Five for Friday September 12

I am linking up with Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday!

We had lots of fun this week- and we used our Fun in Fall Prezi a LOT!  We worked with apples, our monarch changed into a chrysalis, and we watched some back to school videos.  The children loved watching the caterpillar change into a chrysalis.  If you would like this Prezi, I made it one for the United States and one for Canada.  

The Back to School part of the Prezi is FREE at my TPT store. Just click on the picture!

Here are some of the other Prezis that we used this week.  Just click on the picture if you want to go to that Prezi at my TPT store.  It is SUCH a time saver for me to have these up on the board so I can just click to whatever link I want to bring up. The Kindergarten Math is a bundle of 4 Prezis- for all of the math standards.  This week, we used this one- Counting and Cardinality. This one also has Base 10 on it.

I think I am going to do my Five Senses unit in the Fall this year. I usually do it in Spring, but I am thinking Fall or Christmas would be lots of fun, with lots of great senses activities. I could literally sit in a room with a McIntosh Apple Yankee Candle- or any of the Autumn Harvest candles- and use my sense of smell all day long- plus I love to make my scented Play Doh with fall scents.

 

If  you know me, you'll know that this is one of my FAVORITE things to see my children do... play. The learning that happens during playtime is more that I could even write down. This little group had a ball in my housekeeping area, playing and getting to know each other.  I love taking the time during these busy first couple weeks of school to walk around and play WITH the children- talk to them, laugh with them, and just listen to them.  If you want to learn about your children, just listen to the way they play.

 

My friend Susanna from Whimsy Workshop shared this idea that she found somewhere.  I have gone back and cannot find where I saw it- so if it's your idea, I'm sorry I'm not giving you credit- but thank you because I really like it!  I've been having my kids come in, put away their lunchbox and folder, and then find their name and answer a question before they begin their morning work.  This week I asked about a letter in their name.  This was great practice for them to recognize and find their name, and then for us to count how many were in each column.  Plus, we got a little graphing, and more and less work in  already. 

I posted some Pre-Writing Warm Up Activities at PreK and K Sharing this week.

My post also included some of my favorite sensory ideas to use with my children.  This time of year (well, any time of year, actually!) I like to use lots of fine and gross motor activities with the class. 

I made a paper that I send home to parents with some ideas that they can use at home to work on developing fine motor skills.  Lots of times parents want to help, but aren't sure what activities would be best.  Click HERE if you would like a copy. I am sending a copy of this paper home on our Curriculum Night, and then again during our 10 Week Conferences with parents of children who may need some extra fine motor strengthening.

                             

Here are a couple Friday Favorites:
My friend Lorri, who teaches first grade across the hall from me, had this adorable idea for "preserving" summer memories, for her students' first writing activity back to school.

And finally, you know how I made this anchor chart about drawing a person?

Well, we actually had a lesson and everything- a very detailed lesson. I modeled it. I saw lots of nodding.  So, when the kids sat down to draw a picture of themselves for our Class Friends book in the nice little box I had for them, above their picture, this little friend said...

 "Let's just start with addin' my deer horns!"

I'm pretty sure that's not what we started with when I did my drawing lesson...

Have a WONDERFUL weekend!  Thanks for stopping by!

Favorite Pins Friday? Yep!

I don't even think there is a Favorite Pins Friday linky- but I have some favorites, so guess what?! I am going to talk about them - and it is Friday- so...  Here we go! :)

My first and FAVORITE  pin is from Sarah (A Sunny Day in First Grade).  I was the LUCKY winner of her Elmer the Elephant packet from her TPT store.  I love introducing my class to Elmer each year, and this will make it SO much more fun. The activities she included in the packet are wonderful. Thank you SO much, Sarah! <3

Next, I found these Retelling Sticks as a FREE download  at Keeping it Captivating's TPT store. They will be so useful!

I loved this letter idea from Meaningful Mama.  This would even be fun to do as a send-home family project, with everyone making a different letter.

