Five for Friday Linky: January 30th

Our 100 days have arrived and we began with this sweet story called "Mr. George Baker". It is about a friendship between a little boy and a hundred year old man. They wait for the bus to take them to school because the older gentleman is learning how to read. As a class, we then talked about the differences in ages and some things we want to do before we turn 100 years old. We generated lots of ideas and some were just darling =)

I then found this cool app on my iPhone that ages the picture you take to make you look older. I would post mine but it scared me! LOL! The kids got a huge kick out of it! After we read the story from above, we took the pictures and then made a bucket list of things we would want to do before we reached 100. You can see his says 'go to college', 'get insurance', 'get married', 'get food', 'get money', 'go to school', 'get good grades', 'get a job', 'get a  house', and my all time favorite... 'get kids'. =) My practical lil guy!

Here was another one that I thought was really good....

I wanted to make sorting mats to show ten sets of ten. I don't have any volunteers this year and I thought that it would take a very long time to cut out 180 circles. So, I decided that each student only needed one circle and then they could trace and cut their own. I actually gave each one two sheets of long paper where they made ten circles to cut out. The kids then organized same color piles on the carpet before each table was called to pick ten circles for their mats.

I then passed out the number 10 to be glued on each circle to count to 100. I have snacks that they will use in putting ten in each one =) I set up a volunteer spot requesting items that could be counted out: marshmallows, teddy grahams, m &ms, pretzels, fruit loops, cheerios, etc.

These are all of the fun things I have planned for February! Our author study this month will be Ezra Jack Keats as we read through his books that I love...."Peter's Chair", "The Snowy Day", "Goggles", and more! I feel like I try to squeeze so much in this short month! I have TONS of books I want to use too!

I love the activities I have in my packs this month and I will put them on sale for the weekend! They are absolutely no prep but yet very informative! I will start next week with my groundhog activities:

I teach the kids the facts about groundhogs and then we make a 'can', 'have', and 'are' anchor chart. We also discuss fact vs. fiction and make a mini-informational text book!  Check it out here:

Operation Groundhog! Engaging Non-Fiction Activities for Young Learners!

Who doesn't love all of the fun in celebrating Valentine's Day? This is a great opportunity to teach the kids about writing and mailing a letter. I also incorporate the postal system! They love 'write the room' games and valentine scramblers, word searches, and decoding activities too! You can find it here:  Be My Valentine!

I made this pack because I needed non-fiction and informative text for my young learners. There are write the room activities,  Abraham Lincoln and George Washington activities with writing templates, PLUS learning about our American symbols.  You can find it here:

Patriotism & Presidency: Learn about George, Abe, & American Symbols

Has anyone ever used i-Ready? We had our grade level meeting this week and were told that we are going to pilot this with a group of kinders from each class. It is supposed to be a great diagnostic tool in showing student performance. We will see =)

Have a great weekend!

Five for Friday Linky: January 23rd

Yippee! Friday is here! Why is it that the shortened weeks feel longer? Here was our week in pics....

In our district, we utilize Everyday Math. Overall, I have been happy with it when my older children progressed through the grades but I have to do a lot of supplementing in Kindergarten. There isn't enough for my lil kinders. We worked on pan balances this week. I gave the kids magazines where they had to compare two objects and then demonstrate them on paper. They also took a paper and wrote about their findings. They came out cute!

In case you missed my post earlier this week, my kiddos because text evidence detectives! I made a new pack of differentiated text evidence activities for my kids. As I explained the directions, I could see their little minds starting to look at me with some curiosity until I said that they were going to become detectives in finding the clues in our passages! I was even going to give them some tools to help them! The squeals and gasps that came out of them when I opened the supply cabinet to reveal magnifying glasses! It was a hit. I passed out the differentiated passages and the kids didn't even make a fuss as to the reasoning why some children got level one and others got level 2. I was super impressed with how well they did!

Grab my Differentiated Text Evidence pack here!

I am sure that a lot of you are getting ready to celebrate the 100th day of school. This is the very first time that we will ever be doing so because this is the first year that we are full time. It was amazing to me that we passed 89 days last week and that is the number of days we had in an ENTIRE YEAR when we were part time. I scoured pinterest for as many ideas that I could find. These were some that caught my eye. I set up a Volunteer Spot for the donations so I hope they all come in =) I am excited to do this. What are you doing in your buildings?

