Happy Thanksgiving!

This Thanksgiving, I'm starting my kiddos at home off with a Thanksgiving Turkey Hunt! I have hidden 18 turkeys around the house with a word on each turkey for what I am thankful for. They have to find all 18 turkeys and record down the words on their recording sheet. I am so excited to read over the words together at the end and talk about what they are each thankful for this year.

Hop on over to my TPT store for this Thanksgiving Freebie! 

Math Manipulatives Labels 2.0!

I was going through some old posts and noticed that a popular favorite was my Math Manipulatives labels. I also noticed that a lot of people were having a hard time downloading it and getting the pictures to show up, so I have recreated a NEWER and BETTER version!

Meet Math Manipulatives Labels 2.0!  You can find this freebie at my Teachers Pay Teachers site HERE.

I've included a pdf version as well as an editable PowerPoint version. If you are interested in using the same fonts, please download KG Sorry Not Sorry, and KG Always a Good Time. My only request is that you rate this product and my store! Thank you in advance!

The 5 pages of labels include:

- pattern blocks

- unifix cubes

- snap cubes

- tangrams

- links

- counting bears

- attribute blocks

- geoboards

- geoblocks

- dice

- dominoes

- colored tiles

- money

- cards

- ten frames

- counters

- counting chips

- geometric shapes

- base 10 blocks

- Cuisenaire rods

- number tiles

- number lines

- hundreds charts

- magnetic numbers

- mini clocks

- legos

- color cubes

- fractions

- rekenreks

- spinners

Thank you for your support!

New Literacy Station Idea: Clip It, Flip It, Check It!

Happy Spring Break, everyone! I wanted to share with you some literacy station games I made that I am currently using with my sons at home, and it is a big hit!

Meet the Clip It, Flip It, Check It games:

 

I introduced the "Blends" game cards to my son (Noah) today and he was able to pick it up fairly quickly. It took me a while to settle on what to focus on with blends, and I finally decided on the total number of sounds.

 

After going through each picture with Noah, he had to say each word out loud, count on his fingers the number of sounds he hears while saying the word slowly (ex: /b/ /e/ /n/ /d/ -- 4!), and place a clip on all the pictures with 4 sounds. The first card took a bit of practice, but by the time he went on to the second card, he was getting most of it independently.

My favorite part of this game is the self-checking piece on the back. When Noah finished placing all the clips on the game card, he flipped the card over and his eyes lit up when he saw that he was correct on all of them!

In the classroom, I would highly recommend having a buddy check the back for them so they can still make corrections without already knowing the right answer.

All the Clip It, Flip It, Check It! games come with worksheets to reinforce the learning and to hold students accountable at each station.

Come check out my TPT site for Clip It, Flip It, Check It! games for initial sounds, CVC medial vowels, and blends/h digraphs.

I also bundled them all together for one convenient download so that this station can be easily differentiated!

Phonics Games Bundle

Thanks everyone! :)

I'm back!

Hello everyone! It's only been a short 4 and a half years 😂 but i'm back! During that time, I had 2 more boys and journeyed out of the classroom to become an Instructional Coach.

It's been a hectic few years, but everything is starting to settle back down and I'm excited to be back in the blogging world. I've also decided to revamp my TPT page along with a few products that I have. All the freebies listed on my blog will still be freebies, but I've cleaned up some of the products and am offering them on my new TPT page. You can check it out here!

To celebrate this, I made Partnership Wheels to share with everyone!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Wheel-of-Partnerships-3692498

This was what I used in the classroom to "randomly" partner students up for activities. I say "random" because it was actually quite intentional and strategic. Students who did NOT pair well together were placed on the same circle so they would never wind up as partners, and I also ability grouped them -- students who were at/above grade level placed on one circle, students who were below grade level were on a different circle. The students LOVED it when I spun the wheel - especially when I said it in my best gameshow host voice: "It's time to spin the wheeeeel of paaaaartnershiiips!!" 

