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!

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!

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! :)

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.

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)

Letter Formation

I have gotten some comments asking what I do when I introduce a new letter and wanted to share my response. Other than reading a ton of books and singing frog street press songs (love those!), one of the big things we do is learn how to correctly form each letter. I show them EXACTLY how to write that letter. They each have an ABC handwriting Book with the letters in the order that we learn them (see sample page below).

I show them on my promethean board (or you can use the overhead) how to form the capital letter, then they practice writing the capital letter next to number 1. While they are writing I am going around checking to see if they are forming the letters correctly and if they are touching the right lines. I make sure to have a yellow marker with me so that I can write it for the struggling students and they trace what I wrote with my marker. Then next to number 2 we practice writing the lowercase letter together. On number 3 we usually do a pattern (capital, lowercase, capital, lowercase). For numbers 4 and 5 they come up with a word that begins with that letter and we write it together. In the box is the mystery picture. This is our FAVORITE part. I tell them exactly what to draw, one thing at a time. Ex: Draw an oval in the middle (I draw it and they draw it in their books), draw a triangle above the oval, etc. until the picture forms. The picture begins with the letter we are studying. Then at the bottom on the longer lines we come up with a sentence together (short!) that is about the picture (Ex: I see an apple.)
It is extremely important that the students are quiet during this time so I have "table team points." If I see them writing, working hard, etc. I give their table a tally mark. At the end, the table with the most points gets to go to the treasure chest (or you can give theirs a sticker on their page). I make sure to rotate it so every team gets a chance to get the most points :)

Here is the abc book, if you wanted it!

Letter Books

Part of our ELA time is spent working on letter books. When we learn about a specific letter, each student comes up with a word that begins with that letter and makes a page that says "___ is for ___."  In the beginning this is a shared writing time where they write part of the sentence and I'll write the rest. For example, they write the first letter and I write "is for ____." Then the next week they will write the first letter and the word "is" and I'll write "for ___." until they get to the point where they are writing everything on their own. They illustrate the page and highlight the focus letter with a yellow crayon. When everyone is done, we compile a class book. The fun part is that the students get to take the books home (and bring it back the next day) so they can show off their work/other students' work to their parents and siblings. It's a great chance for the students to practice pointing to and reading the sentences with their parents. The finished product is below.

You can get the explanation page to parents here and the letter book covers here.
The letter book cover font is a Kevin and Amanda font - Pea Hollee, and the border is from DJ Inkers.

Daily 5 - Work on Writing

More Daily 5 info! I tried to do more pictures, since I know that's what I personally like looking at :)

I have been introducing each one of the Daily 5 choices slowly,  starting at 1 minute of stamina, then moving to 3 minutes, 5 minutes, and then 10 minutes. It usually takes us a few days to build up to that and I don't introduce a new Daily 5 choice until they have reached 10 minutes. Currently I have introduced Read to Self, Work on Writing and Word Work. This week, since we have learned all three, I will let them choose from all 3 for a few days and I will introduce Listen to Reading later this week.

Here are the different writing tools the students can choose from during Work on Writing:

These tools are right next to the typing paper/dictionaries. I separated these tools from the dry-erase ones so students wouldn't accidentally use markers on dry-erase boards and dry-erase markers on typing paper. 

Goodies:
Write the Room pages are from the fabulous J. Meacham. You can find it under "Write the Room, By Letter, Long Form)

Letter Tracing Pages are from Learning Page. You have to be a member to download the pages BUT it's free to become a member!

Writing tools labels (pdf version) were created using Microsoft Word.  If you want the actual word document you can get that here.

They did such an amazing job with this one! We talked about only writing WORDS/letters on dry-erase boards and typing paper. That was really hard for them to remember but they got it by time we got to 10 minutes of stamina! I am so proud of all of them! Here are some pics of them working.

I was going to group this post with Word Work as well but it's WAY past my bedtime. More to come! :)

Healthy Eating!

I love USDA's new visual for a healthy diet! My kids seemed to grasp this better than the food pyramid. Below is a picture, and it actually makes sense to the students because they can visually see the portioned amount on a plate.

If you go to choosemyplate.gov they have a lot of great printables and resources. The following activities were made using the materials they provided.

After reading a book about healthy eating and the different food groups (basic info), we sorted pictures together so the students can see what kinds of foods go in each section of the plate. I made a flipchart (for the promethean board). 

You can get it here.

Then the students each made their own version of the food plate. I didn't want it to be too time-consuming so I only had one picture for each section that they had to glue on their paper. To differentiate the learning, I had the students who were able to come up with their own food draw on their plates instead of cut/glue the pictures I provided. Below are two examples (sorry for the poor picture quality, only had my phone):

If you want this, you can get the plate here and the pictures to go with it here. 

