Santa Sight Words Game Freebie

I went shopping online this week and I bought a few things on Cyber Monday at Teachers Pay Teachers.  One of the things I bought this week was "It's Calendar Time!  Daily Calendar Book" by Growing Kinders.  You can purchase this item here.  I have been looking for a way to keep a few of my students more engaged during calendar time so I thought doing a calendar book would be a great solution to this.  I'll let you know how it goes as I plan to start this in December.

After reading Smedley's Smorgasboard post this week, I learned where he got his great hat projects from so I popped over to Teachers Notebook and bought "Alphabet Phonics Headbands" from The Moffatt Girls.  You can see it here.  We made the letter R headband today.  My students loved them!  I also purchased "Phonics Watches" from them and my students LOVED these!  I was a little skeptical about the watches at first, but I haven't seen my students this excited about anything in a while.  I even had to repair a few that got torn off.  They did not want these to fall of and they did the best coloring ever!  You can check them out here.

Ok, so a little shopping has inspired me to make a new freebie.  I just finished creating a sight word game for my students to play during reading groups.  I used 66 words from the first 100 Fry words list.  Many of these words are also in the Scott Foresman Reading Street units 1-3.  You can get your free copy here.  Enjoy!

What kind of activities do you have your students do during reading groups?  Which activities do they like doing the best?
 

December Planning and TPT Cyber Monday

I started planning out the month of December today.  There is so much that I want to do for the month.  My teammates are using the senses and the holidays as the themes for this month.  I want to add in Christmas Around the World and do their themes at the same time.  Who knows, they may want to do some of my stuff.  I'm new to my school this year if your wondering and I am loving kindergarten again.  Sometimes it seems we need to go on a little soul searching journey to figure out what we really want to do teach.  I tried out a few other grades and realized that I truly am a kindergarten teacher.

So for the month of December I am going to be teaching the following:

• Hanukkah
• Kwanzaa
• St. Lucia Day
• Las Posadas
• Christmas
• The Five Senses

I am going to be using my Gingerbread Math and Literacy Centers that you can get in my Teachers Pay Teachers or Teachers Notebook store.  Tomorrow I am throwing a sale in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  Everything is 20% off plus the additional percentage offered by TPT.  The last day for my Teachers Notebook sale is tomorrow.

I will also be using my Christmas Fun Literacy and Math Activities.  This item is also located in my Teachers Pay Teachers and Teachers Notebook stores.  This packet has a great snowman glyph with a data collection tally sheet and a mini-book.  There is a fingerprint Christmas tree craft, a syllable sort step book, a letter writing form, an emergent reader written by me, and more.  I do want to say that the snowman glyph can be purchased separately.

 

I hope everyone had a great break!  Happy shopping on Cyber Monday!  I know my wishlist is full. ;)

 

I Survived the Day and a Sale!

I survived the day!  It was tough going to school today even though it was a half day for the students.  I kept thinking that I should be home getting things ready for Thanksgiving tomorrow.  Anyway, Teachers Notebook is having a sale and I am throwing a sale to give everyone an even bigger discount so hop on over to the Teachers Notebook and check out my shop as well as others.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Rekenrek

I finally finished making rekenreks for my kinders to use during our number talks.  I started making them in September.  My husband cut a quarter inch thick board into 4" by 12" pieces.  It only took one big piece of wood to cut out 20 student rekenreks and one larger teacher rekenrek.  I have to finish up the larger teacher version.  I was worried about splinters even after sanding the sides down.  My solution.... pretty duct tape.  I had to buy one bag of red and one bag of white pony beads and some elastic cord.  They aren't perfect, but they will last a while and serve the intended purpose.  My son had fun playing with them and wanted one built to keep at home.

I would love to know/see how others have made rekenreks.  If you have made them, leave me a comment or the link to your blog so I can check them out.

Saturday Center Freebie!

Well, I wanted to post a Friday Freebie, but it has now turned into a Saturday Freebie.  I fell asleep last night in front of the laptop, sideways on the bed, with an empty plate beside me.  Yeah it sounds real comfortable.  I was still fully dressed too.  I must have been tired.  Well, I created this Penguin Color Word Matching Game just for my blog followers.  You won't find this in my shops.  Enjoy and Happy Saturday!

Click Here to grab your copy.

 

 

 

 



Today has been really busy.  I felt like I was in the circus and I was the main clown. Lol  Anyway, my school has a great librarian who does a lot of crafts with the kids.  The kids made these cute little Indians Native Americans from rectangles.

I just had to hang them from our classroom clothesline.

During math, we made pattern necklaces with colored noodles and yarn.  FYI, to color noodles: place dry noodles in a Ziploc baggie with a little bit of alcohol and several drops of food coloring.  Shake the bag.  Let the noodles dry on wax paper in a pan or tray.

The little orange strip that you see is tape.  I used it to write the kids' names on their necklace.

We also added feathers to our headdresses today and we practiced songs and fingerplays for our little performance next week.

Well, I'm going to go work on a few things.  Check back later.  I hope to have a new FREEBIE! because everyone loves a good freebie.

Hanging Art and Painting Leaves

It seems that every teacher I know is always struggling to hang up artwork and classwork.  It seems we never have enough wall space or bulletin boards.  Last year, I came up with the idea to use a binder clip with a Stikki Clip.  I was frustrated that I had to use more that one Stikki Clip to hang up papers, one at the top and one at the bottom.  So I stuck a small binder clip in the Stikki Clip and attached it to the wall.  Can we intelligent ;)!  Here is what it looks like.  I took this of one hanging outside my classroom in the hall.

I also have some classwork hung up with clothespins that are hot glued to the wall.  I didn't hot glue them to the wall, but I know who did and I'm not tell.  They hold work up too, but they are not easily removed and repositioned. 

If you notice, I also have a strip that I can hang work on too, but it's just not enough to hang everyone's work up.  Do you like our fall leaves?  My students did a little finger painting with red, yellow, and orange.  Then I gave them a leaf cut out to trace.  After they traced the leaf, they cut it out and I hung it up.  Kinders love to finger paint and I was surprised at the many that had never done finger painting until we did these leaves.  That just means we need to paint more often. 

So next week we go to school Monday - Wednesday and then we are off for Thanksgiving.  I know many of you get the entire week off.  Let's just say I am a little jealous, but I do have a lot that I will be doing with my class and one thing we are doing is taking a field trip to a nursing home and singing Thanksgiving songs and rhymes to the people there.  We have a lot of practice left to do on our singing and we are dressing up as Native Americans.  We are tie dying shirts brown for this, and we are making some pretty patterned necklaces.  We have already made our headdress which I have already posted about.  We just need to add some feathers. 

I also like to do a pilgrim costume and let the kids eat lunch with them on.  More on that later.  I hope everyone has a wonderful Friday!