Ready for the 100th day!

I'm ready!  Today I wrote my numbers on 100 Hershey kisses.  I enlisted the 3rd graders to help me blow up 100 balloons!  I have their color page and new 100th day of school pencil.  I even gave them a little teaser; a kiss with a 100 on the bottom.  Got the cupcakes baked tonight!  I'm think I'm more excited than the kids! 

Here is a picture of my classroom.  I can't wait to see what the kids say when they come in the morning! 

100th DAY!!!

Yay!  We are getting soooo close!  Only ONE more day till the big party!  Really this has to be my favorite day of the school year in Kindergarten!  It's so funny how they think school is over after the 100th day!  They don't realize we have to keep going. It is so fun we make a whole week of doing 100 activities!  Tomorrow during reading buddies we are going to make our count by 10's caterpillars.  So fun!  I created a TPT packet of my favorite things to do during the 100th day week. Click here to get my 100 day of fun!

Here is a little count by 10's puzzle.  I made it in color and black and white!  I just cut it up and mixed it up. The kids have to put it back together and glue it on another piece of paper.  I thought instead of me cutting it up I should have had them cut each others. 

 

 

This activity has the students build their own 100 chart.  The students cut the strips across the page so that there are 10 strips. Then they put them in order on a blank 100 chart.  It is best to copy this on colored paper so that you can really see the difference when putting them the 100 chart.

 

This is a fun math game to play in partners.  Students just pick a number and color that number with their dry erase marker.  First person to get 3 in a row is the winner. 

 

Of course, I have some writing prompts in my packet.  It is fun to see what kids would buy with 100 dollars, what they would eat 100 of and how they would look when they are 100.  So fun!  I also have a couple pages where they have 100 seconds to see how many letters, numbers, words they can write. 

You have to have a necklace to wear on the 100th day.  We also are making 100 day crowns!  We will be ready for the party. 

 

And now here are

 My 5 favorite 100 day activities:

 

 1. Hershey kisses hunt

I write the numbers 1-100 on Hershey kisses.  Then I hide them around the room while the kids are at lunch.  Then when they come back in we walk around and find them.  I put a 100 chart down and the kids match the number on their kiss and put it on the chart. 

2. 100 balloon pop

I blow up 100 balloons and we count to 100 as we pop each one. 

3. 100 day cupcakes

I make cupcake.  The kids frost them with a popsicle stick and then we use the a Mike and Ike for the 1 and 2 lifesaver gummies for the 00.  So CUTE!  The kids love it!

4. 100 day wish

We write about what they would wish for 100 of.  Funny... one kid wished for 100 pickles!

5. 100 day crown!  I love to get out the glitter and decorate our crowns. 

 

What are your top 5 favorites for the 100 day?  So many possibilities! 

Of course we do a couple songs! 

 

Product Swap with Mrs. Whimsy

So I joined Jessica Stanford for her product swap.

I got the pleasure of getting my hands on Mrs. Whimsy's Awesome Consonants Diagraphs Anchor Charts and Activities. This is a great packet filled with ideas to help kids learn -sh,-th, -wh, -ch words.

The anchor charts have great real life pictures that help to build vocabulary with all students. It is especially helpful for my ELL kids! The sheet that follows has the students fill in the beginning sounds. This is a great way to reinforce the beginning digraphs.

This page is a bit more challenging and mixes up all the digraphs. The students really have to stretch out the words and write in the missing beginning sounds.

The last page the students fill in the words to make their own word search puzzle. Then have a friends find the words. A great way to build higher level thinking! Thanks for Jessica Stanford for hooking me up with this great product. And thanks to Mrs. Whimsy for this great products.

Today I just went to Guided Math with Dr. Nicki Newton!!  Fun Fun!  I learned a ton!  I will be posting about some exciting things I learned later this week!  Click on her name to check out her blog.  Better yet check her out on pinterest.  Pictures are worth a thousand words! 
Enjoy!
Lisa

Fun Friday!

 

Well, we made it!  First week back!  YEAH!  So today we had some fun in my classroom.  I got out the paint.  Oh they were so good with it. We painted our sight words.  We did rainbow words.  I told them they had to change colors every word.  Let the good times roll!

Here is another  fun "game"  that I got out today.  I made these a couple of years ago and kind of forgot about them.  I made a game for numbers, letters, rhyming, colors and shapes.  Yep!  When I find something the kids like I just make it for everything! 

