As homeschool educators, we know that creativity is an essential skill that children need to succeed in life.
In first grade, children are building their foundational reading and vocabulary skills. We have the unique opportunity to tailor your child’s education to their individual learning style and interests. By incorporating fun and engaging resources into their learning, we can help students develop a love for reading and a strong grasp of language.
That’s why we’ve compiled a list of 10 first grade resources for creativity-based learning.
These first grade resources for creativity-based learning will help your child develop their creativity while learning important academic skills.
These 10 resources are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to creativity-based learning for first graders. Don’t be afraid to explore new resources and experiment with different teaching methods to find what works best for your child. By incorporating these resources into your homeschooling curriculum, you can help your child develop a lifelong love for learning and creativity. We hope that these resources inspire you and your child to explore the wonderful world of creativity-based learning.
10 first grade resources for creativity-based learning
1. Animal Research Journal
This Animal Research Journal is a great way to get young learner excited about putting new research skills into practice by looking up fun creature facts for each creature highlighted in this journal.
Children get to draw and color the habitat the creature lives in and choose 5 interesting facts for 26 incredible creatures.
This kids’ journal serves as an animal study learning workbook that helps:
- Introduce research skills for kids (study on animal facts)
- Strengthen writing skills
- Encourage creativity with drawing and coloring activities
2. Cereal School Fun-Sheets
This delicious set of 10 hands-on activities is a fun addition to our first grade resources for creativity-based learning and a great way to introduce and reinforce foundational math skills using every kid’s favorite breakfast food: cereal! These low-prep, printer-friendly pages focus on counting, number identification, patterns, sorting, critical thinking, and more. An included Teaching Guide gives two additional pages of expanded learning ideas that incorporate advanced math concepts and5 additional games to play with the flash cards in this set.
Cereal School includes:
- Chomp! A perfect strategy and critical thinking game for preschoolers!
- Fill the Bowl: A hands-on counting and number recognition activity
- Flash Cards: Numbers 1-10
- Cereal Checkers in 2 versions (Numbers 1-10 and Uppercase Letters)
- Cereal Clip Cards for numerals 1-10
- Color with Cereal: Tactile art activity
- Cereal Sort: Color recognition activity
- Spilled Cereal: Counting and number recognition activity
- Yummy Patterns: Explore foundational math skills by identifying and recreating patterns!
- Teaching Guide: Two additional pages of expanded learning ideas!
Simply print and grab a box of cereal to start the fun with Cereal School!
3. Interactive Reading Logs
Get your kids excited about reading! Choose from 7 printable Interactive Homeschool Reading Logs in four designs to adapt to your personal homeschool goals. An included Teaching Guide gives two additional pages of expanded learning ideas that incorporate math concepts, literacy skills and more with the use of these logs. Use the BONUS Reading Bingo Challenge to make reading even more fun! That’s why this product is a great addition to our list of first grade resources for creativity-based learning!
These Interactive Homeschool Reading Logs includes:
- 7 Printable Reading Logs in four different designs (each in printer-friendly color and B&W)
- Teaching Guide: Two additional pages of expanded learning ideas
- BONUS: Reading Bingo Challenge (in printer-friendly color and B&W)
With so many options to choose from, this resource is one that grows with your child and works great for families with multiple learners!
4. Short Vowel Worksheets
This product is perfect for our first grade resources for creativity-based learning! It’s for early readers: Kindergarten, 1st grade, and 2nd grade
These EASY Kindergarten Phonics | First Grade Phonics | Second Grade Phonics | CVC Words for All Short Vowels worksheets will help students practice Word Families: an, ad, ap, et, ed, en, in, ip, it, og, ot, op, un, um, and ug.
Students will:
- read
- sort
- cut
- paste
- 2 different types of worksheets included for these sounds
For each sound, there is a fun ocean scene and students will place the fish with the correct CVC sound on a ocean / beach worksheet as they identify each CVC word family. They will also sort out the CVC words that are not correct and place those words on a hook – meaning that they don’t belong with this CVC word family.
Fun Kindergarten Phonics | First Grade Phonics | Second Grade Phonics | CVC Words for All Short Vowels activity for each sound. Perfect for whole group homeschool students, individual work with parents, or to be completed by themselves.
24 pages in all!
5. Salad Bar Math Activity
Spring and Summer are usually the time of year people focus on eating healthier. This Salad Bar Math Activity resource will encourge students to explore different types of salads while learning and practicing basic math skills such as addition, subtraction and budgeting. That’s why this product is a great addition to our list of first grade resources for creativity-based learning!
‘Baby Jake’s Birthday’ is a traditional narrative style storybook written by a teacher dedicated to bringing learning to life with stories. In this engaging spelling story Jamie and Jane are in charge of the games at Baby Jake’s first birthday party. Children will love reading about the party fun while learning to spell at the same time. That’s why this product is a great addition to our list of first grade resources for creativity-based learning!
Engaging storybook to make learning to spell fun and engaging while easily developing phonemic awareness and phonics skills. Our unique program uses stories to help your children learn all the different ways to spell sounds in words, and includes a range of meaningful and connected activities. This sweet story provides context for phonics to make sense and brings life to your spelling time!
This story contains 103 Long A vowel sound words, with the Long A letters printed in contrasting green to clearly show 9 different ways the Long A sound can be spelled.
