Wordless Wednesday - Happy Halloween!

Math Monday: November Math Journal Prompts

This weekend, I finished creating my November Math Journal Prompts to use with my kinders and uploaded them to TpT and TN. Right now the set only has 12 prompts, but I will be adding more to the set. I have been very sick with a horrible stomach virus shared by one of my kinders so I have been working on them in between the sickness. Right now they are priced at $4.00 but they will go up to $5.00 when I get all the prompts added so purchase now and save. Then download the entire set when it is complete. 

This set addresses these CC math standards:K.OA.1; K.OA.2; K.G.1; K.CC.3; K.CC.4.a; K.CC.5; K.CC.6

Please click on the store you would like to purchase them from:

TpT                                        TN

I can't wait to use these in my classroom. I will let you know how it goes. If you use these in your classroom, I would love to hear how they are going.

Kindergarten Homework

I shared with you earlier this year that I do monthly homework calendars for my kinders in their homework folders. Each week there are different activities for them to complete with their family. Some activities are written activities (such as write the numbers 0-10 in order) while others are just hands-on practice they can complete at home (such as count the forks your kitchen or clap an AB pattern). 

One day each week I send home a homework sheet for them to complete that focuses on skills we have been working on in class. I sometimes use activity sheets from TpT or other resources for homework but lately have turned to creating my own homework sheets so they focus on the skills I want to address as well as "hitting 2 birds with 1 stone" so to speak. I am mixing the practice on 1 page. Here is one of mine that I created with DJ inkers clipart and I am sharing with you. 

 Homework Activity Sheet - Beginning Sounds Review & Counting Up to 10

I am thinking of putting a pack of these together in my TpT and TN stores. What do you think?

Friday Freebie: Beginning Letter Sounds Review Sheets

I have shared with you before that this year we are using the Houghton Mifflin Journeys reading series for the first time so I am redoing my letter sequence to follow the reading series. We teach all the letters by Dec. so they can be assessed in January so we are going in the order of the reading series but doing 2 letters per week. I redid some beginning sounds sheets with the new sequence. I hope you can use these too (even if you aren't using Journeys!).

G, R, D, & O beginning sounds review sheet

J, E, L, & W beginning sounds review sheet

N, F, B, & I beginning sounds review sheet

If you download and can use these, I would love for you to leave me a comment and also rate me on TpT. Thanks so much! You are fabulous!!

Oh How Pinteresting!

I must admit, I am in love with Pinterest. There are so many great ideas and things on there. I could spend hours on Pinterest! My hubby calls it an addiction, I call it research! Haha!

I am once again linking up with Michelle at The Vintage Apple.

So here are my favorite pins this week:


http://pinterest.com/pin/39688040437424089/

http://pinterest.com/pin/39688040437563619/

http://pinterest.com/pin/39688040437215623/

http://pinterest.com/pin/39688040437569980/

http://pinterest.com/pin/39688040437279738/

http://pinterest.com/pin/39688040437337881/

http://pinterest.com/pin/39688040437563789/

http://pinterest.com/pin/39688040436587110/

Most of these pins go without explanation but I am loving the last quote. It fits right in with our Sunday School lesson from this past week. I am trying to be more mindful of the blessings I have in my life each day and boy do I have a lot!

Math Monday: Teaching CC Standards

Today we had a professional development after school on the new Common Core math standards. We have a lady coming in to help us each quarter with the standards we are supposed to be teaching and assessing during that quarter. She is fabulous and really helps us understand the standards. She helped us today on the 2nd quarter math standards.

K.CC.6: Greater than, less than, and equal to
One strategy she shared was to have the students practice using five and tens frames to compare sets. I made a set of five frames with 2 on a half page to work with my kinders in small groups. I think this will help them understand how sets match up and how one set is greater than, less than, or equal to another set.

I am so tired tonight that I can't share any more with you but I will share some more ideas for teaching the CC math standards soon.

Favorite Thanksgiving Books linky party

Chrissy over at First Grade Found Me has a great linky party happening right now about our favorite Thanksgiving books. I love teaching about Thanksgiving to my kinders so I had to link up. 

Here are my favorite Thanksgiving books in no particular order:

This is a cute book and one of my newest purchases.

I love this book series by Bethany Roberts. The pages rhyme and are simple to read so these are always hits in my classroom.

This is a great alphabet book about Thanksgiving. It gives some great information.

This is a funny book that my kinders always love!

