Gifts, gifts everywhere!

I am very lucky to have a handful of aides that are in and out of my classroom throughout the week to help my kiddos.  They are wonderful ladies who love working with kids and love on my kids.  In my classroom they are often referred to as the "ladies" which just cracks me up.

Anyways, I like to give these "ladies" a little something during this gift giving season to show and remind them how much I appreciate them.  This year they will get some soap (which you use a lot of if you hang around kindergarteners!) with a cute little tag to accompany them.

Incase you can't read the tag it says, "Wishing you a holiday season full of peace, joy, and hope soap!"

Click {HERE} for a free download of the tags!


L

Liebster Blog Award!

My first award!  I'm really stepping into the blogging world now.  Johanna at First Grade Fanatic and Sara at Kindergarten is a Hoot  both nominated me for this award.  Thanks ladies!  The Liebster Blog award is for blogs who have less than 200 followers.

This award is for newbies, and it's goal is to spotlight up-and-coming blogs with less than 200 followers.  If awarded, you must:

♥ copy and paste the award on your blog

♥ thank the giver and link back to them

♥ reveal YOUR top five picks and leave a comment letting them know

♥ hope your followers will share the love with them :)

Here are my five newbie picks. Enjoy!!

1. Karen at A little kinder told me so: She has the cutest ideas and tons of winter activities.

2. Mary at Adventures in Kindergarten: First of all, I just love the name of her blog!  She has lots of cute and crafty ideas.

3. Mrs. Huff at Mrs. Huff's Kinderblog: She posts so many practical and cute things to use in your classroom especially during center time. 

4. Holly at Criss Cross Applesauce in First Grade: Right now I am in love with her snow globe families. 

5. Wild about K Kids:  She has some of the most adorable ideas such as her fruit turkey, you have to check it out!

So now I have payed it forward and I hope you find the above blogs to be as helpful as I have! 

Tomorrow I will be telling you about the gifts I am giving to all the aides and helpers I have this year!

L

Tuesday Tip

This tip is probably better suited for the beginning of the year but I'm going to share it with you now anyways.  My short term memory is pretty much non-exsistent and so when it comes to remembering things during the day I need all the help I can get.

This year I have 26 kiddos and being able to run through a list of them at the beginning of the year to see who didn't line up at recess wasn't going to happen from memory.  I saw our dear kindergarten aide carrying around a big piece of paper with her all the time of the kiddos names and I thought to myself, there's got to be something better and easier than this.

Here comes my great idea...a label on the back of my ID badge with all my student's names!  I always have my badge, it's the key to my school and holds the key to my classroom.  Putting a label on the back is the perfect way for me to know who I have and who I am missing at all times.  Not only is this great for recess time but fire drills as well.  It is much quicker than grabbing their attendance cards and I will never forget it.

Hopefully some of you are already doing this and if so, why haven't you shared your brilliant idea with me yet?!

L

Winter Unit Giveaway Results + FREEBIE

The results are in!  The winners of my Winter Games & Printables packet are....

Commenter number 1 and 3. Gladys and Tammy.  Ladies, send me an email (mrs.lsprague@gmail.com) and I will respond with your product!

Thank you to everyone who commented and for your blogging ideas!  

Tonight I will leave you with a Snowman Number Matching Center printable.

Click {HERE} to get your download.

Thanks!

L

Countdown Until Winter Break FREEBIE

Last night I caught myself opening up my calendar and for the first time counting how many days we had left until our winter break.  Can you believe it?!  Of course you can, you are probably feeling my pain too and if not, you will soon.  November was so broken up with conferences and Thanksgiving break that the few weeks we have until our next break seems way too long.  Don't get me wrong, I love my job but with my group of kiddos this year I am living for the breaks.  I need every break I can get to re-energize for these kiddos.

I am sure as much as I am looking forward to the break my kiddos are as well.  To cut down on the amount of times I will be asked, or just for shear cuteness I created this countdown to winter break poster.  Click {HERE} to download.

I have to admit, it's pretty simple, but pretty cute too!

Enjoy!

p.s. If you haven't commented on my post below, do that before Friday to have a chance to win my Winter Games and Printables packet!  Right now your chances are high!

L

What I'm Up To

A few weeks ago, well the beginning of November, I participated in the What the Teacher Wants, Utah bloggers meet up.  Let me just tell you, I am soooo glad that I decided to go.  It was a Saturday and our first big snow and so everything about me wanted to stay snuggled up in my pjs all day but as it got closer to the meeting time I decided I better go.  It was so great to meet some of the big Utah bloggers, bloggers to be and teachers that just love blogs!  We met at The Old Spaghetti Factory and chatted for over 3 hours!  We talked about anything and everything teacher and of course blogging came up.  I had the privilege to sit next to the wonderful Teacher Wife.  She is amazing!  We got to talking about blogging and where I was in that process as well as selling my items.  If you've been around, you know I pick and poke at blogging and post my stuff when I can.  I'm not really much of a writer and I think that's what keeps me from posting as often as I would like.   Truth be told, I really wish that I would sit down and blog more because not only do you, my fellow teacher friends benefit, but I do as well.  It's a great way to keep a log and ideas fresh and who knows, I may just start to enjoy writing!

