Sunday, February 5, 2017

A New Year and A New Look

It's a new year and as you can see, my blog has a new look!  I couldn't be more excited!  Thank you Kassie for doing an amazing job.  And thank you Krista Wallden for letting me use your precious clip art.

I have taken some time off from blogging and creating products because life has a crazy way of making you slow down.  We have had some curve balls thrown at us, but we are getting back up and running around here.  Soccer season is finally over for my high school girl so I'm getting home at night before 9:00.  My little(8th grader) girl's season will start back up soon, but that is not nearly as stressful or time consuming.

I'm excited to share what I've been working on and the really neat things that have been going on in my classroom this year.  I have so much to tell you!  I'll have to post a little at a time or you'll be reading into tomorrow.

This year I have 12 little darlings.  4 of them are ESL and 3 are kiddos who are doing PreK-4 twice.  Needless to say, differentiation is the theme in my room this year!  I have students who are reading already and students who are learning the alphabet and learning to label items in the room.  Whew!  It keeps me on my toes every day.

I'm also working on my master's degree in Early Childhood Education.  Thank goodness for online universities!!  I truly believe my gift from God is abundant energy. It's what keeps me going and allows me to multitask.

Coming soon--new TPT products and lots of class pictures---stay tuned!

TPT Sitewide sale on Feb. 7-8.  Go check it out!

Friday, November 18, 2016

Check this Out!

<a href="https://www.bloglovin.com/blog/18343163/?claim=ejm6qmet8be">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

I'm now on Bloglovin'!  Come follow me and get see what we are doing in our class!

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Start Your Year Sale

We are having a "Start Your Year" Sale over at TPT!  Now is the time to go get all those things that have been sitting on your wait list (mine is SUPER long).  
I have uploaded some new things so be sure to check them out!




Here are some new things in my store this week.




Hope to see you over there!

Monday, November 16, 2015

Turkey Games!

C

We read Turkey Trouble by Wendy Silvano

Then we rewrote the book and pretended like the turkey dressed up like us!

Can the turkey really trick the farmer with his disguise?
Will the Farmer think the turkey is ______?








During Math time, we played SWIPE (the turkey version)!  It's a great partner game for counting and comparing numbers!





We are also making some counting turkey books at our math center.  It is a wonderful resource that has the kiddos counting, making ten frames, writing numbers and making sets. Click on the pictures below to take you right to my store.




I also put some math games including the SWIPE game at my store!  Come check it out!  Click on the picture below to take you straight there!

Have a thankful week with your kiddos!!



Tuesday, November 10, 2015

THANKFUL SALE!


This time of the year, I am very aware of all of the blessings I have been given.  One is being able to share ideas with all my fellow teachers.  I am so thankful for all my followers, those who purchase and the positive feedback I receive from all of you.
So
I am having a sale in my TeachersPayTeachers store to say Thank You!
Click on the link above or the image below to go straight to my store.
Happy Thanksgiving!




Learning is Fun!

And so begins the busy season!

This week we have been busy having fun while we are learning.
We made Ice Cream for "I" week!  (cue the shaking music!) Boy, were our arms tired from shaking those bags!


 It was worth all the work and cold hands though.  We made the most delicious ice cream and decorated it with sprinkles!  Yummy!!


 We began our Thanksgiving crafts and learning last week too.  These are our pattern turkeys!  They really did a great job and it was a terrific way for me to assess who still needs some work with patterning.












Today we did our directed drawing of turkeys!  Aren't they amazing!  They absolutely loved designing their own turkey feathers.






One of our small group math activities is to roll and color. You can find this one on TPT from Growing Kinders.


Another math small group was making turkeys and counting the feathers.  Great cutting, gluing, counting and following directions practice.


My last small group for math today was working on taller/shorter with partners.  This game is from Kim Adsit's "Which is Taller?" unit



Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Hello again!

I'm going to apologize in advance for the long post and all the pics!  In my dream world, I would like to sit down a few minutes each day and write something on our blog and post a few pictures.  Hahaha!  Like I said---my dream world.  Reality is I can't ever find that few minutes and then it all piles up and I have to post everything in one day--like today.  Here are a few things that we have been working on in our class.

First of all, let me say after 9 weeks, we are finally getting into routine and becoming more independent.  So now we can do lots more fun and learning in our room and not as much redirecting.

Let me take you back a few weeks....

During "A" week (yep! We do the letters in  order) we talked about Alligators.  We are from Louisiana after all.  Our poem for the week was called "Alligator."  We read it, sang it, colored it in our poetry folder, hunted for all the "A's" in the poem and we did a rewrite of it and made it our own.  This is what became of the rewrite.  I love it when art and writing come together to make it more meaningful.





 During "D" week, we invited our Dad's to come and eat donuts with us.  They came and ate and saw our classroom and all the things we have been working on.  We love our Dads!






One of our favorite cooking activities is Green Eggs and Ham.  It's messy and fun and delicious!


Some of us love green eggs and ham Sam I Am!................Some of us do not!


Now on to "F" week.  One of my favorite weeks!  This week we continued our lesson on oviparous animals and talked about Frogs.  We made this cute little guy and after we learned the life cycle of the frog, we put it inside our frog's mouth.



Of course our poem this week was called "Frogs".   Here's how we use our poems in the classroom:

We read and sing the poem on the first day all together.  I wrote the poems to familiar tunes so they make it easier to "read" for my PreK.  We talk about the lesson that is in the poem.  This one was about subtraction.

The next day, we get our our poetry folders and color the picture.  Then we circle the focus letter throughout the poem and we read it all together.

The third day they get their poetry folders out and find a friend to read to.  They read this week's poem and they can go back and reread our previous poems to friends.  I love hearing them sing all the poems they know to their friends.

The fourth day we "rewrite" the poem and tie it into an art activity.  This gives them a chance to make it their own and make some connections.





Our number was "7" this week.  For math, we made a giant frog with a super long tongue and put 7 flies on it in number order.





Ok!!  How much do you love dollar store items?? I love finding a good deal and trying to figure out how I'm going to use it in my classroom. I found these cute frog shaped eggs at Easter and I finally figured out what to do with them.  I put a colored dot on the bottom and put a different number of bugs in each one.  They had to color the frog the same color as the dot, count the number of bugs in his tummy and write the number.  They loved this!  They like when there is something new to do math with.



This week is "G" week and we are doing one of their favorite stories---The Three Billy Goats Gruff.  We read the story and sing the song --over and over and over-- by Jack Hartmann.  It gets stuck in your head and we end up singing it all day long.

We made story props so they can retell the story.  They had so much fun making the bridge and coloring the goats and troll.  Some wanted to tell the story to their friends and some wanted to retell it by themselves.  Lots of great learning going on---story recall, communication, sequencing, drama, art, listening and confidence building.








Whew!  Thanks for hanging with me through all of these super fun activities!  Hopefully my next post won't be so long in coming!