Book Study at its best!!

It's a book study at it's best!

Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites by Marcia Tate

I am so lucky!  Our school had Marcia as our in-service speaker for the beginning of school! (we had her all to ourselves for a couple of days)
Her book Worksheets Don't Grow Dendrites will inspire you to think of new, fun ways to engage your students.  She give practical ideas and the reasoning behind it.
For many of us who teach the little ones, we do a lot of it without realizing it --art, music, storytelling, manipulatives, visuals and movement. But it was nice to see that our Jr. High teachers were getting into too and finding ways to incorporate these strategies into their classrooms!

I am super excited to link up to these sites for the book study!  It's a great reminder of what we have been working on all year.

Mrs. Wills Kindergarten (March 7th)
Queen of the First Grade Jungle Chapter 4 (March 10th)
Fabulous in First  Chapter 5 (March 14th)
One Extra Degree Chapter 6 (March 17th)
Mrs. Jump’s Class Chapter 7 (March 28th)
The First Grade Parade  Chapter 8 (March 31st)


In April
,
Mrs. Ehle’s Kindergarten Chapter 9 &10 (April 4th)
What The Teacher Wants Chapter 11 (April 7th)
First Grader At Last Chapter 12 (April 11th)
Erica’s Ed Ventures  Chapter 13 (April 14th)
KinderGals Chapter 14 &15 (April 18th)
A Rocky Top Teacher Chapter 16 (April 21st)
The Inspired Apple Chapter 17 (April 25th)
Little Warriors Chapter 18 (April 28th)
Falling Into First Chapter 19 (May 2nd)
Kickin’ it in Kindergarten Chapter 20 (May 5th)


So go get your book and start reading!  It's not too late and it will make a huge difference in the way you are preparing your lessons!
See you on Saturday!

Teachers are heroes everyday to the children in their class for so many reasons.  Some things teachers do for their students, many people will never know or see.

Teachers encourage, inspire, comfort, laugh, cry, and love their students.  I think of my students as my own children.  We are there when they are having a bad day, when they need a cheerleader, when they need an advocate, when they need a shoulder or listening ear.  We are there when they have good news or success and they need a hug, a praise and a huge smile.  

Teachers challenge their students to be anything they want to be and help them get there!  Sometimes we push, pull and drag, but cheer them on the whole way.  We open the doors to so many possibilities and opportunities!  No one would be where they are today without teachers!  

Teachers Pay Teachers  is having a sitewide sale on Wednesday, February 25th!  Some stores on TPT are having a bonus sale on Thursday too.  I know my store will be on sale.  

Now is a great time to get those things you have really been wanting.  Click on the pics below and they will take you right to the site!!

Go be a Hero to Your Kids!

<a href="https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/SitewideSales"><img src="https://mcdn.teacherspayteachers.com/img/sale_superb/sale_300_300.jpg?rand=023597" alt="300 × 300" /></a>

Let the Good Times Roll!

Cue the Second Line music!  Today was super exciting with our Pre-K 3's doing their annual float parade in our Spirit Assembly!  They loved dancing and throwing beads to us.  Throw us something, mister!  We wore our super cute Mardi Gras hats and then came back to our room to make King Cakes.  I just finished uploading our Mardi Gras unit to TPT.  It has our recipe for the King Cakes and many other fun activities.

Now we are off for the week for Mardi Gras!  

Happy Valentine's Mardi Gras!

This has been a week for the record books!  We haven't been this busy in a long time--not even Christmas!  The way this week falls we have Valentine's to celebrate and Mardi Gras!  Both are a huge deal and since we are out all next week (Mardi Gras Holiday), we have to squeeze both holidays into one week.  Oh and did I mention it is also Registration Week for  our school!  Wow!  Here are some pictures from our week and some of our cute art and games.  These games and activities can be
found in my Hearts and More unit or in my Valentine's Bundle which is acutally 3 of my Valentine units together at a great price.

We are playing "Heart Attack" with our partners and chocolate of course!  There are 3 different game boards.  Some are playing with number 1-12, some with 1-15 and some with numbers 1-20, depending on their level.  They all look the same so most of my children never know they are different.

