I was out of school all year last year due to a reoccurrence of Hodgkin's Lymphoma, which I have fought twice now, so I feel like I've had a lot of free time to dream and plan. Now that school is out for the summer, I have been sneaking into my classroom and dreaming away.
I hear I have quite the group headed my way....lots of energy. I love that! (Maybe it will rub off on me!) That being said, I feel like I need a lot of prep for this year.
One of my retired teacher mentors gifted me several of her teaching books and I decided to look through some of them for inspiration. I found a book on file folder games and I was super excited. I have always used centers in my classrooms to help kids stay engaged while I work with small groups. I love the idea of file folder games that kids can take back to their desks, especially when we are still COVID shy.
I decided to use the Pathways 2.0 Unit 1 on Ellen Ochoa for my inspiration for the first months theme. We are blasting off to space on day 1 and I can't wait. Since space is my theme I decided to take the Unit 1 concepts for language arts and make file folder games out of them so my students can practice them independently after they have been introduced. I wanted space themed file folder games with the concepts we are reviewing at the beginning of the year. I have only made two so far as I am drawing my own pictures because.....I want to.
The first game I created is Rhyming Stars for rhyming review. I haven't decided yet if I am going to make this a center or use it as an assessment. Those first few weeks are so cram packed with assessments I want the kids to feel like they are playing. Less stress.
You can find this resource here.
The Pathways 2.0 program has students begin with identifying beginning sounds and the first two are /s/ and /m/ so I created a game for that as well.
You can find this resource here.
What I love about these file folder games is that they are so easy to store! I already have an empty file cabinet in my storage closet. They will stay organized in the order they are taught. I did put the NAD standard on the tab as well, so I can also search by standard. I hope to make many more!
I have had so much fun dreaming up things for our space unit. I am not at the school currently, but I will have to post pictures of all the things I've collected. We are going to be playing in moon sand, riding in a pop-up tent rocket with space helmets I found on Oriental Trading Company, doing math with glowing stars and glowing dice, and so much more.
It's funny how this last year people have really appreciated teachers. Yes, our job isn't always easy, but who gets to say they play with kids all day and get paid? TEACHERS! I love my job!
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