Click, Save, Smile Just in case you haven't heard TPT will be having a Cyber Monday and Tuesday sale this year. 11/30 and 12/1 use the code SMILE to get 10% off. My store is on sale for 20% off, so add the code and get 28% off everything. I have added a new Concepts of Print Packet . Included are 3 booklets with a winter theme:  *Christmas Time Booklet; Christmas items; sight words: I, see   *Arctic Animals Booklet; animals; sight words: here, is     *Winter Things; winter clothing items; sight words: I, have A color version of each booklet is included. This can be used for modeling, teaching the site words, for the vocabulary in each booklet.  ...
This is the inspiration Such a cute and colorful turkey. I knew my kiddos weren't ready to the symmetry yet, we haven't talked about it. Plus, we don't have the pattern block die cut. What to do????  Use my brand new Silhouette Cameo to create and cut some shapes out of card stock, in fall colors of course.  I decided to use the hexagons for the body. Since my shapes were not 100% proportional, they didn't fit together quite as well. And that doesn't bother me on bit. I found buttons in my crafty supplies, and we were able to create shape turkeys.  A good day in kindergarten!  ...
We are learning all about 2D shapes in math this week. * the names * how many sides * how many corners. * 2D shapes are flat. What better way to explore shapes and by creating with them. I divided the students into pairs and gave each group a pile of circles squares and rectangles. They had to talk with their partner about what they were going to make. Then they told me what they were making. After that I let them go and have at it.    some made houses    some made flowers    some made cars    one group even made shapes out of shapes. There were no right or wrong creations. As they were working I walked around and asked questions about the shapes they were using. When they were done I let them get the crayons to add some extra details to what they were making. I reminded them to add faces to people, doors and windows to the houses, and doors to the car. Without them realizing it I added a little bit of writing to their math play. They had a great time and each groups p...
WOW!! It really is November already. That TO DO list from October has been moved to another month. Oh well, it will get done eventually. I am joining Farley at Oh Boy 4th Grade for this month's Currently Linky. Listening to XM radio, 80's hits of course.  Loving: I am buying flowers form y desk at the grocery store. $4.00 for a nice bundle and they last almost 2 weeks. This week I got deep purple and yellow daisies. Now, to keep the cat from eating them.  Thinking: I have been teaching 20 years, all K-1. I have SOOOOOO much stuff. It can be overwhelming. I am thinking of donating it to a new teacher and starting over. I am already recycling all my paper files. I think printing and reorganizing my centers would be a good idea as well.  Wanting: We only have one car payment right now, my daughter's car. The sooner I pay her car off, I can save to get a newer car for me!!  Needing: I found the Listers Gotta List group last month. I didn't need ano...
Good evening, it is time to link up with Mrs. Wills for a Peek at my Week. I apologize for missing last week. I was out of town spending the weekend with my grandmother. It was a wonderful weekend and blogging was put on hold for a time.  This is week 5. We are learning about apples. This week we will be reading fictional stories about apple trees and apples. We are working on Concepts of print and word tracking. We will use my Concept of Prints Emergent Reader for apples. The booklets have dots on the words for the students to practice work tracking.  We are adding our first vowel to our letter knowledge this week. We will learn both the long and the short sound of Aa. We will use letter tiles for M, T, S, P, & A to create words and learn how to sound out words.  In math we will be working on the numbers 3 & 4. Our school is working on number sense in all grades this year. I am focusing and a number for two days. We will count the number, us manipu...
I did a quick demonstration of Augmented Reality this morning. I am using the AR Flashcards Alphabet app. The app and Flashcards are free and they work on my older devices. I only got to play around with a couple kids, but they had a blast. This will definitely be a center for a while. ...
Another week is upon us. I tried to plan on Sunday, but the sun was shining and the pool was calling my name. I am on week 3 of school and we are learning about Colors and my 2nd favorite color book; Brown Bear, Brown Bear. (Next week is my favorite color book) We are reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear all week. We are working on Concepts of print, by the end of the week I am hoping to have several who can touch the words as I read. I have a felt board set we will use for retelling as well. We are learning about the author and illustrator this week, the person's name and their job.  We will practice word tracking with my Concepts of Print booklets, the school version this week.  We will also be learning our color words. We will sort all types of objects by their color. We will match colors and color words. We are still working on name the letters in our name, finding our names, and writing them beautifully. We are going to do a letter hunt on Thursday around the sc...
I was inspired by Greg Smedley's post about Number Recognition here . A simple, yet effective activity. Why not do the same thing for letter? I have a few kiddos who do not know the letter names. I realized that Greg's technique for numbers will work just as well.  **Who I am kidding, I am 'stealing' the idea. After all, the best teachers Beg, Borrow, and "Steal" ideas.** I focus on two letters a week until they are all taught and reviewed. I do 4 consonants than a vowel and word families. My class is 85% second language learners, so everyone can use a little more practice with letters and sounds and vocabulary. I made a letter mat for each group of 4 letters and one with all the vowels. The letter mats are made to be printed on Legal sized paper. Of course with a PDF you can select Fit or Shrink Oversized Pages to print on letter sized paper.  The letter cards are made to be printed on letter sized paper. I made those different...
