Jello Play dough....giving it a try!

Hello! We are working on decomposing numbers in the teens....I saw this idea on A Differentiated Kindergarten (so many great ideas on her blog!) and loved the idea of  the children using play dough and ten frames to make groups of 10's and 1's. I made some work mats and tonight I made the play dough to go along with them. 

I tried the Jello play dough recipe found here. 

(I added yellow food coloring because it was a little pale...but it smells great! )

I also made the lime version.


Here it is, in use by the students:

They also completed these 10 frame activities:

 I believe I've written about these in previous posts...dot the shamrock that matches the 10 frame and "Tennis Shoe 10 Frames."

Thanks for checking in and have a great evening!

Look and see!

This week we will add the words "look" and "see" to the word wall. I made this activity...based on so many of those "butter it" ideas on Pinterest.

I added the counting component...the children have to count how many times they "buttered" each word and write the number. I used clip art from  Month by Month Clip Art published by Scholastic. I ordered it with bonus points last year and love it!

Quick Letter Sound Idea

Here is how I used these Dollar Tree cut outs....I put letter stickers on the paintbrush and ran the paint cans through my printer. The children match the beginning sounds. Quick and easy! Once they are laminated, you don't have to worry about the stickers coming off, either! Bonus!

I've had a few questions about printing on these cut outs. I did an earlier post here if you are interested!
Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

Magnet Center

Hello! I 'revamped' our magnet center this month.

I printed a few simple prayers that contain some of our sight words. I made magnets out of the missing words for the children to fill in. (They can use the black and white copy to find the missing word.)

I also am using this awesome freebie to review beginning sounds and practice cvc and color words.

And here is the little bucket holding the newest letters I got at the Dollar Tree last week.

Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

A little organization....

One of my goals this summer (which didn't actually happen over the summer) was to organize all of my center materials. I like the idea of having them organized by month, but do not have the storage space to do each month separately. I decided to group the centers into Sept/Oct/Nov, Dec/Jan/Feb, and Mar/Apr/May into a 3 drawer cart.

                                  (I downloaded these cute labels from Miss Kindergarten.)

I sorted through the items and pitched ones that I don't use, had missing pieces, or were outdated. I like these big drawers because I can fit everything in them...like counters or manipulatives.

And then, when I was done, I still had a pile of stuff left...these items I just sorted into reading and math for now, but eventually want to break them down into skill tubs.

The best part was seeing everything I had...now I know what I have to begin the year and what skills I still may need to supplement. Sorting is always a good thing. ; )

Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

Creative fonts!

Hello! I spent a little time this week searching for some new fonts. Thought I'd share what I found...my newest favorite is the sound box font. It lets you create items like this:

So great for the word wall, literacy center items, sight word practice....etc. It's called teacher helpers and you can find it here.  I've also pinned a link on my September pinterest board.

I also found a great tally mark font!!! If only I had known about this one sooner! I've spent a lot of time in the past trying to create tally marks....this font makes it super simple! You can download the tally mark font here.

The other font is called color font. You can download it here. If you have some time to search and browse there are so many fun fonts to spruce up those classroom materials! Thanks for checking in!

Need a fun math game?

Hello everyone! I hope you have time to relax and enjoy Thanksgiving with family and friends! I will be with my family on Thursday and my hubby is in charge of cooking the bird! Yum...can't wait for all of the goodies!

 I really hope you are not tired of me sharing Pinterest inspired ideas...I mean really...I just think it's so cool that everyone shares their stuff and we can all benefit.  Plus, I think if I find a cool idea and share it, you may be able to use it as well. I saw this "filler-up five" idea and loved it!

Click here for the original blog post and source. 

The goal is to roll a die and fill each container with 5 "gems." 

I could not find the deviled egg trays, so I substituted these relish trays and they worked great. I put 30 "gems" in the middle. Each tray has six partitions to fill. It goes pretty quickly, so I can see where the egg trays would be good. But it's great practice for grouping by 5's. 

Thanks for checking in and have a very Happy Thanksgiving!!

Fall and Halloween I SPY bottles...

Hello again! I am still at home this week while my hubby recovers from surgery...so I thought I'd work on a few fun things for my classroom! Last year, I printed these great free Fall and Halloween themed "word walls" from Teacher Bits and Bobs.  (I've tried searching their blog for the direct link, but it says the page is not available....you may find other great word walls you can use for this as well.) I printed them full size to use in my writing center, but thought it would be fun to turn them into I Spy bottles, too.

I printed the pictures at a smaller scale to put inside the bottle.  The children can cross off the pictures as they find them on the larger sheet...I printed a few of them full size and will laminate them.

I absolutely LOVE making the colored rice to put in these bottles! I made purple for the Halloween bottle and orange for the Fall bottle. I used Gatorade bottles; they are very sturdy!

The children love this activity! Here it is in action:

Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

Update those board games!

Well, my first official weekend of summer is approaching, and I have to say, I've been enjoying  sleeping in a bit and sipping a second cup of coffee this week! My family and I are heading out for a weekend camping trip later today...so I have a little packing and grocery shopping to do.  I want to share a couple of updated board game ideas with you...especially since garage sale season is upon us! You may be able to find games cheap this summer if you like to frequent neighborhood sales.

Here is my version of sight word Candyland.  I know there are great blog posts out there about printing your own cards and making the game more versatile...here's how I did it: I had 2 Candyland games on my shelf. I left one version "as is." I like having it available for the children because it's a game they are familiar with and can easily play without much direction from me. I simply took the second game and added sight words to all of the pieces. Children have to read the word before they can move to that space. Quick and simple and a good idea to share with parents as well.

