Kicking Off Science With Steve Spangler!

OM~gosh... I just got my Steve Spangler Classroom Color Kits today. I am so excited to kick off science and exploring science through a new My Five Senses Unit that I can hardly wait... I want to dive into this kit right now and get going! I am going to spend some time working with the kit and working out some lessons and I will be so excited to share the fun with you!

Today we learned about germs and proper hand washing and safe science practices through a fun activity with a little glitter!

 

Handwriting Stickers

Hey Dollar Tree... are you out there? We want to be able to find more of these stickers! We NEED these stickers. Come on and give us the 411 and we will come and get them!

Number Corner September

I promised myself I would blog about Number Corner this year and I made a pact this year to try the child created calendar pieces. With a little planning, I am proud to say we are ready! We used the suggested ABCD color pattern mentioned in the book. This first time out, I really wanted it to be simple and just learn through the process. The children made apple hand prints in four different colors. We worked together to discuss and create our pattern. I was determined to get two elements of pattern in the month of September. I love the way they look because they remind me of Eric Carle art. I have to admit that we were so excited to finally work out the patterns and put it up, that we thought tomorrow was September 1st! Sooooo, another calendar lesson and just another chance to move things around correctly. The children did enjoy putting it together piece by piece as their number was called. Like they always say... better the second time around! 

Growing and Growing!

If you read the post below, Kiss Your Brain, this is sure to make you laugh. Can you imagine walking into Dollar Tree and seeing this? I am GROWING quite a collection and I am obsessed! 

I Found Them!

I am super excited to say I have found the Eric Carle wall stickers from Target. Much to my surprise... all I had to do was call and ask if they were in stock. Oh, do I have some pretty big plans for these! 

Meet Mr. Crunch!

After working on assessments and identifying that I have lots of work to do on letter identification and letter and sound relationships I decided to make Mr. Crunch. I plan on using Mr. Crunch a lot of letter and sound sorts during small groups and also during some circle time activities. I found the mini trash can at Dollar Tree and painted it with Krylon black paint. I found a package of google eyes at Dollar Tree as well. His name and polka dots came from here...

I ordered them from her store and I was able to tell her exactly what I wanted for my cute little Mr. Crunch. The letters and polka dots were great quality, vibrant colored adhesive vinyl. I love these so much that I am ordering other stickers for my next project.

If you are in need of cookies to feed your cute Mr. Crunch, I have a set available for you in my TpT store. This download is packed full of cookie fun! If you do not want to make your Mr. Crunch, you can use the cookies to sort on paper plates or cookie trays! The download includes 43 pages of cookies to sort by letter and shape attributes, upper and lowercase, numbers to 30, 2 sets of fonts, 3 sets of a-z beginning sounds and syllable sorts! I hope you have some cookie fun and a great week!

Spirals Again!

Spirals are on sale AGAIN at Staples. You can get your spirals for 9 cents with a five dollar purchase. This is a perfect deal if you do not have enough for the year or you need more spirals for another project. I totally LOVE YOU STAPLES!  

 

Assessments

I have been working assessments since the very first day of school. I am using a new tool for assessments called ESGI. I have also been working with my children on our traditional assessments we have used for years in our district. I have to say so far I have had a very positive experience with ESGI software and the data it has provided me with has had a huge impact on my lesson planning and small group planning within the first week of school. First, I love the fact that it is user friendly and faster to test rather than sitting down with the traditional assessment forms and pencil. Second, I think the classroom data it provides is EYE OPENING because of the easy format the information is presented in. I really like the ways in which I can view the class or individual data and I sure enjoy not having to take my paper and pencil assessments and create graphs of information on my own. 

As I continue to use ESGI I am looking forward to utilizing the individualized print resources for RTI and as a resource to send home activities based on the particular needs of each child individually. This truly is data driven instruction when the tools are utilized.  

Freebie Information

I just wanted to let everyone know that some of the freebie items on my TpT store will be removed due to recent information I have learned about graphics and artists agreements. It has been a busy week in the teacher blogging world and with all of that business a tad bit of controversy comes with it. I am happy to say I am out of the loop on most of the buzz in blogland because I have been busy with the first week of school. I also wanted to let everyone know that I am going to begin working on a new system to share teaching blog buttons so that you will have an opportunity to link up under particular grade levels. Although this year starts off with a bit of a rocky start... I am still super excited to share with you the excitement that Kindergarten can bring.

Sid the Science Kid

What a super fun way to integrate Science and Health and incorporate observation with tools and notebooking.

Welcome New Friends!

Just stopping by to give a warm welcome to so many new followers. I am very excited to be able to share a year of Kindergarten with you.

My Favorite!

This is my new obsession that I won from a giveaway! I can't even begin to tell you how much I love this thing. You have to put this on the top of your Christmas list. Once you see and feel a laminated product from this little miracle maker I promise you might never go back!

A Great Buy!

