Teachers pay Teachers Sale & a New Product

Here come Peter Cottontail, hoppin' down the phoneme trail!  Phoneme segmentation can be a tricky skill to learn.  I made my Easter Bunny Hop activity to help my Kinders practice hopping - er, counting - out the sounds in words.  School is always more fun when you get to hop around!

On sale now!

 

My entire Teachers pay Teachers store is on sale!

Everything is 20% until March 13,2013! (click here)

On sale - just in time for St. Patrick's Day!

Daily 5 Start Up!

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, the primary teachers in my school are doing a book study on The Daily 5.  In this post I asked for a "little help" getting started.  Reader Katie L. kindly suggested that I check out the book study that was hosted this past summer by Live, Love, Laugh Everyday in Kindergarten.  This book study was a great resource!  Even though most of the participants most likely have their Daily 5 routines well into place, the linky is still active, so I thought I'd join up!  (Better late than never -right?)

Chapter 3 Linky Thoughts:

1. Establish a gathering place for brain and body breaks.  We have a large area where the kids sit on little carpet samples for lessons as well as stories, exercises, and brain break activities.

2. Developing the concept of "good fit" books. I plan to do the shoe lesson from the book.  My husband wears size 15 shoes!  I can just imagine how funny I will look clomping around in his boats!  I also saw that the book Dog in Boots was used to help further the concept of "good fit"on a few blog posts.  I have that book! 

 
3. Create anchor charts with students.  I have a large picture chart of the I-Chart procedures hanging near our meeting area.  I have so much stuff around my room, that I will need to think about just where to put any new anchor charts I make.  (Maybe take down some other bulletin boards that are sort of - just hanging around...)

 
4. Short, repeated intervals of independent practice and setting up book boxes.  My kids are pros at working in pairs and small groups - we worked on building stamina for partner & stations work at the beginning of the year.  Even though I wasn't doing the D5, I had read the book a couple of summers ago and really liked the behavior aspect of it.  I think that my Kinders will take to working with The Daily 5 framework pretty quickly.  

Shortly after our book study began, my Kinder partners and I wished for book browsing racks and bins.  And, our wish came true!  Even in these times of tight budgets, we were able to get the equipment needed!

Our colorful book bins!  We ordered six sets of one dozen bins from Really Good Stuff and divvied them up so that we have a rainbow of bins!  (Well, not actually a true rainbow as one of my cuties pointed out: "Pink is not in the rainbow.  And, there are no red bins!"  Our art teacher will be so proud!) 

 We each got one of these wonderful book racks! (Nasco) I began sorting books into it last week, and hope to get everything organized by the end of this week.  (As you can tell from the bin picture, I need to do some major organizing of my entire library!)
 
5. Calm Signals and check in procedures.  For a calm signal I have a pretty wind chime hanging above my easel that was a gift from a student several years ago.  It is just loud enough to get their attention, but not as loud as the bell used to settle them.  As for the check in pprocedures - I'm not quite sure yet.  I still need to look into how I'm going to restructure my day to fit in some (not all this year, I fear) of the D5 into my schedule.  We are already very set in our ways, and I don't want to totally change our routine.  (Two hour delays set them into a tizzy!  lol)

6. Using the correct model/incorrect model approach for demonstrating appropriate behaviors. We practiced the correct/incorrect model when we worked on building stamina a long time ago, so I do want to revisit this with our book bins!

Trial run of Read to Self!  The kids were excited to try out their new bins!  I arranged the bins into what I thought was a pleasing "rainbow" of colors, and assigned each bin a number.  Using our class roster, I simple told each student which bin was theirs.  There were a few snickers when a boy was assigned a pink bin.  As I began to explain that it didn't matter what color they got, a little boy piped up, "It doesn't matter what color your tub is.  What matters is the books inside it!"  YAY!

Currently & St. Patrick's Day Centers TpT Pack

I know... It's bad form to post twice in one day.  But, I am a bit behind with my posts, so I figured, what the heck!  I am also really excited to join my first Currently!  I have seen Currentlies on lots of blogs, but never got around to doing one. When I spotted this Currently on Oh Boy Fourth Grade I couldn't resist - even if it meant that I posted twice in one day.  (Sorry!)  I hope you overlook this transgression and join the fun!