I have been impatiently waiting for today. I have been back at school since 8/24. I finally get to share my room. Thank you to Ashley and Angie for hosting the 2getherwearebetter linkup with all the reveals. So here goes nothing!!  I have a wall on either side of my door that I can decorate and use for student work. WELCOME to my area. The canvas next to my door is my motto "Keep Calm and Don't Forget to Play."  Open the door and come on in.  This is the view from the doorway. I still have a kitchen, blocks and other 'language' development materials in my room. The table to the right is our writing center. Continuing on a 360° tour of our room.  I have 6 desktops in my room. Wait, though, I am a 1:1 technology classroom. There's more. I use the space above the computers for colors and shapes.  My room is a rectangle, so I have a long space across the front of the room. Here you find our number posters, a sensory bin with a Pocket Char...
Here we go. Week 2! We are still working on the Alphabet. Most of my students are second language learners, they need extra time to learn all the letters and sounds. This week we will continue identifying the differences between letters, numbers, symbols, and words. Our friend Feed Me Monster likes to help us sort; he will only eat certain things.  Last week he ate letters. I bet it will be the same this week.  I made Feed Me my first year teaching Pre-K (1996). He looks pretty good and the kids love him.  We will focus on two letters this week: Tt and Pp. We will name the letter, work on the sound, name words for each letter, and start our Alphabet Notebook.  Our story for the week is Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. My favorite for teaching the alphabet as a whole. Who can resist the sing-song style and the antics of the letters.  We are also using our names to learn the letters of the alphabet. I printed out the names in block letters. The students will get to pai...
Happy Saturday friends. I had someone ask for some signs to be added to my Bathroom Rules/Procedure Posters. I have add the following signs: 1 Pump of Soap 2 Pumps of Soap 1 Paper Towel 2 Paper Towels Paper Towels in the Trash sample of the signs  If you own my Bathroom Signs, go to TPT and download the updated file. If you would like to purchase the signs, click on the image to get to my TPT store . Thanks for looking....
Today was the 4th day of school. So far, so good. We are learning the rules of the school and the classroom procedures. Our goal for the week: line up quietly and walk nicely. We had to practice a couple of times today. But we are on our way. Because I use sorting notebooks, alphabet notebooks, and math journals it is important that the kids are able to cut without help. Today was out first day with our scissors. We reviewed how to hold them: Thumbs Up! What we can cut: Paper Only! And what NOT to cut: Our Hair, Our friend's hair, Our Clothes. Then we practiced cutting paper. I printed a page with straight lines going across the page. We cut the straight lines. I have some pretty good cutters. Tomorrow we are cutting more straight lines. This time on a diagonal across the page. Then we move onto squares and wavy lines. Wish us luck. We are saving all the cut strips and will use them next week to make something. And learn how to use the glue sponges. ...
Ready or Not there will be 17 little bodies in my classroom tomorrow morning. Good thing I am ready, or at least I think I am. The first week of Kindergarten never goes as planned. My plan is to plan as little as possible. The week is all about Procedures, Procedures, Procedures. While the majority of out students have been to some type of Pre-K program, they need to learn the rules and procedures for our school and my class. I have plans for the week, but they are 100% flexible and I am not worried about getting to everything. Here are the procedures to teach and practice this week.  * Morning Arrival: The first three days we pick up are kids in the cafeteria, so the Arrival procedure changes slightly by Thursday.  * Line Procedures; lining up and walking      We walk to different parts to the school each day. We have 5 different buildings on a huge campus.  * Bathroom * Washing Hands for lunch * Playground Rules * Carpet, Work Time, Story Time Procedures and ex...
Yes, I am back at school. But this week our preschool week.  I am not planning per say. I am preparing to plan. Here is a peek at what I am doing this week.  But I did create my lesson plan template and resources. My district provides us with frameworks that are divided into units. They provide us with a year long map of when to teach and assess the standards. I create an excel spreadsheet of the Kindergarten standards. I make 8 copies for ELA. Then I go through and highlight the standards for each unit provided by the district, deleting any not being taught during that unit. I do the same thing for math. I use this as my reference each week when planning. It also make documenting my standards easy, the pages are attached to my planning spreadsheet. Easy!!  Then I had to create my lesson plan template for the year. I use an Excel Spreadsheet so I can tweak it throughout the year. I never use the same format two years in a row. Here is this year's format.  Fear...
I am linking up with 4th Grade Frolics for Made it Monday. I've been working a lot of little projects all weekend. Here goes....               My clothes pins needed a makeover. The striped ones have magnets on the back and are for my board in the classroom. The orange polk dot ones have a push pin on the back and go on my hallway bulletin board to hang student work.        Birthday straws! A friend found the fun straws at the dollar store for me. Print, laminate and cut out the balloons, a little tape and a cute, inexpensive birthday gift for my kiddos.       I teach Kindergarten. That means anything and everything can be put to use. I added alphabet stickers and mod podge to more clothes pins. These will go in the word work center. The kids can clip the letters to word cards to spell the words.     That is it for now. I am working a several more little things, but they are not done yet. Check out more teacher creativity and link up yourself.  ...