Friday, June 26, 2015

Five for Friday- June 26


I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday. Thank you for hosting, Kacey! It was FINALLY our last week of school!  

Since the kids were getting really picky with each other and my room was 900 percent humidity, Trying to fill the last moments of kindergarten with some fun memories, my friend Leslie and I decided to have garbage pick up day!  What's more fun than that?  Each child had one gloved hand and a small plastic grocery bag on the other.  

We review the rules:  The "3G's"- Gloved hands Get Garbage,  always be able to see the teacher, do not pick up glass or sharp garbage, stay with your buddy, stay out of puddles (which were everywhere), and HAVE FUN!

We headed off down the trails with a buddy and found a lot of garbage!  Before we start, I am always worried that we won't find enough garbage for everyone.  How Pollyanna is that- that there won't be garbage?  Unfortunately/Fortunately, everyone was able to find enough garbage to make them happy.  
We put all of our garbage together in big bags when we were done. The big garbage bag is hiding behind the beautiful pink skirt in the middle.

And... we found a huge puddle with 4 frogs in it.  Score!  The kids could have stayed there all day. As soon as a frog saw someone, it darted to the other side of the puddle and came up.  They were so much fun.





I shared all of my FAVORITE summertime books that I loved to use with my children HERE at PreK and K Sharing.  I wrote about nine different books.  Here is one of them.





This is one of my favorite parts of this book- the Pizza Garden! What a fun idea and way to plant a garden.














I love to use A Visitor for Bear as a read aloud and writing prompt.  We had great discussions about friendships- why we need friends and what makes a good friend.

After I read the book, the children turned and talked about why it is important to have friends and to be a friend.  Then, we drew and wrote about it.
I was sad and I found a new friend.
 Because they cheer you up.
Because they always can help you.

 If a bully came to you, a friend would save you.


If you would like a copy of these writing prompts, just click the picture below!


This prompt is part of my Writing about Books packet that has 170 writing prompts for 102 different books.

Here are pictures of the books that I have included.





They are all different books than the ones I have in my  Author Studies Writing Prompt Packet.
This packet features 8 authors: Eric Carle, Donald Crews, Kevin Henkes, Laura Numeroff, Amy Krouse Rosenthal, David Shannon, Mo Willems, and Karma Wilson, 160 writing prompts, and 100 books! I listed each author packet separately, and then the big packet all together. Here are the links to the individual authors:










We read Hey, Little Ant this week.  This book is great for persuasive or opinion writing.  We had to write whether or not we would squish the ant, and tell why or why not.   Our vote was 9 to 7 - squish, even after the sweet story from the ant's perspective.   Oh well- 






They had some really good reasons for both.  These writers were all about leaving them alone, they will just go home, and they have lives, too...



These writers must have had some bad experiences with ants.  They take your food, they're mean, and they bite.




Here are a couple videos of the story.





After all is said and done, it's a good thing nobody saw the root beer barrel COVERED with ants, that someone had lost underneath my rolling cart in the classroom. (Who has a root beer barrel in school anyway?!) Those ants didn't stand a chance rolling that root beer barrel back to their home. They may be squished now because they were EVERYWHERE.  On my behalf, I did this the day before we read this book, and afterward, I did feel a little bit bad...

Click, Clack, Moo is another great book to use for a writing prompt! 
I want 2 things. I want an electric blanket and a pillow. 

We're tired of eating hay.  We would like a refrigerator with human food. 

We shared our letters after we wrote them.  The kids got in a circle on the rug, and one at a time stood up to read their letter.  This little one was so proud of his letter, and he ended it with, "Sinseriously, The Ducks."  I LOVED it.  I am pretty much going to use that from now on when I really mean something, I have decided.
I want a motorcycle and a diving board and a monster truck.  Sinseriously, The Ducks. 


And finally, I want to share one of my favorite gifts that I got for the end of the year.  I asked the sweet mother who made it for me if I could share it, because it's such a wonderful reminder of what is really important to and for children, to and for their parents, and to and for teachers! What people who make educational decisions about curriculum but don't actually teach sometimes forget is that the biggest successes most often aren't what the students can read or write, but who they become on the inside as they grow in the classroom.  Sometimes those successes may not seem like a big thing to the outside world, but we know that they are huge.  



