Holiday Giveaway Day 4

Shut the front door - it's already Day 4! You'll have to excuse my corny attempt at poetry, but it is for good reason! Today's freebie was created because of a surprising gap I noticed in my students. Remember, I teach gifted second graders. These kids have the hardest time with rhyming! I could get on my soapbox now about how this happens because it's assumed that early readers don't need phonics instruction or practice with essentials like word families, but I won't. (Or maybe I just did...) Either way, today is about sharing and happiness and creating things to fill those gaps, not about soapboxes. Which reminds me that I have GOT to do some laundry today!

Ok, on to the freebie. I have been working on a big Hanukkah activity packet for my TpT store (click {HERE} if you'd like to check it out) to really give my classroom treatment of this special holiday a boost and a much needed freshening up. This week Hanukkah will be our focus as you can see from our elf C.C. who has been learning how to play the dreidel game.

To start the unit, we're going to sing the Dreidel Song and of course play the Dreidel Game. Both are serious crowd pleasers. Then we are going to put a spin (rimshot!) on the song by writing an innovation of the song. I have several rhyming dictionaries that I'll make available to the kids and a quick Google search will yield tons of lists of rhyming words. Depending on your kids, you can all do one together, or have them work in groups, partners, or even at a center. To come up with examples, I've been singing this song in my head for the past week and sometimes out  loud in the car. I sing with gusto in the car, people. Other drivers must surely think I'm the next American Idol contestant when they see me belting it out at a red light. Here are a few examples that I came up with (which are included in the freebie packet):

 The freebie packet also includes a mini-poster of the song:

And three different frames for your students to use, depending on their needs. The square at the top of course, is for an illustration of their brilliant rhyme:

This one is on Google Docs. Click {HERE} to download the whole packet.

Now get a load of this awesomeness! I saw this idea a while back on Pinterest and I've been hunting for cheap puzzles that I could use. Then yesterday in Target I hit the jackpot! If you are reading on your phone while in line at the Starbucks at Target (am I the only one who does that?) grab the java and RUN to the Dollar Spot! I picked up about 10 of these puzzles to use for me and the hubs. Ok, here's the project:

You have to have a puzzle that has a frame and a back to hold the pieces. On the backing of the puzzle and the back of each puzzle piece you write things that you want the kids to match. I chose to do rhyming words for the first one to go along with our focus this week. So when the kids take the pieces of the puzzle out of the frame, they turn them over so they can see the word on the back. They put the puzzle together by matching the rhyming word on the back of the piece to word on the puzzle frame. The possibilities to this activity are endless!

Ok peeps, I'll let you go swarm the Dollar Spot! See you tomorrow for Day 5 and that's no jive! Ba, dum, dum!