Summer Time!

Oh friends, I hope you have made it to summer break or at least close to it! I am actually enjoying the sights and sounds of the ocean even as I type this post! There are very few places I would rather be than by the ocean with my toes in the sand and nose in a book!

Unfortunately, my mind is still in overdrive with all of the ideas I have for projects that I have intentions of working on this summer but on the other hand, at least I love what I do!  So far I have finished up a June/July ActivBoard calendar for all of my friends that are still in school or teaching summer school.

Then I finished up August and September ActivBoard Calendars for back to school time.

I also just finished up a Barnyard Addition and Subtraction stories flipchart for ActivBoard. There have been other things but those are the big projects so far!

I hope you all have a blessed and safe summer! Don't forget to rest and relax so you will be ready for those new little ones that we will meet all too soon!!!

Be Blessed!

Summer!

Oh Summer! How I love thee! Let me count the ways! Sleeping late, sun, sandy beaches, getting lost in a good book! I love summer! Unfortunately I have two more graduate clases to take this summer but oh boy I can't wait to have that degree in my hand and the larger paycheck in my bank account! The time has gone by quickly and I actually enjoyed my time back in school and meeting new friends.

I have big plans to get many projects for TPT completed this summer and revising many of the "older" things. I plan to have a back to school sale in the near future but here are some of the things I have been working on so far...Check them out at my TPT store!

August Back to School Calendar for ActivBoard

September Calendar for ActivBoard

 The ABCs of Kindergarten Parent Orientation

Alphabet Express

Alphabet Road

This is just a few of the things I have been working on. Keep your eyes out for more things to come! Also, if you have already purchase items from me please remember to check your inbox on TPT throughout the summer for updates. You will be able to  redownload the revised product for free. This will be especially helpful if you have been purchasing my ActivBoard Calendars because I will be updating them for the 2012-2013 school year

Have a blessed summer!

Here I Am!

My poor, little, lonely blog has been missing me! I guess I got lost in all of the May activitites and had a Graduate May-mini session which was basically a crash course crammed into 3 weeks! However, tonight was my last class for 2 weeks and then just 2 more summer classes and I'll have that degree and more importantly...the pay raise!

Many people do ocean units in the month of May so here is a quick idea that you may or may not already do. I love Eric Carle's books and use them all throughout the school year. When we do our ocean unit, I love to read Mister Seahorse and we learn all about seahorses.

We also talk about Eric Carle's art work and then visit his website where he shows exactly how he creates the pictures in his books.  Visit his website here! We then make our own seahorses in a similar fashion.  I am so sorry I do not have a seahorse pattern to share with you...I believe mine came from a Carson Dellosa book. 

Each child gets a page with 2 seahorses on it. They lay small squares of different colors of tissue paper on the seahorse, overlapping the pieces until no white shows on the seahorse.  Next we spray the tissue paper with a water botttle and lay it aside to dry.The tricky part is finding the cheap kind of tissue paper that will "bleed"! The dollar store is a great place to find it.  PLEASE test your tissue paper before starting this project just in case it does not work!   

When the tissue paper is mostly dry (usually a couple of hours), the kids peel the tissue papers off and throw them in the trash. The tissue papers "bleed" onto the seahorse and it leaves behind beautiful "stains" that blend together and look very similar to Eric Carle's art work. Once they are cut out they are simply beautiful!

I have also used washable markers to color the seahorse different colors and spray with water. After they are dry, the results are very similar. We cut these out and they make a wonderful bulletin board! So sorry I don't have more pictures to go with this project or a picture of the finished bulletin board. We actually did an ocean unit early in the school year and I didn't think to take more pictures.

Well it is time to wrap up this school year and finally find time to breath! Now I am off to find a condo for our beach trip coming up in 2 weeks! I am so ready to get my toes in the sand and my nose in a good book! 

