Shout out to the 2nd grade teachers! Amazing Deal! :)

Okay, I love kindergarten.  I do.  But I have a confession:  I miss 2nd grade!!!! I know I'd be happy teaching littles of all ages, but the 2nd grade curriculum is so FUN and challenging!  I hope you'll let me live vicariously through your classroom, because I've got some great news for 2nd grade teachers!! A fabulous group of teachers is teaming up with Educents to offer you an amazing deal and tons of 2nd grade goodies!! 

I'm super excited to be a part of this amazing deal.  I've included my Measurement Monsters pack in this bundle!! It is my top seller and one of my favorite packs EVER!  My kiddos absolutely loved it last year (who doesn't love all the adorable monster clipart?)  The pack is aligned to 2nd Grade Common Core standards to make your planning a little easier! :)

 

 

 

 

I like to pair this set with the Units of Measure song I wrote for my class last year!  You can snag it for free if your kids looove singing like mine do! :)

 

 

There are 23 other products in our bundle to get your kids learning!  Hop along to see all the goodies you will get!  

 

But that's not all!  You also have a chance to win any item from my store!!! All you have to do is pin an image from this blog post! Once you've done that, enter the rafflecopter below and it will randomly choose a winner!  I will shoot you an email and you can choose ANY one item from my store! :)  

a Rafflecopter giveaway

These deals come and go quickly and the savings are incredible!!! Head on over to Educents now to snag your bundle! :)

SUPER Student! {FREEEEEEBIE!}

Do any of you kinder teachers do person of the day/star student?  Well in MY class, it's SUPER student.   I love it so much... let me count the ways.

 

1) Community Building

2) Speaking/Listening Practice

3) Practice Writing Names

4) Practicing Letters

5) Counting Letters

6) Practice Drawing Good Pictures

7) Responsibility

8) Esteem Building

9) I could go on and on and on!!!

 

So here is how Student of the Day works in my room! I apologize in advance... this is going to be very WORDY!

 

I make it clear early on that students CAN'T be super student until they can SPELL their name and WRITE their name!  That gives them a little kick to learn their name! Another perk is that the student of the day ALSO becomes my helper of the day AND my line leader of the day!

 

Annnndddd they get the Super Student Hat! Just glue this bad boy onto a sentence strip and you're ready to go!

 

 

 

I try to choose my students based on the letters we are learning/have already learned.

My student of the day writes their name on the dry erase board.  Then they lead us in a chant...

**Give me a K! (K!)
**Give me an A! (A!)

**Give me a M! (M!)

**Give me an I! (I!)

**Give me a Y! (Y!)

**Give me an A! (A!)

**What's that spell?  (Kamiya!)

Oh. My. Gosh. Y'all .... The kids LOVE this! Put a pom pom in their hand and they are happy as clams!

 

After that, the Super Student leads us in counting the letters in their name! Meanwhile... I'm passing out name cards to ALL of my students.  The kids will count their own letters and if they have the same number of letters as the Super Student, they hold up their name!  They will spell it to the class and we will count their letters to verify!

 

Next up... *Do you have my letter?*

Our Super Student goes through his/her name one letter at a time to see if others have their letter.

In the Kamiya example it would look like this...

*If you have a K in your name come show me...*

(At this point, all students with a K in their name will come show Kamiya their K... They have to POINT to it, and Kamiya will collect their name)

*If you have an A in your name come show me...*

etc. etc.

 

Next up, I write the letters of the Super Student's name on post-its and scramble them on a pocket chart (or I stick them to the easel)  Super Student will unscramble their name and choose two of their friends to unscramble it as well. 

 

Last but not least, their favorite part.  The Hot Seat. 

The Super Student sits on The Hot Seat (My rolly chair by the easel) and I... in  my best News Reporter voice ... with a marker "microphone" ask them questions...

 

*What's your name?  (I ask them to spell it for me)

*How old are you?

*What's your favorite thing to eat?

*What's your favorite thing to do?
*Favorite Color?

 

Then, we discuss what they look like.  Hair color, eye color, skin color, clothes they're wearing, etc.  Because next... the kids are going to draw our Super Student!  They must include one of our Super Student's *Favorites* (food or activity from the interview) and their picture MUST be accurate!  We spend a lot of time discussing how to draw a good picture (Arms come out of body, legs are made of sticks, hands have 5 fingers, skin isn't purple, etc.)

 

 

 

While students are drawing, I go around and cut up the Super Students name in front of each child.  When their picture is complete, they will unscramble the Super Student's name and glue it on their drawing. 

 

 

We then compile all the drawings into a book and I send it home with the Super Student. I also put the interview sheet right behind the cover. It's something they can keep forever and they are so *GIDDY* over this!!

 

 

Again, I'm sorry it's so wordy, but I wanted to be very detailed so... if you choose... you can highlight your own students this way!  We have gotten in a LOT of letter/phonics/counting practice throughout this process -- but most importantly, it has been an amazing community builder in our classroom!

Click the image below to pick up a Super Student freebie to get started! :)

Community Supplies: My journey to the perfect system.

Friends.  As many of you know, I made the jump this year from 2nd grade to Kindergarten.  This first 7 weeks (Can you believe it?) has been all about finding out what works and doesn't work for these kinder babies.  I will tell you what did NOT work: My past system for community supplies. 

