Turkey Time Math!

I can't believe another month has already passed and it is almost time for Thanksgiving! My Pumpkin Roll, Count, & Color freebie was such a hit last month that I decided to put a Turkey twist on it for Thanksgiving. My little darlings still need a bit more work with ten frames before we move on to teen numbers.  Just click on the pictures below if you want to download it and then pull out your dice and spinners and put your little ones to work!

 

 

 

 

 



Math in Motion

My school recently received a grant to purchase Learnercise Phone Mats. These things are amazing! The kids had so much fun and I could easily assess their number recognition skills. They were twisted up in knots and giggling the entire time. The instructional booklet had some great activity suggestions but I was also able to "free style" using a Twister Game style to meet my assessment needs. I didn't specify right/left hand or foot. We just used legs, hands, elbows, knees, bellies, and noses! 

It was so fun to see how different the kids moved & problem solved their movements to follow my directions!

 

Elbow on 4, foot on 3 and another on 8

One hand on 3 and the other on 5!

  

Knee on 2, foot on 3, nose on 8, & hand on 2!

   

 

These mats can also be used for identifying colors, alphabet recognition, addition & subtraction, spelling words, and multiplication in the upper grades.  We have to check the mats out and share with the entire school so I am seriously considering posting a grant on Donors Choose.org to get my own class supply of the mats since we could use them most every week for a variety of skills and would be perfect for rainy day recess! At $24 each, these mats would be a great investment and we would certainly get our money's worth out of them! I'm sure I could make these out of shower curtains or plastic table cloths but at this point in my life I am looking for the easy way to do things and these are good quality mats. I would love to hear from anyone else that uses these or have made their own "homemade" version.

 

Check the mats out here.

 

 

 

Pumpkins Everywhere!

It is that time again for our annual Pumpkin Decorating Contest! Each classroom is given a small pumpkin to decorate as they wish and all of the pumpkins are set up in the main hallway at school. During the month of October, students and parents can vote for their favorite pumpkin for a $1 donation. The classroom with the most "votes" wins a pizza party and the classroom teacher wins a half day off from work!

Here are a few of the pumpkins in the competition! I'll post the rest when they are finished. 

 Despicable Me Minion

 

 Uncle Si from Duck Dynasty

 Adorable Ladybug

Rainbow Fish

 Spider

Lollipop Ghosts

 

 Mr. Pumpkin Head

Cinderella

 Basketball

Duck Dynasty

 Mickey Mouse

A Hedgehog

 Witch

Cute Girl

 Curious George Goes to a Costume Party

 Minion with a drum

 Cowgirl

 

Which one would you vote for?

We're Not Afraid of Anything!

Ahhh, October! My most favorite time of the year! There are so many fun themes to use to teach the Common Core standards during the month of October and this activity is one of my favorites! To kick off our Scarecrow unit we read the book The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything and had the students make predictions using the text evidence and retell the story using the props below.

 Ok now say it with me…”THAT IS SO ADORABLE!” One of my kindergarten coworkers has a toddler that is always dressed so cute and she brought in some of his hand-me downs. They are so cute and are the perfect size for our PVC frame!  

 

 

Here is the frame we started with. My handy man husband only spent $6 on the PVC pipes & elbow pieces (easy to take apart for storage.) He also drilled a hole in the bottom of my pumpkin bucket so that it fit perfectly on the frame.

 

 

I think he is too cute to spook & the kids loved it!

 

 

 

 

3D Shapes Don't Scare Me!

Let me be honest up front! The truth is, I threw together this 3D Shape Scarecrow freebie really quick to share just so I could write a blog post and share a little more about Logan's road to recovery. You are more than welcome to just grab your freebie and then go on about your way without having to stick around to read the rest of the blog post about my personal life:)

We will be doing an awesome Scarecrow unit next week and I don't have a lot of 3D shape practice pages so I hope this will work out well for me. Click on the picture below to download it.

 

Enjoy!

 

Now to those that chose to stick around....

 

Today has been a surprisingly wonderful day! I only got a couple hours of sleep last night but somehow I woke up bright eyed and ready to tackle another day. When I got to school and looked at my lesson plans, I wasn't too impressed with what I was supposed to teach so I decided to "wing it". 