This is a super easy to make game that you can make for anything.  Go out and buy 2 sets of same flashcards.  You take envelopes and lick them shut on the seal and then glue one set to the outside of the envelope the long way. Laminate.  Then cut off the extra.  When you cut it; you create a pocket.  Students find the answer on the other set of flashcards and slide it inside.  I had a mailbox in my room, so then I have the kids mail it.  So fun!  If you don't have a mailbox you could just put them in a pile or back in the box.  You can make these for addition, subtraction, states and capitals or anything they make flashcards for.  The possibilities are endless.  You can get flashcards cheap at Target Dollar Spot or Dollar Tree. 

 

ReTELLing Rope

 

 

Ever heard of a retelling rope or story snake? It is simply just a long piece of fabric with ribbons tied in different places. I have 4 ribbons so that means four parts the students retell.  They need to tell me the beginning , middle, middle, end.  I want more details so I have two middle people.  The kids retell the story them get up and parts of the story we just read.  They really do a good job of this.  So today I had them practice then I used my Ipad and recorded them retelling the story. They love being movie stars.  :)

Enjoy! Lisa

 

 

Snowman Sound Box & Writing Center Freebie

Well, we are back to school and starting to get back into routine.  I had a student move over break and then got a new one on Monday morning.  Oh fun times!

We have been getting back into routines.  We are starting to work on word families.  We have been working hard to make CVC words with our sound boxes.  I have made cute gingerbread man for Christmas.  They are perfect for guided reading.  We do them as a warm up.  We practice stretching out words.  Sometimes I give them the word first and have them write it out and other times I give them the sounds and have them tell me the word.  Either way they are working hard to become great readers.  Here is my brand new off the press snowman sound boxes!! 

Snowman Sound boxes

Aren't they so cute??

I also created my January Writing Center.  I always have this as a work on writing activity during Daily 5.  The kids love learning the new vocabulary. 

 Click here to grab your FREEBIE from my TPT store. 

 

 

 

 

OMG!  Have you seen this guy? He goes by Teacher Tipster on You Tube.  Not only is he humorous, he has some great ideas. Here is a little video he made about something he called Phonics Photos.  A great idea to hold kids interest while learning. I'm in the process of making these.  The just of it is that you take pictures of your kids holding the letters of the alphabet.  He did beginning sound chunks since he teaches 1st grade.  I just did all the constants.  I typed them up in 400 size font and copied them on green.  Then I typed up the word chunks (-an,-at,-ig,-op,-ut, etc)  and put them on yellow. I had the kids hold one letter and take a picture. Now I have 31 pictures to go print. Then you just put two kids together and make words or nonsense words. SO FUN!! 

 So excited to go print of photos this week. I know the kids will love them!

 Watch this video from the one and only Teacher Tipster, he explains it with visuals.

 

 

 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/hdNa8ffFqjA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

Enjoy! Lisa

Guest Blog-New Year, New Ideas, New Possibilities

New Year, New Ideas, New Possibilities Linky Party!

Hello everyone! My name is Mo from More Than Math by Mo and I am super excited to be part of this wonderful blog hop hosted by the ladies from Primary Possibilities

Before I begin, let me tell you a little about myself.  I am in my 8th year of teaching various grades from PK-2nd as well as ESL/ELL.  I am a wife and mother of 2 wonderful boys.  I have been following blogs for many years now.  I always told myself I didn't have the time to create my own.  Over this past summer I realized that teachers in the blogging world have given me so many wonderful ideas over the past years that I decided it was time I shared my own talents with everyone.  In September 2012 I opened my TeachersPayTeachers store and the following month (October) my blog was born.

Now that you know a little about me, I would like to talk about teaching word families (onset/rime).

It seems as though every year I was putting a different plan in place for teaching onset and rime to my students and each year I reflected on my activities and was not 100% happy.  Over the summer I decided to come up with a solution to my problem.  That solution manifested into "Word" Family Trees.  

          

This resource (which is now a product for sale in my TpT store) consists of the same activities each week by simply changing out the word families that are focused on (saves time from having to teach a new center format).  I work on 2 word families at a time in order to do some comparing, contrasting, and sorting.  I will take you through the cycle of activities that are done each week.

1.  The first activity introduces words from the word families. (prior to this I introduce the new word families and have the whole class brainstorm a list of words) Students read sentences, circle words from the target rimes and sort the words they circled by writing them into the chart at the bottom of the page.

  

2.  The second activity in the packet can be changed throughout the year.  The printable includes word cards cut apart by onset and rime. (See image below)  There are many options with this printable.  I suggest an activity that suits your students best.

Here is an example of one way that I use this activity in my classroom:

   

3.I break the final activity into 2 days.  This activity involves students creating a "family" tree for each word family from that week.  They write words onto leaves then cut out and glue leaves onto a tree.  