Does anyone have any creative uses for these Filetastic Pocketcharts and File Folders? I soooo want to buy one of these but have no idea of what to use it for!

Kiss Your Brain!

Over the summer I saw an idea online about a growing brain that you could put in water and it would increase in size and once you remove the brain it would shrink. I have heard of some fun activities to do with the growing brain and I really wanted to get my hands on one. I found an online science mall that carried them and they were $5 plus shipping. As I was preparing to present for our district Science Back to School presentation, I thought of using the brain as an ice breaker activity for the training and as a notebooking activity in my kindergarten classroom. I contacted the company to see if they could give me a discount if I were to buy multiple brains. They were intrigued as to why I would want so darn many brains... The company originally wrote me back and asked some questions. A few days later I had not heard the final word and I went online to look at the brains I was now becoming obsessed with. Get ready for this part friends... The company had INCREASED the price from $5 per brain to $14 (plus shipping) per brain and never got back to me. Now I knew I could not afford to buy my growing brain.

I searched over the summer for an alternative and I came up with Grow Me's that are sold at the store I now LOVE called Dollar Tree. I know the Grow Me line has a brain but I have never found it. Through my quest for my little brain I have come to love GROW Me's because they come in all sorts of funny versions from animals to pirates and from cupcakes to entire farm scenes. At first, I was still disappointed about never getting a brain but I was happy to find Grow Me's with objects that could really grow. I kind of fell in love when I discovered Larry the Growing Lettuce Head. Larry has been everywhere this summer and he is the best companion because he always smiles and does not say a word. He does his job and grows and I do my job and observe him. So after a summer of just me and my favorite pal Larry I decided it was time to take him on the road.

Larry the Growing Lettuce was revealed at the district Science staff development and he was pretty popular with that never ending smile. He did his job well and broke the ice and gave us some laughs because he didn't want to come out of his jar. And truth be told, I have searched the world over for a proper container for little Larry and all I had at the time was a Mason jar so that was his home. During the training several teachers said they had bought the Grow Me's for their children and someone gently suggested that I had stunted little ol Larry's growth because his habitat was not large enough. Someone even suggested to put Larry in the bathtub and see how big he gets. The thought of seeing my dear friend Larry floating around in the stagnant bath water at 5am each morning just wasn't what I had in mind.

Since the training I have had lots of emails and pictures sent to me by text of all the different versions of Grow Me's and I have laughed because I guess the ice breaker activity worked and got people excited about Notebooking in Kindergarten. I have been so busy talking about Larry that I never had time to think of the growing brain. Two days after the Science training I was in Michael's shopping for materials for my classroom. I decided to circle the store before leaving. Much to my surprise I ran right into a... GROWING BRAIN! You really would have thought I had won the Kindergarten Lottery. I had to stop myself from squealing in delight. Not only did they have growing brains but they had growing body parts in the Halloween section. Friends, I grabbed them and I grabbed them quick. And since I was feeling so darn chipper I grabbed a growing spider too. Now as you can imagine, I have quite the collection of growing things for my self created Science center. And if you thought my luck was over, it wasn't! I turned the corner and found the perfect container for Grow Me's. The container is about as big as a paint can and it is totally clear. I am still on the look out for something larger but right now who is complaining?

Now, I am sure you are asking yourself what in the world does this really have to do with Science? You will have to come back and see. I will give you time to capture some of your own brains and Larry's. If you find something good you have to email me and promise you will!

Until then... Kiss your brain!

 

Teacher Bell

Lots of questions about the bell... I recently bought it at Dollar Tree and it came in the red color because it is an apple with tiny green leaves on top. I did not paint it. I added scrap booking stickers I found at Hobby Lobby. The stickers were not made on a machine but they look like they did come from one of those sticker machines. I added a bow because the gingham bow reminds me of my great grandmother and my mom and brings me back to my childhood. I have carried around gingham ribbons in my purse, toolbox or teacher bag for as long as I can remember. I have never had a need for a "shhhh" bell because I have really not liked hearing across the hallway teachers ringing the bell and then yelling "BE QUIET." When I saw it on Teacher Tipster it seemed like a more positive approach and something tolerable for me. Funny thing is that during teacher workdays, I have been banging on that bell when nobody has been in the room. HA!

Shhhh!

Never needed a bell before but after seeing this I just had to have one!

I Love Teachers!

Well, school starts on Monday and the classroom looks a little better than this but still work to do. It is hard to have time to work in the room when you are pulled here and there and everywhere for training. And during back to school training we hear a lot about building relationships with kids and parents and how that can shape a year. It's kind of funny how we do not talk much about building relationships with each other. Teacher to teacher relationships are critical to the success in a year and also in a career. I started this blog and that was one of my main goals... to connect with teachers. I have to say today was a great day to remind me of that goal. As teachers were walking in for training, it was energizing. As teachers were talking about plans and goals, it was inspiring. As teachers were talking about all the things that need to be done before Monday, it was reassuring and I realized I am not alone.

