Happy Spring Sentence Sort-FREEBIE

Look what Mr. and Mrs. Robin brought me!  I'm so excited that two of "my" babies have hatched this morning.  Mr. and Mrs. Robin built their nest on my front porch again this year.  Spring!!!!

In honor of the proud parents, I created a little celebration for you.  The idea came from my teaching-partner-in-crime!   Thank you Janet!

You can download it for FREE by clicking on the image.

Calendar Time Sing-Along

I have blogged about singing in my classroom before... LOVE it, but I will not be asked to perform in public ANYtime soon.  You should have heard me try to figure out how to sing Deanna Jump's Entomologist song to the tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat.  My kids and I were laughing so hard.  They kept saying, "Come on Mrs. Wills, you can figure it out."  Of course we did, but without the tune to back me up... I am pretty LAME!

This is why I love Scholastic's Flip Charts... It comes with a CD (cue the angels to sing)!!!!

However, I think the words are too small for my class to sing.  Therefore, I have typed them into word documents.  Then I can show them on my SMARTboard or document camera and the students have a copy to go into their poetry notebook.  Solution found!

Click on the picture to download.

But if you are like me you are GONNA WANT THE CD!!!!

You can get it at AMAZON for around $17.00. 

Math Stations This Week

Here is a peek at our week...

This little math addition game came from Little Miss Kindergarten!  If you have not checked out her blog... you will WANT to!  Cute! Cute! Cute! 


Students rolled a dice within a dice.  Then they added the two numbers together.  Love the butterfly!  She has this for FREE on her TpT store.

From the fabulous Deanna Jump's Insect Unit from TpT.  My kids loved having ants in their pants.  They just giggled and giggled when I told them the name of this station!

And this was from Kathleen Pederson's wonderful blog-FREE!  I grabbed it some time ago, but you know how money can be a challenge.  I made the reference cards so the students could refer back to them if needed.  I just taped two coins to an index card (front and back), wrote the name of the coin, and the value... nothing fancy.

Caught Being Good

Boy Howdy... My kids are ROWDY!!!

I don't think it helps that we have had a steady weather diet of storms, storms, and more storms these past 7 days.

I thought I would try a little bribe and catch them being good.  Here is my plan:

First  I went to my local Wal-Mart and grabbed some of these.

Yes... Silly Bands (12 for $1.00)

Download by clicking on the picture

Then I printed these little cards (laminated them so they can be reused) and put each student's name on the back.  These will go into a cup and during random times of our day, I will pull one out and reward those who have been "Caught Being Good" with a Silly Band.  Once the whole class has been cycled through, I will do it again. 

What ways to you catch and reward your students for being good?

Shark's Dinner-A Subtraction Game and a Give-Away

I put together a little math game with a oceanic theme!

Click on the picture to download it for FREE!!!


If you are planning a ocean/beach unit, you may like some of my ocean themed literacy stations:
Ocean CVCe SHARK!!Game
Watch Out for Rain! Roll, Say, Keep
Under the Sea High Frequency Word Game

Also... Check out this wonderful giveaway!  She is celebrating her 100th follower with lots of goodies!

Email Troubles

With our crazy Missouri storms this weekend, our school email went down and it looks like I have lost 2 days worth of emails...boo hoo.  If you have emailed me in the last few days and I have not answered you, will you email me again?   It looks like the techo-magicians have fixed it... fingers crossed!!!

UPDATE:

It looks like our school email is down again... ROAR!  So if you need to reach me, try my gmail"

owens65066@gmail.com

I don't really care for gmail, but at least you can reach me.

Sorry

Insects and Oceans Games

 I have had a lot of fun putting these new stations together. 




 




Click on the pictures to link to my TpT Store.

Information Overload? Try Google Reader

I love following blogs, but sometimes I get information overload.  Have you ever seen something wonderful, but you forgot which blog had it featured?  That is why I love Google Reader.  How do you access Google Reader?

 It is right on your Blogger Dashboard.  This will list the blogs you follow.

Then if you want to search those blogs for something, just enter a key word.

