Lessons by Molly: Alphabetical Order Freebie

I LOVE colored cardstock paper! It's a great way to add color when color ink is not available. I buy the bulk quantities at a STAPLES office supply store and it lasts a long time. The photo below is a pile of my colored cardstock supply:

My stockpile of cardstock paper.

The colors from the bottom up are pink, yellow, blue, orange, green, and purple. The photo above makes the green look washed out but all the colors are very bright. I purchase the blue color separately since it is not included in the assorted set. There are links to the colored cardstock paper at the end of this post.

I wish the cardstock was sold in a box but it's not so I keep my cardstock in a boot-sized shoebox.

I am getting off on a tangent talking about the cardstock! I'll get back to the original subject of this post. I've reached over 500 "Likes" on my Facebook educational page. I am honored that anyone would "Like" my page and thought I'd say, "Thank you." with a freebie!

I made an alphabetical order packet which includes printable worksheets and an alphabetical order pocket chart center. The activities are for alphabetizing to the first letter. Therefore, all the words within a group (on the student worksheets) begin with a different letter.

If you teach first grade in the state of Virginia, teaching alphabetical order is one of the 2010 English Standards of Learning through the Reading strand. "Alphabetize a list of five to eight words according to first letter." (1.11 - Curriculum Framework)

The text is clearly visible on the brightly colored cardstock paper!

The center includes printable cards for pocket charts. The cards are printed, cut out, and inserted into the pocket chart.

I put the lowercase alphabet cards on the top row of the pocket chart. The alphabet cards serve as a reference tool for students while they are alphabetizing the words. If you are creating an alphabetical order pocket chart center, I recommend including this quick and easy reference tool.

Numerals 1 -5 can be penciled on the backs of the cards to align with the correct order.

The category cards are below the alphabet cards. Then, five word cards (within a group) are set below the category cards. The five words can be scrambled so that they are ready for students to alphabetize. Numerals 1-5 can be penciled on the backs of the cards to align with the correct order. This makes the center self-checking.

Use a different color of cardstock for each group of words within a category to keep the center organized.

The cards are positioned vertically on the pocket chart. The exception to this are the alphabet cards which are positioned horizontally in the pocket chart's top insert. The photo above has a portion of the alphabet cut off however the entire alphabet will fit on one row. If your students are working on alphabetical order to the first letter, use a group of words which begin with different first letters. I've included ten words within each category for you to choose from. This will also allow you to add more word cards and extend the task to alphabetizing groups of six to seven words. (You may have to eliminate some of the word cards which begin with the same first letters.)

In the past, I'd hand-write words on colored sentence strips for my pocket chart centers. This was very time consuming! When a piece became lost, I wasted time creating a replacement. Sometimes I didn't have a blank sentence strip in the color to match. It's much faster to print pocket chart centers on cardstock paper and cut them out than to spend time writing things out only to have to re-write them when a piece gets lost. Skip the lamination and print a new set when they get worn.

The cover page shown below will give you an idea of how the printable sheets from this resource appear. You may download this freebie (for a limited time) by clicking on the image below.