Of course we love to graph those candy hearts!  (And eat them)

 In our Mardi Gras study we read the  book Today is Monday in Louisiana by Johnette Downing.  We also have the song on her CD "From the Gumbo Pot".  We talked about all the foods that we eat that are unique to Louisiana.  We eat them so often, my kids thought that's what everyone in the country ate.  We made our own "Today Is..." book using pictures from magazines.  Now the children can read and sing their own books and ownership is often the key to them choosing a book to read.

 We read the story  The Day it Rained Hearts by Felicia Bond. Then we talked about how if it rained hearts, we would have so many Valentines to give away.  We put it with our poem and they chose who they would give their hearts to and we wrote them one on each heart.

 Another book we "wrote" is our Valentine Friends book.  I photo copied all of the students in our class and they got to choose 1 for each page.  They had to find the friend's name in our room and write it on the blank.Then they decided what color valentine they wanted to give that friend and glued the heart on the page.  They had to write the color word on the line.  Lots of heart cutting practice today!

 And last but not least, we had to make our Valentine bags for collecting our Valentine's at our party.  I had each parent write 4 things they loved about their child and we put them on the bags after we read them.  I think each of their own little hearts grew as they heard all the love from their parents!

Here in PreK world, I am all about connecting our art to our math and our literacy.  Many times we use our poem for the week and we make it a math lesson and an art project.  We love it when that happens!  For "O" week we did "Octopus" and we made different combinations of 8 with our beads.  Some of my kiddos did the same combination over and over.   That's totally fine with me because that's where they are.  Some kept trying to find new ways!

 We did groundhogs counting by 10's with our Groundhog poem.

 We subtracted banana's during our "M" week for monkeys.  I adapted Deanna Jump's monkey.  It was so super cute.  My girls wanted girl monkeys of course!

Are you being S-elf-less?

Have you been "Elf-less" this month?  Here are the the new ideas.

This week my PreK-ers took the Selfless Challenge!  They could do most on this Week 4 list right here at school.  They were giving high fives and saying Merry Christmas to anyone and everyone.  They loved making notes  and cards for each other at the writing and art centers and surprising friends by putting them in their backpacks!  They found neat ways to help other out by opening doors, helping carry things, picking up trash, helping a friend put on coats or mittens, helping a friend pick up toys and so many more things!  This has been the most wonderful activities for my family, my class and ME!! Thanks Krista for encouraging us to think of others!!

Be S--E.L.F--less!

Ok, so around this time of year, people tend to thing of doing good for others more than any other time of year. People are generally, kinder, more generous and more philanthropic.  Personally, i try very hard each year to get my children to think of others instead of themselves (which is really hard while they are sitting here making their lists for Santa!)

This fabulous lady, Krista Wallden, the mastermind at The Creative Chalkboard has come up with a precious, fun way to do this.  It is her Operation E.L.F. challenge.  It's free to anyone to download and try.  Click on the link above and it will take you right to it.  It's definitely not too late to start.  Oh and did I mention everything about it is CUTE!!!!!!  And I am all about making something cute.  If it isn't cute, why bother?

I have been putting one E.L.F. challenge in my children's lunchboxes each day for them to do for someone else.  They can do it for someone at school, friends, teachers administration, janitors etc. or during the day to others-- strangers, coaches, bus drivers, grandparents etc.  

Krista has inspired me to inspire my kids.  Krista, you rock!!!

Go be someone's ELF today!!

October is Here!

Ok! I love love love October and not just because it's my birthday month.  I love the weather turning cooler(that's  huge deal here), I love football games on Friday nights, soccer games on Saturday mornings, getting to wear long sleeves, and finally making LARGE pots of gumbo and red beans and rice!  Fall is my absolutely favorite time of the year.

We are getting ready to decorate our classroom with pumpkins and ghosts and all things Halloween! I can just feel the excitement in the air as we put up the October calendar.  Check back in the next couple of weeks to see the fun things we will be doing for Halloween!!

I also uploaded a new Snip and Sort Sounds to my store last night.  For those who have my Snip and Sort Letter Recognition and were hoping to have one for sounds, the wait is over.  Jump on over and check it out.

Also, because it's my birthday month, I am giving you a present!!!!  I am having a 20% off sale of everything in my store for the next 3 days. October 1-3!  Hurry on over and grab some things that might have been on your wish list!