Fall Time!

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Halloween decorations were in stores way before the school supplies were up.  Well, today is finally the first day of Fall. So, how about some thematic activities for this time of the year?
1. Roll, Say, Keep!
 I made this Halloween Roll, Say, Keep game to help my son practice identifying numbers 1-20. He is loving dice games right now and this activity is just perfect for him.

2. Five Little Pumpkins
I also made a poster for the Five Little Pumpkins. This song provides the perfect opportunity to teach about ordinal numbers. Your students can act out this fun song too. Simply have them decorate a paper pumpkin and attach yarn long enough to have it hang around the student’s neck.  Then, choose five student pumpkins at a time to act out the song while the rest of the class chants the words. 

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Behavior Clip Chart

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Classroom Management Clip Chart.

I like to make students feel special about themselves in kindergarten. The past 16 years, I have used a the clip chart system. It is a wonderful visual for students to know where they are throughout the day. It helps them stay on track and try a bit harder when they need to.

I always refer to their behavior in royal terms. They must be following rules, procedures and stay on track with their learning responsibilities before I address them as princess or prince. It’s amazing to see how quick they change their behavior to prove that they are worthy of their royal titles. Sometimes I say, “I am looking for a princess that is looking forward” or “I wonder which prince will finish his work on time today.” This has always worked well for me.

Everyone begins with “Ready to Learn.”  Then, their clip will be moved up or down according to how well they follow rules and procedures throughout the day. I have three cards above “Ready to Learn” and 3 cards below it. I never have them move their clip down on the first warning. It just serves as a reminder. We begin to move clips down starting with the second warning. Once these students begin to demonstrate positive efforts, clips begin to go up again.

I like to use colorful clothespins. Sometimes you can find some neon colored ones at the Dollar Store. Here are some in primary colors that you might also be able to find in your local stores like Wal-Mart or Target. Just use a sharpie to label them on both sides. I place the boys’ pins on the left side and the girls’ pins on the right side of the charts so that students can find their clips easier. This also makes it easy for me when I need to label both sides of the pins. Make sure that the name is not upside down when you use the opposite side of it.

NOTE:
I introduce parents to our behavior system at Open House. Then, I start sending the Behavior Recording Sheet home daily so that parents can praise and celebrate their child’s efforts every day. I do not like to contact parents only when there is concern about their child. Daily communication is a great way to keep them informed.

These are the charts that I use. 

Here is a free recording sheet.
I am linking up with What the Teacher Wants. 

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Grandparents Day

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Grandparents Day is coming up. This is a great day to celebrate your love and appreciation for your grandparents. They are always there to help you out and will always love their grandchildren. It’s so important that your kids have their grandparents in their lives as this can make a really big difference to them. They don’t have to see them every day but knowing that they are there is always a huge comfort.

Regardless of your own personal situation, you shouldn’t stop your children from being able to establish a relationship with some of the most important people that they’ll ever have a chance of interacting with. You see, a relationship between grandparents and their grandchildren could become fractured if their parents are going through a divorce and one of them wants to stop them from seeing each other. This is heartbreaking, but the good news for grandparents is that they can check out these grandparents rights in texas, or in the state that they live in, to see what the law is in these circumstances, and in most cases, it will be a good outcome. That’s why you should never prevent them from having this interaction, as this will be one of the best relationships they’ll ever get to have.

It will also help you out as a parent as well. If you ever find that there is a time where you are busy at work, at least you know that there will be a grandparent who is happy to step in and pick your kid up from school. Let’s not forget as well, that your kid will love to spend time with their grandma and grandad as they’ll probably be spoilt rotten, but sometimes that’s just needed. You shouldn’t deny your kids this.

Either way, grandparents do so much for their grandkids, and they will always be there for them. They might send a simple text using something like this easy to use cell phone for seniors. They might even send you a quick text as well, but so long as there is communication then that is all that matters. If you can, you should make sure to send them a photo of their grandchild (if their phone will allow it). Doing something like this is just a simple gesture to show them how much they are appreciated.

