Linky Party at Little Miss Kindergarten

Little Miss Kindergarten is having a Linky Party on transitions in the classroom. Join the conversation by heading over to her blog! As she is said, some transitions are hard to make in the classroom. How do you make enough time to transition when you look at the clock and realize you need to stop the activity and head to lunch? I admit, it's something I need to improve upon in my classroom instead of shouting, "Hurry and clean up! We're late for lunch!"

Transitions I Do Use:

-when transitioning to our specials we walk quietly in the hallway by playing "Follow the Leader" as we walk. I will make different hand/arm movements and the students are expected to follow along. 

-when transitioning from the carpet to their desk I sit in my chair at the carpet and have students whisper the answer to a question into my ear before they sit down at their table. Examples of questions:  What rhymes with ____? What starts with letter ____? How can we make the number 4 when we add? Or anything that has to do with our theme of the week. 

-during Literacy Centers, Playtime  and Math Tubs I will turn off the lights when it is time to clean up. This prompts the kids to start picking up immediately. 

I have 5 i-Pods to use this year, so I hope to download music and begin to use this as a transition activity. Little Miss Kindergarten has a great list of songs, any other ideas on songs to add to my i-Pod?

Another Giveaway!

Erica at Erica's Elementary Excitement is having a giveaway! Check out her blog for a chance to win a $50 Lakeshore Learning giftcard AND a $25 Target giftcard!

4th of July Star Marshmallow Sorting

I recently purchased 4th of July Star Marshmallows from Wal Mart to use for the beginning of the school year.  I thought this would be a great beginning of the year activity to practice counting, sorting, graphing and identifying color words. I will open up the PDF file on my Smart Board to show the students an example before they begin the activity on their own. As long as the package is unopened, the marshmallows will stay fresh until school starts. Click below for the activity sheets. Please leave a comment or start following my blog after you download the sheets! Thanks! Happy 4th of July!


Star Graphing
Star Sorting

P.S. I'm still working on how to post a Google Doc so that the photo appears. If you have any tips to offer in troubleshooting this, I would appreciate it! 

Free Miss Bindergarten Unit at Kinder Kraziness!

I always start my school year with the story Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten. Now I'll  have a unit to go with Miss Bindergarten books thanks to Kinder Kraziness! Over at Kinder Kraziness you can grab a free unit on Miss Bindergarten and while you're over there check out the rest of her awesome blog! If you like my blog, start following!

How Do You Create A Blog?

After viewing my blog and other fantastic teaching blogs, you may be asking "How can I create my own blog?" Follow the steps below in order to create a blog of your own! 
1. Setting up a Blog.
Access Blogger. If you already have a Gmail account you will be able to use your Gmail log in information on Blogger. If you do not have Gmail, you will need to create an account when you access Blogger. 
2. Design
Now that you have created a Blogger account, you can start designing your blog! Think of what you want to title your blog and how you would like your blog to look. Once you have accessed your blog, click on "Design" in order to work on the design of the blog. Then you will see "Template Designer" This is where you will change the font, background template, and set up of your blog. If you want a background template that isn't offered on Blogger, you can access free templates on Lee Lou Blogs. Follow the step by step directions are provided by Lee Lou Blogs when you select the template or buttons that you want to add to your blog.
3. Adding Gadgets
Look to the right of my blog where you read "All About Me", "Total Page Views" and "Blogs I Love". These are called Gadgets. Under the design tab, you will be able to add any gadgets that are appropriate for your blog.
4. Settings
Now that you have set up and designed your blog, it's time to check the settings of your blog. This is a tab at the top of your dashboard. Once you have clicked on this tab, you will find that you can set your preferences such as the title, blog description, format, archiving of posts and permissions of who can view your blog.
5. Posting to Your Blog
You are ready to post to your blog! On your dashboard you will see a blue buttong "New Post", click on this to begin a new post! As you write your post, you can change the font size, color, add a link in your post, add pictures or videos by clicking on the appropriate icon. Before publishing the post, click on "Preview" to see how your post will look before publishing it to your blog.
Congratulations! You have created your own blog! 
Click here for a printable version of the directions. 

Technology in the Classroom

I'm posting a link to an interesting article and video regarding I-pods in the classroom (this was part of an assignment for my tech classes). The video consists of interviews from the teacher and students who are using I-pod Touches in the classroom. I have 5 I-pod Touches to use in my classroom which I plan to start using during our Math and Literacy Center time. Do you have an I-pod Touch? How do you use it in your classroom? I'd love to hear your ideas as I brainstorm for next year!Click the link below to view the video.

What Happens When You Give Children An Ipod Touch?

Little Literacy Learners Giveaway

Check out Little Literacy Learners for another Giveaway! Mrs. Mc is giving away a gift card for Target, Amazon or Barnes and Noble (winners choice) because she has reached 200 followers! It's worth taking a look at her blog as she has AWESOME literacy ideas with a lot of FREEBIES! 

A Few of My Favorite Things

I was inspired by Mrs. Jump's latest post to blog about a few of my favorite classroom items. 

1. My Smart Board! Love, love, love it. 

 

2. Post -its of all shapes and sizes.  You can never have enough Post- It notes!

3. Dice of all shapes and sizes. I like dice with the alphabet and with numbers. Many of my math tubs and literacy centers include an activity using dice.... Not to mention all of the dice games we can play during math.

4. Paper baskets. Great mode of organization for student papers, literacy centers and math tubs!!

5. And last but not least, the topic of many of my latest posts, random containers from Target.

What are a few of your favorite things?

Giveaway!

Miss Kindergarten is having a Back to School: Teacher Survival Kit Giveaway offered by Ingles 360. Head on over to Miss Kindergarten and register to win!

School's Out for Summer

Tomorrow marks one week since our last day of school. I have been brainstorming since 3pm last Wednesday in preparation for next year. Today I made another (unnecessary but successful) trip to Target. Every time I walk into Target (of course after I check out the clothes and shoes) I am looking at every item in the $1 Spot wondering if I could use it at school. During today's trip I found small bucket tins that will serve as replacement crayons containers for next year.This year the students were constantly breaking their crayons throughout the year and I realized they cannot do their best coloring with broken crayons. I plan to fill each bucket with extra crayons of the same color and when a student breaks a red crayon they can walk over and get a new red crayon from the red crayon bucket on their own. I will label each bucket with the color name in order to introduce and improve color word recognition. Not only will they have beautiful (I HOPE!) coloring and recognize color words, but it will help the students become independent. Yes, I will probably have a broken crayon epidemic for a couple of days after the buckets are introduced, but I'm confident the idea is an effective time saver. Got to love the $1 Spot! Check out what others are buying Linky Party at Ladybug Teacher Files !
 

Target $1 Spot

I love the $1 spot at Target! Throughout the school year I am constantly buying containers that I might use at school.....even if I have no idea what I'm going to do with it I can't resist! Today was our last day of school and when I started packing up my supplies and organizing my desk I found a use for the vinyl baskets I purchased last week. Each basket fits perfectly into my desk drawer, so I was able to organize the glue sticks, rolls of tape, post-it notes etc.! The mini buckets are perfect for holding dry erase markers or even  sticks with the student's names. I like to hang my bucket of names up on the easel so that I have easy access to it at all times. I also love using the various containers for sight word games. 

I purchased the popcorn containers at the beginning of the year to use for a game. I wrote our classroom popcorn words and the word "Pop" on large craft sticks and put the sticks into the container. The students take turns picking out a stick and reading it, if they read "POP" the student puts all of their sticks back into the container and starts over. A friend who teaches first grade shared that idea with me-- Brilliant!