Christmas Planning

Last week, our kindergarten team sat down and tried to map out our next 2 1/2 weeks before Christmas break. This is always such a busy time for me at school as well as at home. It seems there is never enough time to get everything done. I wanted to share with you some of the ideas we are planning to do with our kinders.

This week we are planning to start by making a countdown to Christmas Santa with his beard being the countdown. This is an old pattern that a teacher had where you put a cotton ball on each day until Christmas eve. It is always fun for the kids to make and I make one to hang up on our calendar board.

We will start working on our Rudolph ornaments on Tuesday. These are the traditional ornaments made from the 3 popsicle sticks. They are always a favorite and they turn out so cute. Usually we start painting one day and then do the finishing touches the next day.

I have also had a request for the tags to go on the snowman handprint ornaments for this year. I updated it with the correct year. I hope you can all use it!

2012 Snowman Handprint Tags

I am sorry I don't have more pictures to share with you right now but I promise to take some this week. Happy planning!

Oh How Pinteresting!

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

Since I am starting my planning for Christmas in my classroom, here are my couple of my favorite pins this week:

http://pinterest.com/pin/39688040436633598/

These are adorable ornaments made with the students' thumbprints. I have done a similar reindeer ornament but never the snowman so I am thinking this may be cute to add to my collection.

http://pinterest.com/pin/39688040435840129/

These are cute ornaments to make with the kiddos. Our kindergarten team is planning to make these this year on the shatterproof balls.

Friday Freebie: Thanksgiving Counting Sheet

Happy Friday friends! I feel terrible for being such a bad blogger lately so I am sharing a fun freebie with you this Friday while I am heading to my graduate class.

I created this counting sheet to use as morning work with my kinders but you could also use it as homework or a math review. 

You can download this activity sheet on TpT. Please leave me some feedback if you download. Thanks so much!

Now if I can get through the 2 days next week, we will have 5 days off for Thanksgiving! Can't wait!! 

New on TpT & TN: GingerCuties Unit

Since I started working on my GingerCuties unit last weekend, I haven’t been able to stop working on it. I have loved creating everything in this unit! I love gingerbread men and knew I wanted to use this clipart to make a useful unit for my kinders. This unit has both language arts and math activities aligned with the Kindergarten Common Core standards.

Language Arts:

·       My Gingerbread Man writing paper

·       Trace, write & glue sight words activity sheet

·       Gingercuties beginning sounds activity sheet

·       Matching uppercase & lowercase letters literacy activity

·       Gingercuties beginning sounds literacy activity

·       Gingercuties beginning sounds cut & paste activity sheet

Math:

·       Matching numbers to sets center game

·       Gingercuties  tens frames match center game

·       Count the gingercuties activity sheet

·       Roll & Race to 50 gameboards (color & B&W)

·       Tracing & writing numbers to 20 activity sheets

·       Sequencing numbers 1 to 10 activity sheet

The unit is available for $5.50 in both of my shops.

TpTstore                             TN shop

MIA & November Currently

I am so sorry that I have been MIA for the past few weeks. Lots has been going on in my life and this month has been CRAZY! Last week was a 4 day week (Election Day) and this week is also a 4 day week for us (Veteran's Day). Next week we only go to school 2 days because of the Thanksgiving holidays. Needless to say my kinders have been very active! I am also taking a graduate course right now with plenty of coursework. So in the crazyness of all this, I have neglected my little blog. I hope you will all forgive me. I promise to try to get back on track.

So in an effort to get back on track, here is my November Currently.

 Hop on over to Farley's blog to participate in all the fun!

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!