December Part 1--Elf Adventures!

Wow!!  I have been slacking at this whole blogging adventure lately!

In my defense, December is a crazy (but wonderful!) month for me.  First of all, I am a teacher and it is December:

So there's that.

Also in December, I have my birthday (a big one this year).  Here is a pic from my birthday dinner:

I may be biased, but he is so handsome isn't he??  :)

Our anniversary is also in December, as well as the holidays (and holiday parties) of course!  So while it is busy, I am loving it....I am thinking we could rename it 'Spoil Danielle Month' possibly?  Seems to be a more accurate name  ;)

Anyway, back to something remotely teaching related....since we have been up to so much since I have blogged, I decided I will split this into 2 posts.  This one will be mainly about my main December classroom management and engagement strategy:  Our elf!

I LOVE having a classroom elf for a couple reasons--one being it is just plain fun.  I have heard some teachers don't like the idea of a 'naughty elf'.  My response to that is our elf is not 'naughty', he is more 'silly'.  He does things like sleeps in a tissue box, takes a bubble bath (in mini marshmallows), builds a Christmas tree with unifix cubes, etc.  He also sometimes brings us things such as books or festive pencils.  So nothing naughty, just something fun for the students to look forward to finding each day.  Any time they are engaged and having fun, they are way more motivated to 'work' and learn!

The first thing we do is write a letter to Santa asking him if we could have an elf for our classroom.  These are so sweet!

 Just as evidence of what I was saying about student interest and engagement being key to motivating them, below is one of my MOST reluctant writers.  He has no interest in writing time, and even in December it is still like pulling teeth getting him to write any letters/words--I am lucky if I can get a picture that is not just a scribble.

 Do you see all that writing????  With no help from me!  All of a sudden he had a purpose (motivation) for writing and he was ALL about it!  He wanted Santa to give us that elf!  :)

Next, our elf arrives in a very special package.  I have our secretary or nurse bring it down in the morning as if it just got delivered.  He comes with a special note from Santa explaining all we need to know to take care of our special elf.

My kiddos voted to name him 'Magic' this year.  Each day we came in, we found what silly Magic had done today and wrote about it in our Elf Adventures Journal.  You can download the journal for free by clicking on the picture below.  Once again, their writing is awesome because they love it!

This is when he made a 'snow angel' in our glitter.

And as for behavior management, Magic works wonders!!  I constantly remind them he is watching.  And every morning he leaves a few notes on the desks of students that he thinks had extra special behavior the day before.  

These are like magic!  They will work SO hard to get a note from the elf the next day!

All of these items and lots more are part of my Elf Adventures Pack.  Click on the image to check it out.  It is so much fun!!

Whew that was a lot for now!  I had a feeling I would need 2 posts for everything!!  I will be back with December Part 2 shortly!!

Bathroom Pass Freebie!

Hey all!  I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!   I know I did!  With every year that passes, I think I become a little more thankful and realize even more just how blessed I am.

And for those of you brave souls that are grabbing those Black Friday deals right now, I admire you!  Instead of shopping, I am working on school stuff before I put up our Christmas tree and decorations--my favorite!!  But before I am off to Christmafy my house (yes I just made that word up), I thought I would share a little freebie with you.

In my kindergarten classroom I am lucky enough to have a bathroom.  However, the use of the bathroom still needs to be regulated for a few different reasons:

1: to make sure we are taking care of it and using it properly (no big messes) 

2: to make sure students are going when they actually need to and not a gazillion times a day just 'because'

3: because there is no lock on the bathroom door (so they cannot lock themselves in or out) so I need to know when students are in there so they do not walk in on each other.

My only rule with the bathroom is that they have to let me know when they are going so I can monitor all the above issues.  But that results in 20 some 5/6 year olds asking all day long if they can use the bathroom....so this year I started using these easy passes and it makes my teacher life much easier!

These sit on a shelf next to our bathroom.  When a student needs to use the restroom they simply grab the pass and set it on their desk.  This way I can easily see who is in the restroom at any given time and my students can also.  They know if the passes are not there that means someone is in the restroom and they need to wait.  This cuts back on their need to ask me every time they need to go.

BONUS--it is HAND SANITIZER!  Meaning when they return the pass after they have used the restroom they also get a squirt of 'hanitizer' as my kids call it!  The more germs we can kill in a classroom, the better!!

These passes are in black and white--I just print them on colorful paper and tape to hand sanitizer bottles.

