104 Followers Freebie

It was a super busy weekend.  Furniture shopping, church, basketball game, sleep, sleep and more sleep.  So I finally got back to my laptop tonight and found I have 104 followers!  What a nice surprise!

I threw a quick freebie together to celebrate!  Click my monster friend above to get your free Monster Read the Room.

 Thank you for following my little old blog full of ramblings of a crazy teacher (ooohh....that would have been a good name for my blog!)

Award!

My class was off yesterday.  Every one of my "special kinders" decided yesterday was a good day to be "really special."  My coworkers were absolutely great helping me out the whole day.  Letting me vent and trying to lift my spirits back up.  They even took some of my sweet little kiddos into their rooms to play at the end of the day so my "special lovelies" could have a giant time out while the others got to play.  Needless to say, by the end of the day I had a giant headache and it is still here this morning but I would not have survived the day without them.

Then I drag myself down for a cup of coffee and to check my blog and I find 2 wonderful co-bloggers have left me an award!  : )  What a nice surprise!  So it's Saturday, I love my coworkers and my co-bloggers and the headache is slowly starting to recede.

Whew...thank you for letting me get that out of my system.

Thank you SO MUCH to April at Wolfelicious and Lisa at Criss Cross Applesauce for passing this beautiful award on to me.  I am truly honored especially since both of these ladies have truly amazing blogs!

So, the rules of the "One Lovely Blog Award":

1.  Thank the person who gave it to you and link back to them.

2.  Pass the award on to 15 other bloggers.

3.  Follow the person who sent it to you.

Very hard to choose 15 because there are so many I love but here are 15 VERY deserving blogs (in no particular order):

          

        

Mrs. Plant's Press

 (Sorry, couldn't get her button to transfer)

For the Love Of Kindergarten

                    

              

                     

Enjoy your weekend!

Vowel Cheer

Ms. Patterson from Pocket Full of Kinders asked for a download of this vowel cheer poster so I have added it to google docs.  Click the poster above for your free copy and check out her blog if you have time...super fun!

I feel really out of sorts this week and have not been able to organize my thoughts enough to even think of a creative worthwhile post.  After being gone for a week I feel really behind!!  Trying to get report card testing done and then I'll have to enter all the information and we have 2 days of kindergarten screening next week which means 2 days worth of sub notes and my house is a MESS!  Sigh....TG(tomorrow)IF

FRUSTRATED!

I finally got my Animal Drawing book fixed if anyone was waiting to download that.  But something is going nutso with my blog.  For 3 days now all I get is a blank screen whenever I try to do anything.  I haven't been able to post, look at stats or do anything! I finally switched to Google Chrome and now it's working.  AUGH!!!!!

Tomorrow is Dr. Seuss day at our school.  The day will be filled with Dr. Seuss activities and we get to wear PJ's to school!

Now that's I've found a solution to my issue I'll be able to post some pics of the day (hopefully!)

A Magical Vacation

Headed back to work tomorrow after being gone for 8 days.  Always a little nervous to see how the week went (I didn't even go in today to look....figured the surprise could wait until Monday!)

Fun to return and find that I am close to 100 followers! 

Wish me luck tomorrow!  Can't be too much retraining this time of year....right?!?!

Story Maps, Rubrics and Counting (Random Thoughts)

Conferences Monday, Valentine's Day party Tuesday and getting a weeks worth of sub notes ready.  My head is swimming and my thoughts are scattered.  So, today's post it just as random and scattered as my thoughts are this week. 

I just need to give a shout out to my co-worker Jill for this adorable Story Map poster she created for us!  The kids were immediately excited about it because of the pirate and they didn't even know what it was!  We read a story today and talked about Title and Characters.  Tomorrow we'll read another story and talk about Title, characters and setting and so forth. 

Jill was also the master mind behind these incredible rubrics.  These charts have really helped my kids think about their writing. 

In math we are working hard on counting "big" numbers using "big kid" (skip) counting.  My students have been brainstorming ways we've learned to count this year.  I love that they are 5 and 6 years old and don't find it odd in the least that they can count by 5's and 1's and 10's and 1's.  It's just so natural to them!   If only they knew how hard a skill that is and that their teacher didn't even start practicing those skills until 3rd grade!   My how education has changed!

Ok, random scattered thoughts are still bouncing around in my head.  Time to get organized.....sigh....

Monster Spelling Inventory

I spent 2 days this week at Common Core Training and had the opportunity to sit next to a wonderful teacher from a neighboring school district.  She was so much fun and had so many great ideas.  I'm not sure how long she's been teaching but I'm guessing maybe 20-25 years?  Anyways, I LOVED that she was still excited about finding new teaching ideas and that she was so willing to share all her great ideas!

As we were talking about ways to assess she mentioned what she called the "Monster" test.  (Doesn't that sound like fun?)  Anyways, the Monster test turned out to be a Developmental Spelling Inventory.  It's a test that has been around awhile (at least since 1985) but it's the first time I've ever heard of it. 

