St. Patrick's Day Blending

This was a fun way to practice words from the Big Book of Blending, along with color words,  this week. Children worked in small groups. They took turns taking a "gold coin," and if they could read it, added to their pot of gold. If they couldn't read it (or blend it correctly) they put it back.

Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

Magnetic Letters App

Need a fun way to practice words?? I've been using the digital magnetic letters to have children work with words from the Superkids blending chart. They choose a word, spell it with the magnets on the iPad, then record it. The lite version of the app is free; you can view it here.

Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

Christmas blocks

It's been a while since I've posted on this little blog...I see I'm still getting a little traffic here and there, thanks mostly to Pinterest! I thought I'd share these cute Nativity blocks I made this week. I found the idea on Pinterest, of course! Here is the picture I used for inspiration.

 I used DJ Inkers clip art for this project, but you can use any Nativity clip art or stickers. My husband cut the blocks for me.

 I used 'glossy' Mod Podge to adhere the pictures to the wood. I let them dry between coats, but gave them each a good 3 or 4 coats of Mod Podge.

I added the blocks to my "Christmas" tub on the Religion shelf. It has my Nativity puppets, Christmas books, a Christmas puzzle, and now these Nativity blocks!
Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

Sensory ideas....on a small scale

Hello! Happy October! I put together two small sensory bins for my October centers. I was inspired by this post on Differentiated Kindergarten. Needles to say, if you've read my blog, you know I have a very small classroom. I wanted to find a way to incorporate sensory bins without moving in another big piece of furniture. I am using 2 small bins; the first one is a  plastic shoe box style with rice:

There are small Halloween pictures in the rice. When the children find them, they cross them off of a laminated chart. 

The other one is a pasta filled, orange plastic bin:

Wow! I have to say...it was so much making this colored pasta!! I love the Halloween colors and I have to credit Differentiated Kindergarten again for this idea. (I used neon food coloring for the purple and green...didn't have to mix anything for that. I used red and yellow to make the orange pasta.) If  you've never colored pasta...give it a try! Just put a few drops of food coloring in a zip lock along with a few drops of rubbing alcohol. I never measure...it's not an exact science! Put in uncooked pasta and squish the bag until all of the noodles are colored. Spread them out to dry...it won't take long. I put rhyming pictures in this bin. 

Here are both of the bins together...you can see they are small! I am also opening the playdough center this month....more sensory fun there!

Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

Superkids ideas...

Hi! This is our first year using the Superkids reading program by Rowland Reading. I love it! I really feel like I am teaching my kiddos the skills they need to become successful readers. I thought I'd share just a couple of things I've done to accompany the program. Let me say, this program is very structured and there is not much wiggle room! But I do still like to use literacy centers and have adapted activities to correlate with Superkids. For example, we've been working with Alf, and the sound of short a...so we learned a lot about apples the same week.

The children labeled the parts of an apple in their journals. We also practiced capital and lowercase letter recognition by coloring capital letters green and lowercase letters green. I used just the letters we have covered so far: c, o, g, and a.

The children also practiced writing the letters we've learned by spinning a paperclip, then writing the letter it lands on.

This week we worked on reading words using the letter sound the children have learned. They used this activity to practice:

The children cut out the letters at the bottom of the page and use them to build and read the words in the box.

Thanks for checking in and have a super evening!

We're well underway!

Hello! School started Aug. 25...we've hit the ground running! Here are a few pics of my classroom before the first day...

We've been busy learning classroom routines and procedures. I really love our Superkids reading program and will post a little more on that later....

Here's a quick idea for birthday hats I am doing this year.  You just need die cuts (Dollar Tree)....

...construction paper strips....

....and a printer....

I printed "Happy Birthday ___" on the balloons, stapled strips of paper to each side, and presto! Birthday hat complete!

Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

Quick and Easy Shelf Covering

Hello! The first day of school is less than a week away! I often put curtains on the shelves in my room to cover items for storage. I tell the children that anything behind the curtain is not usable right now, but will be rotated out over the next few months. Here is a quick and easy curtain I made using a Dollar Tree table cloth.

When I bought it, I thought the whole things was polka dotted...turns our that's just a border and the center is white...but that's ok, it still looks cute.  I used a tension rod on the shelf and set it to the correct size. Then I stapled a rod pocket and slid the rod through. Once I had that done, I measured the length from the shelf to the floor and cut off the extra. (I kept the width the same, because it was perfect.) Pretty quick and easy and pleasing to the eye...rather than a shelf full of stuff. ; )

I made new labels for my math shelf...needed them desperately.  The top empty space will be for math centers...once I get them sorted and ready.

Lastly, here is my birthday display...hanging above my calendar area. I explained how I printed the months on the cupcakes here.

Thanks for checking in and have a great day!