Duck or Rabibit& A Fantastic Blog Giveaway!

First of all, head over to Happy Teacher Heaven blog right away and sign up for her awesome 100 followers giveaway!  So many great prizes!  Leave Amy some love while you're there and sign up to follower her fabulous blog!  

Click the pic to go there now!

And now for some Easter love:

It never fails. . . this time of year by lovely kinders become as close as brothers and sisters.  Along with that fantastic bond comes. . . fighting, arguing, bossing and all other sorts of fun (haha) issues.

So, this is the PERFECT time of year to read the book Duck!  Rabbit!  by Amy Krouse.  

In the book 2 kids are fighting over whether the picture is of a duck or a rabbit.  (This book is on Tumblebooks if you have an account.)

We read the story and then graphed our opinion.

Of course, half way through the story the kids started to argue whether it was a duck or a rabbit!

After we graphed our opinion we found out that we are ALL right (or all wrong depending on how you look at it.)  We had a great discussion

on how arguing is silly and not very likable and that it's ok if we aren't always "right" and our friends aren't always "wrong."

Then we finished this art project to remind ourselves of this important lesson.

Sadly, I don't have a copy of this project saved to a file.  I got it from the wonderful teacher I student taught under 16 years ago! 

Later that day 2 of my cuties started to fight over something silly and inconsequential and all I had to say was, "Duck or rabbit?" and the fighting stopped immediately!  Woo hoo!  =)

Celebrate the little things!

Dinosaurs! (FREEBIE!)

This week we've been very engaged in Deanna Jump's Dinosaur pack.  It is fantastic. . . of course!  We added a few small activities to her pack and the kids had a blast!  Here are some pictures of our dinosaur exploration:

 Here is the worksheet we used when exploring dinosaur sizes.

We compared a T-Rex's footprint with a Triceratops footprint.

We compared our feet to a T-Rex's foot.

We put our shoes on the Triceratops footprint to see how many of our feet it would take to fill it up. 

We compared lengths of dinosaurs.  This is the the length of a Triceratops.

We laid down to see if we would be the same length of a Brontosaurus if we put all of our class together in a long line.  The answer. . . NO!  We were about 3/4 the length of a Brontosaurus.

Tomorrow we will be paleontologist.  We'll excavate chocolate chips from cookies and make dinosaur fossil impressions!

For a freebie of the worksheet you see at the top and a few more extras click HERE.

What we've been up to...

I'm so thankful to HoJo for guest blogging for me this week!  I've been on a beautiful little island in Mexico called Holbox Island:

No cars, no cell phone reception, no work, no kids!

Sigh. . . it was a fantastic week and I got a little spoiled with no obligations. . .

BUT back to work I go!

Here's a little bit of what we did this week:

PIRATES!

We have another week of pirate fun and then I'll post more in detail and I'll have a Pirate Pack added to TPT!

HANDWRITING ANIMAL/SPELLING:

We spend the first 1/2 of the year learning to write the alphabet using our animals friends.  Now that we know all the letters we use our knowledge of the handwriting animals to practice our spelling words.  For more on these special animals you can click HERE to check out old blog posts about them and pick up a freebie of the page you see above.

MATH/CALENDAR BINDERS:

We're working hard on recognizing and ordering numbers to 20.  The kids are also having great time working in their Calendar Binders. You can check out my calendar binders on TPT by clicking HERE.  I plan on doing a little updating this summer to add more common core elements.

This week is Kindergarten Screening so I'll be out of the classroom for 2 days meeting all the new darlings that will be coming to K next year.  Another busy week.  Good thing I have this picture on my desktop to remind me to slow down and enjoy life:

Guest Blogger and Friend HoJo -- with FREEBIES!

Hey all! It's Heather - better known as HoJo - from HoJo's Teaching Adventures. Michelle has been a bit preoccupied lately with all things school (you can relate to that, right?) so I decided to step in for her.

I'm going to keep this short and sweet, but I want to share some amazing freebies with you! I currently have 58 products for Kindergarten in my Teachers Pay Teachers store, and 19 of them are FREE! I'm going to highlight a few of my favorites below. =)

Just click on any of the pictures below to get your free copy directly from TpT!

This product is one I created so student recognize a variety of fonts. It's perfect for centers, independent worksheets, and even for homeschooling parents!

This product with ask your Kindergarten students to differentiate between short and long A. They will cut the pictures apart and glue them into the correct column. This was a favorite of my Kindergarten students. {Heck - anything involving glue was!}

This activity was one my students used all year in centers. They had to cut and paste {I told you they loved glue!} the letters into the correct circles. Each circle ends up with the same amount of letters, so they're really easy for students to understand and to grade!

This is one of my Magic Square puzzles. Students match the correct short A word to the picture. The words around the outside are other short A words, but there are no pictures to match. These are great for gifted students or those who are ready for more of a challenge. 

If your students struggle with estimation, this is the packet for you! These six pictures allow you to have your students practice estimating the area or perimeter of each shape. They print great in color so you can laminate them and use them in centers for several weeks!

And finally here's another Magic Square product. This one has students match the lowercase letters with their uppercase partners. Again these are particularly good for your higher students.

There you have it folks! A few of my favorite freebies all located in one place! I'd love to hear what you think of them either below in the comments below in the feedback section on TpT.

Take care!

~HoJo~

100th Day has come and gone!

Our 100th day was last week.

We sorted beads (10 groups of 10 of different colors) and made 100 day necklaces.

We made 100 day masks and played "Race to 100" game.

We worked in our Zero the Hero books and he brought us a 100 day treat.

We also went to the computer lab and created 100 day art using a game found at ABCya.

