HAS IT REALLY BEEN 3 MONTHS?

I don't know how it happened.  It has actually been three months since I last blogged.  I am always thinking about what I should blog about.  I even take pictures.  However, it never happens. :(

This year has somehow sucked everything out of me.  I feel like I need more time to get "school stuff" accomplished.  I haven't even had time to make/publish anything on TPT.  On Friday afternoon, I realized that I hadn't even started making the Thanksgiving book with my kinders.  Where is time going?

I decided that hooking up with Farley's November Currently would be a great way to get back in the swing of blogging.  So here it is!

Please leave me some comments and even become a follower. 

New {School} Year Resolutions... Linky Party

July Currently and a Freebie!

Happy Belated Fourth of July!  I hope you found a cool spot to watch the fireworks!  We enjoyed our local display last night...they were giving out color-refracting glasses and I have to say, it was pretty cool to watch!  I had to laugh when the kids kept saying we were watching the fireworks in "3D"!

Here is my July Currently....

 

I discovered Pete the Cat this year....isn't he great?  If you haven't checked him out, you really should!  Maybe my "wanting" should have been the $50 stuffed animal of him!  Definitely going on my Christmas list!

As for Responsive Classroom, I just got back from a fabulous conference in Delaware.  We started implementing this in our school this year, and I am a definite fan!  In fact, I'm going to start sharing with you some of the things I learned in my week away.  I'll probably break it down into a couple different posts, but I am such a firm believer in this method, I feel the need to share the love! :)

As for the classroom....yeah, you can relate, right?  A friend of mine retired and left me all her things.  While they are WONDERFUL, I have to admit...I'm a classroom hoarder.  It's only made my addiction worse!  Maybe they'll feature me on a special edition of Teacher Hoarders? :)  Just kidding!  Stay cool and stay tuned for the upcoming posts!  

Be sure to link up with Farley and don't forget the special rule of 3 this month!

I'm also linking up with Teaching Blog Addicts and Kreative in Kinder for the "International Blog Hopping Day" freebie!





I'm offering my "Help Baby Seahorse Find his Way Home" which is available through my TpT Store!  Students roll two dot cubes and add up the dots, finding the number on the grid and covering it up.  It's a two player game and the first player to cover up his/her board gets the seahorse home first!  Be sure to click on the seahorse to download!

Everything Graduation and Awards PK-2 Linky Party

Chrissy, over at Adventures in Second Grade ,and I have teamed up to host a linky party! 

It's that time of year when we're all winding down, getting our rooms packed up and....graduation!  Which led me to think....I know how we have traditionally done graduation, but this year, each classroom is playing host to the parents and students.  Soooo....I have to wonder, what do YOU do for graduation/awards ceremony?


In Kindergarten, I have shown a slide show of pictures of the year and given out their graduation certificates, as well as the traditional school awards...perfect attendance, Star Student, Citizenship, etc. We've also always done this as a grade level.  This year, it's just me!  Help!


So, please link up and tell us how you celebrate the end of the year with your students and parents! 
1.  Grab the graphic above 
2.  Link back to this post
3.  Be sure to link up below!


Oh, and as a BIG thank you, and a special treat (because don't we need it this time of year???), 3 lucky winners will receive one of the following below:


A $10 gift certificate to TpT

My Zoo Animal Math Pack

A Life Cycles pack from Adventures in Second Grade that includes her SCOOT game as well as her pack "Life Cycles:  From a Plant's Point of View" which includes several activities K-2 to use when studying this unit including foldables, a powerpoint, internet links, and more!

So, how to win?  For each item below, you get one entry. 


1.  Follow my blog, as well as Adventures in Second Grade
2.  Follow my TpT store
3.  Follow Adventures in Second Grade TpT store
4.  Leave a comment below stating you've done all these things!


Super easy, right? Please be sure to scroll below for the link-up!


I'm looking forward to seeing how everyone celebrates this end-of-year rite!

SUPER PATTERN SCOOT and a SNAIL

This has been a long week and it is only Thursday!  Why has it been long?  Well, we are going to the zoo tomorrow!  I am so excited was so excited.  However, after hearing, when are we going to the zoo? 500 times in the past 2 days, I am already worn out.  We have talked about zoo animals and sorted animals that are pets, zoo and farm animals.  We have made animals.  We have read billions of books about the zoo.  I really feel like I have already been.  However, I really want you to see our shirts that we made.

