Do Your Kids do Homework?

Every week, as I have mentioned before, we send home a math sheet on Wednesdays.  Most of my students do it, but I always seem to have one or two that don't.  When students come in and say they didn't get their homework done because they were at soccer practice and they didn't get home until 8:00, what do you say?  Part of me wants to say, "You're five and soccer practice is what you should be doing", and then there's the part of me that knows there will be written homework everyday in first grade... that part of me wants to tell it like it is.  I would love to hear your comments.  Until then, here is another math sheet FREEBIE that correlates to CCSS.Math.Content.K.OA.A.5 Fluently add and subtract within 5.

Bubblegum Math- Fluently add within 5. FREEBIE

Okay... so it's been a while... shame on me!  I have had more time these past few weeks while my student teacher does her solo teaching, so I don't even have much of an excuse for not blogging- except that I am not teaching so it is harder to think of stuff to write about.  I have been "invisible" (mostly) for two weeks now.  It is hard and and I miss teaching, but it is nice having two people to do my job.  (It's also a little sad how well it works to have two people to do my job- teaching expectations have gotten out of control!).  The kids are a riot... asking Ms. Strafford (student teacher) who she is talking to when she asks me a question... it's absolutely amazing that 5 and 6 year old kids can have such defined and fun senses of humor.  :)

I have made a few things, although one is  now out-dated for the year, it's St.Patrick's Day Sight Word Game.  The standard it is associated with is CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.3c .  The other activity is a compound word activity.  I wasn't able to find an exact standard stating "compound words", but I think it goes with CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.2b.  Both items are available in my TpT store.  The springtime Rainbow Compound Words is a FREEBIE!  Both items are differentiated.

Leprechaun's Golden Sight Word Game 

Rainbow Compound Words FREEBIE

Finally, I made a homework sheet for capacity.  It goes with these standards:

• CCSS.Math.Content.K.MD.A.1
• CCSS.Math.Content.K.MD.A.2 

You can download it here:

Capacity Practice Sheet FREEBIE

I am hoping to continue to post common core aligned homework sheets for math each week so please check back if you find this one helpful!  

Homework... Need I Say More?

We start the expectation of homework the second semester in kindergarten at my school.  My grade level decided on this format:

Monday:  Practice sight words
Tuesday: Read story that was sent home
Wednesday:  Math sheet
Thursday:  Read a story and practice a story element (we sent a list of suggestions home)

I think it is a great plan, because technically, I only have to send an extra thing home one day, yet I am still convinced that I dislike homework more than the kids, lol!.   Every Wednesday I am trying to find a good homework sheet.  Yep, you read that right... I forget every week, leaving myself scrambling every Wednesday.  I hate to send home anything meaningless, yet finding cute things aligned with common core and our themes has been a challenge. Now that I have my student teacher who is doing a good portion of my job- I have had some time to think ahead and I have started making my own homework sheets. Here is what I sent home last week to go with our social studies unit on American Symbols:

You can click on. the picture to get your FREE copy

This is what I am sending home this week to go with Dental Health Month:

You can get a FREE copy of this one here.

I hope you find these helpful.  Please feel free to post your comments. :)

Making Sight Word Fluency Fun

My students practice reading the sight words in a flip chart every day... pretty mundane... I would love to try to make the experience fun everyday, but there is only so much time...  I try to make up for that routine practice by playing sight word games.  Each week I try to fit a sight word game into either my group or my teacher assistant's group.  This week we will be playing a Valentine themed game... Love at First Sight. The object of the game is to read the most sight words "at first sight".  When it is a player's turn, he/she rolls a cube or spins a spinner (Both options are included in the game).  The number he/she gets determines the number of cards he/she gets to try to read. Players who are waiting for their turn are not excused from thinking as I have built in two options to keep them engaged.  One, there is a sheet for them to find and circle the words that are read, and two- there is a little card that they put in front of them to show whether or not they could read the cards the player has drawn.  If the player's whose turn it is can not read a word, another player can try to earn the point by reading it. This game is available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store, but you can get a free copy by going here because I love you for reading my blog.  :)  Speaking of Valentine's Day, my fabulous student teacher, Ana Strafford, has planned a problem solution activity for this week with the book The Biggest Valentine Ever by Steven Kroll.  I made up a sheet with some cute Scrappin'Doodles clip art, a border from Anita Goodwin (you can visit her blog here), and a font from Hello Literacy.  You can get a copy of the response sheet here. It has two options, one with lines for writing and one with blank spaces for picture drawing.  I usually copy both back to back and give my students a choice. Have a great Valentine's Day!

