Lesson Cloud's Dollar Sale

I'm participating in The Lesson Cloud's dollar days sale on July 29 and 30th.  I'm offering 5 items for either  $1 or $2.

The Barn sentence making activity $1.

The Coop ABC order $1

Forest Animal Patterns $1

Monthly Printing Assessment Journal $2

Spider Alphabet Match $2

It's only for 2 days, so get them while you can.  Don't forget to head on over to The Lesson Cloud to check out all the other great $1 and $2 deals.

Dollar Days Sale

I'm participating in the dollar days sale at The Lesson Cloud on July 29th and 30th.  I am going to be placing 5 of my items on saile for either $1 or $2.  So come back on July 29th and find out which items they are.

Boxing Day

Up here is Canada, the day after Christmas is called Boxing Day.  Since the TpT website was down so long yesterday I'm extending my sale today.  So head on over to my store to pick up any of my seasonal items for 20% off.   Click on my button to get to my store.

Christmas in July

Do  you feel in the Christmas mood?  I do.  It's Christmas in July. On July 25th, join me and some blogging buddies for some jolly good deals on our seasonal items. All my seasonal items (Christmas, Halloween etc) will be on sale for 20% off .  Stock up now so you're ready for the holidays.  Click on the picture below to head on over to my store.

Join in the jolly by hopping over to Blog Hoppin' to shop and hop around.

Differentiation Destination

I am so excited to part of a new blog.  The Differentiation Destination  is going to be your one stop shop for all things differentiated.  Have you ever wondered what differentiation is?  What is difference between fair and equal?  Well head on over to The Differentiation Destination to find out.
While you are there, check out my blog post for today on how to differentiate word work.

Daily 5 Chapter 6 and Freebies

1. Experimenting with words for learning and practicing a spelling pattern (brainstorm a list of ways you can do this)

I start my literacy instruction by using a program on the computer called Balanced Literacy by Intellitools.  It has a little song for each letter and for each word family.  The kids love it.  They're the type of songs that you end up singing in your sleep.  At the beginning of the school year, I try and quickly test their letter knowledge everyday.  Here is the link to my assessment pack  (it's free).

2. Memorize high frequency words (How often do you introduce new words? Do your students have their own lists of words that they can work on? How will you keep track of words that they already know?

This is the book that I use to introduce sight words.  Each week we do one list of words.  At the beginning of the year it might take longer than one week for each list but as the year goes on, it often only them a day or two to pick them up.  I also send home the weekly words on a ring for the children to practice at home.

3. Generalize spelling patterns (brainstorm a list of ways you can do this).

For this I use my Balanced Literacy program above.  Once we get to a specific word family I compliment it by doing many hands-on activities.



Once I start introducing sight words I like to assess the children as often as I can (hopefullly everyday).  Here are the forms that I use.  You can grab them free by clicking on the picture.

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Summer Bowling for Free

This summer has been hot, hot, hot.  And when it's this hot, it's hard to find things to do outside.  One of the things my kids love to do is bowl.  Beautifully air conditioned, bowling is a perfect game to play during the hot summer days.

For the past 3 years, we have participated in the Bowling Gives Back program.  Our local bowling alley offers kids 2 free games of bowling every day for the whole summer.  If you haven't signed up for it, do.  It is totally worth it.  Here is the link for the USA program.

Here is link for the Canadian program.

School memory linky

I'm linking up with Simply Kinder for a school memory linky party.


The question is:  What do you remember about kindergarten or about the grade in which you teach?









Wow, kindergarten for me was a long time ago.  I'm surprised that I still remember it. I attended junior and senior kindergarten in Toronto.  It was an open plan school so there were no walls really between the classes.  I guess that was the big thing in the 70's.  I only remember a few things about those early years.

* I used to say the Lord's Prayer really fast so that I could sit down first.
* There were dividers all over the place sectioning off the school (I guess the teachers didn't think much of the no walls concept)
* According to my mother, I bit someone.  I don't know what happened,  I don't remember biting anyone.  Thankful I don't still bite.

In the summer before grade one we moved out of the city.  Grade one was in a new school and the only thing I remember is the teacher throwing my colouring away and making me redo it because I hadn't coloured in the same direction.  I guess it was messy.

Boy have times changed.  I think now about the things that I do in my classroom.  What will my students remember?  Have I made their time with me special enough for them to remember?  I hope so.

Head on over to Simply Kinder and see what other people remember about their early school years.  What do you remember?

   

Making Math Meaningful

I'm linking up with Debbie Clements over at Rainbows Within Reach for a Making Math Meaningful Round-Up.

Last year my focus was on more math.  I had been concentrating on literacy for so long that I had let my math slide.  I decided that I was going to incorporate as much math as could into my program.  Here is some of the things we did.

We counted to 100 during calendar time and then did a celebration for the 100th day.

The children loved the dominoes at calendar time.  It was a great activity for quickly recognizing the number of dots.  It was also a great introduction to adding.

We continued counting the number of days in school after the 100th day.  The straws were a great way to practice moving "one's" to "ten's".

We used money during calendar and in various games.

We graphed the weather everyday and did more graphing depending on our theme.

We ordered numbers, matched numbers, put the right number of objects for a particular number and matched numbers with number words.