My next idea involves this favorite: Boggle Jr.

I seem to find this game a lot for like 50 or 75 cents! I already have 2 on my shelf, but it's hard to pass them by at such good prices...just in case the timer breaks or dice get lost, it's good to have a spare! I decided to just use the dice and  make some "roll and graph" games.  I made a separate graph for each die; children roll the die and print the letter in the row that matches the beginning sound...here's a sample of the graph for the die with b,l,t,r,c, and n.

I also have the numbers version of Boggle Jr., which I was surprised to find! It's a good "addition" (ha ha!) to your math shelf, if you can find it.

Hope this inspires you to look at your board games in a new light! I have a few other ideas I am going to try to work on this summer if I find a game at the right price! Have a great weekend and thanks for checking in!

Combination of two great ideas....

Hello! Today I'd like to share an idea I put together using 2 great ideas from other teachers...

this one from Growing Kinders....and the gumball machine idea from Shari Sloane.

I found a small gumball machine at the Dollar Tree. It's not the kind you can put a penny in, but it works!  I wrote the numbers 1-100 (not all of them...I left a few out, just so the kids couldn't color all of them and say they were done. Ha!) on glass gems, also purchased at the Dollar Tree. The children color the number on their hundred chart that matches the number that came out of the gumball machine.

Thanks for checking in and have a great weekend!

Camping Ideas!

Our media specialist planned a fun literacy week for our K-3 students with a camping theme. I added a few classroom ideas of my own...here is our door:

It says "Welcome to the North Woods" created with DJ Inkers clip art.  This title was totally appropriate since we live in MN!  We did a couple of graphs: "Have you ever slept in a tent?"  And "Have you made a s'more?"

 I created a writing center (using DJ Inkers clipart again!) with some camping vocabulary words...

And I printed a poem the children could read and fill in the missing word.

I made a marshmallow cvc game...the children choose a "marshmallow" from the container. If they can read the word, they can add it to their mat; if not, they return it to the container. The goal is to collect 10 marshmallows.

Thursday we wrote about camping...some of the children have not had a camping experience, of course, so we started with a "5 senses of camping" chart . The children came up with great ideas. Then they wrote a few sentences about their favorite part of camping, or what they think would be fun if they went camping, etc. Here are a few of their ideas:

 "I like to go camping in a camper and a tent."

" I like to camp with my family."

"My family is making s'mores."

I'm so proud of their writing at this point in the year. They are ready to move onto first grade! Have a great day and thanks for checking in!

Bug Catcher Link

Hello! It feels like it's winter again in our backyard....only in the 40's today and very windy. There were a couple of schools in northern MN that had a snow day today! Hopefully tomorrow will feel more like spring again.  I wanted to share this awesome activity with you I found on this great blog: A Differentiated Kindergarten. If you haven't visited it, take a minute to do so. She has great ideas and shares a lot of information on differentiation. I printed her free bug catcher sensory table activity and my students started using it today. They loved it! I found a cute red container at the dollar store and bought some left over orange Easter "grass" (the shredded paper kind). I glued some foam bugs on clothes pins for the kids to catch the rhyming bugs.

I think they like digging through the paper to find the bugs! : )  Thanks for checking in...even though this is not my original idea, it's fun to share links with such great ideas...it may inspire you!

As promised...bee centers complete!

Hello! It's been a busy week back from spring break! I had my principal's observation today...it went well. : )  I had time after school yesterday to laminate my bumble bee activities and have some pics to share with you...this bag and bumble bee were my inspiration:

Count the tally marks and find the matching flower.

Spin and color.

Add the dice and cover the number.

Thanks for checking in on my little corner of the kindergarten world and have a great day! It's Friday!!

Bumble Bee Center Ideas

Hello! I hope everyone enjoyed their Easter! I did. : ) We are down to the last 7 weeks of school...I can hardly believe it! But it is so much fun to focus on SPRING! I put together a few fun things for the children to do with a bumble bee theme. I am going to pair these activities with a cute stuffed bee and a bag to keep it all in...a "take it to your seat" kind of center. I will post a picture of all of it when completed. 

 Here are the items I have done so far...still have to laminate the bee/flower activity and get the spinners ready for the color word practice, but all in all I'm happy with everything! These are ideas I've seen online or on pinterest and adapted to meet my students' needs. All of the clip art is from Carson Dellosa. Thanks for checking in on my little corner of the kindergarten world!

CVC Egg Activity

"I'm done, now what?" Baskets

 "I'm done! What do I do now???" Ever heard that question?? There are a lot of great ideas floating around out there to help answer it, but here's my solution: I decided to put baskets on each of the tables with activities for the children to do when they are done with their work early or need to fill a few minutes between class activities.

Each basket has a variety of math and literacy items...some of them are the same for each table, some of them are different. For example, there are 6 children at each table, so each basket has 6 sets of sight words for them to practice. I also have 6 "smart pals" in each basket and a set of dry erase markers for them to practice sight word tic-tac-toe, nonsense words, number writing, math skills, etc.

Each basket also has items that I rotate at the end of the week, like beginning/ending sound practice or number activities.

So far, this has worked well. I have not heard, "I'm done, now what???" in a few weeks! The children have gotten into the routine of choosing something to work on until they hear differently.  I fill the basket with activities, then rotate them at the end of the week to the next table, so I only need to change the materials every 3 weeks. I am updating the baskets for March tomorrow. Thanks for checking in and have a great day!