Thrifty Thursday: Coordinating Cut-outs

I wanted to share with you some things I found at my local Dollar Tree store. My mom and I had to run in to pick up a few things and we found these adorable coordinating cut-outs for only $1.00 which I thought was great. There are 24 pieces in each set (12 of each thing).

These are the sets:

• Mouse & cheese
• Peanut butter & jelly
• Frog & lily pad
• Paint & paintbrush
• Bee & honey

I got one of each set and I may go back for more once I decide what I want to use all of them for. I was thinking maybe a rhyming matching game as one set. What other ideas can you think of?

Oh, How Pinteresting!

Happy Wednesday everyone! This week, I am linking up for the first time with The Vintage Apple for her Oh, How Pinteresting! linky party. 

Here are my favorite pins this week:



Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Dip
I made this for a football tailgating party this weekend and it is was a hit!

Rolo Stuffed SnickerDoodles
These look so good. I can't wait to try them.

Candy Corn Craft
This looks simple enough for my kinders. I think this may be the perfect craft to do on a fun Friday!



You might be a teacher if....
You have no idea what you ate for lunch! So true!



A Perfect Fall Outfit
Now I just need it to get cooler here in SC so I can pull this off!

Another Great Fall Outfit
I wouldn't be able to pull off a pair of boots that high but I love everything else about this adorable outfit!

Spooktacular Halloween Freebies

Halloween can be such a fun holiday. I love seeing how excited the kids become about their costumes and trick or treating. Since Halloween is coming up quickly, I wanted to share some Halloween freebies with you.

Sequencing Numbers 1-10 activity sheet - This is a practice sheet I made to have my kinders practice ordering the numbers from 1 to 10.

Halloween addition sheet - This is a simple practice sheet I created a few years ago when I was teaching first grade. I thought some of my firstie friends may be able to use it in their classrooms.

To make this even more fun, I am turning this into my first ever linky party. If you have a great Halloween freebie you would like to share with the bloggy world, please create a post and link up.

Math Monday: Math Journals

This is the first year I have used math journals in my kindergarten classroom. I took composition notebooks and begged my dad to cut them in half for me. He just loves that he has a daughter who is a teacher so he did it! This is the final result. I thought they turned out well and he did for lots less than I would have had to pay at a printing store.

These half size composition notebooks are perfect for my kinders. We just started doing the math journal prompts at the beginning of October. My kinders are loving it. They love showing me what they know! Here are some pictures of their work:

I created these prompts based on the standards we are currently teaching and working on. The October Prompts can be purchased for $3.00 in my TpT store and TN shop. 

I am working on the November Math Journal Prompts now and will upload them as soon as they are complete.

You've Been Boo'd! Linky Party

I am linking up with Cynthia at 2nd Grade Pad for her You've Been Boo'd linky party.

We are sharing some love for some fellow bloggers. I had some love shown for me from Jen at Jen's Kinder Kids so now I can't wait to pass it on.

Here's how to play: Choose a fellow blogger that has MORE followers, a fellow blogger with the same number of followers, and a fellow blogger that has LESS followers. Highlight their blogs and let them know you blogged about them. Lastly leave them a "treat" from your store.

Here are my bloggy favs:
  Jennifer has such a great blog for kindergarten teachers. She comes up with wonderful ideas that I love using in my classroom.     Michelle is another great blogger! She has some great ideas and activities to use in the classroom.   Keeping Up with the Kindergarteners is an adorable blog. She tells about her days in the kindergarten classroom.  

Now here is the "treat" for sticking around through this whole post. It is a set of Halloween counting mats. I am using these with the mini erasers from Target as a math center. Hope you can use them too!

Friday Freebie: Chevron Binder Covers

I made these binder covers for a friend to put on the cover of her notebooks. I hope you can use them too! You can download them for free from TpT by clicking on the picture below. 

 

The binder covers are in PowerPoint so you can just add a text box to the blank spots to put in your initials or what each cover is for. 

If you can use these, please leave me a comment and rate me on TpT. Thanks!

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I didn't get to draw for the winner of my Thanksgiving unit yesterday so I drew this morning. And the winner is....Leese! Congratulations!

What I'm Loving Wednesday

For the past couple of weeks, I have needed this saying to help me get through. 

Let's just say there is a lot going in my life right now that is trying to dull my sparkle. A few weeks ago we had a break-in at my house and although items were taken, the most important thing that was taken from me was my sense of peace at home. Now I am nervous every day when I come home since I was the one who found the break-in and had to call it in. Please pray that I can get some sense of peace back. 