It shouldn’t just stop there, now that grandparents day is coming up, you can easily show your appreciation for them on this day. Here is a simple, but adorable activity. The student will color the words in rainbow colors. Then, they will color the heart. On the back of the heart, they can draw a favorite thing that they like to do with that grandparent. The teacher will use ribbon or yarn to finish the paper necklace. And that’s it 🙂 The child will hang this necklace on the grandparent next time that they are together. This is a lovely idea! There are even more lovely ideas online. For grandparent’s day, I’ve even seen some people purchasing some fun games to play with their grandparents. A lot of older people enjoy jigsaw puzzles, so a lot of people have been looking into how to create your own jigsaw puzzle with your favorite picture of the kids and their grandparents. They can then complete the jigsaw together. That’s another great idea for grandparent’s day.

Here are some cute Grandparent books that you can read.
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3 Ways to Read Poster

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Free Reading posters. 
Three Ways to Read:
1. Look at the pictures.
2. Look at the words.
3. Retell the story.
I can…
read alone.
read with a friend.
read with a teacher.

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Reading Strategies Posters and a Freebie

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I just finished this request for reading strategies posters. It is good to start using these early on in the school year so that students become familiar with the terms. I made 13 posters in the English version and 16 posters in the Spanish version. These will be in my TPT store, but I want to give you one poster as a freebie to get you started. Make sure to grab it at the bottom of the post.

These are the Reading Strategies posters in English. I made this one in 3 versions because I was playing around with the wording and clip art.

These are the Spanish Reading Strategies posters known as las Estrategias de Lectura. This one is already in my store.
Here are your Reading Strategies Poster FREEBIES.

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Super Hero I CAN Posters for Common Core Standards

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Are you looking for a fun way to display your Common Core Posters? I created these I CAN… posters in a super hero theme. I think that this will be a fun way to motivate your Kinders. I also made a poster that says “My Language Arts Super Powers” to display as a header when posting these up. Here are some samples. You can find them in my store.

Here are some free checklists for Kindergarten Language Arts. 

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Must Haves Monday

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This is Teacher Week on Blog Hoppin.
This is my list of Must Haves for Back To School:
1.  Favorite books for the first week of school.
<A HREF=”http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?rt=tf_cw&ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Fkindlati-20%2F8010%2Fba7bc090-eeeb-4089-b021-a8d259be1820&Operation=NoScript”>Amazon.com Widgets</A>
2. Camera for First Day of School pictures. You can find one here.

3. A way to keep that Teacher Binder organized. Click on the picture
if you would like to see it in my TPT store.
What are YOUR Must Haves?
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Homework Folder {FREEBIE}

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For those of you who are asking about my homework folder. Here it is again. These are some of the things that I add to it.

1-Name tag: Use it to label your students’ plastic folders. You can add student name, teacher name, student picture, form of transportation (bus #), lunch # or whatever you need.
2-Alphabet Chart -Students can use it to practice their alphabet or during homework writing activities.
3-Basic Skills Chart– This one works well for reviewing colors, numbers and shapes.
4-100’s Chart– I color coded the 5’s and 10’s. Students can practice counting by ones, fives or tens with this chart.

 

Get the homework folder in English by clicking on the picture.
alphabet chart

Get the Spanish homework folder here.

Here is another freebie that you might like.

Get the English file by clicking on the picture.

Get the Spanish school forms file here.

Enjoy!
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The Kissing Hand and Editable Newsletters

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The Kissing Hand is one of my favorite books for the first week of school. This is a very good story for  the kids who are not used to school routines yet. With this story, students will see that it is okay to have different emotions about the first day of school.  We love it when the raccoon places his hand on his cheek to feel his mother’s presence and love. After the story, we talk about how WE feel on the first day of school. We also practice kissing the palms of our hands like the little raccoon in the story.  Here is a student book that you can use after reading the story of the Kissing Hand.

I also have this poem that you might like:)
P.S. I am receiving many email requests to share these documents from the google docs url. Thank you so much for passing these on to your teaching friends! You are simply wonderful:)  The best thing to do is to send your friends directly to this website url. As far as I know, that is the only way that these documents can be shared –by clicking on the pictures themselves to take you to the actual links. 
Thank you so much for your support!!!
And here are some super fun Monthly Newsletters that you will love. They are such a good way to communicate with parents. They can also be used as weekly newsletters. Just click on the picture to find out more about this Mega Pack of Editable Monthly Newsletters.

Get your freebie here. This page is from my old version.

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Herding Kats Product Swap

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MrsStanfordsClass

I am happy to review a few products by Jennifer from Herding Kats. Not only does she share wonderful resources for your classroom, but she also shares her life stories in a way that draws you in as if you were there along with her. I am always happy to visit her blog and learn something new.

