New Products!

It's Summer Vacation, and what am I thinking about?  Yup, you guessed it, school!  I guess once a teacher, always a teacher.  Don't get me wrong, I have spent lots of time enjoying my break, but the teacher in me is always thinking of something schoolish.  It got pretty humid yesterday, so I sought the air conditioned comfort of my house and made some new sight word cards and focus wall headers.  Our new reading series has upped the number of required words, so I thought that I'd create some cute new word cards.  I also decided to make matching cards for my focus wall.  We are required to post what we are learning each week.  I don't think that actually posting standards makes sense for Kinders, so I have created a collection of "I Can" cards.  I tried to include those skills that I think will lend themselves to being posted on the focus wall.  Click on the links below the title pictures to go to my Teachers pay Teachers store, and get some cuteness for your classroom!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Polka-Dot-Focus-Wall-Skills-Headers-742808

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Polka-Dot-Word-Wall-Cards-742828

 PS Don't forget to enter my giveaway!

Click HERE for link.

Paint Sample Word Rings

When school ended last  month I gave myself a challenge to come up with as many inventive uses for cheap or free items.  Today I came up with a nifty way to use those paint samples which the manufacturer has so kindly perforated with perfect little circles:

Word Rings!

I'm not sure if I'll put these in the Literacy Center or make some more sets so each table group can have their own set.  Either way, these are portable and much more hands on than our wall mounted word wall.  Paint samples are pretty sturdy, so they should last at least one year of use.

I wrote sight words on the cards and fastened them with a book ring.

Color words written on "that" color paint sample.

Word Wall Linky Party

http://theteacherscauldron.blogspot.com/2012/04/word-wall-linky-by-popular-demand.html

Garden of Readers

As the year winds down, I like to reflect on just how far my Kinders have come since we first met in August.  Some of them didn't yet know all the letters of the alphbet, and now all of them are reading words!  We recently did this little project to showcase their reading prowess.

Blooming Readers!  The kids has fun creating simple flowers using paper plates and green paper.

Once their flowers were complete, they looked through magazines for words they could read.  The words were collected on the paper plate for my approval - they had to read their words to me before they could glue them onto the flowers.  As you can see by the flower in the lower right corner, this activity was differentiated; this higher level student found harder words.

 

 This is the first bulletin board seen upon entering our classroom.  Using different borders, I was able to create three different spaces.  It is a nice backdrop to our Listening Center and Popcorn Words Skill Spot.