Presidents' Day Ideas Executed Despite the Chaos of the Week

What a week it was... new computers being installed Monday and Tuesday, Tornado Warnings complete with hallway fun on Wednesday, Teacher of the Year finalist stuff on Thursday, and PTA launched their wonderful appreciation of teachers on Friday.  Three out of four of those things ended well.  We got four computers instead of three, a tornado never touched down where we are, and PTA's breakfast and flowers were great! Well, except that my breakfast was a little too close to my flowers when I sprinkled the preservative into the vase...  Take it from me- it doesn't taste good!  I was not named Teacher of the Year, but it is still an honor to get as far as I did and I thank my colleagues for that. :)

Despite the chaos, we  had some pretty successful lessons.  I am going to share two of them that I did in social studies.  We are studying Presidents' Day.

The students should know what a president does to help them understand why we would honor them, so we watched the Brainpop jr. video titled Presidents to start.  Then we did a flip chart where we decided if the statements in each column were true. The headings were A president does... and A president does not...  I included  pictures of the flip chart so you can see what it looked like.  Unfortunately, I can't share flip charts because they have unsecured clip art.  This clip art is from www.scrappindoodles.com.

Then the students did a sheet, "If I were president of the United States... I would..."

Download Here

Then, on another day, we learned who we celebrate on Presidents' Day.  First we read, President's Day.

 

Then we did another flip chart.  It is kind of silly, but helped get the point across and only took a few minutes both to make and to do in class.  We pulled pictures out from behind the black box and put them on stage if it was someone we celebrated, and put them in the audience if it was not someone we celebrate on Presidents' Day.  Again, I can't share the flip chart.  The clip art came from www.scrappindoodles.com, creative clips' teacherspayteachers store, digiwebstudios.com  mycuteclipart.com and www.cklr.com. 

Then I had the students do this sheet:

Download Here

Both response sheets are available for download.  I am experimenting... hopefully I did this right.  I have had a Dropbox for years, but just learned about the public folder. I learned that I can use it to share things... so here is my first shot at it. By the way, if you don't have a Dropbox yet- you need one!  They are awesome!!!  Go here to get one. http://db.tt/LtAidqz. They are free! You won't be able to figure out how you did without it.  A friend of mine pulled up her transportation home document on her phone when we ended up dismissing from the cafeteria unexpectedly on Wednesday. She was so glad she had it (and yes, I had gotten her started so I was glad I helped someone out, too!)

Back to Presidents' Day, I enjoy our Presidents' Day unit a lot!  It is easy to incorporate into ELA.  Here are two more things I have recently done.  Both are available at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

Purchase Here

Purchase Here

Building Tens... and a Teacher

I am so excited to have a student teacher assigned to me.  Even though being with me is just one building block of her teaching education, I am honored to have the opportunity to help a future teacher.  It was a pretty quick turnaround from the time I was asked to the time she arrived in my classroom, four days to be exact- and that is counting a weekend, but all in all, having her is a total blessing!  It has consumed some of my time, though... hence the reason I have not posted in a couple of weeks.  It is a good thing I didn't set posting requirements for my new year's resolution... just that I would keep it up.  :)

We are working on building numbers in math, especially building ten.  We have been using two different colored Unifix cubes to build ten.  We also made building number sliders. I will post a picture of them as soon as I take one. I am posting it as a free file on TpT for now... that may change so grab your free copy while you can. The students had fun making the contraptions and they thought they were really cool... hopefully they are using them at  home to practice learning the number combinations.  I have now made a building flashcards file that I hope to incorporate.  Since I am not making math plans anymore, that may be difficult to do, but if nothing else, I might make it a morning option for when the kids are arriving at school. One reason it is a building flashcards file, and not just a flashcards file is because the teacher can choose different backs for the cards. Some students are at a level where they just need to see the two numbers with an "and" between them, some can handle the "+", and others can make an equation out of it.  Still others may be able to turn them around to make a subtraction equation as well. The other reason it is a "building flashcards"  file is because the students get to color the cards in, or use Bingo dabbers, which is what mine will do.  I think they will really enjoy that.  I am hoping that the students will give the cards extra care and use since they had a hand in making them.