I just discovered that she has this amazing Back to School unit:  Forest Themed Unit for Back to School or Fall.  I was pleased to see that it covers a variety of activities for language arts, math and science. A bonus to this unit is that these activities may be introduced during whole group or small group time. Then, the teacher may place them in centers for extra practice. They may also be used in pocket charts or sent home for review of target skills. Students may work on the activities independently or in groups of two.

Take a look at the activities that you will find in the unit.

1- Alphabet Match Game: These alphabet cards feature a precious raccoon that will go well with The Kissing Hand book. This game helps students identify letter names and become familiar with upper and lower case letters.  Beginning readers can work with two sets of cards. All they would have to do is  to simply match the upper case to upper case letters or lower case to lower case letters. The more advanced students can match the upper to lower case alphabet cards. These cards also come in handy for sequencing the alphabet. Beginners can look at an alphabet chart for guidance. Advanced students can sequence the alphabet cards without support.

Here is a 5 year old matching the upper to lower case alphabet cards side by side.
You can choose either the upper case or lower case alphabet for this sequencing activity.

2- Rhyming Cards: These can be used in 2 simple ways. *You can select 4 rhyming pairs to play a concentration game or match the rhyming cards in the pocket chart. Rhyming is such an important skill. I like how these cards only include pictures without the words. Students can concentrate on naming the pictures and listening for patterns in words. When they hear two words that end the same, they pair them up as rhyming words.

Here, you can see the pairing up of bat with hat .

3- Student book: This book features the words “I”, “see”, “one”, “two”,  “three”. The sight words “I” and “see” are repeated on every page. It is easy for the students to read the unknown words by looking at the picture clues on the page. This makes for a predictable reading pattern that is easy to follow.

My sweet niece enjoyed this book. First, she colored the pictures in the book while naming the object. Then, she counted the number of objects on that page. Finally, she was able to use the repetitive and predictable pattern to read this book independently. She has never been in school before, but felt very proud and successful with this activity.

4- Number cards 1-20: Whether you are working on identifying number skills or number sequencing skills, these cute cards will come in handy. They can be sequenced in the pocket chart, on the table or on the floor. Make sure to instruct your students to name the number as the card is placed in the chart. This will help them keep track of the number that they are on plus practice one-to-one correspondence.

5- Count and Match cards: Students will be able to practice their counting skills with the acorn cards. Then, they will need to match the quantity of acorns to the corresponding number cards. This activity will be wonderful to use as a review in the beginning of the school year. It will also be great as a differentiation activity throughout the year while more advanced students are ready to move on to more challenging activities. I can definitely see this in a center year-round.

6- Patterns: Another skill covered in this unit is working with patterns. Students will be able to read and complete AB, ABC and AABB patterns using these adorable raccoons. Since the raccoons look alike, students will learn to pay attention to detail to find the pattern.

7- Roll and Graph Forest Animals: There is a dice of forest animals provided. Students roll the dice and graph the results. Wow! Dice games seem to motivate the little ones into learning. When using this with a group of two students, you will notice that kids wait anxiously for their turn at rolling the dice but are equally excited at graphing the results with crayons.

8- Science: Students sort diurnal and nocturnal pictures of animals. This is an activity that must be introduced to the class before they are expected to work on it independently in a center. But, once they are familiar with the terms and animals, sorting them out will become a breeze.

Second product: Apple Kids Roll and Graph 
If you are in need of small but challenging games to practice target skills, you will be happy with this following product. It provides extension activities that may be used by students depending on their ability.  These include exercises for the terms of more than, less than and equal to. Your more advanced mathematicians might enjoy using the graph results to create addition sentences in the recording sheet that is provided. It’s a nice game for your Apple unit. 

A third product that we were able to look at is the Pirate Roll and Cover. This one is not only educational but also a lot of fun for the little ones. The game can be played by one or two players. This would be a good independent activity once your students are familiar with addition and subtraction. It also includes activities for use with 3 dice for those students who might need something more challenging. Fun! Fun!!
Roll the dice.
Write the addition sentence on the recording sheet.

Add the two dice and cover the sum on this fun addition mat. 

As you can see, Jennifer provides wonderful resources for your Kindergarten classroom. I am very pleased with every product that we were able to review. They cover many of the skills that our Kinders work on all year long. If you like what you see, then head on over to her store and add these items to your wish list.

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