Five for Friday May 6

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday. Thank you for hosting, Kacey! It was a dreary week.  Hopefully, that sun is out there ready to shine!

My friend Dan (Rocking Dan Teaching Man) made our entire week this week.  He sent us the OFFICIAL, REAL, TRUE heart used in his music video "How to Make a  Heart." All the way from Australia!  We had to look that up and see just how special that was!  Well, the kids were just thrilled  to pieces.  

Here is the certificate.  AND the heart!  We feel extremely famous right about  now...  It's authentic, don't ya know! 

If you haven't seen the song, here it is. It's so awesome for How To books!



AND Rocking Dan has a brand new song, The Friends of 20. It's lots of fun.  My kids are loving The Friends of 10 right now, too!  HERE is a link to Dan's Youtube channel. The kids have so much fun with this videos and learn so much.

Not really - but I was trying to think of what to call this.

Maybe "Magical Secrets."

My sweet friend Kristin, at A Teeny Tiny Teacher, wrote a post a while ago (I read every. single. one.) that has stuck with me, and I couldn't wait to try.  But it had to be the perfect, authentic time.  The perfect moment came this week, and it was as wonderful as I thought it would be.

In the morning, one of my little girls had a secret to tell me.  We don't usually tell "secrets" (cause "Secrets don't make friends."  My kids know that...) but it was an exciting special story. (She was having a new baby brother.)   Well, once she told me, someone else had something they needed to tell- whether it was getting a new puppy or going to get ice cream with grandma after school.  I sat in front of the room while the kids did morning work, and they came up one at a time to whisper to me.

This is where Kristin's idea comes in.   I had made a list of each student, and one special trait that I love so much about each student. "I  love how you are the best cleaner ever."  "I love how you are such a math whiz."  "I love how you are the first one to help anyone who needs help."  "I love how your smile fills everyone's bucket."  "I love how dependable you are if I ever need anyone to do an errand for me."  "You are such a great thinker. "

It took about 5 minutes or so before lunch to call each of my sweeties up to my chair on the rug and tell them their  special secret before they lined up for lunch. 

Every one of them got a HUGE smile, quietly walked to line up, and did not say a peep about their special secret.  They knew it was a special gift just for them, and it just  made each of them puff up a little bit more.  It was perfect.

Happy Mother's Day!  Here were our gifts!  I made the candy bars for each mom, and then each child wrote a "My Sweet Mom" book.  

This idea and free download is from Lovely Little Snippets - and I love it with all my heart. They turned out so precious!
Stefanie was so sweet, sweet, sweet to share this!  Thank you, Stefanie!

 

Here is the front and back up close.



Each child wrote a story about his or her "sweet"' mom.

My mom goes to the gym. When she goes there I miss her.

 I love my mommy because she does do good stuff.

 I like my mom because she makes me eggs.

 I can't live without you mommy because you are so special.

 I love my mom because she goes for a walk with me.

 She makes a ham. And she makes a turkey.  She's a good cook.

These adorable MoM's are from Kinzie's Kreations .  This year I got small size M&M's and copied these so they fit. 

The finished products looked like this:

I am going to have the kids wrap them together in ribbon with their book.

Kinzie shared this sweet printable from Over the Big Moon to go with this treat. How much do you love that?!

  

Kindergarten Lifestyle shared these wonderful I Can Cards for your block center. My kids LOVE them. They get them out for free choice all the time.  Sometimes, the pictures just give them ideas to work from.  

You can do as much with this as you want.  You could take a picture of the building and have the children write about what they built or use the building as a setting for a story.  You could have the children describe how they built their building and tell what they used to build it and why.  You could make a classroom book of the buildings, even putting the picture card on one side of the book and the photograph of the children's finished product on the other side.  My classes always love looking at our classroom books.  

OR- you can have them out  by the blocks at free choice for ideas.  Simple as that!



Thank you for stopping by! Have a perfect weekend.

Five for Friday July 17

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday. Thank you for hosting, Kacey! Actually, it's going to be a Lucky 7 for Friday- even though that makes no sense- because I want to share some freebies with you, and five just wasn't going to be enough.  Maybe it's still left over from Las Vegas- either way, here are my Lucky Seven!

