BOO!

Ok so it's not quite that time of year yet. But I've been awol so long I thought maybe I'd scare you with a post. LOL
This weekend I found some really cute pumpkin ice trays at the Dollar Tree. I think they'll be perfect for Halloween and Thanksgiving 10 frame/counting games. Just change up the seasonal "markers" for fun.

 

I actually found even cuter mini erasers at Target today-cute little ghosts. A peer teacher said she found mini pumpkins too. So, tomorrow after work I'll have to go hunt them down.

I bought ten of these trays so I could either use them in small groups with one ten or two tens when we work on numbers to 20. So many game options:

1. Roll a die and place an eraser in that many spaces. First one to fill their tray wins.

2.  Use two die and roll and fill to make sums. I'll make a simple pumpkin sums recording sheet for this.

3.  Fill all spaces and roll one die to subtract.

I'm sure you guys have lots of other great ideas too. If you do-share away, I'd love to hear them.

 

 

On another note, Kim from Lakeshore Learning sent me two great products to review. One is the Plinko Phonemic Awareness Game. This is an awesome language game where students identify beginning, ending and rhyming words. So simple, yet my students LOVE it. We've been using it as a whole group, end of day activity at this point. But I can see this being a wonderful independent activity a little later in my year. Check it out if you haven't seen this product. You won't be disappointed!

The other item is

Build and Learn Geometry Kit. This is pefect for helping to meet geometry core standards.

• Attributes of 2-D & 3-D shapes
• Identifying and comparing faces, vertices and edges

 

 

Hope you find something of interest in this post.

Happy Teaching!

Lisa

 

 

 

Never-ending search for Clip Art!

Are you like me-always looking for cute, kid friendly clip art? AND are you looking to create with your clip art to share or post on TPT? Well I recently purchased a year long clip art membership from Graphics From The Pond. Every couple of days I receive a special set of clip art created just for members. It's always such a special surprise to open the files to see what Mel has created for us!

Graphics From the Pond is having a giveaway. ONE FREE MEMBERSHIP!!! Go on over to her blog register to win and to check out the back to school sale!


Click here to  go to THE POND to enter to win!



Wishing you all a great start to a new school year!
Lisa

New Bloggers-Liebster Award!

I have received my 2nd Award this month!  

Thanks so much, Amy from Whooo Loves Kindergarten?  I'm so glad you found my blog and introduced me to yours. :)

This award is named for the German word "Liebster," which translates to "beloved" or "favourite", and is given to a "new, up and coming blogger."
Here are the rules:
1. Link back to the person who gave it to you. Post the award to your blog.

2. Give the award to at least 5 bloggers with less than 200 followers
3. Leave a comment on the 5 blogs to let them know that they have been offered this award.

I am giving the award to:

Miss A's Kindergarten

What I Learned in Kindergarten

Kindergarten Schmindergarten

Over The Moonbow

Hopping Into Kindergarten

I can't believe that I only have ONE more week of summer vacation before going back to school. WHERE DID THE SUMMER GO? WOW! 

Lovely Blog Award!

I have received the  Lovely Blog Award. Thank you to Sharon from Dog Day of Kindergarten.
Now for the rules...
1. Follow the person who gave me the award. I am now following Sharon and the blogs she shared with me.
2. Link back to the person that gave me the award.  Here is Sharon's blog link Dog Days of Kindergarten.
3. Pass to 15 new bloggers and then let them know they have received the award.

Here are the bloggers that are new (new to me!). Finding 15 NEW bloggers that haven't already recieved this award is a toughy! 

1. http://whoooloveskindergarten.blogspot.com/

2. http://overthemoonbow.com/  

3. http://krissyskindergarten.blogspot.com/

4. http://kinder-cuties.blogspot.com/

5. http://pawsmath.blogspot.com/

Happy Blogging!
Lisa

Quality Work and School Tools Rubric Anchor Chart

I was in my classroom today, trying to reorganize and get ready for a new year. Summer should go by fast!  I took a picture, as promised, of my quality work rubric anchor chart.




