Vote for ME!

I've been nominated for the 2012 Fascination Award. Click on the icon on the right and it will direct you to a page to vote. Just click on the link to vote from that page and scroll down until you see the name of my blog. THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!

A Thousand Things That Make My Heart Smile

If you have been to Ms. Preppy's blog, you would have seen her short clip and her thousand (well really 10) things that makes her heart smile. I love reading her blog. It always makes me smile and laugh. I thought I'd list 10 things that make my heart smile. If you like, you can also do this on your blog and post back to Ms. Preppy. THANK YOU Caitlin for sharing this with all of us!!!!!! Click HERE to see her post.

10 Things That MakesMy Heart Smile
1. Waking up to see my dog waiting for me.
2. To hear "I missed you!" when I return to school after being out for a day.
3. Not having to air up my tire on my car every morning before school (long story.....nail in my tire....to busy (lazy) to get it fixed....luckily my wonderful husband fixed it for me after 2 months)
4. Seeing the smile on one of my little girl's face this week when she went down the slide for the first time in her life!
5. Going home and my husband has cleaned and done all the dishes!
6. NOT having to do lesson plans on the weekend.
7. Getting email comments about posts on my blog from my wonderful blog friends (I LOVE YOU GUYS!)
8. When one of my kids in my class FINALLY reads that one word that we've been working on for months.
9. Watching my kids play outside today, getting along, and orgainzing themselves without my help in a game.
10. Seeing smiling faces every day eager to learn!!!!!! That is why I love kindergarten.

Please share with me things that make your heart smile. This really lifted up my day!

Graphing, Graphing, Graphing



Click HERE to get the copy of this tally chart and graph



I never imagined how much my kids would LOVE sorting and graphing. I have a video of my kids using graphing cards that I purchased from Lakeshore but it's on my Iphone and I can't seem to get it to work so if there is anyone who can help me figure this out please let me know. Here is a freebie that I made for graphing. My kids made their own Yes/No graph by filling in the question, "Do you like ______?" The kdis walked around the room with their paper on a wipeoff board like a clipboard (we do this a lot). They asked several other friends if they liked their thing and filled in their tally chart. The then converted the tally chart to the bar graph with crayons then turned to a friend and asked them questions about their graph such as, "Which is most, least? How many more? etc". Click on the picture of the worksheet for the freebie. I copied this onto the large 11X17 paper and folded it so they wouldn't have to deal with 2 papers. They loved it. Here are pictures until I can figure out the vidoe thing.

Short Vowel Freebie

I made 2 worksheets to help my kids practice reading short vowel words. I wanted the words mixed up so they would have to search for the word and read the word. I copied them onto 1 large sheet of paper so kids would only have 1 paper to manage. I wrote the words on paper on a literacy cube that I purchased at my local teacher store. I let my more capable students work independently with a partner or small group and guided my struggling students. Here is how I had the kids play:

1. Each child rolled the cube and said the sound of the short vowel.

2. They found a word in the word box with that short vowel and read the word then highlighted it.

3. They wrote the word above the correct short vowel on the short vowel graph page.

4. Once they filled up one whole short vowel column to the top, they stopped. They then wrote their favorite word, drew a picture of it, then wrote a sentence to go with it.

My kids LOVED this game and loved feeling the independence of going at their own pace and working all around the room with a friend. There are a lot of directions so I had to model the entire activity whole group before giving it to the kids. Please comment and let me know if your kids liked doing this. Click on the picture of the worksheet below for the freebie.

Butterfly and Frog Life Cycle and GIVEAWAY

I'm back writing some activities for my class and want to share them with all of you. I've been so over consumed with Common Core that I've neglected my science curriculum. I've created several writing, sequencing, and science butterfly and frog life cycle activities to help my kids master this skill. I'm selling these on my TPT store called Butterfly and Frog Life Cycle Activity. I will give away 5 of these to the first 5 people who do the following: Click HERE to see my unit.

1. Post about my unit on their blog
2. Follow me on my TPT store
3. Comment that you did the above 2 things.

If you have any questions or want me to add more to this please let me know. Below are pictures of a few activities from my unit.

Easter Bunny Art and Writing Activity

WOW~~~~ I can't believe how long it has been since I've posted. I haven't even been online much since December. My husband and I have been training for a fitness competition so besides teaching, working out, and cooking, I haven't had much time for anything else. Here is an Easter bunny activity freebie. The pattern was drawn by a former teacher friend so I scanned it. I don't know if you will be able to print it correctly but you can re-draw it if you have to. I used this as a following directions activity and let the kids glue the arms and legs any way they wanted then decorate their bunny to be unique. A few days later, we brainstormed things our bunny could do (verbs) and "my bunny is" (adjectives). I did this as a modeled writing lesson on chart paper then the kids could copy some words or try to write them themselves. Below are some pics.Click on the pics of each piece to download. 

  

Snowman Addition Freebie and More

Wow it's been a long time since I've posted. My home internet isn't working and I'm way to busy at school to even think about posting. This is short but i wanted to give a freebie. My class has just finished addition and subtraction and are beginning to work on fact families. Here are some pictures of my kids doing some snowman addition. I bought snowman marshmallows at Wal-Mart and used them. They love to do math then eat their manipulatives. However, you could do this with regular marshmallows or counters. Click on the picture of workmat to get the freebie. Also scroll down to get snowman hats to use for fact families. I traced circles using a coffee can top. The kids will decorate a head then choose 4 circles and write 2 addition and 2 subtraction equations then glue. I'll post pictures after we do them next week.