Five for Friday - Feb. 27, 2015

For today's post, I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her Five for Friday linky party.

This was a busy but weird week. We had a regular school day on Monday, no school Tuesday due to winter weather, delayed start Wednesday due to ice, and regular school day Thursday and delayed start due to temperatures and the threat of ice Friday. Here are some pictures from my weird week:

This was a picture of one of the trees beside my house during the freezing rain storm we had in coastal SC on Tuesday. It looks pretty but it was COLD! I am just so glad we didn't lose power for this storm!

My sweet girl loved pulling down the icicles off my flagpole after the ice storm on Tuesday. She is fascinated by ice and this just made her smile. I love those sweet dimples!

We read The Cat in the Hat this week and my kinders wrote about their favorite part of the story. I thought their illustrations were absolutely adorable!!

My mom stuck this note in my lunch this week and it made me smile so I stuck it on my laptop so I can see it everyday at school. She was writing it from M and her!

This was my sweet girl before I had to come to work. She is always ready to have her picture taken as you can tell!



Now head on over to Doodle Bugs Teaching blog to see all the other Five for Friday posts! Have a great weekend!

Winter Weather Day & a TpT Sale!

Well today I am spending the day at home with my little love and enjoying every minute. Our school district called off school for today because of the winter weather we had heading our way. We were supposed to have snow mixed with rain this morning but we didn't get that. Instead we got freezing rain all day. I have ice on everything outside my house. I am so thankful for my heat and a warm house to spend the day in!

In other news, TpT is throwing a Teachers Are Heroes sale tomorrow where everything in my store (and most other sellers' stores) will be 20% off. Plus TpT is throwing in an additional 10% off all purchases with the code: HEROES! This is a great time to clean out your wishlist. I know I have quite a few things I plan on purchasing tomorrow. Just click on the picture below to head to my store:

Thanks to Krista Wallden & Creative Clips for the cute graphic!

Don't forget my Kindergarten HM Journeys 2011 edition Sight Word Bundle is also included in this sale! This bundle is a growing bundle that you can get all the updates for free as they are added!

Oh Lovely Sight Words!

Well my kinder class is still working on learning sight words. As I have shared before, we use the sight words from the 2011 edition of Houghton Mifflin Journeys reading series. As we have been going through each unit this year I have been creating activity sheets for the sight words. These units are for sale in my TpT store. My kinders have really enjoyed them and I think it helps them to have more practice with each of the words. I use the sheets for morning work or independent work throughout the day as well as homework. 

I have just posted my newest set: 

Kindergarten Journeys Sight Words Unit 5 (2011 edition)

This unit is $4.00 in my TpT store. 

I think this is my favorite unit so far. This unit included a bonus sight word reader for the kids to read and color. My kinders love these activities!

Technology Tuesday: Printing on Sticky Notes

If you are like me and have admired how other bloggers keep themselves organized with cute little tabs made from sticky notes on their binders and notebooks, then I have found the simplest tutorial for you to use. Jessica Fredrickson has a great tutorial and template that is free in her TpT store. She gives step by step directions for printing and it couldn't be simplier! I am so excited that I can now print these for myself!


If you would like to download Jessica's free tutorial and templates, please click on the link below:

Jessica Fredrickson Sticky Note Tutorial & Template Freebie

Five for Friday - Feb. 13, 2015

For today's post, I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her Five for Friday linky party.

This has been a very busy week for me at school so I have plenty of pictures to share. Without further ado here are my five photos from this week:

This week during one of my Daily 5 rotations, we worked on stretching out CVC words and then deciding if they were real or silly CVC words. My kinders LOVED this activity! It is a part of my Lots of Love unit in my TpT store. 

This week our kindergarten team made a flipchart of Valentine sentences for our kinders to correct. This was a great activity for my kinders and they love finding my mistakes!