I e-mailed my co-workers the link right away and before I even left the meeting for the day Tina (one of my coworkers) had e-mailed a recording sheet for us so that we could give the test the following day.  (I have the best coworkers!)

The next day I returned to work and gave the test.  VERY COOL!  After analyzing my students tests I found that they ranged anywhere from Semi Phonetic to Transitional.  Here are 3 of the tests:

The little girl who took this test is on an IEP and receives resource room help and speech and language interventions.  She and 2 others in my class scored in what would be considered the "Semi Phonetic" range. They could identify the beginning sound of most of the words.

This little guy scored in the "Phonetic" range.  16 of my students scored in this range. You can see they could identify a few more sounds than the kids in the semi phonetic range.

4 of my students scored in the Phonetic/Transitional range.  Again, you can see that they could identify even more sounds than the mostly Phonetic students.

I was an interesting assessment and so cool to hear my kids sounding out these words.  Yeah phoneme segmentation practice!!!

By the way...the words for the test are:

1. monster

2. united

3. dress

4. bottom

5. hiked

6. human

7. eagle

8. closed

9. bumped

10.  typed

If you click the link above to the website it will show you how to score the assessment.

It was a very interesting assessment!

Telling Time (tip)

We started planning for our Time unit in math yesterday.  Time and money are 2 of my favorite math units!   When I introduce the clock to my kinders we'll make a clock and on the hour hand we'll put a picture of a turtle to illustrate how an hour goes slow.  On the minute hand there is a picture of a rabbit to illustrate that minutes go faster. 

I also put a turtle and rabbit on my teaching clock and the kids watch how the rabbit is always running fast around the clock while the turtle is trying it's hardest to catch it.  Usually one or two kids notice that the rabbit can get all the way around the clock while the turtle only makes it to the next number.

Of couse not every clock they see will have a turtle and rabbit on it so I also tell the kids that the minute (rabbit) hand is longer like the ears on a rabbit and the hour (turtle) hand is shorter like a short turtle.




Of course, to a teacher, 15 minutes of recess is more like a cheetah or a jet breaking the sound barrier....how DO they speed up the clocks during that time???

Hope you found this tip helpful!

Word Family -at (freebie)

Over half way through kindergarten and we are hard at work on our word families.  We work on 1 word family a week.  Last week was -at.  This week is -en.  Every day we have a different way to build our words.   In the next few weeks I plan to highlight some of the ways we practice.  Above is one of our centers.  We call this playdough splat.  The kids "splat" a piece of playdough on the pages (which are inside clear sleeves) and stamp the missing letter. (We use lakeshore alphabet playdough stampers.)   Click on the picture above for your free copy of our -at family pages.

Tomorrow and Wednesday I am off to Common Core Training!  Woot woot!

Just finished 2 days of lessons plans- 12 pages!! 

Oh my....is that bad??  Does that make me a control freak??

Random Thoughts About Gloves

It is that time of year....I have a pile of mismatched cheap gloves that no on in my class wants to claim.  They are worthless $1.00 gloves that don't keep hands warm at all and no one seems to know how they got all over our floor!!  Do I find this annoying?  YES!   But, I hate to throw things away...even cheap gloves.  So, here is my list of useful ways to "recycle" these irritating & apparently orphaned articles of clothing:

1.  Use them as white board erasers (I have collected so many over the years that each of my students keeps one in their seat sack as their eraser.  Plus, they keep their marker inside their glove so it's fast and easy to find...theoretically.)

2.  Have students put them on to clap syllables in words

3.  Use them for crafts (seriously, just google "glove crafts" and you'll be looking at adorable gloves for hours minutes about 30 seconds)

4.  Cut the fingers out of them and wear them to keep your hands warm when your district's budget is cut and your building heat is set to 68 (feels more like 65 to me! Brr....) 

5.  Put them on the hands of any nose pickers you have (or hand lickers).

Ok, I'm out of ideas.  I actually only use them for reasons 1 and 2 above but I think #5 might actually work!

Slug Bug....I mean Tag!

Thank you Stephanie, from Kinder Kiddo, for tagging me!  Stephanie drives a VW bug like I do so I feel like I was slug bugged instead of tagged!  tee hee!

So here are the rules:

1. You must post the rules.

2. Post 12 fun facts about yourself on the blog post.

3. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post, and then create 12 new questions for the people you tagged.

4. Tag 12 people and link them on your post.

5. Let them know you’ve tagged them!

 12 "fun" facts:

1.  I have lived in 4 states (Montana, Kansas, Oklahoma, South Dakota)

2.  I've been to Mexico 3 times (can't wait to go back)

3.  We are going on a family trip to Disney World in February

4.  Snakes, spiders and mice petrify me (so do school board members...haha!)

5.  I'm not related to anyone famous...major bummer.

6.  I get bored easily.

7.  Love, love, love to shop but hate to spend money.

8.   I recently (in the last 2 years) lost 30 lbs and have kept it off!  Woo hoo!

9.  I don't collect anything (unless you count books on my nook...got a good collection started there!)

10.  I would wear flip flops year round if I could (yep, even in cold weather)

Oh man....I can't think of anymore!!!

