February’s best teacher freebies

Exciting news–I’m now blogging over at Classroom Freebies Too! It’s a continuation of the collaborative Classroom Freebies blog started by Charity Preston. Since it’s inception less than four months ago, Classroom Freebies has hit over 1,000,000 page views!

100 educators from grades PreK-12 post links to free printable activities on a daily basis. I am honored to be among the second group of 100 educators continuing that great work on the Classroom Freebies Too site. You can follow both of the Classroom Freebies sites in one feed via Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

This is a slightly different avenue for me, but I’m looking forward to be involved. Until I joined Teaching Blog Traffic School a few weeks ago, I honestly had no idea that there are thousands of teachers creating amazing activities for their classrooms and then sharing (and selling) them online. The majority of these materials are just as good, if not better than, the products being sold commercially by education publishers. So I figured, if there is high-quality stuff out there for no cost to teachers, why not share it with you all?

On the first day of every month here on The Cornerstone blog, I’ll feature a handful of the best teacher freebies I’ve found. These are no-cost activities and printables that you can use in your classroom right away. At the bottom of the page will be a linky party, where you can explore and share links to other great freebies that I’ve missed.

So, here’s my round-up of some of the best free teacher resources for this month. I’m organizing them by grade level, with a separate category just for cool classroom management resources (of course!). If your resource is featured, feel free to grab the button below and show it off on your site.

<center><a href=”https://truthforteachers.com/2012/02/februarys-best-teacher-freebies.html”><img border=”0″ src=”https://truthforteachers.com/myimages/Cornerstone_featured_freebie_button.jpg”/></a></center>

Early Childhood (Gr. PreK-K):

Valentine Mailbox Letters by Jeannie Partin: “This is a great activity to review letters in a fun, motivating way – your kids will be beginning to play! “Mailman, mailman – you are good to see./Tell me, tell me – do you have a letter for me?/I do have a letter for you./You better read your letter too!”

Heart Alphabet Match by Amanda Myers of A Special Kind of Class: “Here is a simple upper and lower case alphabet matching game. You can also make two copies and have the children match lower case letters or upper case letters.”

Primary Grades (Gr. K-3):

Printable Valentine Set: Silly Homophones and Flying Friends by Erin Wing: “This free download includes two sets of printable valentines.Use the Silly Homophone Valentines as a fun way to play with words and compare the meaning of different homophone pairs. Give them to students as valentines, or include them as an activity in your February writing centers. Flying Friends Valentines are basic valentines to print and hand out during your class celebration.”

Instant Words eBook by Joy Hall of Joy of Teaching: “Here is a FREE sight word eBook that includes teacher-friendly forms and flashcards that correspond with the first 300 words from “The Reading Teacher’s Book of Lists”. The first 300 words make up about 65% of all written material, so it is crucial that students have this foundation when learning to read.”

Upper Elementary (Gr. 3-6):

Calendar Math for the Upper Grades by Stephanie Moorman of Teaching in Room 6: “Calendar Math is usually reserved for the primary grades, but it is BY FAR the most useful thing we do in math all year. Students practice fractions, decimals, division, place value, algebra, graphing, prime and composite numbers, and many more upper grade standards. This standards based program is THE thing that I will shout out across the rooftops, hoping all teachers within earshot take heed of. It is just that good.”

Show Not Tell Writing Prompts by April McNair of A Modern Teacher: “Stop the boring sentences! Here are over 30 writing prompts that encourage students to show, not just tell while writing. Students practice using their senses to describe.” Works for primary grades, also.

Valentines Hearts Math Investigation by Laura Candler of Teaching Resources: “Are all boxes of candy hearts the same? This Valentine Hearts Math Investigation engages the class in collecting data from 10 boxes of colored valentine heart candies to answer this question. As students work, they apply statistical concepts such as range, mode, median, and mean. This activity comes with a Smartboard Notebook 10 file, but the Smartboard is not a requirement for teaching the lesson.”

Middle School (Gr. 6-8):

Partner Picking Cards – Middle School Math by Michelle Lundy of Making It as a Middle School Teacher: “Here’s a set of 30 Partner Picking Cards using Middle Grades Math content. The math content is basic enough for most students to be able to use. These work great as a quick, easy way to randomly pair up students for a task or activity.”

Classroom Management:

Reward Coupons by Melissa Dillard of Seusstastic Classroom Inspirations: “I created these coupons for something new this year. These coupons have been extremely popular on my blog & I am very proud to share them with all of you. My students L.O.V.E these coupons! They will pick a coupon over a piece of candy any day of the week! I’m so glad I implemented this system.” Note: All rewards are intangible!

Muffin Supply Caddy Winter Labels by Charity Preston of The Organized Classroom Blog: “This blog post has a video which shows you a fun way to create classroom supply caddies that can be changed out each month for fun and novelty! There is also a freebie winter label sheet included which will get you started off in style! Enjoy!”

————————————————————————————

Have you recently created something fabulous for your classroom? Share it below!

Here are the rules for the linky party:

1) Link directly to the blog post you’ve written about a free activity idea or printable.

Don’t link to your homepage; people don’t want to click around to find what they’re looking for. Also, please don’t link to sites that require a login, like TeachersPayTeachers. Help visitors get to their freebies easily!

2) Your freebie can be on any topic, for any grade level, but it must be free now and forever.

Teachers who come across this post a year from now should still be able to visit your site and get the item for free.

3) Link back to this blog post or include the Linky Party button (below) somewhere on your site.

You can embed the button in your sidebar or just put it directly in your blog post: this way YOUR site visitors know about the teacher freebie round up and linky party and will be encouraged to share their ideas, too! Feel free to also spread the word on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, etc.

4) Check out some of the other linky submissions.

The linky party is ultimately about sharing ideas and creating conversations, so please leave a comment on at least one other blog. Let the person know how you found them and your thoughts on their ideas.

Did you add your link above? Grab this button and embed it in your blog post!

<center><a href=”https://truthforteachers.com/2012/02/februarys-best-teacher-freebies.html”><img border=”0″ src=”https://truthforteachers.com/myimages/Cornerstone_linky_party_small_button.jpg”/></a></center>