Block Center Literacy Activity

It's the most wonderful time of the year! I LOVE the last month of school in all of its craziness! The academic pressure is over (if they don't have it now, they won't get it this year) and there are so many fun activities to do. It seems like the days fly by and we get to do some really fun things with our sweeties that we just don't have time for throughout the school year.  This is also the time of year that I begin to reflect on what worked and what didn't work and set goals and plans for things I would like to change or improve for the new school year.  Beware of the following sentence....I am actually excited about the next school year! Please don't throw rocks at me & watch your language!!! Its just that we met our new principal this week and I am excited about some of the changes that I expect we will see. It has been an emotional week with the retirement celebrations for our wonderful principal and then the announcement of the new principal.  Talk about a roller coaster of emotions!

With all of the excitement and craziness I needed a little relaxation therapy by creating new things! I love to escape the real world and get on my laptop and be creative and make new things. I found a little time here and there to squeeze some "therapy" in this week! I get so excited when I find new ideas for my block center so I was thrilled when I found this road graphics set to create new things with! The first thing I made is something I already had but made better with these cute graphics from Scrappin Doodles.

Check it out here! 

                      

Students connect the pieces to make one continuous road. Fill a toy dump truck with magnetic, foam, or other alphabet letter manipulatives. Students then drive the dump truck along the road and "deliver" the letters to the correct beginning sound picture.

I also created this Alphabet Express Activity. I will probably put this in my block center also so the kids can stretch it out on the block center rug. At the beginning of the year they will put in alphabetical order. Later in the year I can use them again because I have the alphabet tubs of miniture objects from Lakeshore Learning so I plan to have my students put the objects on the correct train car according to the beginning sounds. Check those out here!

           

It is past my bedtime now, but stay tuned for

more things to come this weekend!

Common Core Report Card suggestions please!

Do you hear that? Yes, that is me screaming inside! This time of year is always so busy and I have to live day by day, minute by minute. There is so much to do and the things I WANT to do have to be put on the back burner for a few weeks. To name just a few... kindergarten registration, kindergarten prescreening testing, kindergarten graduation, principal's retirement festivities all weekend long, birthday celebrations, report card committee, moving my son home for college for the summer, awards programs, field trips,  new car shopping, home improvement projects, and now my graduate program is having a May mini session for 3 weeks that includes a ton of independent studying! Now you want to scream too don't you? I'm sure you are all just as overwhelemed as I am but just hold on....I promise, summer isn't too far away! We will make it!

I think the report card committee meeting today is what made my heart skip a few beats. Along with 47 other states, we will be transitioning to the Common Core Curriculum standards and will implement it full force next year. Fortunately we had a year to begin implementing and revising our curriculum as needed but the problem now is the report card. How in the world are you guys getting all of those standards on the report card AND making it parent friendly? After looking at samples of other districts' report cards, I have come to the conclusion that no one has really come up with a good way to communicate to parents what their child needs help with and give a clear picture of how the student is really doing!  Any suggestions? Anyone happy with their new Common Core Standards based report card & want to share?

In other news, I will be participating in the TPT Teacher Appreciation Sale this weekend (May 6-8). I was hoping to get some back to school things ready for those of you who are already planning for a new school year or those of you with school money left over for this school year. Now stop laughing! I'm sure there are a few teachers out there that didn't spend all of their money before the school year even began like I did!  Drop in and visit my store and load your cart up. Then come back on Saturday, Sunday or Monday to check out and enjoy 25% off of your purchases from my store! 



Sunburns and Magnets!

What an awesome weekend! My husband's company hosted a food show at the Wilderness of the Smokies Resort & Indoor/Outdoor Waterpark in Pigeon Forge at the entire family was invited to tag along. The weather was perfect and we had a blast and have bright red sunburns to prove it! I had great plans to relax and get some reading done and work on some projects I have started but I had so much playing with my boys in the indoor wave pool and on the huge tube slides that relaxing didn't seem so enticing after all!  On the way home I did find a few minutes to finish up the Magnet Science Stations packet that I was working on. I have done these magnet stations with my little ones for years but when i saw this adorable Magnets clipart from Scrappin Doodles I knew I just had to redo my Stations! I usually demonstrate what to do at each station and my students then spend 5-10 minutes at each station and rotate through all of the stations.  This is a great rainy day recess activity or end of year activity on those days when  planning time gets cancelled & you have no more tricks to pull out of your hat. 