I had a wonderful little break this week with my sweet friends Amy and Holly. It was perfect.  We shopped at the Destiny Mall near us and went to a comedy show.  The mall is HUGE. It was always special because of the carousel inside, but now is even so much bigger with a ropes course, race track, bowling alley restaurant, and ... every store ever (except Charming Charlies, we discovered, which we may need to open there).  So of course, we ended up in Michael's buying school supplies.  Yes. We actually did for a while.  Then, we snapped out of it.  

Speaking of that, we saw a hypnotist for a dinner show- and still aren't quite sure if we all believe it. We all felt exactly the same, which was skeptical, so we're not sure.   Holly got right up there, and we knew that we would then know if it was the real thing.  But she wasn't about to be bossed around by anybody wasn't really receptive to his voice, and was one of the ones that came to sit back down. Hmmmm. We were suspicious.  That, however, didn't in any way stop us from having the best time and laughing... a lot.  For two days. Perfect! We got matching coasters to remember it. 

So, I was in a happy mood to share some freebies that I have made or found that I hope will be useful to you as you begin a new year!

Dr. Jean and I made these FREE Kindergarten CCSS I Can Statement cards for ELA and Math last year. I wanted to share them again in case you didn't get them and wanted them.  They're great to use to start the year.  

You can copy the center cards (2 cards per page) on card stock, and cut them in half.  Hole punch at the top, and secure each strand with a book ring.  Flip through the book, and display the goal you are working on at the learning center.  You can also put magnets on the back to display the cards if that works better for you.  Feel free to adapt these cards so they work best for you and your students. 

Here are some ways that I used a few of the cards.

I put magnets on back of the Speaking and Listening cards, and put them up on my easel for rug time, because that is the time I focus on many of these standards. 

Dr. Jean made an activity to go with each and every CCSS, and has them FREE at her site!  You can find the Writing and Math Activities HERE .  

and the Reading activities HERE. 

You can make her fabulous center activities and use the cards at each center.  Dr. Jean is such a wealth of amazing ideas. I am so excited that she shared all of this work putting these Common Core activities together in one place.  Her website and blog are just full of fantastic ideas. She shares gifts of great ideas every single day at her blog. 

           

Kindergarten Lifestyle shared these wonderful I Can Cards for your block center. I can't wait to use these with my class.  The kids will love them, and they provide such a wonderful academic play center where the children can work together to discuss, plan, and build these buildings. 

You can do as much with this as you want.  You could take a picture of the building and have the children write about what they built or use the building as a setting for a story.  You could have the children describe how they built their building and tell what they used to build it and why.  You could make a classroom book of the buildings, even putting the picture card on one side of the book and the photograph of the children's finished product on the other side.  My classes always love looking at our classroom books.  

If you haven't gotten these great activity cards from Dr. Jean,  just click on the picture or HERE to download them! Dr. Jean wrote the great ideas, and I just added some pictures to go with them.  

There are 60 fabulous, fun learning activities to do with children that would be perfect for over the summer.  It's a way to really engage with your child and make some wonderful memories together. You could send these to your new little students in your class for something to do over the summer, OR pin them and save them for next year to send home with your students at the end of the year as a gift. 

Mary Amoson from Sharing Kindergarten remade Dr. Jean's Cheer Cards.  I use Dr. Jean's cheers all the time.  I printed them on card stock and put them on a ring and hang them right on my easel, so I can flip through and find a fun cheer easily.  

It's great to celebrate the children and for them to celebrate each other any chance you get!   You can teach a new cheer each week- or flip through and find one anytime you want something different. The point is... go ahead and CHEER!

                                                        

These FREE Pattern Block Cards from Erica at Confessions of a Homeschooler are FABULOUS!  I can't wait to use them next year for centers. I'm printing them on cardstock and laminating them so they last.  My kids love working with pattern blocks, and having these cards to help practice numbers and letters will be wonderful.

 She also shared these great Alphabet Pattern Blocks Printables! Thank you, Erica!

and just one more...

 I love these free Retelling Sticks from Keeping it Captivating's TPT store. I use them all the time.  They are a cute way to reinforce so many skills that we work on as we read.

I hope you found some things you can use in your classroom. Thank you for stopping by! Have a perfect weekend.