If I were writing a page in The Important Book, it would go something like this... This little sweetheart can read and write anything he wants to, read the highest level book we are allowed to test in kindergarten with 100% accuracy and comprehension, and scored perfect scores on his end of the year evaluations.  But the important thing about this little sweetheart is that he learned to feel safe speaking to adults, gained confidence in himself and his abilities, and learned to love school and learning.  (AND he loves Minecraft with all his heart! )



Happy Weekend!  Happy Summer! Thank you for stopping by!

Sinseriously, 



Wednesday, June 24, 2015

FREEBIES!

I found a couple fabulous freebies that I had to share with you in case you haven't seen them!

custom teacher blogger sample shirts
A+ Images has a wonderful offer for bloggers!  I just found it - or I would have mentioned it sooner (before Las Vegas!).  If you blog about their fabulous site, you can receive a FREE t-shirt with your blog button or information on it!  HOW exciting is this?




For a limited time, we are offering teacher bloggers a free custom blogger shirt!
To take advantage of this offer, visit designtool.aplusimages.comand upload your blog logo and/or TPT store info to design the front and/or back full color shirt! You can add text and clipart found in the designer. Please, do not upload any copyrighted material you are not legally authorized to use. You can choose from ladies or unisex t-shirts in any color offered. Your shirt can have any design on it, but at least one side of the shirt must have your blog logo/name/website, etc. PLEASE DO NOT USE ANY IMAGES FROM THE INTERNET (except this TPT logo if desired)! ONLY UPLOAD ORIGINAL, HIGH QUALITY ART!Please include your blog name in the comments box.
In return, we ask you write a post about us. There's nothing exact you need to say. You can talk about the teachershirts.com site, the design tool you used, our Classroom Faces shirts, have people follow our FacebookPinterest, and Instagram pages, show pictures of you in your shirt (or one of our other shirts), etc.
We will generally ship your shirt within 2 business days of receiving the design through the website. It will take more time if artwork is not print-ready.

UPDATE 6/1/15: Due to high demand, these may take longer than 2 days.  If you order by the 15th, they should still arrive before the end of the month.  To speed up the process, please use high quality artwork!  300 dpi vector-based art is ideal.  If you pull a 1" image off your site and blow it up to fill up the front of the shirt, it will not work and we will hold your order until we get better artwork.
Limit one shirt per blog during this offer. Offer expires 9/30/15.

I didn't even believe it could be true, so I made my T shirt and sent it in for a quote.  Next thing I knew,  I received an email saying my T shirt had shipped!  I wrote back saying I didn't even know how much it was or didn't even realize I had paid for it- and it was because DUH- I didn't have to!  It was FREE from this awesome site. 

A+ Images, Inc. is a full-service garment decorator. We offer screen printing, embroidery, vinyl, direct-to-garment, and rhinestones. We also have in-house graphic designers to help you make the custom t-shirt of your dreams. If you are tired of working with massive online companies with no customer service, come see us. We sell directly to four niche markets, plus act as a contract printer for customers in the Indianapolis, IN area. We can supply blank shirts, drop-ship orders, and help you start a website or company store with order fulfillment. School programs are easy to start too. Give us a call...we'd love to work with you!

Look at what you can get!


It is such a great site to know about.  I love the Classroom Faces shirts!  My friend gets one for each of her students for a Christmas gift, and then they all wear them several times during the year- and finish up wearing them at our outdoor field days toward the end of the year.  What a wonderful idea. 

Thank you, A+ Images!  Go check them out!

Next,  Margo from Sightwords.com introduced me to her site which is FULL of wonderful FREE activities and resources for teaching and reinforcing sight words.  These flashcards and games would be great for the classroom, for RTI, or to send home with students.  Free!!!




Look at all the fun sight word games!



And great sight word cards...




These pictures just show some of what there is to offer at the site.  I love knowing of good sites to explore- and Sightwords.com is one of them for you to check out this summer!

Have fun! Thanks for stopping by!