Check them out in my TPT store here!

Test, test, test! Ugh!

Until next year, our kindergarten has been fortunate enought to not be required to take the TCAP (TN state standarized test). I feel so bad for these poor teachers and students that are completely stressed out over this once a year, week long, crazy test that "determines" if the teachers are effective teachers and/or the school is making adequate yearly progress, or if the kids are mastering the required material. In our state and district it is a very big deal and the source of much stress.

Last year the pressure was really on so one of my coworkers suggested we give each teacher (& test proctors) a little treat each day of the testing week to encourage them & let them know we were thinking of them. Did I mention that THEIR students' test scores now affect OUR pay?!?! Now if that doesn't get you to praying for your coworkers, I don't know what will!

They loved the treats and were so appreciative that we were thinking of them and had pity on them. This year I "cute-sied" them up with owl clip art and reworded them so that they can be given to teachers and/or students. Get them here for free! 

      

        

Now I wonder that since kindergarten will be giving "THE" test next year, who will encourage us with candy?!?

I also finished a 20 page Pirate themed flipchart for ActivBoard to review many of the skills that we learned in kindergarten. It would also be a great review for the beginning of first grade. Check it out at my TPT store!

Subtraction Bowling

How did I not ever think about teaching subtraction with bowling?!?! I was searching the internet for new subtraction ideas because my little ones just weren't getting it and I came across this idea that was posted 7 years ago. So I borrowed bowling sets from my PE teacher and then created a recording sheet and oh boy did we have fun! They loved it and I think they finally "got it"! Get your free copy here!

What are some of your great ideas for teaching addition & subtraction?

 

Snakes Are Great!

Please tell me that you have days when your little ones just have NO interest in reading!!!I dread those days when my students lay across the reading table because they are "too tired" to read or ask "is this the right page?" to which I reply..."umm no dear, that is the front/back cover of the book." So what do you do to keep guided reading groups fun & engaging for those uninterested little darlings? Have you thought of using snakes?

One day I was browsing in my favorite teacher store, The School Box, and found these great little snake finger puppets for $2 for a pack of 10.  Now I am certainly not a fan of snakes, but I thought about using them as pointers for my beginning readers. Turns out they are fantastic! The snakes have their tongues sticking out so they make great pointers. You should hear those little ones begging to read now!

OK, so I am sure some of you may say "No way will I have snakes in my room!" I can understand that! So on another little visit to my favorite teacher store around Halloween time, I found these little monster finger puppets. We use these to have the monsters "eat" the new sight word before we read our new books.

Then guess what I found at Easter?!?! Little Easter Bunnies and Chick finger puppets. Turns out that those bunny ears make great pointers also! Now the chicks aren't as great but as long as the little ones are reading I can tolerate them. 

In this picture you will also see Magic Wands ($2 for a set of12 at Target in party section) that we use as pointers and "Whisper Phones" that my precious husband made for me using PVC pipes, PVC "elbows" and a $10 PVC pipe cutter. A total of $30 and he had made enough for the entire kindergarten, 1st & 2nd grade classes!

So these are a few of my "magic" tricks for keeping my little darlings engaged & excited about reading! Now please, pretty PLEASE share some of your "magic "tricks by commenting on this post! Even better...if you are a blogger, check out Charity Preston's challenge to become a 5 star blogger here!

Be Blessed & Share Your Blessings!

Cheater, Cheater, Cheaters!

When I teach my students color words and number words at the beginning of the school year, they often get overwhelmed with so many new words! My solution is what I call "Cheaters". These are little strips of paper glued to construction paper or printed on cardstock and laminated and kept in a central location in my classroom. I then tell students that when they are learning new skills they are not expected to know them without a little help and I am going to let them "cheat" by using my Cheaters while they are doing their seatwork or working in literacy stations. As I notice a child no longer depending on the cheaters throughout the school year, I make a big deal of how smart he/she is by saying "Look at how smart Caleb is! He doesn't need a cheater any more!" And if you have ever been in a kindergarten classroom, you will understand that means that the competition for a compliment is on!!! In just a matter of a few days most of the students are telling me how smart they are and didn't have to look at how to read/spell red or orange, etc. Before you know it, they are no longer using the cheaters and just in time to be tested for mastery of reading these words! 

