January can be a long, cold month with a lot of inside recesses….well, for most of the country anyway! A fun new thematic unit of study is just what you need to spark the learning! We LOVE learning about Arctic Animals! One fun fact about the Snowy Owl is it is the heaviest of all Owl species in North America due to the abundance of feathers it has to help keep it warm! How’s that for some Arctic Trivia……in case you ever need it? Now go check out the resources we’ve created!

Non-fiction Beginning Readers – 4 Arctic Animals

The animals included in this set of Beginning Readers are the Snowy Owl, Arctic Fox, Polar Bear and Reindeer! These readers have:
*Strong picture support *Controlled text *Familiar Concepts *Natural language *Wider spacing between words *Large print that is limited on a page There are 2 versions of each book – one with engaging photographs and the other one has B/W clipart so it can be easily printed and sent home. Lots of Interactive printables and information about these animals will help your students build knowledge. ARCTIC ANIMALS BUNDLE of Beginning Readers If you only want to study one of these animals you can purchase any of them as separate packets. Snowy Owl Arctic Fox Polar Bear Reindeer.

Polar Bear Poem/Song

This fun song is sung to the tune The Itsy Bitsy Spider. There is a mini-movie that shows the pages of the book turning as we sing the lyrics. Your students will be singing along in no time! Some interactive printables are included to extend the learning. It’s a DOLLAR DEAL! Grab our POLAR BEAR SONG!

Polar Bear No Prep Reader

Polar bears are pretty cool and this set of 3 NO Prep readers are just what your student will love to read! Simply fold each one page booklet to create a little booklet. Included are 3 interactives, one for each book. Informational text about polar bears will provide background knowledge and spark discussion. Polar Bear Begining Reader

Read about Reindeer FREEBIE

This beginning reader has all the same resources as the set of readers featured above but includes just the one beginning level of text. Check out this freebie to discover how well this will work with your students. This Beginning Reader targets key sight and high frequency words. It comes with engaging interactive printable activities in B/W.  REINDEER BEGINNING READER

Right now all our WINTER and PENGUIN products are on sale for 20% off! Visit our TPT store soon! and stay warm out there!

The post Arctic Animals – a Cool Theme to Study! appeared first on JK Curriculum Connection.

Peculiar Penguins Non-fiction Packet

We LOVE to learn about penguins and had the best time researching all the information to create this non-fiction text to use with your students. Here is the text from the first page of our best-selling 109-page product, Peculiar Penguins. It is full of information that your students will love to learn about! Included are lots of photos, interactive printables, beginning readers, Fact vs. Opinion activities, and art project and MORE!

“Penguins are peculiar birds. They are peculiar, or unusual, birds who waddle wherever they go on land, snow, or ice.  Even though they have wings, they can’t fly.  They are flightless birds.  But penguins are warm-blooded, lay eggs, and have feathers just like all other birds.

There are 17 different kinds of penguins.  Penguins live only in the Southern Hemisphere.  Some live in Antarctica, one of the coldest places on our planet.  But others live where the climate is warmer.

Penguins are peculiarly shaped birds. Their bodies are erect, meaning straight up.  This puts their feet directly under their bodies.  Most other birds have legs near the center of their bodies.  Those birds can bend their bodies to get food. But not penguins!  They must catch their food in the water as they dive and swim.”

Click PECULIAR PENGUINS to find this at our TPT store.

Emperor Penguins

The biggest of the bunch of the 17 different kinds of penguins is the Emperor Penguin. That’s probably how it got its name! This is a SONG easily sung the tune Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. This product also has a lot of photos, pocket chart cards, graphic organizers, writing papers, a vocabulary chart, interactive printables, beginning readers, and a penguin life cycle worksheet. Sooooo much to add to your study of Penguins. Click EMPEROR PENGUINS to link to this product.

All About Penguins

Of course we need ANOTHER song when learning about penguins. This informative song is also sung to the tune “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’. It is loaded with photographs and comes with a mini-movie of us singing the lyrics as the pages of the book turn. Show this on a big screen and your students will be singing along in no time! Also included are Beginning Readers, interactive printables, mini photo posters and even more! Click ALL ABOUT PENGUINS to link to this product.

Penguin Close Reading Paragraphs and Activities

Close reading is a necessary skill and needs to be modeled and taught as students are developing reading skills. These paragraphs can be read together with your students and some they can read on their own. There are comprehension questions where they answer in written form. You can model the techniques of analyzing text to gain information. There are supportive activities to practice the skill of close reading. This 70-page resource will really enhance the love of learning about penguins with your class. Click PENGUINS READ, THINK and WRITE to view this one.

Penguin Non-fiction Beginning Readers

One can never have enough Beginning Readers for our students who are developing early literacy skills. This set of Non-Fiction Beginning Readers have patterned sentences, supportive pictures and extension activities to go with each of the 4 books. They come in color for in-ckass use and Black and White for Take-Home book boxes. This is a great addtion to your Penguin Study! Click Penguin Non-fiction Books.

Freebie

Here is a song about Emperor Penguins sung to the tune I’m a Little Teapot. Click HERE to find the downloadable file at our JKSingables store .

We hope you either begin a study of Penguins with your students OR find some of our resources helpful! We LOVE learning about Penguins with our students…and they find them pretty fascinating too!

The post Love to Learn About Penguins appeared first on JK Curriculum Connection.