New SCOOT game on TPT.  I just put my new SCOOT: SUPER PATTERNS game on TPT, please check  it out.  :)

 

WE ARE OFF TO THE ZOO!

Everything in my TPT store is 20% off through May 8th!

This week we will be "zoo looking" all week.  I love the zoo and I hope my kids will too!  There are so many ways that you can review math while working on a zoo theme.  I just put a package of 6 math centers on TPT.  The theme is all ZOO.  The objectives covered are patterns, graphing, numbers before and after, tallies, time and fun inequalities.  Your students will help the zoo keeper count all of the animals, in the zoo, and graph them.  They will also see what is on the hippo's schedule for the day.  Here is a sneak peak!  Don't forget to use the TPT code (TAD12) from now until May 8th to get an extra 10% off!

Make sure you check out my TPT store and grab this great math package before the sale is over!

WEEK FULL OF CENTERS

This week in math we are learning about ordinal numbers.  When I asked if anyone knew what ordinal numbers were, they looked at me like deer in headlights.  I then drew a racetrack on the board and I introduced it with race cars.  They boys thought ordinals were going to be great. 
I came up with some centers this weekend and made a response sheet to go with each one.  You can find all of these in my TPT store.  Here are some pics of my kinders working together in groups that couldn't get along.
Please check out my store!

Super Hero Ordinals

Creative Kitten Ordinals

Backyard Critters Ordinals

Look Who's Hooting Ordinals

I AM SO EXCITED!

Last night I uploaded my very first product on TPT.  I pinned it to Pinterest and within an hour I had over 100 repins.  I couldn't believe it.  I checked the number of downloads on TPT and was just as excited.  Within 30 minutes I had 26 downloads.  I have been holding off the whole TPT thing.  I was worried that I would upload stuff and it wouldn't even be looked at.  Boy was I wrong!
I am adding a new freebie tonight.  It is called Spilled Seeds.  Click on this link to take you to my store.  Please check it out and leave me some feedback!

TEEN FREEBIE

This week we are making our last attempt at learning teen numbers.  After realizing that I had nothing to help review those mean numbers, I decided to make a center that connected with our plant unit. 

You can now find this on TPT.  Let me know how you like it!

EARTH DAY EXTRAVAGANZA

Last Thursday was our long awaited First Annual Earth Day Extravaganza.  We had been planning for this for months.  In October, my school applied for and was granted the LOWE'S $5000 school grant.  We are using the money to make three different learning gardens around our school.  We have had a lot of community support in helping to get the land ready and all of the mulch and stones to our school.  Thursday was the big day for the kids to do their part.  Below you will find some of the fun things that my kinders got to do on this special day.

Decorating grocery bags to be used at Food Lion on Earth Day.

We painted rocks to put in the mulch around the different gardens.

We got to make a really cool birdbath.

We met Smokey Bear!

We planted a tree.

We got to make flower pots out of newspapers.  As you can see, we made flower hats to help keep the sun out of our eyes.  :)

I've Been Tagged!

Chrissy over at Adventures In Second Grade tagged me! Here are the rules:
1. You must post the rules.
2. Answer the 10 questions for the tagger who posted for you.
3. Create 10 questions of your own to ask the people you're tagging.
4. Tag 10 people and link the with your post. Don't forget to let them know they've been tagged!

So, here are Chrissy's questions (my answers are in blue):
1. What are you most proud of in your classroom?
I am most proud of my reading group plans.
2. What is your favorite unit to teach (any subject)?
I love teaching the life cycles of butterflies and frogs.
3. What inspired you to begin teacher blogging?
I was inspired by all of the other bloggers out in blog land.
4. Teacher's Notebook or Teachers Pay Teachers?
Teachers Pay Teachers
5. What is the best field trip you've ever been on?
Richmond Metro Zoo with 4 and 5 year olds
6. What inspired you to become a teacher?
I can't remember not wanting to be a teacher.
7. What are you doing/did you do on your Spring Break?
Working on school plans and going to Ohio
8. What is your favorite book to use in the classroom?
Books with great pictures
9. Do you have a classroom pet? If so, what?
No
10. What frustrates you most about teaching?
Not having the materials that I need to teach a standard. 

