Technology Tuesday

Happy Tuesday everyone! I hope that you are enjoying yours as much as I plan to enjoy mine. I have a few things to get done around the house today and then a craft or two to make. But before I did all of that, I wanted to take the time to sit down and tell you about one of my favorite resources for teaching with informational texts. (Click the picture below to go read all of the Kindergarten Common Core State Standards for Informational texts.)

Last year my librarian introduced us to a great resources called PebbleGo!

PebbleGo is strictly informational and is divided into 3 different sections. "PebbleGo Animals," "PebbleGo Earth and Space" and "Biographies." From the screen above you would select your category. More often than not, in kindergarten, we have clicked into the animal database.

 In the animal database you will find 12 categories. You can either click on one of those categories or you can type into the search button what you are looking for. Now, I will be honest with you and tell you that there have been times when I have been disappointed and haven't been able to find what I am looking for... but when I do find what I am looking for I am in Teacher Heaven.

For example, this next week we will be reading "Armadillo Orange." On Monday, before we have even read the story, we are going to be building some background on armadillos. So I searched into the search bar "armadillos" and found that they had it in their data base.

So on the Monday that we return we will be learning about the body, habitat, food (that they eat), life cycle, and some fun facts about armadillos! It is engaging, fun, and best of all they are learning!

If you are like me, however, you feel the need to take things just one step further. So if you are an older grade you can click the button that says "Share What You Know" or if you are PK, K, or maybe even 1st you can get creative and create a worksheet for your class to do like I have done for this one.

For this lesson I plan to do a tree map as a whole class and then each student will get their own writing sheet for them to use to "show what they know" about armadillos. If you would like to get the sheets I plan on using, click on the picture below.

The next wonderful resource is Bookflix. But to read all about that one you'll have to make a pit stop to my friend Greg's blog. He asked me to guest blog since he is honeymooning in Key West right now! Woohoo! So make sure you head on over there to get the scope about Bookflix and how it can engage your students too!

Freebie Friday: Graph the Alphabet

Okay... so you don't know how happy I am that I am actually posting tonight. Considering I fell asleep at 7:30 and was in bed by 8. After sleeping what I felt like was an ENTIRE night, I woke up because I was thirsty. After putting on my contacts I read the clock and it said "9:54." Wait a minute... what did that say? Yea, thats right. It was just 9:54. I had been asleep less that 3 hours, even though it felt like it should have been at least 1am. Because I was so thirsty and there was nothing to drink in the house I decided a run to WalMart was in order.

Anyways! So on to what I have for you! Today while I was trying to figure out what I was going to be doing in my game center next week, it dawned on me how much my kids love my "Graph the Number" game. So I decided to create "Graph the Alphabet." To make it differentiated I created two different spinners. One with pictures (to work with FSF) and one with the letters (to work on letter identification). You can purchase the entire pack here or download this weeks freebie by downloading the "Download Preview."

Head on over now to get your Friday Freebie by downloading the "Download Preview."

Boo!

Okay... so I love to blog. I love sharing ideas with you and getting ideas from you. I love writing. I love the fact that you understand how I feel and I don't have to explain myself.... you just get it!
So why am I having a hard time getting back in the swing of things and writing regularly? Are you having trouble balancing life, work, and blogging this year? Or is it just me??

ANYWAYS!!! So its FALL! Yay! I hope you were able to check out my Falling into Savings sale this past weekend over at my TPT store! I meant to post some this weekend, but with it being the first anniversary of my father's death.... I didn't want to sit here and cry on your shoulders. So I stayed away. I did get to go to one of my good college friend's wedding shower cookout/celebration. It was fun! Since I was B.R.O.K.E. I wasn't able to go buy her a gift so I made her something special. I will have to share it with you sometime soon!

So... I haven't been posting, but I have been creating!! I FINALLY finished my 100-page Halloween-inspired Math CCSS packet. It is alligned with the counting and cardinality domain of kindergarten core standards.

 Pumpkin Roll and Cover - Two sheets have been provided. One to be used with one die, one to be used with 2 dice. Easy differentiation!

 

Candy Corn Ten Frame Flash! Ten Frames to 20 are provided. As well as a blank 10 frame and a blank 2 - ten frames to use for 20. Buy a bag of candy corn and you have an adorable and motivational activity! (Just makes sure your kiddos don't eat the candy corn that everyone else has already touched!)

 Ten Frame Ghosts. A quick and easy independent work. Have students identify the sets.

 What student does not like games? Well this is a classic game, with a halloween-twist! WAR! Teach those kiddos greater/less with this awesome game. Don't want to use the numbers... or just perfer your kiddos have something a tad bit harder, use the tally mark cards.

 Print, cut apart each color, and have students put the candy corn back together by matching the number, word, and ten frame!

Graphing numbers just got cute with this "Pumpkin Patch Number Race." Roll the provided die to see which number it lands on. Trace the matching number. The number that makes it all the way to the top first, WINS! (Oh, and your students will have practiced writing their numbers 1-20!)