So Many Different Kinds of Bats

Did you know there are about 1,400 different species of bats in the world! And they are found all over the world except in extreme hot or cold areas like severe desert or polar regions. Bats have a pretty bad reputation with most folks! There are a LOT of misconceptions about bats (mostly because of some old Hollywood vampire movies!) Bats are actually quite beneficial to the world, especially in agriculture. Bats are super pollinators. Over 300 different kinds of fruits are pollinated by bats. Without them, we would not have mangoes, bananas, and avocados.  (Goodbye, avocado toast!) Bats also spread the seeds for figs, nuts, and cacao plants , the main ingredient in chocolate! We can thank bats for CHOCOLATE!!! What? That really ups the importance of bats for me! Another added benefit of bats is they can eat their body weight in insects! That’s thousands of insects that won’t be biting us because they became dinner for bats. Think about it….bats are nocturnal and are out at night at the same time as those nasty mosquitoes! Because of bats, we have a lot less mosquito bites! Yay, bats!

Bats make a great unit of study in October

The last week of October is Bat Week. This is a time to celebrate the awesomeness of bats! We love to study bats in October because of their connection to Halloween but mostly because they are sooooo fascinating! We have written a best selling unit of study called Baffling Bats. It is loaded with non-fiction text that will inform your students about interesting facts regarding bats. There are Beginning Readers, comprehension worksheets with short paragraphs and a few questions, Take-Home interactive printables, ABC order worksheets, pocket chart cards, Vocabulary building activities and soooo much more. This is everything you need to do a 2+ week unit study of bats, Click BAFFLING BATS to find it at our store. Check out the detailed Preview to see everything that is included. (P.S. This product has 325 5-star ratings!!)

Need a Song about Bats? Who doesn’t?

Since we LOVE to sing with our students and really believe they learn and retain much more content through music we wrote a song called “All About Bats”. Not confident about singing? Don’t worry! This comes with a mini-movie where the pages of the book turn while we sing the lyrics (easily sung to the tune “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”. Check out these pictures to see just a few of the items that come with this packet. Click All About Bats to see it at our TPT store!

Beginning Readers about Bats

Because reading is such a critical skill we must spend a lot of our instructional minutes every day focusing on developing early reading skills. Why not engage your students in a topic they will enjoy learning about while reading some just-right level of text? Here is a packet of Beginning Readers and extension activities that will engage your students while they learn something new and exciting! Click Beginning Readers- BATS to find this product.

Still need more activities for a Bat Theme?

This 120-page Bat packet is loaded with great activities to fill out any Bat-themed study. It has beginning readers, pocket chart cards, interactive printables, math practice pages, and even some fun BUMP games for practicing math facts. The BUMP games are editable so you can change the numbers and increase the skills that are being practiced. Your students will LOVE “bumping” their friends off their numbers in this lively game! Don’t miss out on this jam-packed product!

How about a FREEBIE to get you started?

Who doesn’t love getting those tasty little samples at Costco? Do you ever succumb and buy the product because you loved that little bite? Well, we would like to give you a tasty sample of all of the products mentioned above. Click HERE to download this FREE sample pack.

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It’s spring and insects are back! It’s so great to study all about insects in Kindergarten and 1st grade classrooms. Learning all about insects makes a great theme for students and they love those creep crawlies…especially the boys! We love everything about them….except when they bite! Did you know there are over a million different kinds of insects that have been identified? Scientists are  discovering more every year! Wow, that’s incredible! Your students will enjoy learning all about insects……those creepy, crawly, wonderful critters!

Insects as Food??

We’ve learned that much of the world’s population eats certain insects! Many insects such as crickets and mealworms contain 20% to 76% of pure  protein. Just 3.5 ounces of grasshoppers or crickets contains between 14 and 28 grams of protein! And they are all low-fat! Sure haven’t seen any of them listed on any Keto diet! We’ve even seen recent news about insect food sources being tested here in the United States.

Buffet, anyone?

Need a fun Song to add to your study of Insects?

There is a great song we created called ALL About Insects. This song (and its supportive activity pages) tells all about insects and is a great introduction to any study of Insects! It is easily sung to the tune “Twinkle, Twinkle Little  Star”. It comes with an Imovie that shows the pages while we sing the lyrics. Show this on  a big screen or a tablet and your students will easily learn to sing along! This product not only includes a song but numerous photos, interactive and take home printables and much more. It will be a valuable addition to your study of insects.

These Beginning Readers will engage your students with text!

We ALWAYS need lots of Beginning Readers to get our students engaging with text. One of our most popular items are our Non-fiction reading sets. Find the Butterfly Readers HERE and the Non-fiction Insects {HERE}

Butterflies! Flutterbyes!

One of the best insects to study are Butterflies. (They were once called “flutterbyes” because that is what they did….flutter by!) You can order Butterfly Growing kits and watch the larva develop and the chrysalises form. When the butterflies hatch it is so exciting to take them outside and release them. Your students will be thrilled! We have created a great product about the Butterfly Life Cycle and even made a song that tells the whole cycle. Click HERE to find it! We also have a great packet called “1-2 Butterfly Photos for You.” It is loaded with activities and printables for studying butterflies. Check it out too!

Need a Freebie to add to your study?

Another fun activity is to equip your students with small magnifying glasses and send them outside to look for insects. Even if they don’t see many they will have a great time looking through the magnifying glasses at blades of grass and rocks! Sing this fun song for FREE! I‘m a Bug Watcher has some fun activities to go along with it….and did we mention it is FREE! This product is a small part of a much larger Insect Non-fiction packet called Nature’s Superstars. You can click HERE to view the product and an extensive preview so you’ll see what a valuable addition this will be to your classroom.

We hope you are enjoying a fabulous spring and will ‘hop’ into a great  study of insects with your students!

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