If you were in one of my sessions today I want to say thank you for the support, kind words and laughter. I really, really want you to know that. And if we exchanged emails and promised to keep in touch, I really, really want you to know I meant that and I hope we do. If you stayed after a session just talking I want you to know I learned new things from you. And if you walked the extra mile with me to my car in 108 degree heat carrying all my props, I want you to know you are a dear "teacher friend" and you just might already know that.

I wish you the best year ever. And I can't wait to see your Larry the Lettuce! If you promised to send pictures... I am so waiting to see them. As for my friend Larry... he going in a bigger container because I think I stunted his growth!

And if you were in Math... rapid assessments... you are gonna love them!

Have a great year and keep in touch!

 

Lots of Letters!

There is actually a craft organizer that fits all of the letters with room to spare. So, come on friends and wrangle up those letters, get those wiggle little s's and run away z's because this little organizer goes together like a breeze. Found at JoAnn Fabrics. And I didn't straighten all the letters for the picture because you know it is going to look more like this inside the classroom...

Mouse Count!

When I think of the beginning of Kindergarten and especially the beginning of Math in Kindergarten, I think of Mouse Count. If you use Investigations I bet you are thinking the same thing too. I found some cute cat toys at Dollar Tree and snatched them up to put in my love of all loves... my counting jar. I have loved to count things since I was in Kindergarten. Which brings me to my next point, the now famous penny stamps. I have had so many emails about what I call a penny stamp. Basically a penny stamp is a small craft foam shape stuck on the top a a bottle top. Since you can get a bag of foam shapes at Dollar Tree with over one hundred pieces in it you can make 100 stamps. I call them penny stamps because they cost about a penny to make and I just love them! Which brings me to the last point. If you have the book and read it, have your mice and count them, use your stamps and make a mouse penny stamp then you gotta go the extra mile and record what is inside of that counting jar, right? Yep, so I made a handy recording page and you can get it right here at TpT for free!

Back to School Sale!

I am having a back to school sale in my TpT store before I begin my transfer to my Teachers Notebook store! I hope you enjoy shopping and have a great day!

Writing Folders

I have had a lot of emails about the writing folders that I have posted. I use Lucy Calkins Units of Study to help me teach writing in Kindergarten. I absolutely love this program and the format of the units. I have learned so much over the years about how to teach writing and what that looks like in a real Kindergarten classroom through working through this series of books. Over the years, I have tried writing binders, writing folders and premade writing books. All of these systems have had pros and cons and have been used for specific reasons. Instead of doing the same old thing again, I decided to make a change back to a writing folder. I did not enjoy using writing binders because they were bulky, they cost more and the hole punching. In my first and second year of using the Units of Study, I used writing folders and I felt like they were messy and unorganized but I loved the freedom that they allowed for a child to choose what writing paper they would need for their writing. I used premade writing books last year and noticed that as my children progressed as writer's many of my children abandoned the writing books and preferred choosing different writing formats at different times. I couldn't blame them because I know I would have done the same thing as a young writer. I feel that writing folders will help organize their writing better than what I have done in the past so the need for a writing folder emerged. I played with different configurations and different ways to adhere both folders together and I decided on what you have seen posted below. I have pockets for writing tools, work in progress, work to be edited and published work. I will use these four pockets and see how I like them and if I need to make a modification I will talk to the children and we will change... no big deal!

Pet Update!

I have had some emails asking what kind of pet I ended up with. Well, I had some things change and I had to reschedule my meeting with Petsmart. So, I am still waiting to go to Petsmart and pick out a class pet and I am still super excited! I have cleared some space in my room and plan to set up a Science area and provide my new friends a new home. I have not totally decided what kind of pet I am going to get. Soooo, to help me get by until I have my new class pet I got these!

Morning Routine

Makes me want to go to Kinder already!

Writing Folders

Not the best photo quality here but this is a fabulous idea I had to try. I have seen a couple of versions of these online this summer. I knew I had to try this out for myself. And considering I have a ton of penny folders from Staples this seemed like the time to do it!

You will need:

2 folders with brads

Hot glue

Labels

1. Before you get going you need to pick the inside folder color and go ahead and insert the brads into the holes just in case you might find something so fabulous to put in those brads later...

2. Open up one of the folders and lay it on a flat surface. Flatten the insert so that the brads are on one side and the holes are on the other side. This is where you will  hot glue the yellow folder inside the black. You will do this by gluing the brad strip (on the inside of the strip) and inserting the yellow folder. At this point, only half of your folder insert will be glued. Be careful not to let the glue seep in those holes or you may end up with no fingerprints as you press down.

3. You will repeat for the other side of the yellow folder.

4. You now have a four pocket folder!

5. Affix you labels.

6. Repeat about 29 more times and THEN you are done! WHEW!