Halloween!

Well this school year has made an interesting twist. I have been put on bed rest, at least for this week. I am 31 weeks along and I have been having contractions for a week. I was planning on getting started on all of my sub plans for while I am out, however now a match has been lit under me to do lessons from now until the end of my planned maternity leave. (My leave is scheduled to start mid Dec. and end in Feb.) Halloween is in a couple of weeks however my kids are learning about pumpkins this week. I made a group activity of matching shapes on pumpkins. I just made up some simple cards. I play this during group time and I give each child a card and tell them to find their partner with the matching card. Once everyone has found their partner/match I have each group tell me what shape they have. This helps to not put one child in the spotlight but they can work together.
Maybe in the next few days I will be putting up different activities. They maybe all sorts of different themes with the time frame I am writing for.

You can download the jpg here or go to my tpt store to get it for free :)

Its mail time!

I went to work with a kiddo in their home recently and the parents asked me to work on the skill of learning her address that day. I did some activities that day with what I had and then went home and made this for the next time that I went to their house. It is just an address packet with a place for their information and blank envelopes for them to use. One of the pages also has a list of addresses for the children to practice sending pretend letter to... however some of the addresses will get you a response. (Mickey's, Cinderella's, Kermit's Judy Blume's, and Sesame Street's) I laminated the address page and the envelopes and they are at the writing center for the children to practice with.

This packet is available on my tpt site for free.

spelling

I will come right out and proclaim that I VERY STRONGLY DISLIKE the traditional way of teaching children to spelling in America. I feel this way because it works for a small group of children and for the children that it does not work there is not many good alternatives that are used across the country. I am working with a kiddo right now (in a home setting) who is having a hard time with her spelling tests at school each week. I am not there often to help her so this is for a family to use as word work (I like a more hands on less paper word work in my classroom) I posted the packet to tpt and it is free. Many of the things have been done before or something like it, but this just has everything organized together.


In the packet there are 11 pages. I may someday use these as an option for word work choice during language arts. We will see. Right now I live in the land of crawling so word work is not much of a thought.


http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/My-spelling-packet

Letter Center

So, the last week has been one of the most emotional weeks of my life. I had a student die from the classroom that I had student taught in since August and I started a new job. With all of that stress I ended up sick... But thats ok... I am a stronger person for making it through the last two weeks... any my house does not look awful ;) I started thinking tonight about my Saturday morning and decided to make something. This is just my own version of something that has been done many times (sorry, little creativity left this week) however this is free for you to print off. Just click on the pictures and save off of that. If you want the files email me and I would be happy to send them. I found the font at: http://desktoppub.about.com/od/lessonplans/ig/Free-Print---Cursive-Fonts/Print-Clearly-Dashed.htm. I think I will be using this font a lot from now on because it is a great kid font and what is a better price then free right?

Here is my partially done example

Baking Word Families

I made this activity for a great little kiddo that I get the privilege to work with one on one. We are working on word families as an aspect of learning words. She loves pretending to cook so I thought the theme of baking cookies fit with that. I figured I would share with the internet words because sharing is a nice things to do ans who wouldn't want to share a cookie. They are $1 on tpt (because I used clipart I purchased). If you want any other word families let me know and I can add it to the pack I am selling on tpt. The current word families are:
at,  ail, am, an, eat, eep, ell, ice, ay, ing, in, ip, it, oat, og, oil, ool, op, ot, uck, ug, unk

Each word family has a cookie tray page and four cookies to be matched to the correct tray.



teachers pay teachers

clip-art from: scapindoodles.com

New Job and new printable!

Today is an exciting day! I was hired on at a great childcare center last night and I am so excited to start next week!

However today I am spending time preparing for a kiddo that I spend time with on Saturday morning. She is a sweet little girl and I am excited to use some new things I have created with her. Something I created today in preparation for tomorrow is a letter and number match. It is a dollar on tpt. Have fun with the matching. I know I will be having fun with them tomorrow!!!