Any other blog organization ideas out there?

Ode to my blogging angels

You know that moment in time when you KNOW your life is forever changed for the better?  Well, it happened to me in the stationary isle of my local Wal-Mart. 
Yes, Wal-Mart!

It's a laminator for my home!!! 

For under $30 my life has been altered forEVER!  I also found a deal at Amazon for a 50 pack of film... just $12.21!!!  Seriously?  It just gets better and better.

Gone are days of printing on Sunday... then breaking the land-speed barrier on Monday as I rush to school to turn on the laminator...praying it will heat-up in time for me to laminate my latest finds.

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!  to my blogging angels: beachliesl and Ashley at

Math Stations This Week

Here is a little peek into some of my math stations that I rotated in this week.

 This one is from my good friend Barb at Kinderzoo. Students moved their marker on this SUPER cute game board.  They then practiced counting.  You can find it on TpT.

 This is from Fran at Kindergarten Crayons... So cute!  I did not have a good ink pad, so we used paint daubers.  Hop over to her site to grab it.

This is from somebody WON.DER.FUL!  But I can't recall who... Please let me know so I can give you credit and link to your blog!  I placed plastic coins in eggs and they students totalled the amounts.

This is from Kim Adsit's Bug Math Game Pack... Love her stuff!  This one is about fair-share.  Our school laminator makes our paper curl... Eerrr!  If I won the lottery...

Okay... Tornado Watch is on and the sky is yellow!  I'm headed to the basement.... YIKES!!!



Made for 1st Grade Giveaway

You are going to want to win this one!

Click on their blog header to jump over to their great Giveaway!   But I gotta tell you... I hope I win!

Literacy Station Task Cards

I love Debbie Diller's Work Station Task Board

But I have created other stations, so I needed to create a few new task cards.

You can download these for FREE by clicking the picture.

If you are looking for stations to go with these task cards, you can find them here:

Word Sorts

Hello Bunny long and short "o" word sort

Hello Bunny long and short "a" word sort

Hello Bunny long and short "i" word sort

Time Me (Fluency Station)

Happy Easter! Word and Phrase Fluency Station

Insects Gone Buggy! Word and Phrase Fluency Station

Roll, Say, Keep

Beware of Bird! Insect Roll, Say, Keep

Watch Out For Fox! Easter Roll, Say, Keep

Card Games

Egg Racers Easter CVCe Game

Monster Truck CVC Game

Back to the Barn CVCe Game

Wild Zoo CVC Game

ROAR Dinosaur CVC Game

Happy Sunday!
Make your "wish list" and I will be happy to add to these task cards.  Just leave a comment about what stations you need a task card for (and a little description of your station so I can find a good graphic).

Student Awards

I created a few rewards that I will use in my class.  I will use the Wizards for my word wizards (those who have mastered their 54 high-frequency words). The King and Queen rewards will be used for various other acknowledgements (academic or otherwise).

Click on the pictures to download...Help yourself!

 

You can also find some a HUGE selection of positive reinforcements at Cara Carroll's TpT store... for FREE

We have a WINNER!

Congratulations to you!!!

Please respond to Leslie at KindgergartenWorks within the next 48 hours!  Woo-Hoo

Baseball Fever!

I just have to admit it, I am not a big baseball fan.  However, my kiddos ARE!  So I guess it is not all about me... Did I just admit that?

Well, I discovered this adorable blog with a SUPER cute Baseball unit!  Jump over to Katie's Little Warrior blog.  I bet you will be impressed!  I can't wait to try out the Pujol's art project!

Kindergarten Writing Scoring Guides

Ok you smart bloggers... I need your feedback!  Our district is in the Process of revising our Writing Scoring Guides.... AGAIN!  Why is writing such a challenge to assess?  I know why, but I just wanted to say that!  LOL! 


Anyhoo, we are attempting to align our rubrics with Common Core Standards and Missouri's GLE's.  We are also looking at our 1st grade exectations and trying to line everything up.  Makes sense, right?