We did lots of adding.

We counted by 10's.

By the end of the year I saw a huge difference in this class from previous classes in their math ability.  I feel confident that when I made math meaningful to them, they picked up on the concepts a lot faster.

Pet Calendar numbers freebie day two

Here is the second of the pet calendar numbers.  This one has an AB pattern.  I made it fairly simple since if I use this one, it will be at the beginning of the year.  Head on over to my TpT store to pick it up for free.

Pet calendar numbers freebie

Here is the first of two calendar number sets.  I usually do pets in September so I made up this set to go with my theme.  This one does not have a pattern to it.  I haven't decided whether or not to start out with a pattern right away or not.  I might make two copies of this and make a matching / concentration game out of it too.  Click on the picture to head over to my TpT store and grab it for free.  Come back tomorrow for the other set that has an AB pattern.

Printing Assessment Journals

I can't believe I've only been on summer break for two weeks and I'm already thinking about the new school year.  This summer I wanted to revamp some of things that I do with the children.  One of the first things I revamped was my printing assessment.  For the children in my class that are capable of printing, I like to get a sample of their printing each month.

I made up new covers for the books.  One for girls and one for boys and a black and white cover of each for when I'm out of coloured ink.  I bind up the cover, information sheet and all the months I need in one booklet.

On the inside of the book I add the children's basic information.

I print these next pages back to back after the information page above so that when the book is open both month pages are in front of the child.  The "I can print my name" page on the left and the "I can print the alphabet" page on the right.  

At the beginning of the year I sometimes print the letters on the board and have the children copy them, depending on their skill level.  (I then jot that somewhere on the page, so that I know if they copied or did the letters independently).  Later in the year as their printing improves I also have them print some words and make a sentence.

I love pulling this book out during parent conferences or meetings with school board people to show all the improvements that the children have done.

If you are interested in the book,  you can grab it at my TpT store for $3.  It includes girl and boy covers in colour and black and white and the months from August to July.

Summer to do's

I can't believe that summer vacation is here.  The weather has been beautiful.  We couldn't have asked for better.  Already though I'm starting to think about school.  I always plan to get so much done over my holidays and I never seem to get to them all.  Here are a few things I'm planning to get to.

1. Finish reading the CAFE book and figure out how I'm going to implement.
2. Take an Introduction to Braille course.  I'm all signed up, just have to get started.
3. Make some more products for my store.
4. Come up with a new day book.  Seriously, I hate my day book.  I have to be VERY flexible at my school and my day book is always a mess.  I've tried typing them in on the computer and printing them off and I've tried hand writing them.  Then something comes up and the plans fall apart.   I saw this really cool plan book on pintrest last night from The Wise & Witty Teacher.

I love her description and I'm thinking about giving it a try. 

And since I hate my printing.  I was thinking of trying to print them up using the template found here at Sugar Doodle.



Do you have a good day book that you like?

Daily 5, Chapter 4

I'm so excited to be linking up with Mrs Miner's Monkey Business for Chapter 4 of the Daily 5 book study.  Here are my answers to this week's questions.

1) How far into the school year do you think kinders need to be to be able to begin the process of Read to Self? What is realistic? When do you plan to begin implementation?
I am going to begin right away.  It might not be for very long and it will mainly be "reading" the pictures to begin with but we are going to start within the first couple of days.  After I begin to introduce some words, I will expect them to begin to read some texts or poems.

2) How will you make sure that each child views him/herself as a reader (whether they are reading words or not)?
I think it begins with a lot of modelling and a lot of praise.  If you view yourself as a reader, the children will see you as a reader and then they will want to be readers too.

3) What are some ideas you have about "Launching Read to Self" in kindergarten? How will you go about it and what are some ways to make sure it is "kinder friendly"? 
I think I'm going to try and follow the book's outline to begin with.  I haven't tried Daily 5 before so I think I'm going to use their framework to begin with and go from there.  After I've done it once, I think I have a better idea of what is going to work and what won't.

4) How will you/do you build the children's belief that this IS important? What can we do to encourage the ones who do not value it and create disruptions for others?
Kindergarten is such a great age because the children still want to please you.  If I show them how important it is to me, I believe they will follow my lead and it will become important to them.  I will be implementing my "take home" reading program as well.  I believe this shows to the parents how important reading is as well. 

5) How valuable is Checking In and Reviewing with kindergartners? How often will you do it? When will you do it? What are some different ways to "check in"?
I'm expecting that checking in will be more frequent at the beginning.  I'm not sure that I will be able to bring everyone back to a central location if children are out of their wheelchairs.  There is not many of us so we may be fairly close together anyway.

6)What are some problems that can occur during this problem (either that you anticipate with your kinders OR that you have experienced)? How can we be proactive about these issues?
I am anticipating  that I'm going to need to do a lot of modelling for the other adults in my class.  They will be new to me and new to the program and will need to "buy into" it.

Top Teacher Freebies

I'm so excited to be part of a brand new facebook page called Top Teacher Freebies.  Head on over to it to get all the lastest freebies by a bunch of Top Teachers.

Happy Canada Day

Happy Canada Day everyone.

It's a time for BBQ's and fireworks and celebrating with friends and family.

To all my Canadian followers: I hope you are having a relaxing day.