The rules were simple: I spin the wheel (sometimes a student did), I call out the 2 names that were paired, they make eye contact, smile, and stand together quietly while I call out the rest of the names.

This partnership wheel comes in circles of eighths, ninths, tenths, elevenths, and twelfths (perfect to fit class sizes of 16 - 24 students). It is a powerpoint document, so completely editable, and I've also included blank templates if you wanted to write in their names instead. 

Check out this freebie HERE and let me know what you think about the other products I've listed! A few of them are highlighted below:

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Initial-Sounds-Clip-it-Flip-it-3685458

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fry-Words-BINGO-1-100-3685414

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Sight-Word-Journal-Fry-Words-1-25-3685492

Thank you guys for supporting me ever since I started blogging 7 years ago. As always, please feel free to leave comments and feedback! 

Classroom Library and Accelerated Reader

I am a huge fan of Accelerated Reader. After debating back and forth whether to arrange my classroom books by genre or by AR level, I decided on the latter. It made it much easier on the students to put the books back where they actually belong. I bought a lot of tubs from the Dollar Spot at Target a few years back and they have come in really handy for organizing the books. I just started at the 2s and kept filling each tub with books until there wasn't any more room. I looked to see what level was in each tub, and created a label according to that level:

I have uploaded these labels to my TPT store for free as a word document so you can change the numbers around to fit your tubs. All you need are the fonts Wish I Were Taller, and Pea Hollee (both free downloads from Kevin and Amanda)!

It is much easier if you have labels on each book that tell you what the book's level/Quiz#/Points are. Fortunately, AR has made it extremely easy for you to print those out! I just slap the label on the front of the book and highlight the AR level to make it easier to see. Here are step-by-step directions on printing out labels from AR after you have logged on to Renaissance Place:

Click on Accelerated Reader Enterprise
Reports
School Management
Labels - Book

and all you have to do is look up the book title to find all the information on that book. Unfortunately, it only gives you the title and Quiz number, so if there are different books with the same title, there is no way to view it until you look at the whole report. Fortunately for a website called AR BookFinder! All you need to do is look up your book on that website (gives you a nice picture of the book cover as well) and copy the quiz number to find the label for it on Ren Place. When it comes time to print the labels, make sure that the borders/margins are set to "None" when you view the printer options, or else it might be misaligned on your labels sheet.

Hopefully you found this helpful! Let me know how your classroom libraries are turning out!

Wow - A year of changes

I'm sorry I've been MIA for so long! I've been meaning to blog but life got in the way. Not only did I change from Kindergarten to 3rd grade last year, I also gave birth to my second boy.  I'm excited to share everything I've learned. I have been collaborating with my sister (an incredible graphic designer) and she has helped me completely revamp my classroom to become a detective academy. Be on the lookout for some goodies!

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.

Merry Christmas!

Not a school-related post, but just wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas!

My little 10-month old reindeer :)

Idea from pinterest. This was actually MUCH easier than normal Christmas wrapping with all the ribbons and bows.

Light 'em up - random act of kindness for the day

I just saw this idea on pinterest from the blog Lil Light O' Mine:

and decided to create my own version for our classroom! I plan on having a child pull an act of kindness out for us to work on each day until we leave for Christmas break. I don't know about your classroom but some of my kiddos need a refresher on how to be kind. Here is what I came up with:

You can grab your copy here.
If you would like the word version so you can change it up, you can find that here.

Clipart: DJinkers
Fonts: smiley monster, pea hollee (kevin and amanda fonts)

updates

I cannot believe it has been over a month since I last blogged. I just wanted to post an update on a few of the things we have been doing in class.

Daily 5:

I looked up from my guided reading group and saw that he had taken the paper for the alphabet font sorting and was using it for his puzzle. What a great idea!

Added a writing piece that the students MUST finish sometime that week for work on writing. I like how it makes the students accountable in this area. I write each student's name on the top so I know exactly who hasn't finished.

I saw lots of bloggers with amazing labeling lessons (especially for their apple unit) so we made and labeled our pumpkins!