Get them FREE right here or by clicking on the pictures below!

As a side note, I do have the color and number words posted in my classroom but some students that are easily over stimulated with visual aids have difficulty looking around or up at the wall and then quickly finding their place on their paper once they look back down.

Highway Letters, Numbers, & Shapes

Yikes!!! I am excited and embarrassed right now!  I recieved an email from THE Dr. Jean and she very sweetly let me know that the Highway Letters and Numbers I had on my blog and TPT store were created by a teacher in Copperas Cove, Texas about 7 years and have been made into a book from Creative Teaching Press.

Oh my word, I want to bury my head in the sand!

If you want to download them for free please go to www.makinglearningfun.com  to download. Like I said earlier, it involves a bit of copying and pasting but is so worth the trouble.

But...

if you love things already done for you AND "cutesy" like I do, go check out the book and/or eBook! The pictures are colorful, ready to use cards and include starting points for forming the letters/numbers correctly. It even has lots of ideas from Dr. Jean for using them! I will definately be buying these soon to replace the black & white free version I have! 

I was fortunate enough to go to two, yes 2, conferences in November & December of this past year and it was at the Dr. Jean session that I found out about the website to download the highway letters/numbers...I must have missed the part about a book coming out with them in it!  So anyway...go buy the book!!! 

                       

                     

Freebie, Teaching Tip, and Home Living Center idea!

Freebie Alert!

I threw these together this afternoon because my kiddos need more work with reading AND writing simple CVC words and this is what I came up with. Of course they are not as cute when copied in black and white but they still do what I need them to do! Click on the pictures below to find them in my TPT store!

               

Just a random teaching tip...

When I first began teaching I was always afraid that I would give a student my original worksheet by accident and lose the worksheet forever! I kept extra "back up" copies of everything until my filing cabinet was ready to bust and I discovered this handy little tip. I use a yellow highlighter & write "original" on MY original copy. When the worksheet is copied the highlighter does not show up! How awesome it that?!?! This makes it so much easier to keep my original copies safe and sound! It also helps my parent volunteers keep the originals seperated when they are making copies for me. ALWAYS test the highlighter brands in a small area first because some of the cheaper brands will show up a little bit when copied. Yellow seems to be best but some of the other highlighter colors work as well. 

And now time for a new Home Living Center idea...

I'm sure that this isn't a new idea to most of you but when we study identifying the coins, I turn the Home Living into a store. Yep, I take all of those empty junk food boxes and tap or/glue coin amounts on them (1cent, 5 cent, etc), add a toy cash register filled with play coins, and a few paper bags. Students can then write out a shopping list and then "buy" the items from the store. Their partner will then be the cashier and collect the correct coin for each item. They love this and it is so cute watching them correct each other if they try to pay with the wrong coins.  

  

Well I have procrastinated doing my graduate class homework so it is time to get to work on that and stop playing school now! Do you have any good random ideas to share? If so, leave a comment below... 

Have a wonderful week!

Never Ending Laundry

I have been on Spring Break this week and while my friends have been living it up at the beach and/or at Disney World or taking their mini vacations I have been super busy with Spring Cleaning! Yuck! I have spent the entire week cleaning out closets and weeding out all of the clothes that my boys have outgrown and washing all of the dirty clothes I found hidden in their rooms and in closets. Boys!!! Well the results are in and so far I am up to 9 garbage bags and 2 boxes of things to take to Goodwill with only my husband's closet left to go. Where did all of this "STUFF" come from?!?! Normally I would hold on to it all until the neighborhood yard sale but there is just too much stuff to store in the garage & I want it GONE!

So with all of the laundry theme consuming my Spring Break, I decided it was time to redo and put my Laundry Day Learning ideas for a Home Living or HouseKeeping center on Teachers Pay Teachers. Click on the picture below & get it quick because it won't be free for long! I'm in a giving mood today!

If you download these, please be so kind as to leave positive feedback and it would also be awesome if you could share with others by pinning it on Pinterest! Thank you & Enjoy!