This idea was from Structured Play and will be really great for the beginning of the year!

These wonderful beginning year ideas are from Kindergarten Kindergarten.  I love her blog.  How simple, yet fabulous is this anchor chart?!

In her post she talks about purposely leaving the caps off the markers and glue, to show the children what can happen to them- and how important it is to take care of our school tools.  This is SO important to take the  T I M E to teach in the beginning of the year.  Sometimes it gets so busy those first few days, that I forget to teach these basics really well.  This is going to be one of my first Writer's Workshop lessons! She has so many other great ideas. Thank you, Kathryn!

Cara, at The First Grade Parade has a really good post about these confusing little characters, b and d.  There are lots of ideas to help the children remember their bifferences differences.

 

She had an adorable little camping theme going on over at her blog, too.  Isn't this campfire crown just so darling?!

Last "schooly" pin is this cutie from To The Lesson . SO easy, independent, and clever. I think I am going to make fish on a poster board as a sort of mat for this activity- but the separate fish are really cute, too, and take up less room.  You could even use plastic fish with numbers on it- or two colors of stones and have fish with addition problems on them.  SO many options!



Now for some ... 

I have had a ball playing around with My Fridge Food! Well- not literally... but if you haven't seen this site, it's lots of fun to try.  You just check what items you have on hand, click,  and TA DA! Recipes appear that you can make with your ingredients.  (Look at that BACON CUP down there- is that even a real thing?!?!) Go ahead- Play with your food!

These were just sweet ones I kind of loved.

This was just so sweet/sad to me.  Aww- I just want to  hug those little fruits.

And I will leave you with these stools.  How do you NOT love these?! 

I hope you are all smiling- because no matter how many times I look at this, I still do!

Happy Friday!

Monday Made It

I am linking up with 4th Grade Frolics  for Made it Monday!

I actually made some things today! NO- not a really healthy dinner for my family, not money, not a clean house... hmmmm...     BUT I did make some other simple treasures! 


First, I will start with the treasure!    I added to my stash for next year.  The children LOVE this gold.  Last year, I even had a 4th grader come back to ask for a piece because he had seen one of my kids on his bus with a piece and he remembered it and loved it. :)

Here is the recipe  :)

Start with this.

Spray with this. Shhhhh. Do NOT tell anybody that it is NOT real gold.   Let dry. Turn.  Spray again.

 

TA DA!

So easy and fun!

 

 

This was another simple thing I made today. I am taking it to school tomorrow with a bunch of stuff to send get laminated. I used the large sheets of construction paper, so they are bigger than they look in the picture.   I am going to use these sorting mats with my tangrams as an independent math center at the beginning of the year.

 

Our 3rd and 4th grade teachers asked us to teach 'rhombus' to the children instead of  'diamond,' because the children need to know 'rhombus' in the intermediate grades, so they thought they should just begin calling it a rhombus from the start. 

 

So NOW we have to change everything:

 

A diamond   A rhombus is a girl's best friend. 

He's playing down at the baseball diamond rhombus.

I have an ace of spades and a Jack of diamonds rhombi. (I looked it up- it can be 'rhombi' or 'rhombuses'!)

 

Gee, thanks, Common Core.  HA HA! :)

 

 

The last thing I made is to send home at our  Kindergarten Picnic, which we have one evening the week before school starts so the children and parents can come see the room and meet the teacher.  I am going to have these out with some other things at each child's seat.  I figure if even ONE child starts working on writing his/her name at home, it's worth it!  :)  The names are written on cardstock which I am also sending to be laminated.  The sponges I got 10 for a dollar at the dollar store- and cut in half- so they were cheap- and they work great as erasers  for dry erase markers on laminated paper. 

 (Numbers are on the back- in case someone wants bonus points!!! :)

 I just put everything in a Ziplock bag because I had lots of them.

 

That was my Monday Made It!  Now I have to make the bed cause the sheets just dried!  No picture of that, though.  ;)
Thank you for stopping by!

Carolyn