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.