Another item I made is a building ten center.  The students use beans, chips or printed circles to fill ten frames and record the numbers.  I have made that differentiated as well, for the same reasons listed above.  You can click on the picture captions to bring you to where items can be downloaded/purchased.

Building Numbers Slide

Build Your Own Ten Frame Flashcards

Differentiated Building Ten Frame Center

Martin Luther King and Me

Martin Luther King had one major dream... I have several not so major ones.  Right now, I am dreaming that I could invent time (or make it stop until I am ready for it to continue), I am dreaming my cold would go away already and not turn into something worse because I don't have time to be sick, and I am dreaming I could figure out how to post free things without using TpT.  I would like to give people who visit my blog something extra... I tried using Google something or other when I did the grade book file last week, and it changed it- so much that I had to use TpT instead.  Anyone have any suggestions?  In the mean time, I am going to just use TpT to post things.  I made some snowman stationary.  I know there is a lot of it out there... but I like choices myself, hopefully y'all do too!  There are several different kinds... landscape and portrait, drawing space, no drawing space, blank, primary lined, and regular lined.  There are even two different sizes for the regular lined.   It is a FREEBIE that I hope you will enjoy!

Back to Martin Luther King- I made an MLK differentiated sight word read the room file. I may be making  more MLK things if I have time.  I wanted to be sure to get this up since someone had commented in my TpT store that she hoped more themes would be out. I was very excited to see that- so much I felt I had to oblige!

Have a great week!  We get a three day weekend after this one! 

Snowman Writing Paper FREEBIE

MLK Jr. Differentiated Sight Word Read the Room 

Out With the Old... In With the New... Gradebook

Here we are... the start of a new year, and the start of a new semester.  What better time to upgrade your grade book?  Do you use S, N, or U?  If you do this file is for you!  At my school, kindergarten and first grade have to do their own thing.  Second through fifth grades have to enter grades online.  I think I'd rather have to come up with my own grade book, thank you very much!  :)   For years, I would sit there and enter "S-S-S..."  Then I got smart and copied and pasted a column of "S"s. Then I got even smarter and did it this way...  

Easy Entry Gradebook

The directions are not in the file because I don't know how to do that in a spreadsheet... Here they are:

1.  Fill in the information at the top.  

Step 1

There are tabs at the bottom for each subject.  If you need another subject, simply copy and paste into a new tab.  I believe you rename the tab by right clicking it.

Colored Tabs at the bottom.  Click for each subject.

2.  Type your students' names in the column on the left.  You can copy and paste it into the other subjects.

Step 2

3.  Begin entering grades.  I put sticky notes on top of sets of papers with the names of students who did not get an "S".  Then I change their grades, highlight the column, and change the color to black. 

Step 3

4.  Save and you are done. 

Step 4

It takes me no time at all to enter grades this way.  I absolutely love it!

You can download it for free right here.  I  hope you find this helpful!