You will get a laugh out of this one. Our new house is slowly coming along. The electrician showed up this week to hang all of the lights we picked out. I was mortified when I turned the corner and saw this hanging in the foyer! How did he possibly think this was correct? They were supposed to be staggered to resemble steps. Eeek! He told us 'it is what it is'.What does that mean? aaahhhh! So, back to the drawing board for a foyer light.

My lil kinders did so great on my text evidence activities last week that I am back at the drawing board making more. I love creating activities that are beneficial to my kids and fun to make!

Have a great weekend!

Text Detectives!

My heart is bursting with excitement as I watched my kiddos become text detectives with my latest pack this morning! I heard the squeals as I got the magnifying glasses out of the cabinet so I knew I grabbed their attention. I passed out the differentiated passages and explained each one. I told the kiddos that every detective has a magnifying glass that helps them to find the clues better. They then had to underline the important facts in discovering their evidence. They did such an awesome job and no one questioned why there were different activities which made me happy too =)

 Level I which reviews the basic high frequency words. Most of my kiddos are at this level.

Level II for those readers you have that need more of a challenge =)

My cute detectives with their equipment =)

Check out the passages in my new pack!

Text it!: Differentiated text evidence work

Have a great day!

Text it!: Differentiated Text Evidence Passages *Snow Theme

I finally finished it! I have been working on making these text evidence passages after doing them with my kiddos and seeing how much they enjoyed them! I have created four short stories that offer two different levels. Level I utilizes pre-primer words whereas Level II offers more challenging words for your more advanced readers. Each story asks the student to read the passage, find high frequency words (level II finds and tallies), respond to text, and write a personal response. I think you will find these to be very useful in helping to strengthen your student's literacy skills!

Check out the product in my shop! 

Text It!: Differentiated Text Evidence Passages *Snow Theme

I hope you are enjoying the long weekend!

Five for Friday Linky! January 16th

Happy Friday! So glad to make it to the end of the school week. We have been battling snow and freezing temps in Ohio for several weeks now and it's getting a bit tiring. I attached this quote because it is so fitting for this time of year. We just finished our second quarter report cards and this is the point where you see some kiddos really start to soar when new challenges are presented to them while others are still trying to gain ground. It's important to remember that they will all get there are some point while some are just naturally quicker than others. Here was our week in pictures.....

We read quite a few informational texts about penguins before I began some fictional ones. The kids particularly loved "Tacky the Penguin". He is an odd penguin that acts differently than the others. One of his noticeable traits is his floral shirt and bow tie he wears. We made a chart of all of his different qualities before we made our very own Tacky. I dug out some wall paper books for the kids to use in making the funky shirt. We then used our writing templates to tell a bit about the story. They came out darling =)

We practiced working on our calculators this week. We reviewed the parts of the calc and how they work before practicing our numbers. I had them putting in even and odd numbers, simple equations, address and phone numbers. It was a lesson to me as well in learning that lots of my kiddos need to work on their personal numbers!

Another huge hit this week was using the dot paints. I haven't gotten them out yet this year until this point but the kids really followed directions and used them well. I heard so many squeals and giggles that I will have to utilize them more in the near future. Who knew number counting and recognition could be so much fun =)? Thanks to Annie Moffatt for the entertaining activity!

As you can see, our penguin unit is underway. We started with making this anchor chart. I think so many films and documentaries have been made about penguins that they already knew quite a bit! It was a good opportunity to review our grammar (adjectives, nouns, and verbs) though.

I adore my Ohio State Buckeyes! I earned my Bachelor and Master of Ed degrees from OSU so I am a Buckeye through and through. I was super excited that they made it to the championship and even more thrilled when one by one my kiddos walked in with their OSU gear on. We had to take a snapshot on our Class DOJO to send to our parents.

You may have a chuckle at this one but I just purchased this game for our xbox for myself and I LOVE IT! I am an exercise freak...part of my OCD. I usually have over 10,000 steps in by 6 a.m. I know, I am nuts! I am a runner so I usually start that at 430 a.m. and then go to my local jazzercise class at 530. With the weather being so gross, they sometimes have to cancel class. So, I bought this to get my cross training in and it works! You can pick a class to do or go song by song. If you have never tried zumba you should give it a try.

Enjoy the long weekend!