 

I am very excited about my newest Teachers pay Teachers product - just in time for St. Patrick's Day!  My new set includes everything you need to create over ten Literacy & Math Centers.  I would really appreciate it if you would check them out in my Teachers pay Teachers store.

St. Patrick's Day Centers

My pack includes lots of Math activities

Aligned with the Common Core

Aligned with the Common Core

Lots of Literacy activities!

Each activity has a worksheet to reinforce the skills.

Fun St. Patrick's Day themed activities!

Place Value part 2

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we've been working on place value.  It can be a tricky skill to master, and I wanted something more fun and engaging than linking cubes.  (Don't get me wrong, linking cubes are a valuable resource.  But, with such frequent use, they can get kinda boring...)  So, with that in mind, I created my Hoot for Place Value set.  As it turned out, my creative Kinder teacher daughter made a fun place value set, too!  My Kinders had fun using her Base Ten Apples on Top set to continue building understanding of place value.  Check out her blog post here.

I used components of Sarah's cute kit to a create tens & ones pocket chart activity by hanging yarn with paper clips above the kids' heads.  We did the lesson first as a whole group, and now it is part of a Skill Spot for students to use independently.

Drawing tens and ones on the apple worksheet included in the set. 

This is actually a component of my Hoot for Place Value set.  I didn't get these pictures taken in time for the previous post.  Here the Kinders are arranging numbers 60 - 100 in order.  This proved to be a bit of a challenge.  Because it is in the Common Core (K.CC.A.2 Count forward beginning from a given number within the known sequence) , we have been trying to practice the skill frequently.

These Kinders worked well together.

Place Value

My Kinders have been working with place value for the past week and a half.  They looked a little stunned the first day into this chapter, but now are well on their way to understanding tens and ones.  I needed a fun and engaging way to help them to understand composing and decomposing numbers, so I made this cute owl Place Value set (available on Teachers pay Teachers).

Hoot for Place Value.  This kit includes materials to teach numbers to 100.

I have included mini ten frames and ones for use with my elmo projector (or any document projector).

Students worked diligently to write the number shown on the white board, and then covered the number they wrote with a transparent counter.  I was very impressed to hear just how they found the numbers on the 100 chart!  My Kinders are so smart! <3

My set includes both horizontal and vertical ten frames to fit your pocket chart needs.

The kids had fun acting out counting by tens and changing to ones with this component.  The kids are holding trees with either ten or one owl - depending upon which forest they are in.  The different forests are divided by Place Value River - this helps them to stop counting by tens & switch to counting by ones.  It's so funny - once they finish counting by tens, they pop their fist on their forehead to "put the number in their heads" before jumping over to the river.  The sign holders welcomed the Owl Watcher (with TP tube binoculars) by informing her of how she needed to count in their forests.  The trees & signs are included in the set.  (You'll need to provide the TP tubes!  lol)

This is our Math Center this week.  The students put towers of ten cubes on the tens side of this page, and foam counters on the ones side.  Then they wrote how many of each onto a white board.

Math Monday Blog Hop

I have linked up with Love 2 Learn 2 Day for a blog hop of fantastic Math ideas!  Check them out!

Freebie Friday & Dr. Um... Silly Activities

I have linked up with the wonderful TBA for this week's Freebie Friday!

I also have two new products on TpT just in time for someone's birthday next week.  I know that many teachers have de-Seussified their classrooms, but our school still enjoys celebrating the author's birthday.  One is a Dr. Seuss - inspired nonsense word sorting activity.  (Is is still OK to mention his name?  Or, should I rename this product?)

Nonsense Word Sort

I Have - Who Has?

My other product is an I have - Who has rhyming word game.  This time, I decided to call it "Dr. Silly."  Thanks to My Cute Graphics for the darling cat clip art! 

Even if you don't celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday, I hope you check out these products, and consider purchasing them for your classroom.