We had a few more activities planned but ended up having a 2 hour late start because of the weather (which I can't complain about at all. . .who wouldn't love to sleep in 2 extra hours!!)

To check out lasts year's 100th day post click HERE

Numbers 11-20 (They are sooooo ready for this!)

After a LOT of number sense activities on numbers 0-10 my class is sooooo ready to move on to bigger numbers!  (To see some of our 0-10 activities click HERE.)

Now all our hard work has paid off and this next step has been easy breezy!

We start by singing this song at the beginning of each math lesson:

   

Then we practice writing, decomposing and find the number with this page:

Then the next day we sing the song again and then we do a circle map and practice writing the number again with this page:

Then we go to our math buckets and practice counting bigger numbers using our manipulatives and tens frames!
They are EXTREMELY independent with this!  All our number sense work has really paid off!

If you're interested in these pages they are on TPT for only $3.00!

Handwriting Practice (A fun way to practice)

Need a new way to practice writing the alphabet?  My class loves to practice while they sing! 

I laminated a practice (tracing) page for each kid.  They use dry erase marker to trace the letters while they sing.  We use old cheap gloves for erasers. (I confiscate the cheap gloves from lost and found at the end of each year.)

Once they get used to the activity I take away the tracer sheets and they write the letters on their small wipe boards.  

It's a fun way to practice (the kids LOVE it) and it saves me from having to print the sheets over and over and over.

I play a song on the smartboard and they sing while they write.  Here's the song we use:

You can get free printables of  the alphabet lots of places on the internet.  

Here's one that's free:  http://www.studenthandouts.com/01-Web-Pages/Lot-01/Printable-ABCs-Alphabet-Print-Practice-Writing-Sheet.pdf

Returning from the brink, Things that work... and a couple of FREEBIES :)

I am so happy to be part of this New Year's Linky! Happy New Year Peeps! I am Maggie from Maggie's Kinder Corner.  I have been teaching for 25 years, and most of the years have been with kindergarten--my absolute favorite age of little people! If you want to know more about me, follow my blog button to my blog and read more!

I have been contemplating things that really work for me and my students, so here is tip #1:

After having had the flu for going on two weeks, I have been contemplating how I will "battle the bug" in my classroom when we return to school on Friday.  What I have been doing seems to work very well, and that is:
Wipe each table with a Clorox wipe every day!

Keep a box of tissues and a trashcan at each table.  ONLY throw paper trash into the little trash cans! All tissues should go to the main trash can away from students.  By having little trash cans at tables, we avoid having to be near the germy trash can every time we have trash to throw away.

Spray down the interior of the little cans each day!
Sneeze into a sleeve!!!
DO NOT come to school with fever (a person with fever can infect everyone)

I can still say that I have not missed one day due to illness all year, though I really hated having those sick days during my entire Christmas break!

Another thing I do is drink lots of hot liquids, and never drink from a public fountain.  Sorry kiddos, but that is where a lot of germies are living!

Am hoping and praying that 2013 will be a healthy year for my entire class!

Tip #2:  Get those kiddos labelin! My class is really into labeling everything, and you can see the positive impact it has when you consider their writing, or when you hear them identify a word in a trade book they have seen during a previous labeling activity.  More power to the labelers of the world!!! Just click on the pic to grab it!

Tip #3:  Get them into math journaling! The added practice reaps nothing but great results! A definite KEEPER for me are the Common Core Aligned Math Journals that I created two summers ago.  They continue to be a top seller in my TpT store because they are simple, use minimal printer ink, and provide generic prompts that kids can make their own by drawing what they choose.  I allow my students to do up to three pages a day in their journals (which are stapled and kept in their chair pockets in folders).  We also have a bag of manipulatives in our chair pockets for use with our ten frames in the journals.  I can't wait to return to school and get my kids back to journaling! If you want to see an example of this journal, click on the picture below for a sampler, or follow the link to my TpT Store for the entire bundle. http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Math-Journals-Bundle-for-K-1st-Grade-Common-Core-Prompts-No-CutPaste

Tip #4:  Bucket Seats are my absolute favorite new thing this year! For about 25.00, I was able to purchase five buckets from Home Depot, paint them, add embellishments, make easy to clean and disinfect seats for the lids, and add some terrific seating and storage to my classroom! Check out this top blog article from earlier this year.  Next year's new addition will be "Spots".  Discs that can velcro to the carpet for stepping stones, seating arrangements, and many other things.  I plan to use the round disc as on the top of my bucket seats for the discs, and I plan to construct them the same way, but will add velcro hooks to the bottom so they will stay in place on our carpet.  I love do-it-yourself projects, especially cheap ones! The best thing about them is how easy to clean they are--no fabric to wash! http://maggieskindercorner.blogspot.com/2012/07/just-in-case-you-crafty-teachers-missed.html


For more inspiration, be sure to follow this linky to the next terrific blog post! You won't be disappointed! And a huge thanks to Michelle at Inspired By Kindergarten for having me as a guest blogger! Be sure to tell her what you think, and by all means, check out her TpT Store!

Have a great day!
Maggie :)

Heading back soon and a blog hop!

Done with 2 days of inservice. . . one more to go and the kids come back to school on Monday.  Ready or not here they come! 

I haven't been blogging as much as I should have but I've needed a little time to regroup, regenerate and to be honest- hibernate and recharge!

Saturday there is a fun blog hop planned and I will be over at Krazy in Love with Kindergarten guest blogging.  My guest blogger will be Maggie from Maggie's Kinder Corner and she sent me a fabulous post I will be sharing with you on Saturday.  Make sure and stop back and check out all the great ideas!  There are 60 blogs involved and I'm sure the posts will be fabulous! 

Thanks so  much to the gals from Primary Possibilities for organizing this hop!