those have been Thanksgiving themed as well.  Math centers are an awesome way to provide ongoing review and to lay the ground work for upcoming instruction.  The fact that they can be seasonally inspired makes them even better.

Another Thanksgiving related resource we used during our math time was my It's Turkey Time Math Mini Book.  I made this book a couple of years ago and have been using it ever since.  It includes word problems that review several of the skills we've been working on so far this school year.
If you would like to have a FREE copy of this math mini book, click on the picture below.

We wrapped up our week with a fun round of scoot.  When I say fun, I mean FUN!  My firsties think scoot is awesome.  They love moving around the room or in this case switching from desk to desk.  They get a huge kick out of scoot.
Since we have been working on subtraction the past few weeks, our scoot focused on basic subtraction equations.

If you would like a FREE copy of my Perky Turkey Subtraction Scoot, you can click on the picture below.
I addition to using this freebie for scoot with your students, it also works great as a math center or as a write the room activity.

Hope some of these activities are helpful to you during these last few days before Thanksgiving.  If you are among the lucky teachers that have the entire week of Thanksgiving off...enjoy your well deserved break.

Best.

Five for Friday with FREEBIES for Presidents' Day and Mardi Gras

Whew!  Made it through Valentine's Day.  We had a great time at school with different Valentine's themed learning activities and of course our little party.  The kids are always so excited to hand out their cards and to receive cards from their friends.  It is so fun to sit back and watch.
This Five for Friday I'd like share a couple user friendly Valentine activities we did and some freebies that I'll be using next week to celebrate Presidents' Day and Mardi Gras.

Number 1

We made Valentine bags in class to collect our cards.  This year we made mice out of hearts.  They were crazy simple to make and turned out really cute.  My firsties loved seeing the hearts transform into mice.

Number 2

Always a favorite, we graphed candy message hearts.  This year we also used them for patterns.  My kids adore working with candy.  It makes math time feel like playtime.

If you would like a FREE copy of the activities above, click on the picture.  If you would like to read more about some of the other activities we did for Valentine's Day this year, you can click here.

Number 3

As you know, Presidents' Day is this week one of the activities will be doing is a shared research project about George Washington.  We will research information about him and create a class bubble map.  After we create the bubble map will make the craftivity pictured below.
If you would like a copy of of my George Washington {A FREE Writing Craftivity}, click on the picture.

Number 4

Mardi Gras falls on February 17th this year.  Most of my students do not know what Mardi Gras is.  So I like to do a little something in class for my kids to learn about some ;) of the traditions involved with this holiday.

We'll have kings cake and make these Mardi Gras Kids spelling art projects to display in the hall.

We will also do some Mardi Gras themed word problems in math using my Mardi Gras Math {A FREE Math Mini Book}.

If you would like to have either of these activities to use with your students, click on the pictures.

Number 5

I have some news that I'm sure is only exciting to me, but I'll share anyway.  I hit 1,000 followers on Teachers Pay Teachers!  I really try not to pay to much attention to numbers because they can be a bit discouraging (in many areas of life).  But 1,000 feels like a number for a little celebration.  

As a token of my appreciation for this happy milestone, my my entire store will be on sale for the next 3 days.  Enjoy!

Thank you for stopping by and thanks once again to Doodle Bugs Teaching for hosting Five for Friday.  Happy Valentine's Day!

Five for Friday: November 7, 2014

If you're happy that it's Friday, clap your hands. (clap, clap)

I don't know what it is about this school year, but things seems to be extra, super busy.  I know it's not just me.  My teacher friends at my school and at other schools are in total agreement.  There are definitely not enough hours in the day.  

One result of this pace is that I have missed every Five for Friday so far this school year.  But, hooray, hooray! this week is an exception.  I am so happy to link up with Doodlebugs Teachings Five for Friday and share five things from my week.

So here it goes...

Number 1

One of my to-dos this afternoon, before leaving school, was to prep my Veterans Day math word problem mini book.  We'll use these on Tuesday, along with a few other activities, to learn more about the heroes that protect our country.  

With this mini book students will work with number bonds, ten frames, calendars, addition, and more.  If you would like to use this activity with your students, you can have a FREE copy of myVeterans Day Salute by clicking on the picture below.

Number 2

We made a favorite fall craftivity, my Scarecrow Glyph.  I love glyphs.  You can really learn a lot about your students through them.  They are also a great way to cover a wide variety of math skills (depending on your line of questioning) and can provide inspiration for student writing.  

I especially like this scarecrow because it works in September, October, and November.  So, if you have them on display in your classroom, you do not have to be in a rush to change them out with another project.

For more details about this project, click on the picture below.

Number 3

This week we launched our November math centers, Thanks and Giving {10 Math Centers for November}.

With these centers, students are working on addition, subtraction, skip counting, fact families, twenty frames, time to the half hour, place value and more.  They are a wonderful way to review and to lay the groundwork for upcoming instruction.
We use them during our Math Daily 3 time for the Math with Someone rotation.

If you would like a FREE center from this packet, click on the picture below.  Touchdown Turkeys is a basic addition center.  It has full color center cards and a recording sheet.  

Number 4

We also started work with our November literacy centers, Thanks and Giving {10 Literacy Centers for November}.

With these centers, students practice skills such as short/long vowel discrimination, parts of speech, ABC order, sight words, sentence order, syllables, blends, and more.

If you would like a FREE center from this packet, click on the picture below.  Autumn ABC Order is just what it sounds like.  Students will practice putting fall themed words in ABC order.  This activity has color center pieces and a recording sheet. 

Number 5

Finally, I've just have to say how proud I am my own sweet first grader.  She ran with her daddy and me in a race last Saturday.  It was unseasonably cold, but that didn't slow her down one bit.  She ran the entire race.  She continues to amaze us.  It was a fun morning for our family.

That's all I have for now.  Thanks to Doodlebugs Teaching for hosting Five for Friday.
Enjoy your weekend.
Best.
SaveSave