Here is what we developed for Kindergarten.  I would love your FEEDBACK (you can also be my editors)




This is for the beginnning of the year.  Once the writer has progressed beyond this stage, they will be scored on page 2.

 

Ok... Let me know your thoughts!

Riddle of the Day-Bugs! Bugs! Bugs!

I have gotten quite a few questions about my Riddle of the Day morning message.  To read more about these click here, here, and here.

Here are some riddles with an insect theme.

You can download it  FREE here.

I have added my Insect read, trace, glue, and draw to my TpT store.


AND... Don't forget to enter our DOUBLE GIVEAWAY at KindergartenWorks.  There are 7 items you can win from our TpT store... Woo-hoo!  Just click the button below and you are on your way

How to: Link your comments directly to your blog

Kristen at Ladybug's Teacher Files has posted a wonderful "How-to" on our Teaching Blog Addict site.  It allows you to link your blog to comments that you make. 

I love this because when people comment on one of my blog posts, I want to hop on over to their blog (that is what stalkers do).  By placing the link, it makes it so easy to quickly stalk... I mean link up!

If you are looking to add followers to your blog I can not recommend this practice enough. 

Check it out... be patient... and if you want to try it, hop over to get her step-by-step "How to".  Believe me, if I can do it, ANYone can!
I would suggest that if you try this, go back and see your comment... Test that link out!  Make sure you got it!
Leave a comment and let me know how you did!!!

Double Giveaway!

I am so excited to team up with Leslie at KindergartenWorks!  We are having a MEGA Give-Away!

Here is what you can win:

Seriously!!!!  I'm not making this up!

Head over to Leslie's blog at KindergartenWorks to enter. 

 Or simply use the button below.  Simple!



Math and Art at the Same Time!

How do you fit it all in?  How about multi-tasking?  I saw this adorable cherry blossom tree on  Hand and Footprint Arts & Crafts. Then I thought skip-counting?  We do skip-counting!!!  Wah-lah!  A math station was born.

First you will make (or have them make) a tree trunk.  Then they will dip the end of a pencil into pink paint and place 5 blossoms together in clumps.  Finally they count by 5's and record the total number of blossoms.

Here is the recording sheet.

Any other station multi-taskers out there?

A few of my favorite things LINKY Party

Katie at Persnickety Pickles is having a Linky party... Yay! These are fun.

To play along you need to write your favorite 7 things and they can't be teacher-related.

Here are mine:

1. Diet Coke... seriously!  I have an unhealthy addiction to it.  Let's just say I can go through a case in a weekend without even batting an eye.  However, I have been Diet Coke free for 47 hours (this is my semi-annual kick-the-habit campaign).  I've been SUPER fun to be around.

2. GLEE and no I am not 16 years old. I L.O.V.E. that show!

3. Foo Fighters! They were SNL this last Saturday night.  Awesome!

4. My iPhone.  It contains all sorts of lovely gadgets.

5. Pretty much everything Jane Austen.  I think I have read them all 2-3 times.

6. Sleeping while there is rain on the roof.   A good thunderstorm is up there too.

7. Mexican food!  Real Baja-style scrumpious-ness.  I go home to San Diego once a year and gorge myself.


Tag!  Your it!  Link up!

Spring! Spring! Spring!

As I was driving into town today, I noticed the dogwoods were starting to bloom.  They come into bloom so quickly, you can almost watch them stretch out their beautiful finger-lace blossoms.

Yippeeee!  I found this poem.  We will  be looking at 2-word poems next week, so this fits the bill!

Here is a little spring FREEBIE!

Baseball, Frogs, and High-Frequency Words

My kids loved the Monster Truck CVC game so much, that I thought I would make something else they love a bunch... Baseball!!!

There are 48 high-frequency game cards included.

You can grab it from my TpT store.

However... if you are QUICK, I will send this to the first three people who comment on this post. 

Winner! Winner! Winner!

Congratulations to Love, Polka Dot for winning my New Blog + Easter Giveaway!

If you would please send me your e-mail, I will forward your loot!

Thanks to everyone who played along!