But ya'll, thats not all! This packet includes a few other great activities! So head on over and check it out!

Kindergarten Common Core

If you are a kindergarten teacher then you have been lucky enough to be on the front line of Common Core State Standards this year. It is been up to you and your team to decipher the new standards, dig deep into its meeting, and then teach it all at the same time! Well thanks to some of my favorite bloggers here in blogland, I have found the BEST thing for you!

This 600 page Kindergarten Common Core workbook is full of standards, questioning cards, activities, and ADORABLE clipart from Scrappin Doodles.  One of my favorite activities that I was able to sample was the "Sounds" worksheet. This activity shows students a picture and then gives them 3 word samples to choose from. For example, one of them shows a picture of a dog then has the words "log" "dog" and "dot" beside it. The students then choose the word that is correct by tracing it.
Click here to head on over to get your very own copy. And if you are a blogger, hurry over here to see how you can get your very own copy for FREE!

Freebie Friday

Whew... I'm tired. So I'm going to make this short. On Wednesday of this week we did our first sequencing activity in class. We have been reading Miss Bindergarten Takes a Field Trip with Kindergarten this week. On Wednesday I introduced sequencing and then the class discussed the beginning, middle, and end of the story. After discussing this as a class, I gave each student that had them drawing a picture to describe events in the story. When making this activity for my class... you crossed my mind. So I decided to expand the packet so that I could share it with you as a class. It is an 18 page packet that offers you "title" cards, response cards, and SEVERAL different worksheets to use. You could honestly use this packet in any grade... but because I'm a kindergarten teacher I simply aligned in to K and 1st grade CCSS.

Click on the picture below to head on over to my TPT store and check this out!

I hope you liked this weeks Freebie Friday! Let me know what you would like to see next week for Friday's Freebie!

All About Me Week

This week has been crazy busy at school. I feel like there was so much left undone that needed to get accomplished. But I guess that is just the way it goes sometimes. We had some fun though!
We started our literacy centers and are doing great with them! Yes, there is some talking... but for the most part they are working independently, staying on task, and working somewhat quietly. Hopefully once our numbers go from 24 to 18 the quietness will happen. I wish that we could hurry this process of getting 2 new kindergarten teachers ready and the classrooms open. But... I guess it will happen eventually, right???
Oh and then yesterday Channel 4 News came and talked to us kindergarteners about weather. And we were featured on the news. Sounds exciting right? Well, I can tell you this- the kids had a great time with it!
Today was picture day. I don't know about you but I always despise picture day. Even as a teacher I worry about what to wear for picture day... do you put a lot of thought into your picture day get up?

With the instruction we did get done between all of these special events (did I mention it was a 4 day week with 2 days interrupted??) I feel like the students learned something. Two of our favorite activities this week was learning about platypuses (using peblego.com) and our "All About Me" unit.

In unit we read books, talked about how we look alike/different than others in our class, created paper plate faces to resemble us, shared our "All About Me" poster project and wrote about ourselves! I forgot to take pictures of our writing, but I do have a freebie to share with you! It is our "All About Me" books.

You can grab it here! Please leave me some feedback so that I know what you thought.

I hope you had a great week! But if your like me.... no matter how great it was, you are glad it is over!

Monday Math: All About Numbers

Okay so yesterday was supposed to be my math day on here. But I thought I'd take the day off and head to a family cookout/gender reveal. The day off: It's a girl! (No, not mine! We're not at that point yet.)

Anyways!!! So I finally got my "All About Numbers" Chart made! I forgot to take a picture of it though. *sad face* One of my students saw it and got really excited! "That looks awesome!" he said. He's one of my rough kids... but he's definitely a visual learner so I am excited I could entice him to learn some math simply by making something visually pleasing!

You know that's the thing about teaching. You never know what the trigger will be. What will cause a student to WANT to learn? Each year I have parents write me a letter at the beginning of the year telling me about their child. This year I had parents tell me that their children enjoyed learning through games, through songs, by doing engaging activities... not one of them told me that if I made something look nice then I would entice their child to learn! But I love it! If you know me, I get irritated when things looks messy. Which makes it perfect sense that I redid that chart 3 times to get it to look "just right."

So here is where things get tricky for me in math. I have been doing this journal that I found for free on the internet.... at first I thought it was GREAT! I loved it! Even now, I think it's GREAT for OLDER kids. But it is just too hard for mine. They look at it and don't know what to do. Their faces say "huh?" even when they are not talking!

So I created a Number Journal for my kids that allows them to represent numbers in a variety of ways. And I love it! Like REALLY love it! Like I'm about to throw away close to 10 dollars worth of paper, ink, and binding rods in order to create new journals that will work much better for my class.

I guess thats what it is all about. Trial and Error. Finding what works best for your class! And with this Common Core thing, thats what we all are having to do.

If you think this would be a useful tool for you and your students you can purchase this here for just $3.00.