 

Both of my schools used community supplies.  I like the idea.  It fosters sharing and shows students that we must take care of our things as a team.  In 2nd grade, I just put caddies on tables and students used what they needed when they needed.  This did NOT, I repeat, NOT work for my kinder babies.  They had their hands in those caddies all the time.  And with great fear that someone would eventually grab up a pair of scissors and chop off a beautiful lock of hair... I knew I needed a new system. 

 

I found the *perfect* system for my class... maybe it will help you out in yours! :)

 

First, Introducing the Supply Caddies. 

 

These caddies were, I kid you not, $1 from Dollar Tree.  They have various colors depending on the year, but I went with a bright colors theme in my room.  They hold up pretty nicely.  This is year #2 for these caddies! :)  I include all of their supplies in these caddies, but you'll notice, most of them are in cups so they can easily be taken from the caddy.  I will get more into this later.

 

Since I didn't want caddies on the tables themselves, I found a central location for them in my room.  I use these shelves to house math manipulatives and student books.  The shelves are smack dab in the middle of all of my tables.

 

 

The next part of my perfect system creates a sense of responsibility, teamwork, leadership, and independence in the classroom which I LOVE.  I have 5 tables, therefore 5 caddies, and 5 table leaders.  I select a different table leader from each table once a week.  They will serve as table leader Monday - Friday.  Whenever students need a supply, I say "Table leaders, your table needs crayons/pencils/scissors/their whole caddy" Table leaders then walk to the caddies, pick up a cup of whatever they need, et voila! :)

 

 

Now, a week into this system... I was letting table leaders just grab willy nilly from any old caddy.  Well... I soon decided that would not work, because crayons were getting mixed up.  This table didn't have any yellow crayons anymore... this table ran completely out of glue but there were 42 glues in the neighboring caddy. 

 

Enter Table Names/Caddy Names.

 

 

Now every table has a name.  I went with the vowels (A, E, I, O, and U).  Each table leader may only grab items from their table's caddy! They may only return items to their table's caddy.  And.. all the while... we are practicing our vowels! I might say "Table A... go get your caddy"  or I could say "if your table name says /a/" or "If your table name starts the word 'alligator'" what have you.

 

So there you have it! I can honestly say that this system works PERFECTLY in my classroom.  It has gone so smoothly and the kids are thrilled to be table leaders. 

 

Oh, P.S. --> Happy Weekend! :)

 

Random Sunday Funday Picture Dump

Friends - I had the desire to blog, but didn't know what to share, so I decided on RANDOM!  Here's a picture dump from the past week.  Check out what we've been doing -- hopefully you can borrow some ideas for your own classroom!

 

 

My kids LOVE any opportunity to get up and MOVE!  Today we "mingled" around the room looking for our capital/lowercase letter matches! When they found their partner, they linked arms and stood on that letter on our carpet.

 

 

 We made some Letter C Caterpillars this week.  I can't claim this cute little craft, but also can't find the original source. Please let me know if it is you!

 

 

 We worked on Bonds of 5 this week and used these adorable ladybug mats from Teaching in Progress. We used two sided coins, shook them, spilled them, separated them, then practiced reading and writing math sentences for them!

 

 

 During stations, I always try to include some fine motor practice!  We used clothespins to go "fishing" for letters.  They fished out each letter and sorted them into piles of letters they knew and letters they didn't know.

 

 

 My kids LOVE using "special tools" to help them read.  We used these Witchy Fingers at our Big Book Station this week so students could point to popcorn words or letters that they knew.  This helps kiddos practice tracking as well!

 

 I found some adorable Wiggle Eye Rings from Michaels (They were on an end cap).  I can't find a picture online ANYWHERE of these actual rings, but they look a little like this:

 

We are going to use them in our Big Book Station this week! :)

 

Thanks for sticking with me through the random.  Hope you found something useful! :)

Color Cuh-RAZY and Pin it to Win it!

Friends.   It has been a busy week.  I can NOT believe I'm getting materials ready for week #7 of school.  Time to start assessing (joy!) for report cards.  Ever feel like you're drowning in assessments? 

We've been having a blast learning colors for the last six week.  Every week, I was creating new resources to teach our new colors, so I decided to bundle them together in case any of you might be able to use them in your classroom.  My. Kids. LOVE. "Color time"!!!!! Click the image to check it out.



This pack is for colors Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, Orange, and Purple.  Here's what you get for each color.

My kids absolutely love painting the color word with Q-tips.  They also really enjoy the interactive readers because 1) They have kindergarten words they know how to read and 2) They get to help create them by tracing the words and coloring the pictures.  They feel so successful!

IN OTHER NEWS....

Only a few more days to take advantage of this great deal we have with Educents.  Over 1400 pages of activities that you can easily implement that will get you through your day!

How about a little fun with our Educents bundle?  Let's Pin In, To Win It!  That's right.  Pin any image from this blog post and enter to win any product in my store!

  All you have to do is:
-Choose an image to pin from the selections below
-Leave a blog COMMENT with the link to your pin and your email.
-Et, Voila!  That's it!  I will use a random number generator to choose a winner Friday night.

There are so many great products in the bundle... which will you pin?

 

If you are ready to purchase, click below and head on over!