~Amanda


http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Valintines-letters-and-numbers

http://www.scrappindoodles.com/index.php?main_page=conditions

Games

I love games. They are a great way to slip in learning in a fun way. However I sometimes have a habit of changing the way a game is played. Here are some games I like and how I play them. They are all available on Amazon however I love getting games at little shops and on clearance isle. Goodwill and places like it are also really good for games and books.

Big Fish Lil' fish- I use this game for comparing numbers.  It has two digit numbers so it can be played for a long time. I use it like a war style game game were all players put their card down at one time. The person with the largest card gets all of the cards. The goal is to get the most cards. Ater we play for a while I start to have the children verbally tell be why a number on a card is bigger then the others ie "54 is larger then 34 because there is a five and a three in the tens place and 5 is bigger then three." This adds another level of complexity and helps with verbal skills.
note: If the player guesses then I get all of the cards or they go into a center pot that no one gets. 

Zingo- This is one of my favorite games because the children are able to play a game of bingo by themselves. The regular game is good for kiddos that are working on matching skills. If you want to add another level make cards up that are rhyming words to the Zingo cards. I have made a set for myself and will email them to you if you would like. Here is an example of what the cards look like:

Compound words

I loved teaching compound words to my 2nd graders when I was student teaching. The school that I was at followed the Comprehensive Literacy Model, so we would a mini lesson with the class and then have the children do a guided assignment that worked on the skill. This was one of the guided assessments that the kiddos did for compound words. Before the lesson I cut out the hexagons on page 2 and attached 1 to the center of the hexagon on the first page. (I used small scrap-booking brads to attach them)  The children then spun the center hexagon to make compound words. The kids thought it was a lot of fun and it was nice to do something a little different then a typical worksheet.

I have complied the two pages on tpt for free. teacherspayteachers.com


*I did see an idea like this online someplace one time and that is were the concept came from*

Brown and Pink letters

WOW! I love brown and pink. Our wedding was brown and pink, our house has a lot of brown and pink, and why not add some letters to my classroom that are brown and pink. They can be used during this time of sweet... or any day! These are great for matching and any other fun stuff you can think of with letter. I like to do an activity were I hide the lowercase letters around the room and I have the uppercase letters at circle time. I tell the kids that the grown up letters have lost their little letters and we need to be letter detective to find them. We then think of what the little letter looks like to help us find it in the room. Then a child goes on the hunt. If they are having troubles they can ask from clues. Clues include asking for a hit of what it is by, asking a friend to write it in the air, having the class make the letter's sound, or for it to be drawn on the board. I love to think out of the box of ways to bring in letters to the classroom. The number one goal is for kiddos to fall in love with letters and not to despise them because they are thrown at them all of the time.

I have the letters all made up for you at tpt. It is free because I made them on my own so I don't have to charge for them because I did not use any clip art. Hope you have fun with them. I would LOVE to hear how you used them in your classroom.

Cute little gingerbread men :)

There are so many things that can be done with these cute little guys :) This is an activity that incorporates numbers, ordering, positioning, writing, and drawing. This is a great Christmas time activity or anytime you want some cute little gingerbread to join your world. It is $1 on tpt. 

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Gingergread-Men-Orders

clip art from: http://www.scrappindoodles.com

touch points

I LOVE touch point math because it give a concrete meaning to something that is so abstract to most kids. I love it because it is a stepping stone the children use as long as they need to but are not dependent on it. It is also nice because for many children it is an adaptation that helps them to stay in the regular ed classroom without something that makes them look or act all that different. To help teach and reinforce touch points with a kiddo I made a die-cut set of numbers with construction paper. (I had to do a little work on the 4 so it looked like a kid 4) I then put the touch points on with sticky dots. (To create the dots you count twice I used a hole punch to cut out the center.) To help them last longer I laminated them. He thought they were really cool. I made a few different sets in different colors. (That is why the 8 below is blue, I am not sure where the orange 8 went...). I like these because there are so many different things that can be done with them. I am thinking about making another set that is a little bit smaller so they are able to be used in less space. Maybe a project for my cricut!