Anyways...I say all that to say, I am committing to blogging more often, hopefully once a week and.......
last week I opened a Teachers Pay Teachers store!  I was so inspired by Rachelle and Natalie at What The Teacher Wants and Linsey "The Teacher Wife" so I thought I would give it a go.  I already create so much for my own classroom and this gives me incentive to create even more.

With that said, check out my Teachers Pay Teachers Store by clicking on the link under picture below to check out the items I've posted already (I've got to figure out how to link my pictures I guess!).  I even have some FREE stuff up!

Just added today is my Winter Games and Printables Packet for $4.00!

Leave a comment telling me how you found me and what you like reading about the most on other teacher blogs or what you would like to see me post about in the future and I will give away my Winter Games and Printables Packet to 2 people on Friday!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Kindergarten-Fever

L

Thanksgiving Printables

I have been way behind on posting lately due to parent teacher conferences, personal commitments and my battle with switching out all of my clip art (post on that coming soon!).

I wasn't going to post the few things that I had since most of you probably only have 2 or 3 days of school left before Thanksgiving but incase you still need something to do this week or if you want to save them for next year I will share.

The first thing I have is a poem, "5 Little Turkeys" that you can use in a pocket chart.

Five Little Turkeys Emergent Reader

Counting Feathers math worksheets.

Click {HERE} to download all pages.

I hope you can use these at some point.

*Edit: I am so sorry to those of you who have been trying to download.  No idea why my links stopped working all of the sudden.  I have grouped everything together and put them on TPT for FREE.  Go get your pack now!

Thanks for stopping by!  Please comment if you download something or have any questions.

Thanks!

L

Halloween Fun

I got an email today from someone asking for candy corn beginning sound printables that I had gotten off of another website and the easiest way to get them to her was for me to upload them to Scribd.  Since I needed to upload one thing it gave me a little motivation to put up a few other things I have made.  Thanks Sue for giving me a little motivation!

Here are the Candy Corn puzzles.  They are originally from Mailbox Magazine and I got an uploaded copy from someone else.  I prefer to color on the computer more than with actual crayons so once I got the uploaded copy that's what I did.  I figure I can do it once on the computer and then when I need to make a new set all I have to do it print them!

Candy Corn

Here is a game called Boo!  This game works on letter and sound recognition.  I can't wait to play this with my class this week.  We are almost done with our first time through the alphabet.

Boo!

10 Little Pumpkins, great for shared reading in the pocket chart and then moved to a center activity.  It's great for number sequencing as well.

10 Little Pumpkins

I found this poem in a folder that a coworker had given me last year.  I wrote it on chart paper and then drew some pictures with the help of my kiddos to help them read it. The next day we did this emergent reader.  We are now in the process of making our own pumpkins and telling about them.  I had each of my students tell me what their pumpkin was with the sentence, "This little pumpkin is..."  There were some very cute ones.  I'm hanging them on my bulletin board tomorrow, I will have to post a picture after it's up.

This Little Pumpkin

This is a great introduction to measuring and I am going to use it as a center activity in my classroom.  After you print the pumpkins you will need to label them.

Pumpkin Measuring

Lastly, here are some picture/word cards that I use for centers as well.  I use letter tiles or the Lakeshore word building blocks and have my students spell these words.

October Picture Words

If you look a post or two back, there are some pumpkin letter puzzles you might enjoy as well.

Enjoy!  Leave a comment if you download.

L

Back in the saddle.

I have been on vacation for 24 days!  I love that I have the ability to do that (even though our vacation was filled with the unexpected that cost us $1800. Ugh.). I may have to start a personal blog just to document our adventure.  Anyways, I finally got back to my computer last night and had a chance to catch up on some blogs, pinterest, and proteacher only to find myself whipping up an activity for someone moments later.

Someone on proteacher was looking for an alphabet activity with pumpkins and since I hadn't done much in the ways of teaching or creating in almost a month I decided to jump on it.

Cut the pumpkins out and have students match capital and lowercase pumpkins or use for a game of concentration.
Alphabet Pumpkin Matching


Cut each pumpkin out then in half.  Students will match capital and lowercase letters to make a complete pumpkin.

Pumpkin Letter Match Puzzle


I hope to have some beginning of the year items up soon but in the meantime it never hurts to plan out.

Enjoy!
L

Working over the Summer

How many of you catch yourselves working over the summer?  If I had to take a guess, it's not just me.  I have been out of school for 6 (counting the weekend) days and have already started to "work" again.   During the last month of school I was extremely busy in every part of my life.  On Tuesday I took the day for myself and went to a coffee shop organized my digital files and started to catch up on my blogs.