This week we went on a quick field trip to our local dentist office. We do this every year with our kindergarten classes and it helps them understand that the dentist office is not a scary place at all. Plus they get to see all the cool tools the dentist and hygienist use when they clean teeth. 

Today in honor of Valentine's Day, we graphed the candy hearts. My kinders love this activity every year and they did such a good job. Their favorite part is always eating the candy hearts when they are done!

These were the valentines I made for my class this year. I thought they turned out so cute. I got the idea from Pinterest and then made my own cards to go on the bubbles. I got the bubbles 8 in a pack at the Dollar Tree.

Now head on over to Doodle Bugs Teaching blog to see all the other random photos from this week! Have a great weekend!

Math Monday: Comparing Numbers & Sets

I have been working with my kinders on comparing numbers and sets (K.CC.6 & K.CC.7). I think this is such an important skill for kinders to understand, but for some of them it is so difficult because they don't have a good number sense (although we have been working on it ALL year!). 

We used this activity (made by one of my friends down the hall) to practice comparing two numbers. My kinders loved it because it was a hands-on activity and they got to use the Expo markers and erasers. Plus the alligators were so cute! This was a great informal assessment to see who could write the numbers and decide which alligator needed to go in the middle. I put the pages in sheet protectors so they would be reusable and then we store the alligator pieces in the back of the sheet protectors so they are easier to keep together. 

After we finished this activity, I had my kinders do some practice on their own using these comparing numbers sheets from The Twenty Something Teacher. This was another good way to assess who understood the concept as well as who needed more intensive help from me.

Greater Than, Less Than Printables - NO PREP!

Do you have any other fun activities to help practice comparing numbers? I would love some new suggestions to add to my toolbox! Happy Monday!

Dental Health Week - Taking Care of Our Teeth

This week we have been learning about dental health since it is Dental Health month. Our class will be going on a field trip to our local dentist office next Friday so we wanted to cover this unit early in the month. 

I found many ideas to help teach this unit on Pinterest. Just click on the picture below to go to my dental health board.

KinderKids Fun Dental Health Board on Pinterest

This week we made these minibooks from Sweet Sounds of Kindergarten called My Healthy Teeth. This is a freebie in her TpT store so head over and download it for yourself too! The kinders had to fill in the missing word which was "my". This was a good review of some sight words for them and they always love creating a new book to add to their book baskets that they can read easily during Read to Self (Daily 5).

My favorite activity we did this week was our tooth fairy craft and writing. This craft was a freebie from Angie Neal's TpT store - Tooth Fairy Art Activity. The kinders LOVED making these! They were so creative with the way they made theirs and each one was unique. Then they wrote about what they would do if they were the tooth fairy. These are by far one of my favorite things we have done this year!

I love how he turned his toothfairy into a boy with short pieces of hair!

This one is so neatly made!

Her writing is adorable: I would fly at night and I would give kids 5 dollars.

I hope you are enjoying your Saturday. I am hoping for a relaxing weekend with my little family. I feel like we all need it. I am definitely looking forward to having Presidents Day off in just a little over a week.

Five for Friday - Feb. 6, 2015

For today's post, I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her Five for Friday linky party.

Here are five photos from this week:

This is a game I made back in 2012 to have my kinders practice identifying the syllables in different words. I used it with one of my groups of struggling readers this week during Daily 5. You can download this game for free by clicking here: 

Valentines Syllable Sort

We have been working hard on guided reading during Daily 5. Most of my kinders are really making good progress with their reading, but there are a few I am still concerned about.

My kinders are really LOVING our writer's workshop right now. They are so excited to be able to put their thoughts down on paper and I am so proud of the progress they are making!

Read to Self has become a favorite activity for my kinders during Daily 5. This kinder was so excited today when he got to read in my rocking chair! It is a favorite spot for all of them!

This was one of my kinder's writing from earlier in the week. She wrote this in her journal during Work on Writing. It made me smile when she chose to share it with the class today!

Now head on over to Doodle Bugs Teaching blog to see all the other random photos from this week!