Keeping the "Fun" in the Fundamental Learning Years

I have a feeling this is going to be a recurring topic, because I feel strongly that kids should have some fun in their days.  I love trying to incorporate the holidays and fun seasonal things, but I must say, it is getting harder and harder.  I usually do a lot of it through my literacy centers, and most recently, as an activity to do when independent work is finished. I call it "Differentiated Sight Word Read the Room" to administrators if they ask, to my kids it is simply "read the room"  or "the clipboard activity" :).  It is an activity where words are placed around the room and the students copy the words onto their clipboards. We work hard on differentiating at my school, and while I have seen items like this, I had not seen any that had the differentiation built in. I just started this at Halloween time when I found something online.  I put it out even though it wasn't differentiated (Shhh!  Don't tell!).  After seeing how much my kids loved it, I knew I had to start my own and get that differentiation built in.  I started with the Thanksgiving pack, and then began a gingerbread one.  Needless to say, the gingerbread  never got finished, but I do have a winter penguin one that I made (working on that resolution...) and since I will be doing "All Things New Years" when we get back, of course I created this FREEBIE New Years pack (because who as money after the holidays and time off from work?). You will see pages from this below. What I really like, is that the directions stay the same. Only the words and pictures change so I don't have to spend a lot of time explaining.  I have started incorporating blank cards so teachers can customize to their students' needs.  Having the blank cards allows for a whole other level of differentiation.  You can write words on the blank ones in different colors and tell certain groups they have to do the words in a particular color, focusing on the needs of that group.  Then you can put out one or options of sheets to use. There is a lot of flexibility... which I feel is important when truly differentiating based on your kids.  I have not used different words yet, but I can show how I use the different sheets with one set of cards:

Thankfully, I am not teaching first grade reading this year, but I do have students who leave and come back to me so that they get that instruction.  Sometimes we are not quite finished with our groups when they return. Those two students know that they can grab a clipboard when they get back as one of their choices.  I have my clipboards color coded so they know which ones they can do.  The kids who know the words that are out still benefit from practicing forming letters correctly, creating sentences, using spaces, etc. I know some people have "Read the Room" as a literacy center.  I did years ago... This will fit right in with that. I hope you will grab the FREEBIE and give it a try!  Let me know what you think.

These are the packs that were mentioned above.

New Years Sight Word Read the Room
Differentiated Style

Winter Penguin Sight Word Read the Room
Differentiated Style

Thanksgiving Sight Word Read the Room
Differentiated Style

Reflection, New Year's Resolutions, and New Beginnings

A little about me... I am in my nineteenth year of being an educator. One of those years was in Pre-K, three in first, and the rest in kindergarten.  I guess you can figure out where my heart is!  I love teaching children and love finding, making, and sharing new and different ways to do it. I have known for a long time now that I should start a blog... the truth is... it terrified terrifies me.  I am way out of my comfort zone, but I have learned that a lot of growth often goes hand in hand with new and/or uncomfortable experiences.  So, I decided I would start a blog by the end of the 2012-2013 school year...  a kind of "Back to School New Year's Resolution".  Well, here I am, at the beginning of the 2013 calendar year, halfway through the school year making my first post.  I am pretty proud of myself! I hadn't  mentioned that I am always up the night before I need something, making it... hence the public pride regarding the timely start.  A betting person wouldn't have put money on me getting this started before May...  There is still so much for me to learn, but I am going to take it one day post at a time, and hope it's really true that teachers are patient people. 

I am very excited to show and share the things I do in my classroom. Since it is the time of year when we reflect, make New Year's Resolutions, and embark new beginnings, I thought that would be a great place to start!  Before we left for winter break, I read The Night Before New Years  by Natasha Wing to my students.  We talked about how people often think about the year when it is ending, and then we read and completed an interactive book called Wrapping up 2012. It is available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store here.  If I were just seeing this now, I would still do it in my class so please don't let "2012" keep you from considering it. The kids were SO cute as they thought of their favorite songs and books.  Okay, some of them copied the title of the nearest book they could find, but others really did reflect and come up with their favorites. I am going to follow it up with Looking Ahead into 2013, another interactive book, also available in my store. You can get that one for FREE here.  After downloading it, you can say you got my official first blog FREEBIE!  Finally, to wrap it up we will do some writing to post in the hall... a simple sheet with our New Year's Resolutions on it.  Mine, of course, is to maintain this blog (and maybe to get things done before the night before I need them!)  :) I am working on obtaining the book Squirrel's New Year's Resolution by Pat Miller, to help the kids understand a resolution,  but if I don't get it, I am not worried.  I think that they will be able to figure it out  just by completing the pages in the" Looking Ahead" book and if not, I should be able to use the book to explain it. Check back soon for another New Year's FREEBIE and if you like my items, please follow me here and at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

 This is the  FREE stationary that I am using.