12 questions to go anwer:

1.  What is your favorite store?  I'm more of an Amazon.com shopper

2.  Do you have a class pet? Used to have a bunny but had to let her go live on a farm at the beginning of this year....long story)

3.  Do you prefer Dollar Tree or Dollar General?  Can we call it a tie??

4.  How many pets at home do you have? 1

5.  Do you have kids of your own?   yes

6.  How do you deal with help helicopter parents see your side of life?  Impossible!  I just keep showing their kids they don't need helicopter parents.  Keep telling them "you are smart enough and strong enough to handle this on your own!"

7.  How do you involve absent parents in school activities?  Sometimes the only thing you can control is what happens in your classroom.

8.  What is your favorite sport?  soccer

9.  What is your favorite team of #8's sport?  My daughter's team (yep, I'm a soccer mom)

10.  What is the piece of jewelry you wear most often? My wedding ring...can't wear necklaces because they clink against my class mic all day and bugs the heck out of me

11.  Do you like curtains or blinds?  Curtains...blinds are a pain to clean

12.  What can brighten your day when nothing else can?   My daughters

Ok....I just spent 20 minutes checking all the blogs on my blog roll and everyone has been tagged already!!!   guess I was the last one to show up to the party!  ha!

100th Day...Hip Hip Hooray...It's Over!

Here's our day in a "nut" shell (actually yesterday was the 100th day but I came home from all the chaos fun and fell asleep....exhausting!)

*As a "home" project the kids made 100th Day Posters.  Here's my daughters.  We used band aids to make tally marks.

*We made 100 Day Masks

*We made 100 Gallon hats and drew 10 things in each of the 10 sections.

We sorted beads (10 beads in each section) and made necklaces.

*We finished out Zero the Hero book and ate our 100 day treat that Zero the Hero brought us.

*We searched our room for numbers and colored our hundreds chart to find the surprise picture.

It was an long exciting day and I was thilled relieved when our schedule returned to "normal" today.

If you're interested in the mask, hat or hundred chart art click here.

Going to the Chapel.....a little QU love!

We had our QU wedding on Thursday. 

What can we say...they met, they fell in love, they lived happily ever after!

Our parent volunteers did a great job setting up the chapel!

Our principal officially wed the happy "couple."

The kinder guests all dressed as a letter from the alphabet (the adorable letter "A" is my daughter!)

Lots of kinders brought presents for the occassion!  QU were very thankful for all the quarters, quilts, queens and quaker oats.  They also loved the reminders the students brought them from their "single" days.  Q appreciated the Q-tips and U really liked the uno cards, underwear and umbrellas!

The reception was catered by "Kinder Moms."  (There were even 3 cupcakes left over for the hard working teachers!!!!!  Bonus!) 

The guests also enjoyed the dance following the reception.  The Chicken Dance and Hokey Pokey were enjoyed by all!

One more Dr. Seuss Post....TPT Unit and Freebie

 

I just posted a Dr. Seuss Reading & Math Unit to my TPT store.  I completely got ahead of myself and skipped to March.  Haven't even started my February unit yet.  Oh well, it's a short month, right? 

Click the picture above to check out my unit and click the picture below for a free Dr. Seuss writing prompt paper.



Writing: An "AH-HA!" Moment

I really want to call it a "DUH" moment but "AH-HA!" sounds more positive.   So, my moment came in about October but I just shared it with my coworkers today (I think I was worried I was the only teacher who hadn't thought of this yet.)  They were as excited as I was about my Ah-ha and suggested I share the idea in my blog. (Best co-workers in the WORLD!  Hi Tina!!  Jill, if you check my blog and see this I'll do your recess duty for you....ha!  She never checks it!)  Ok, way off track.

So here's my big revelation:  SENTENCES HAVE PATTERNS.    Duh.  We all know that, right?  You write a word and then you leave a space.  Then you write another word and leave another space.  I showed my kinders how to leave a space between words by using a Space Man, I gave my kinders their own special "Space Man", I reminded my kinders to use their Space Man, I BEGGED my kinders to use their Space Man....so why, why, why, why, why where they still not using spaces consistently???  WHY?

Then, one day we are writing sentences and had just talked about patterns (and don't ALL Kinders LOVE patterns??  Uh...yeah.)  So, I said, "Isn't it fun how every sentence has a pattern:  word, space, word, space, word, space."  And as soon as I said that about 21 little lightbulbs went off inside my kinders heads. (I have 24 Kinders....just being realistic....)  Seriously, their eyes literally lit up and so did mine.  Duh Ah-ha....that's how you explain it!

Now a lot of you are thinking "Oh my, girlfriend, you just now got that?"   Yep, I did...and I'm so glad I did because now I'm only down to begging reminding 3 of my kinders to use their Space Man....and that is SO much better than 24!  Yeah!

You can't see me...but I'm doing a happy dance!

Word, Space, Word, Space, Word, Space, Word, Space

Now...If I can just get them to use periods.