  

Once the trees are completed, I like to choose a few to display near our word wall for students to use as reference. (students usually color the tree brown but this was the only picture I had on hand-sorry)

I have found that having the same basic activities repeated week after week has not only helped me as far as planning, but it has also helped my students remember what is expected of them therefore more learning takes place as oppose to listening to instructions.

If you are interested in implementing this product in your classroom, here are the products that I offer:
***Click on any title or picture to download or simply to find out more about that specific product***

--A FREEBIE for you to test out with your class.

---"Word" Family Trees-Set 1:Word Work for 12 Word Families -includes 12 long vowel word families, all containing "silent"e

---"Word" Family Trees-Set 2: Word Work for 12 Word Families -includes 12 more long vowel families that are not covered in set 1
---Save Money and purchase both set in a bundle- "Word" Family Tree Bundle-includes Word Family Trees Word Work Sets 1 & 2

Other Word Family Products that I offer:

I want to thank Mrs. Bohaty for having me over today! I had fun and I hope you'll stop by my blog sometime.  

Now head on over to Teaching Spanish Beginning Sounds for more blogging fun!  

  

now go visit the ladies over at Spanish Beginning sounds for more blogging fun!

</

New Year= new calendar routines!

Well, have you ever done Calendar Binders? Calendar books?  It really keeps kids involved and productive during calendar time.  They learn to be so independent!  It is a great way to review and spiral math concepts.  I make a copy for every student and put them in a 3 ring binders. You can also put them in folders with fasteners in the middle.  However, you could just make overhead copy or put under your document camera.  I make a book for me too and the kids follow along with me as they complete theirs. At the end of the month, I just staple the pages and have the kids take it home and put the next month in. I use the cover above and slide it in the front of the 3 ring binder. 
Now follow me and I will take you through the book one page at a time. :)  Let me know what you think.  Try it out this month for $3 from my TPT store. Remember all my funds till Jan. 14th are going to help teachers at Sandy Hook!
I will be making them for the rest of the year. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We start with the calendar and color the square for the box with a crayon. We make a pattern for each month.  For January we do a light blue and blue for snow. Or I let the kids choose.  I let the kids choose the different types of patterns. It is better to color the day first and then write the day.  So after we color the box we write the date. We use a black marker so you can see it over the top of the crayon. 

 

Then we turn the page and sing the days of the week song.  You could choose any song you love that says the days of the week.  We do Dr. Jean "Days of the Week" that goes to the tune of the Adams Family. 

Next, we do the Months of the Year. We do the Macarena Months by Dr. Jean.  It gets us up and moving, which never hurts. :)  Then we say them in Spanish. Which my ELL kids love!

I have the kids find their birthday month and circle it.  Helps them remember and learn their friends birthday. 

Next is "How Many Days have we been in school?"  We color the day that we are on with a yellow crayon.  On the 10th days we color it with blue to make those look different.  On days that end with 5 we color with orange.  Then we count them.  Some days we count by 10's, others days by 5's, and some we take the plunge and count to the day we are on.  I know it's close the 100th for us so the first day is it going to take them longer to color the page but then it will only be one page a day.  You could laminate this after you make it to the 100th day and put it in other months so that they don't have to color it every month.  I did make a page that goes from 101-200.  So you can keep counting till the end of the year!

 You can use this more on some days have then find a mystery number.  Cut up all the days and put them in a container and have the helper pick one.  Then color the number that number with a special color. The possibilities are endless.

Next, is the NUMBER OF THE DAY! page.  I put two dice in a clear container and have the helper shake it.  Then add them together and tell us what that number.  We talk about the number sentence that these two numbers that make it. It gives us a good chance to talk about addition and how to solve simple problems.

Then we have the problem of the day page.  These are a great review of concepts taught of or a preview of new concepts.  This is a great time to work through problems together and use math talk to find the answer.  We do one box a day. 

 So the first day we talk a lot about how there are two boxes on each page.  I have them point to the top box, then point to the bottom box.  We make a game out of it.  I say top, bottom, top, bottom, bottom, top. etc. Then, of course, I try to trick them.  We do this so they understand that each day we will only complete one box.

I did make a whole page for the 100th day and Martin Luther King Jr. day.  You could take them out and still have enough for the month or you could do them both on one day.  It's totally up to you.  Everyone has the 100th day at different times so you may have to move it to fit your needs.  :)

Anyway, I hope that you enjoy calendar math as much as my kids do.  It is a fun addition to calendar time and students learn so much.  It keeps them attentive and focused on their learning!

 Enjoy! Lisa Click on link below to go to my TPT store and get started with Calendar books.

Calendar-Book-January