 

Best teaching day ever! 

 

The lesson fell together and flowed wonderfully.  The kids were engaged, had a blast, AND I still covered the standards for the day! The lesson wasn't anything new or fancy but I just felt "adventurous" and "free". Yep, I even pulled out the clay for each child to create their own 3D shapes! While it took some time for the little ones to figure out how to make a sphere, cube, cone, and cylinder, they did it and were so proud of their masterpieces! 

 

Then I got THE phone call! It was Logan so yes, I did step outside my classroom door to answer it. He said "bet you can't guess where I am". My mind goes wild... did he go outside and get the wheelchair stuck in the grass? Did he fall trying to use the toilet?

 

Nope! None of the above!

 

He said "I am UPSTAIRS in my room!" (with the help of his physical therapist of course). My tears could not be contained! It felt like a toddler taking his first steps. My heart was swelling up inside my chest. The therapist let me know that Logan had a great attitude today (no more anger or frustration) and was working harder than ever before. By the time I got home, his homebound teacher said he WALKED to the door to answer (using his walker) rather than sitting in the wheelchair. His Facebook status said that "Today is the day that I start working extra hard to be able to walk again.  I'm going to stop waiting and hoping to get better. It is time to move on. I'm done with sitting in this wheelchair."  

 

There is the determination that we have prayed so desperately for! The road to recovery just took a turn onto a much smoother route!

 

Friends, it's a good day indeed!

 

 

P.S. Come back soon! In the next couple of days I hope to find time to tell you about an experience that we had on this journey that involved a fellow teacher that was once a stranger!  It will give you goose bumps!   

 

...and then I will try to keep my posts more educational and less personal!

 

Be Blessed!

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Surprise! A TPT Sale!

I spent a beautiful fall day in the mountains with my family today with no cell phone service. In light of all of the chaos the last 6 weeks of life threw at us, it was so nice and peaceful to be "unplugged" and with family for a little while. Now imagine my surprise to come home tonight to check my email and find out that TPT is having a surprise sale! The sale is running Saturday & Sunday, but since I missed Saturday, I am all in for Sunday! Use the code FB100K at checkout and get 10% off everything in your cart! I am also adding an additional 10% off of everything in my store to help you rake in some extra savings! Click on my blog button below & Enjoy!

 

 

Blessed Beyond Measure!

 

Kelly

An Unbe"LEAF"able Blog Hop of Freebies!

Grab your virtual rake and get ready to bag up some "tree-rrific" freebies! Just float through all ELEVEN blogs to catch ELEVEN fall items. In addition, every time you "fall-ow" a blog, you can enter to win the grand prize. It's a bushel basket full of October goodies. The winner will be announced next Friday, October 18.

 

You'll have to visit each blog to see the freebies, but here's a peek at the items in the grand prize. If you just can't wait to see if you'll win, you can click each pic to go straight to TPT and make your purchase.

 

I actually have 2 freebies for you to choose from! The first is Pumpkin Patch Fun that includes games for numbers 1-10 using ten frames and color words. 

 

 

The 2nd freebie is a set of sight word worksheets that go along with the McGraw Hill Wonders Reading Series.  These are also Dolch & Frye Sight Words so maybe you will be able to use them even if you are not using Wonders.  This includes units 1-3 right now but units 4-10 is still under construction.

 

 

 

Don't forget to follow my blog and enter to win the grand prize!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

To keep filling your basket, go to the next blog:

Fall Break At Last!

Please don't misunderstand me...I love my job, but I am so glad to have a week off for fall break! I think that I put so much time & energy into my job during and after school hours that I just neglect everything else. Never more true than in the last 5 weeks since Logan's accident.  He is home now and we are so happy to no longer have to make the 45 minute drive one way to the hospital.  I miss the round the clock nursing care & 3 hot meals delivered daily but I am so thankful to have the comforts of home!

I spent my first official day off finishing up my 2nd set of morning work. I am almost finished doing the first set my own students so I was in a panic to get this one finished soon! Click on the pictures below to go get it from my TPT store.