More Colors

Have I mentioned I LOVE these paint swatches? Here is another project that is more sturdy then the last one I made. This time I laminated the "crayons" before I attached them. For the base I bought a cheep metal file holder from Walmart ($2) and I hot glued the crayons onto it. I then glued the rest of the crayons to clothes pins. It was fast and simple. I am also going to make clothes pins with the color words on then to add a challenge for some of the kiddos who are past just matching the colors. Happy hot glueing :)

beginnings and ends

Every story needs a good beginning and endings. To help to teach this point I decided to use pb & j to help illustrate. To start the week I started our large group time by attempting to make a pb&j without using the bread. The kids thought it was funny and it really got them hooked. For the next few days we talked about what makes good bread to a story (beginnings and endings) and that every story needs good bread to hold it together. We also talked about how the bread needed to be good (creative) and not moldy. We decided as a class that starting or ending a story, that was not about a princess or a dragon, with the words "in the beginning" "Once upon a time" "happily ever after" or "the end" was like using moldy bread to make the sandwich. We then made this poster together to remind us of how to start and end stories.

Color Match

When I walked into Menards and gazed my eyes on paint chips that looked like crayons the ideas started flowing. Here is the first thing that I created with the paint chips. I took a small gift box (I got a pack of this size gift boxes for $0.70 at Walmart on clearance) and I rubber cemented the inside flaps together so the box can not fold. I then glued on one of each color paint chips to the box. Next I glued the rest of the paint chips to clothes pins. I then have the children say the name of the color and match it to its other color and pin it on.

Details

Sometimes simple stories like "I got a new cat." are ok, however like many things, a sentence like that is a place to start and grow from. To help my kiddos in 2nd grade grow I did an activity with them about how to add details using Mr. Potato Head.
I have a large amount of Potato Head part that I have acquired over the years (black Friday, Disney World, and rummage sales).  The more pieces you have the more interesting this will be however a small amount of parts will work.
I divided the class into 4 groups and I gave each group a bucket of parts and one plastic body. I them gave them 3 minutes to create an interesting potato out of the parts they had. Once the three minutes was up I had one person from each group bring up their potato and set it on a table in-front of the class.  I then had the entire class join us around the table. I then had a member from each group explain to me what their potato head looked like. Once each group had gone I pulled out my potato head. He only had eyes and shoes on. I described him to the class. We then had a class discussion about why their potatoes were so much more interesting then mine was. We talked about how sometimes we write stories that do not have very much details and how they are not very interesting. The children then had the option to go work on adding details to the current piece they were working on or to write a story about the potato their group made.
After school that day I took pictures of the potato heads and wrote two different stories. The one on the bottom was about my potato and was a very simple story. The other story was about one of the potatoes. I then made this poster and put in up near the writing area in the classroom. Many children look bacvk at the poster as a reminder about details.

Supply Chart

"What do I need" or "what do I do" seem to be some of the most common phrases in some classrooms. To help prevent this I made a chart that has pictures of the supplies a child will need to complete their work. At the bottom of the chart it says where the work needs to go when it is done and what the child can do when they are done. This could be adapted with words instead of pictures.

Each binder ring has different stars with different supplies. If you only needed one supply for a specific assignment you can flip over the binder ring so it is a blank star.

I like to use tools like this because it helps children who do not learn best by just being told. Many children benefit from seeing what they need. It also serves as a tool for the children to be able to help themselves if they forgot what they need.

This is also something that could be set before the start of a content area so the children know what to get out before the start of the lesson so when they are sent for independent work time they already have out what they need.

I have 20 pre-made stars with the pictures of school supplies in them for free at TpT. There are also two pages of blank stars to add in pictures of supplies used in your classroom.

Supply Chart

patterns

Here is a pattern activity I made for this winter. It is free on TpT

Winter Patterns