The storybook also includes differentiated word family lists, a reading comprehension quiz, homonyms, high frequency sight words, play based and cross curricular activities and a colouring page to support students in developing phonemic awareness and learning to decode sounds in words and letter sound correspondence
In This Resource:
- engaging 22 page full page phonics picture book story
- 103 Long A spelling words to learn 9 different ways the Long A sound can be spelled: ‘a’, ai’, ‘ay’, ‘a_e’, ‘ea’, ‘ei’, ‘eigh’, ‘e_e’ and ‘ey’
- word family list
- tricky words
- reading comprehension
- homonyms
- grapheme chart
- story on one page
- coloring page
- spelling activity ideas
- cross curricula story based learning activities
7. Synonyms Easy Reader
The Three Little Pigs: A Learn and Color Easy Reader Workbook on Synonyms is a fantastic first grade resources for creativity-based learning addition! It is for first-grade students who are learning about synonyms. This fun and engaging workbook is designed to help students improve their reading skills while also expanding their vocabulary.
The workbook features a retelling of the classic story of the Three Little Pigs, with each page introducing new synonyms for common words. As students read and color in the illustrations, they will learn new vocabulary words and practice using synonyms in context.
The workbook includes a variety of activities that will keep students engaged and motivated, including matching synonyms, filling in the blanks with synonyms, and coloring in illustrations based on their understanding of synonyms.
This workbook is perfect for homeschooling parents or teachers who want to provide their students with a fun and interactive way to learn about synonyms. With its colorful illustrations and easy-to-follow format, the Three Little Pigs: A Learn and Color Easy Reader Workbook on Synonyms is sure to be a hit with first-grade students.
8. Dinosaur Play Dough Mats
These dinosaur play dough mats practice fine motor skills by building items and tracing words all while keeping kids engaged through play! These mats are great additions to our first grade resources for creativity-based learning! Use these during free play, centres, or as independent student practice. Students will love using these play dough mats so much that they won’t even realize that they’re learning! JUST PRINT, LAMINATE, AND GO! That’s why this product is a great addition to our list of first grade resources for creativity-based learning!
WHAT’S INCLUDED?
~ Teacher Instructions
~ 12 dinosaur play dough activity mats (COLOUR and B&W)
*All activity mats are letter size (8.5”x11”) and in portrait orientation.
9. Emotions & Coping Skills Activity
Parents and practitioners share their challenges of getting kids to share their emotions, and to work on coping skills, So I’ve added a “Bridge the Gap” – a comics activity! Through making stories of how Dramamia got from one emotion to the other, we can learn much about the child’s inner world.
For instance, how food is such a comfort, or books. Or how Ryangry got from confident to frustrated. And there is also an empty board for the child to work on situations where there is a gap between what they wanted and what they got – and together you can use the illustration sets to create a scenario with an ending that works for the child. You will love this addition to our first grade resources for creativity-based learning!
You can also add competition to this activity – every time a player is able to “Bridge the Gap”, they get a “bridge card” with a character on it. The goal is to collect 3 bridge cards with the same character. That’s why this product is a great addition to our list of first grade resources for creativity-based learning!
***This is a digital file***
The download is a PDF file that prints on standard US letter paper, 8-1/2 x 11 inches. Enjoy the game!
10. Alphabet Sounds Song Packet
Children remember words of songs. They remember rhymes and mnemonics. They remember jingles and ditties. That’s why this product is a great addition to our list of first grade resources for creativity-based learning!
Thus, a natural way for littles to learn their beginning letter sounds is through one of these means. Enter “The ABC Sounds Song Packet”…a set of 31 posters to teach the sounds of each of the letters of the alphabet in song!
I am finished with the second book/download in the “Letters and Sound” series (only two more to go!). And this one is probably the most important of the four.
Yes, the ABC Letters and Picture Cards are valuable for learning clue words for each letter (the first step in learning each letter’s sound) and are amazing for practice activities and games. And yes, the upcoming Little Rhyming ABC Books are tons of fun (and very catchy!). However, this packet/book will have your students singing the sounds of each letter of the alphabet in no time—in a pain-free, multi-sensory manner.
In a nutshell, this packet contains 8.5 x 11 inch colored “posters” of each of the twenty‐six letters of the alphabet (plus five additional ones) in song to the tune of “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”
Each song is the same (same wording, phrasing, and line breaks) as the other. The only differences among the song sheets are in the letter and the words/picture clues that begin with that letter.
Here is what you get:
1. Three ABC posters with the alphabet laid out in the order and with the line breaks in the same manner it is sung in the “original” ABC song.
2. Twenty-‐six “regular” letter posters-‐-‐the “regular” twenty-‐six letters of the alphabet, one on each poster, with each letter ’s own “song” with the beginning sound.
3. Five“additional” letter posters—the five long vowels (the original five vowels in the first twenty-‐six letters contain the short vowel sounds) and the soft sounds of c (suh) and g (juh).
Watch out….you will never sing “Mary Had a Little Lamb” the old way again!
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These 10 first grade resources for creativity-based learning are a great way to encourage your child’s creativity while reinforcing important academic skills. Whether your child loves art, music, or math, there is a resource on this list that will help them develop their talents and skills. We hope you find these resources helpful and that your child enjoys using them.
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