Light 'em Up again!

Last year, I posted about a random act of kindness idea I found from the blog, Lil Light O' Mine. I created a classroom version and each day we drew an act of kindness idea from the jar. The kiddos LOVED it and reminded me about it daily. This is the time of year where the students are getting a little too familiar with each other and no longer in the generally-friendly-towards-everyone phase. It was the perfect reminder on how to be kind! I especially loved how they carried some of the ideas on even though we were on a different day (some kids ended up throwing away a friend's trash from the cafeteria every day).
Anyway, after collaborating with the genius behind all of this, Lil Light O' Mine, we came up with the following: (click on the picture to download this document with all the classroom ideas our classroom worked on last year)

These are ideas for Kindergarten, but I would love to hear how you implemented your own version of this in your classroom! 

For more information on the Light 'em Up program (and many, many more ideas) please go visit Courtney over at her blog, Lil Light O' Mine.  She is amazing and has a LOT of resources (freebies and printables) on how to get this program started with your family within your community. 

All it takes is one classroom to make a huge difference at your school! HAVE FUN!

Classroom Friendly Pencil Sharpener

To be completely honest, I was a little skeptical about this pencil sharpener. I'm used to the electric kind that seemingly sharpened pencils at a faster rate. I even went out and splurged on these pencil sharpeners ($45 - $50 dollars each):

I am so glad I gave the Classroom Friendly pencil sharpener a try. The above 2 electric ones broke after about 16 months of use. My kids never used it and it still broke! I had to re-sharpen most of the pencils because the lead would break immediately after I sharpened it. I thought they just didn't make pencils like they used to anymore. It wasn't until after using the Classroom Friendly pencil sharpener that I realized it wasn't the pencil after all; it was the pencil sharpener! I sharpened a pack of 24 pencils within 5 minutes (really depends on how quickly you can wind, though). Here are a couple of pictures:

Notice how sharp it gets.

I sharpened the pack of 24 pencils and didn't have to empty it . In fact, there's still room!

These pencil sharpeners are selling for about $25 and they sell out fast. You can grab yours by clicking on the picture below:

Teacher Time Posters!!

Hello! Sorry I have been away from the blogging world. There have been a lot of changes this Summer (will post about all that later). I have been getting an incredible amount of requests for the Teacher Time daily 5 choice cards in poster size so here they are! There are 3 teacher choices. Click on the picture to get the .pdf from Google Docs! :)

Online Timer

Not sure if anyone has blogged about this tool before but just wanted to share because I recently found it and use it ALL THE TIME with my kiddos. We have been learning about pacing ourselves when working and this is an amazing visual for that purpose. It looks like this:

Set the time.

What the students see.

Click here to get to the online timer. 

Math Word Problems

Here is a math word problems journal I made for my kiddos for the end of the year. I have incorporated addition, subtraction and one problem deals with half. Anyway, thought I'd share! There are 2 of the same problems per page so that after you make copies all you have to do is staple and cut in half to make 2 books! They look like this:

You can get the PDF version here, and the Word version here! Enjoy!

ABC Countdown

I know technically it's not a countdown, but this is something fun our whole Kindergarten team does to countdown to the end of the school year! I can't believe I waited until now to blog about it (since the countdown has already started) but here it is anyway! Let me know if you have any questions about any of the days. This is what it looks like:

and you can get the PDF here and the Word version here.

Subtraction Buddies

It's that time of year again - addition and subtraction! This year, my Kindergarteners made Subtraction Buddies to help us take things away. They had a blast! They designed their own buddies and named them. The next day, I let them choose a table with the manipulatives they wanted to work with (dinosaurs, bears, various different counters) and they worked out their subtraction problems by having their Subtraction Buddies eat the manipulatives. It was a great visual for the students to physically see things being taken away and they had fun working!

I gave them each a paper bag and set out construction paper, googly eyes, and yarn and let them go at it. Here are some examples:

Here is the sheet they used to record down their answers. 

You can grab the PDF version here and the Word version here.

Hope this helps your kiddos better understand this concept!

• Clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com

Seasons

We had a blast going more in-depth with each season. We spent one day per season and discussed weather changes and how our lives change because of it (clothing, activities, etc.).
After brainstorming the different changes, the students decorated a tree to correspond to the season and drew themselves in the right clothing doing an activity of that season. After making all 4 trees the students had to put them in order starting with their favorite season.

Anyway, I thought they turned out so cute and wanted to share with you all!

What the cover looks like

Here is a sample page

You can grab the PDF version here
and the Word version here.

I added a thermometer to the pages (wish i did that for my class) so the students can roughly show the temperature of that season. Fonts used: DJ Fat Chat, Abcprint, DJ Light.