Again, I got the pictures from USDA's website and the black & white pictures also come in color (they use it for a go-fish game) and you can find that on their website here.

I plan on attaching 10 tips on how to make healthy food more fun to this activity sheet (also from USDA website) to give parents some ideas!

Hope you are able to use this with your students! Happy healthy eating :)

Marzano Thinking Skills

Wow I forgot how exhausting the beginning of the year can be!  Just wanted to share a goal of mine for this upcoming school year - to be better at questioning! I made examples of different types of questions I can ask during whole group carpet time (during read alouds, etc.) and guided reading groups. They are based off of Marzano's 7 thinking skills: knowledge, organizing, applying, analyzing, generating, integrating, and evaluating. I plan on putting these on a ring and keeping them by my small group and carpet areas. Hope you can find them useful!

You can get yours here!

Multicultural Daily 5

I have had a lot requests for multicultural posters and choice cards so here they are. Thanks for the feedback! Click on the picture to go directly to the Google doc.

Full page posters

6 to a page choice cards

Reading Log

In Kindergarten we ask all parents to read with their child for 20 minutes, 5 nights a week. We used to have parents list out the date, what books they read, and how long they read for. To make it easier for the parents and for me this year, I decided to create a Calendar-style reading log, where parents have to fill out what they read/how long on an actual calendar so they can visually see which days they read/did not read with their child and if they met the goal of 5 nights a week. I think it will also be a great visual for the kiddos to see as well. Spacing was a little tight so there wasn't room to make it cute!

This explanation will go in front of the whole packet. I have also included a blank reading log instruction sheet incase you have different reading goals.

This is what each month looks like. This reading log calendar goes to the end of May.

You can get the .pdf version here
and the Word version here.

Ongoing Assessment Tool

We're starting something new this year as a tool to monitor the students throughout the year. Each student will have a file folder where they can decorate the outside to make it personalized and inside will look like the picture above. The right side is based off of what The Sisters have in their "pensieve", but modified so that it is a little simpler. On the left are things that we will continue to monitor the students' progress in (letter/sounds, number recognition, counting, etc.). The hundreds chart is for when listening to the students count - circle how far they counted to. I like it because it lets the students visually see how far they counted to. 

I'm excited about this file folder idea because it lets anyone coming in to work with that student know at a glance how he/she is doing. There is a section called "all about me" where you can write what you have learned about that child - likes, enjoys, etc. so that another teacher working with that child will automatically be able to make a connection. I really wanted to make something that will not be seen as "just another thing to fill out" but something that you can actually use in small groups (math, reading, writing) and have all that data in one place. I plan on punching 3 holes in them and keeping it all in a binder. Anyhow, you can click on the pictures below to download the pdf and if you want the .doc file to modify that will be available below the picture. Hope you can use this somehow!

Version 1

Version 2

Student File Version 1 - Word Document

Student File Version 2 - Word Document

Goals - Word Document

The fonts are from Kevin and Amanda - Pea Hollee and Smiley Monster. I also used a basic print one that was on my school computer - abcprint. 

Beginning of Year Pre-Writing Practice

Before brilliant minds came up with Pinterest I used to save all the pictures of great ideas I found. I have been scouring the internet for where this idea came from but couldn't find anything (this was from a few years ago...) so if this is yours, please leave a comment so I can give the credit to you!

These pictures are the ones I had saved (not my own!) and I put this activity in my Work on Writing Station in the beginning of the year:

I made a set of pre-writing strips based on these pictures. I hope that this is ok for me to do. After what happened with Fran, I'm really paranoid that I'm breaking blogging etiquette so let me know if this is frowned upon...(still new to this whole blogging thing!). Anyhow wanted to pass this great idea along so click on the picture to download.

Update: Thank you Barbara for finding the source of this great idea! Shelley Lovett from Childcareland came up with this and you can find it by clicking on the link and scrolling to the bottom. 

Behavior Plan Linky Party

The Lesson Plan Diva is having a Behavior Plan/Behavior Problems Linky party so I wanted to share what I made 2 years ago that helped some of my kiddos.

I have a lot of ELLs in my classroom (and I teach Kindergarten!) so visuals are usually a must for everything I create. This behavior contract worked really well because I had the behavior that I wanted to see modeled at the top and when it came time to give the child a smiley/frowny face, we looked at the pictures together to see if he followed his plan for that time period. He had to earn a certain amount of smiley faces for the day/week to visit with an administrator and show off his behavior plan, and also visit their treasure chest. The Behavior Plan is for a whole week and you can print them off 2 to a page.
Head on over to the linky party and share what you do in your classroom!