Click here for your FREEBIE!

Click on the anchor chart to create one for your room.  Print on legal paper and glue or tape to chart paper. I laminated mine after spending a week or two explicitly teaching/modeling and practicing how to use each school tool. I leave it up all year as a reference to remind students of the expectations.
I hope this is helpful to you all!
Lisa

Jumping Back in! Freebie too!

Apologizies for my absence. It's been a whirlwind. After finishing up our year we began preparing for Common Core Standards. So I've spent some time this summer attending workshops and foraging other blogs and websites for CCSS ideas. While this will be a lot of change-I'm super excited about it too.
 One of the workshops I attended was by Sue O'Connell. She provided a wealth of hands on math ideas and modeled number talk very explicitely.  Our district VERYgenerously purchased her book for us, which comes with a CD of her blacklines for math games. All are editable for your needs. I'm looking forward to getting started with that. Here's her link if you'd like to check it out. http://www.qualityteacherdevelopment.com/teacher_resources.php
We are also getting these ten frame - which Sue O'Connell recommended for modeling in groups.


 
Magnetic Foam Ten Frames

Click here to see where to purchase these  magnetic foam ten frames!




Before cleaning up my room and preparing for summer, I sent many of our resources for the fall to the copy center. One of my favorite teaching tools, which my assistant uses with her small groups is my Alphaworks letter sorting book. There are 26 letter poems, circle maps for sorting letter sounds, and this year we included handwriting and sentence practice too. (The handwriting pages are from Scholastic.)
Here's what the book looks like after the copy center prints and binds it. Such a wonderful resource. Check it out by clicking on the picture.

Click on the picture to learn more.

Finally, I have created some word cards to go in a small apple pocket chart. We spend the first few weeks of the new year discussing quality work and how to use our school tools safely and properly. I display a Quality Work rubric/poster for the year as a reference to students of what quality work looks like. I think these cards will be a great addition to my poster and will also serve as a visual reminder of direction words as well. (Sorry I don't have a picture of my Quality Work poster-but I'll take one the next time I'm at school.)

Click for your FREEBIE!

Enjoy!
Lisa

Counting Down til the End of the Year!

I can't believe we are already 20 + days away from the end of the year! Seems like the year flew by -but I guess we always say that don't we?
We'll be getting ready for our End of Year Celebrations, practicing songs, and having our special T-Shirts printed.
 At the end of the year I put together a little memory book filled with pages that mark some starting points for kindergarten.
 I also give each student a Mr. Goodbar Candy Bar Award. Super cute and something for everyone.
Check out more about these end of year time savers here:

In The Rain With Baby Duck

Hi Blogger Friends!
 Have you been as busy as I've been? We're ramping up to begin CCSS next year so it feels like I'm working on this year and next year at once. Lots of new and exciting plans coming up though.
  Next week we'll be reviewing story elements and reading In The Rain With Baby Duck by Amy Hest. It's a really cute book, but there were no related activities in cyberland. So I created a unit with twenty different comprehension questions, a Build-A-Sentence Center (which my kids LOVE!),  couple of journal prompts and a cute Color By Sight Word page.
 If you haven't seen this book, check it out-great for this time of year. I also have a Raindbows and Raindrops Literacy and Math Unit on my TPT store. It's filled with April themed Write The Room Activites and small readers for your kids.
Let me know what you think if you check them out! Click on each picture to see more information.

Teachers Taking Care of Teachers!!!

It's been awhile since I posted to my blog. It's been busy- but I had to take time to share this post from Kreative in Kinder. Her post touched my heart and I want to do my part to help out. Here's a copy of her post:

A sweet blogstalker, Anne, emailed Teaching Blog Addict this week with hopes that we would reach out and help with the recent devastation in our country. She was not alone in her idea or passion to lend a helping hand. Many teachers felt the same way so what are we going to do about it?