If you haven't been to growingkinder.blogspot.com you have to check it out.  Blogs have become a new thing for me this year and I have a little O.C.D. and have to go back to the very beginning of a lot of the blogs I have found.  This has been the case for growing kinders and boy and I glad I have done that.  She has so many great ideas!  She doesn't have the files for you to download so I have been recreating a lot of what I see.  I can't wait to use and post all of the ideas in Sept./Oct.

I know this is a little late but just so you don't stop by without getting anything I am going to attach the end of the year poem I gave to kiddos.  My friend next door did the same thing but she rolled a piece of chalk up in it and tied it like a diploma, too cute!

Kindergarten Graduation Poem 2

Enjoy!

L

Summer Homework

Let's face the fact, we just can't let our kinders go and want them to remember us dearly so we create homework for them to do all summer, just what every kid wants.

In the same fashion I do my homework all year for my kiddos I made 3 more months worth to cover the summer.  If you have taught kindergarten for any period of time you know our dear friend kelly from kellyskindergarten and that is where I got the idea for my homework.  I have taken many ideas from her but tweak it a bit to fit my style and my kiddos needs.

Summer Homework 2011

Enjoy!

L

Counting down

While I'm not afraid to admit I have a countdown to the last day (come on, who doesn't) and can't wait, some of me isn't ready.  I love my kiddos and will be sad to say goodbye but honestly they are ready for first grade and I am excited to see them in first grade.  Plus, they make me feel like a movie star in the hallway, it's too cute.

Now that I have made it clear that I love my kiddos and I will be sad to see them go I can tell you that they aren't the reason I would like the year to go on but rather, I am not ready to tear down and pack up my classroom.  At my school we have to take everything down and off the walls, fit everything in a cupboard and pretty much leave our room looking as sterile as possible at the end of the year.  On the last day we have to turn in our keys and we aren't allowed back in until 2 or 3 days before school starts.  I teach in Utah but am from Ohio and back home it isn't like that, teachers are allowed in year round so I don't know if what I am experiencing here is normal or is back home is normal but either way I don't like being locked out for the summer.  It is bad enough that we are only allowed in our rooms from 7:00-5:30 M-F anyways.

If you are anything like me, which I'm guess you are because you're reading blogs right now, you have all these fantastic ideas you find while blogstalking and can't wait to implement them.  I'm not ready for the year to end because I have things I want to make and prepare for next year.

Are you allowed in your room over the summer?  How much do you have to take down and put away?

L

Egg Addition

We have been working on addition in my class a lot lately. My students seem be getting it quite well although we are still working on the counting on thing. I had been trying to think of something I could do with easter eggs and this came to mind.

I filled my easter eggs with those two sided counters, you know the red and yellow ones and gave one to each student and they were to dump out the easter egg and write the addition problem they saw. Ex. 3 red and 4 yellow would be 3+4= and then they had to write the answer.

Here is cute little paper to go with it.

Hatch an Egg

When I filled the eggs I filled all the pink with 5 the green with 6 the purple with 7 and so on so I could check my students work. I had them color a little dot of the color of egg they were using to the side so I would know which egg they had done but once I passed out the eggs and a few minutes had gone by they were so in to it they weren't careful about putting all of the little counters back in and so my system was unreliable. I was walking around the entire time and I felt like that gave me a great idea of who was getting it and who was struggling.

We had great fun with this activity and I hope you can use it in one way or another.

What other kinds of fun things do you do with addition in your classroom?

L

Popcorn Anyone?

I love sight words!  I have been so blown away at how quickly my students have learned their popcorn words this year and how good they are at pointing them out.  Below are a few fun popcorn related documents for you.


I printed these out on regular white paper, cut around the edges and wrapped them around a bag of popcorn for my kiddos who have mastered reading all of their popcorn words.  They loved it!

Popcorn Words Award

I wrote their names on the little popcorn piece she has in her hand and they got to hang the piece on the big popcorn bucket on the wall. (I forgot to take a pic. of that.)

We love to "Bang" with our popcorn words whole group so I made these popcorn pieces with our sight words on them to use.  To play put all the pieces in some kind of container. I use the plastic popcorn buckets you can get in the dollar bin at Target or many other places.  Children take turns pulling one popcorn word out at a time and read it to their partner or group.  The children will keep taking turns until someone pulls a "BANG" card.  The student who pulls the "BANG" card has to put all their pieces back in the bucket.  To play this game whole group place 4 BANG cards into the sight word pile.  Hold up sight words 1 by 1 having the students read.  When you hold up a BANG card all sight word cards go back into the pile.  Play for a couple of rounds.Popcorn Bang
What fun things do you do to encourage mastery of sight words?
L

Another Kindergarten Blog

This year I have found myself reading more and more blogs and to be honest, I wouldn't be the teacher I am without them.  The amount of great ideas and support I have received has been a true blessing.  I feel like I need to give back and so what you find here is my attempt to do so.  I went back and forth for a while as to whether or not I should start a blog because I haven't created tons of things that were my own idea.  In the end, I decided I would share what little I do have and direct you to the wonderful people I have begged, borrowed and stolen from!

L