How are you teaching counting and cardinality in your kindergarten classroom?

Now I Know My ABCs Giveaway

I FINALLY got it finished and uploaded! I have been working on off and on since this summer and now it is here for you! What is it you ask? It is.... my Now I Know My ABC's Phonics Packet! And it can be yours too.... keep reading to find out how!

                                

                               

a Rafflecopter giveaway
And because I appreciate the fact that you are still here even though I have been so absent lately, EVERYONE is a winner when they download the Now I Know My ABC's PowerPoint! 

The Magical Product Swap, Alphabet Beginning Sounds

Hey ya'll! I hope you are having a good week. Right now everything is going well. We are getting to spend some time up in my classroom decorating and getting ready for back to school. I still have tons to do, but it will get there! I will share pictures when I get everything up!

So I'm sure you all know Jessica Stanford, at Mrs. Stanford's Class! (If you don't, click here to go on over to her blog!) Well a while ago she had a wonderful idea to have bloggers swap products!

I was lucky enough to get to swap products with Sarah Shelton, from Kindergarten Korner. Sarah is amazing! She is super creative and very kind. You need to go check out her blog, as soon as you read about her awesome product, Alphabet Beginning Sounds!

This product is jam-packed with so many great ideas and activities! Not only does it have a lot of great items, but she gives you several ideas of activities that you can use the items with.

**On a side-note: As you can see above, not only is the items great, but the colors that she used... are amazing! I love them! They make me happy! :) **

So raise your hands if you teach letters and sounds? (*ahem*: If you are a kindergarten teacher, your hand should be raised!) Well then you need this packet.

These wonderful alphabet cards can be used in several ways: 1)Use them to decorate/label your word wall.

  2) Flash cards while teaching the letters. 3)Print two copies, play memory match with your students!

                                         (Sorry for the glare! I was using my cell phone!)
Here is one of my favorite parts! Picture cards! One of the activities I look forward to the most while teaching the alphabet, is Classifying (aka sorting) the pictures by their initial sounds! Not only is this a great activity to get those brains thinking... but it is one of the things they look for on TEAM (for us TN teachers).

Need some center work? Morning work? Independent work? Then these are great! And there are two options... so that you can DIFFERENTIATE it! Yay! I know my school would love this! Your lower-level students can simply identify the pictures that begin with the letter you are working with, while your students that need more of a challenge can brainstorm words that begin with the letter and then illustrate those words!

I am so excited to use this packet this year to help teach my kiddos their letters! It is a great resource, that I am sure the students are going to love! -I know this teacher will! You can go buy this packet here!

Thanks Sarah, for giving me the chance to review your Alphabet Beginning Sounds packet! Head on over to Kindergarten Korner! She will be reviewing my Ladybug Numbers Packet!

Diving into Common Core (with What I Pinned Wednesday)

Are you getting ready to dive into Common Core? Well here in TN we are! For the next few days I'm going to be sharing ideas, resources, and possibly even a freebie! We'll call it Diving into Common Core!

We'll start with this....

I have to admit, I'm kinda excited about it. I think it is great that 45 states and 3 territories have adopted CCSS (Common Core State Standards) for several reasons.

1) Having equal standards means that all states are required to teach the same material. This means that comparing TN to Florida for example, will finally actually be fair. ---Now, I KNOW there are still some disadvantages in this: kids are not the same, schema may not be the same, etc. But to be fair, this isn't even the same school to school in the same community!
2) Having equal standards means that testing across states will be fairer than it ever has been before.
3) If a teacher living in one CCSS state decides to move to another state that has adopted CCSS they will not have to learn a whole new set of standards (unless they move grade levels), therefore making the standards teacher-friendly.
4) It allows us to DIVE DEEPER into the standards.

Since today is Wednesday... and I'm loving pinterest... I'm going to share a few of my Common Core finds on Pinterest. Most of these are free resources that you will most definitely want to check out if you are a teacher in one of the 45 states and 3 territories going on this adventure.

 This first resource is the K-5 Math Teaching Resources website. It has tons of FREE math activities, divided into Number, Geometry, and Measurement/Data! It is very organized and you could easily find tons of great resources to use in your classroom!  I definitely recommend checking out this website. (click on the picture to be taken directly to the website.)

 This resource is great for KINDERGARTEN teachers. Mrs. Jump- we all love her right!- has created printable "I Can" statements that we can just print and use for each CCSS. Talk about making it easy!

Donna over at Peace, Love and Learning has created this awesome resource for us kindergarten teachers, but I did see one for 2nd grade while I was on here site as well. This is a great free resource that you can print out and pass out to parents so they know what their child will be learning... or you could do what I plan on doing and put it in your standards binder because I don't think there would be anything better than seeing this cute clipart while studying your standards! Thanks Donna! 

The final pin I have for you today is this great website I have to share today is "Math Playground." This website has math games that your students could play during computer center. A great free resource!

To check out more of my pins, head on over to my pinterest page by clicking the icon below!