On March 2^nd, several towns across the U.S. were devastated by the destruction of at least 44 tornadoes across 5 different states. At least 27 people died and there were thousands left without homes and even schools. I think the heart of a teacher is that of a giving spirit. It is our job to love all children even when it is sometimes hard, to work more hours than most professions, and give even when we feel like we have nothing left. This catastrophe is an opportunity for us to do what we do best, lend a helping hand, caring heart, and teach a lesson of love. My heart is that each of you will adopt a teacher in a school affected by the tornadoes. It could be as simple as writing letters of encouragement or having your team clean out your closets and ship out everything you can live without to a teacher in your grade level. I couldn't imagine losing my school! I have thousands of dollars of materials that I have purchased for my class not to mention the hundreds of hours I have spent making materials for my students. If you would like to participate, please leave me the grade you teach and your email address. I am on Spring Break this next week and will be contacting schools, getting names and addresses of teachers. Maybe you sell on TPT or TN and want to donate everything in your store. That would be great! I plan on doing that too! If you don’t have tangible items to donate, no biggy! We have all suffered through some sort of loss. It means just as much to receive a letter of encouragement and we are born encouragers!! I will send out an email with the school information that you will be assigned to.

How else can you help? Spread the word! Link up! I think with all of the negative buzz about education, the strikes, the stress we are facing with job losses and budget cuts, this could be a good distraction and also a way to show people that we are here, united and strong! We care about teachers and education. We have chosen to be in a profession that most say “I could never do that all day!” but unfortunately if feels has become the least valued. So, I am choosing to not be sad about the way things are changing because there are teachers that are hurting and we need to help them! Who’s with me??

Save this picture to your computer (right click, save), and attach the link of this post to the pic when you post to your blog.

Wishing you all Happy Teaching!

Lisa

BLONDE MOMENT!!!

OMGoodness! Okay, I hate to admit this...but I JUST realized I had a gmail account. I KNOW! I KNOW! How could I not? Well, I could call it a blonde moment, or a "brain spaz" since I just turned 50...whatever it is I want to apologize for not responding to all those emails! :)
I promise I will respond to you guys much more quickly now that I know I have this email account.
I'm so embarrassed-"laughing" through it though.
:)
Lisa

NO Snowdays Here!

Since we rarely see even a bit of snow here-I thought I'd add that winter feeling to my students' lives by combining our number work this week with these cute little snowmen . Use this snowy packet to order numbers, recognize and write numbers 1-20 and identify missing numbers 1-20. Great homework, classwork or even as an assessment piece.
Please check it out by clicking the snowmen!

PASSING ON THE LOVE!

Passing this link and post on from Mrs. Wills Kindergarten Blog. I think it such a worthy cause to help out our fellow teachers and students. Check it out!

Love to Joplin Linky Party Posted: 13 Jan 2012 02:52 PM PST It is hard to believe that it has been almost 8 months since the devastating tornado ripped through Joplin, MO. This week I got an email from a very sweet kindergarten teacher from Joplin. Here is what her email said: I teach in Joplin, which made worldwide news last May when our town was cut in half by an F5 tornado. Many of our elementary schools were destroyed or damaged, and as teachers, we have had a roller coaster year. I came from a meeting yesterday where many are struggling with the weight of all we are dealing with. My request is this: would you be willing to donate a created pack of your choosing to give away at a drawing at our upcoming district Kindergarten grade level meeting? The meeting is Monday and I am sorry for the short notice but I did not realize until the meeting how down everyone is feeling. Well, of course, I said "YES!" and filled her email inbox with goodies. Then I started to think (scary), I bet there are other teachers (besides kindergarten teachers) who could use a little love. Want to help? Here is how: 1. Send your TpT product or Teacher's Notebook to Erica edoennig@joplin.k12.mo.us 2. Then link up here Wouldn't it be awesome if we filled her email with signs of love? Fill free to grab the heart above to share with your readers. We have to act fast! Thank you in advance!