Now, this is my What I'm Loving Wednesday post so let me share with you some things I am loving right now.

1) My amazing husband!
He is truly my best friend and has been so understanding about everything I have been feeling lately. He just takes time to listen to me which means more than he will ever know.

2) My sweet kinders!
Even though I have so many of them, they are a very sweet group. They give me 26 reasons to smile every day and their hugs always mean so much!

3) The blogging world!
I have learned so much from the wonderful blogging friends I have made in the past year. You all are great and I am so thankful for your support and friendship!

Donors Choose

I know I posted about this a week or so ago, but I am hoping to get some more votes. You only have to have an email address to vote for my class project. If you go to Sonic you will get a code for 2 free votes. Click on the picture below to vote!

Donors Choose is also having the friends and family match right now. If you want to donate to any project, just enter the code: PUMPKIN and your donation will be doubled. My Wild About Writing project only has $96 left to be fully funded. YAH! I also have 2 other projects that have less than $100 to being fully funded thanks to a local organization! Click on the picture below to see all 3 of my active projects.

New on TpT & TN: Thanksgiving Unit

I have been working hard to get my Thanksgiving Unit ready for to post in my TpT store and TN shop. I know I am a little early for the holiday but I thought you all might like to be able to plan early. This unit is packed full of activities that can be used in literacy and math stations as well as in small groups or whole group settings. Each activity is aligned with a math or language arts Common Core standard. 

Language arts activities:
-Matching uppercase to lowercase letters
-Matching beginning sounds to letters
-Trace, write, & glue sight words activity sheet
-Thanksgiving beginning sounds activity sheet
-Classifying objects activity sheet

Math activities:
-Matching sets to numbers game
-Sequencing numbers 1 to 10 activity sheet
-Sequencing turkeys by size activity sheet
-Thanksgiving counting activity sheet
-Sorting shapes activity sheet

 TpT store                             TN shop

Since this is my newest unit, I am having a quick giveaway for a free unit. Just enter the Rafflecopter giveaway below. I will draw for a winner on Thursday afternoon. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Fall Favorites Linky Party

Fall is in the air! Right now The Schroeder Page is hosting a fall favorites linky party where bloggers can share their favorite fall teaching resources. Here are my favorites that I have created so far:

1) Halloween Fun Unit - $5.00 on TpT & TN
This is my newest unit. I made it to use in my own classroom based on the kindergarten Common Core standards we are currently teaching and assessing. It has language arts and math activities. I am sure many (if not all) of the activities can also be used in first grade.

2) October Math Journal Prompts - $3.00 on TpT & TN
I created these math journal prompts based on the Common Core standards and listed the standards addressed in each prompt at the bottom of the prompt for future reference. I love how these give my students extra practice in the classroom and how I get to see what they are thinking as they solve the prompt. I will be posting a set for November soon. These are aligned to kindergarten CC standards.

3) Making Sets of 10 with Friendly Ghosts - $2.50 on TpT & TN
These tens frames were created with the Math Common Core standard  K.OA.4 in mind but I have been told they can be used to address a first grade CC standard as well. I use ghost erasers to have my kinders complete the tens frames. Then they will complete the addition problem ___+___=10. This is a skill I start working on early on to help my kinders internalize the complements that make 10.

4) Fall Counting Sheet - FREE on TpT
This is great to have the kids practice 1:1 correspondence while counting. This activity sheet can be used in kindergarten or first grade. 

I hope you found something here you can use in your classroom. Happy fall y'all!

Currently for October

October is here so it is time for Farley's monthly Currently linky party. 

I hope everyone has a fabulous Saturday! I am off to support my Gamecocks since ESPN Gameday is in Columbia. My friends and I are tailgating! YAH!

Fall Friday Freebies: Fall counting sheet & Ordering leaves (numbers 1-30)

Happy Fall y'all! Yes, I am a southern girl so this fits perfectly. I am so excited that it is now officially fall. This is probably my favorite season. I love watching the leaves change colors and feeling the cool morning air. Here in SC, it usually doesn't feel like fall until about November and even then we have some very warm days!

In the spirit of the fall season, I have a two fall themed freebies I created to use with my kinders that I am hoping you can use them too!

Ordering Leaves (numbers 1-30) cards

Fall Counting sheet up to 10 with numbers

If you download these activities and can use them in your classroom, I would love to hear about it.