Okay, so here are my 10 questions for those that I tagged:
1. How many years have you worked at your current school?
2. Do you sell units on Teachers Pay Teachers?
3. What is your favorite blog?
4. Do your friends and co-workers know that you blog ?
5. How many students do you have in your class?
6. Does your school have open classrooms?
7. Have you noticed a change in behavior over the past few years?
8. What is your favorite computer website/program that your students use?
9. Do you plan on being in the classroom until retirement?
10. What is your classroom management plan?





I'm tagging:
A Cupcake for the Teacher
Can Do Kinders 
Herding Kats in Kindergarten
Keen on Kindergarten 
Kreative in Kinder 
little warriors 
Mrs. Albanese's Kindergarten Class  
Ms. Kerri and Her Krazy Kindergarten
Sharing Kindergarten 
Sprinkles to Kindergarten  



Okay, tag! You're it! :)
 

COOKIES TO SHARE

Today we started our math unit on fractions. I will tell you that my kinders think that fractions are all about cookies. You will see why as I post my pictures from today. I would like to give credit for this fun activity to Suzan at Krazy for Kindergarten.

I started our fun day with the book THE DOORBELL RANG by Pat Hutchins. A couple of years ago, I was given this great set of cookies and the pan that went with this book. It is great realia to use with this story. My kinders loved manipulating the cookies each time the doorbell rang.

After reading the story, I gave each table a set of 12 REAL cookies. The excitement hit. It was like they all just swallowed a pound of sugar and they hadn't even had a bite! They had to come up with a way to share their cookies at their table and everyone had to have the same amount. That was the hard part for some of them.

After they solved the problem, of how to fairly share the cookies, they got to eat them. The room was quiet for about 2 minutes as they all stuffed their faces.

We can't just stop the lesson with eating. However, their energy level was telling me that they were done. We finished up by making representations of ourselves with our cookies.

I can't wait for more fraction fun tomorrow!

Spring Is Here!

This past week was truly about the meaning of SPRING. I always tell my kids that Spring is a time for new beginnings. Well, on the first day of Spring, my family welcomed a new baby girl into the family. I have a new niece named Ashlyn. She is so cute!

On to what has been happening in my classroom. This past week, we talked about Spring. I wanted to share with you some of the activities that we did.

First we listened to THE WIND BLEW by Pat Hutchins. Then I had them draw a picture of something that the wind might blow and then finish the sentence The wind blew...

Then we did a little science with the following sheet that I made.

My kinders had a hard time being wrong with their prediction.

I also read HAVE YOU SEEN MY DUCKLING by Nancy Tafuri. I gave my kinders a picture of a duck and a duckling. They had to make a scene with the mom and the baby and then write about their picture. I thought that they turned out real cute.

We will be working on maps and globes this week. However, the best part about this week is that it's a 4 day week!

Linky Party

Are you looking for an easy way to find all of those primary bloggers out there? I know that I am. Jeannie over at Kindergarten Lifestyle is hosting a Linky Party. So if you are a K-2 blogger, head on over to her blog and link up. I bet that you will find some new blogs to follow.

Award Time

I would like to give a big thanks to Chrissy over at Adventures in Second Grade. She has awarded me with the "One Lovely Blog Award." So now it is my turn to award 5 other bloggers with this award.

Sea Bear's Kindergarten
Wild about K Kids
The Polka Dot Patch
Sharing Kindergarten
Mrs. Lee's Kindergarten

I've got to go work on math games.

Did You Say Valentine's Day?

Let me start off by saying that I lost my SD card for my camera. I kept my valentine centers out so I could take pictures. I finally borrowed a camera from a friend and then of course found my SD card. So here are some of the centers that my kids enjoyed before and after Valentine's Day.

My kinders loved using the tweezers to pick up the little hearts. I got the heart ice trays and heart erasers from the TARGET dollar spot.

I loved making this center and my kids wished that they were real chocolates.

This was a favorite for my kinders. However, it took forever to hot glue those letters on the clips.

This was a very simple center. They loved counting out the hearts onto the heart mat.

My kinders had to put 12 hearts back together. Each heart focused on a number. They had to find the tally marks, picture and tens frame to match the number.

I found the cute heart scoop, tub and table scatter at TARGET. I called this Scoop, Sort and Count.

This was such a fun center. They loved opening the heart boxes and finding the letters inside.

I hope you enjoyed looking at the fun Valentine's Day centers that my kinders enjoyed for a few weeks. They were sad when I told them they would be getting new centers.

Have a great week!