 To download these passes, click here.

 I hope you enjoy!  Now off to set up my Christmas tree!!  :)

Halloween Fun!

Happy Fall! 

I would just like to start this post by saying that the Kansas City Royals are going to the World Series!!!!!   YEEEEEEAAAAAHHHH!!!  I may have had a few minor heart attacks watching the game last night, but all is well now!  ;)  Love our boys in blue!!!

Ok now on to more teachery stuff and the real reason for this post.....

 

Halloween is one of my favorite times of year!  I think I like it even more now that I am a teacher than I did as a kid.  There are SO many fun books and lessons that you can tie in to this part of the year.  So I thought I would show you what we have been up to the past few weeks during our Halloween Unit!

The first thing we did was a little craftivity I have been doing since my first year of teaching.  It is a must-do every year because it turns out soooo stinkin cute!  Check out our bulletin board:

 

Too cute right??

The kiddos love it!  We read the book, Where’s My Mummy? by Carolyn Crimi.  It is about a little baby mummy that gets lost and is scared.  The students then make text to self connections and complete the prompt:  ‘When I am scared, my mummy…..’  We then make our mummies and attach the writing piece to it.  Voila, a super cute bulletin board!

Here are some close ups:

When I'm scared, my mummy 'hugs me'.

 When I'm scared, my mummy 'holds my hand'.

This one cracks me up with the frowny face!  When I'm scared, my mummy 'gives me a kiss'.  

To download this craftivity for free click here!

We also use Deanna Jump’s Halloween Math and Literacy Unit.  If you follow my blog, it will not take you long to notice my love for all things created by Deanna Jump.  She is fantastic!  And by fantastic, I mean I want to be her when I grown up.  :)

What I especially love about her units is how many skills/areas are covered in just one unit.  First, we read the book included in her unit about ‘Frankie’.  We then discussed adjectives to describe Frankie, created a web, completed a writing prompt, collected data, analyzed it, AND made a glyph!  Seriously check out how cute these Frankie glyphs are!   

So many skills covered, all while the students (and their teacher!) were having FUN!  Teacher WIN!!   

If you want the bulletin board letters for free click here.  I just cut them out and glued them onto green paper. 

I hope your Halloween week goes great--and that you survive the madness that will be Friday!  The day before Halloween!!  :)

 

Help Students Master Letters and Sounds Faster than EVER--with a Freebie!

Hi Everyone!

So I had no intention of writing a blog post today…in fact, I am supposed to be working on 1st quarter grade cards right now. And I was just doing that--but as I was sitting here entering my students scores on the grade card I got Way. Too. Excited!

My students are ROCKING their letters and sounds like never before! I only have one student—yes you read that right, only ONE, that knows less than half their letters/sounds. I work in a Title 1 school (about 80 some % of our students are free/reduced lunch), and we have a lot of kiddos that come in with little to no prior exposure (as in knowing zero letters, nor even how to write their name). So you can imagine my excitement at the progress we have already made--in ONE quarter!!


So I just had to take a break and share with you….

Now this seems like both an ‘A-ha’ and a ‘DUH, I wish I had implemented this sooner!’ I’m sure some of you already do this but for those who don’t, I had to share! It is SO simple! I started this last year, but towards the end of the year when most of my kiddos were already pretty fluent in letters and sounds so I didn’t notice a huge increase in letter/sound fluency. This year I started day 1 and WOW, what a difference it has made!

There are 2 main (EASY) changes I made:

*Number One*  I created actions for each letter of the alphabet! Every morning we quickly recite the alphabet using our actions. We say the letter name, the name of the picture that begins with that letter, and finally (the fun part!) we do the action while we say the letter sound 3 times. So for Aa, we say ‘A, a, alligator, /a//a//a/! While we do the /a/ sounds we clap our hands in front of us like an alligator chomping his jaw. This has helped SO much! Students are making the connection between letters and sounds like never before—and most of all, they are ENGAGED! They love our ABC chants! If I forget to do them one day, I quickly get reminded! :)

*Number 2* The students now have the same picture association for each letter on all of our charts.

Pictures are the same on our large wall chart:

the poster on the front board:

the charts I put on their writing folders:

 and I printed the same charts to use in my guided reading groups:

I LOVE when a student is stretching a word and hears ‘uuuu….’ does the action and shouts ‘umbrella!’ They then use their chart to find the umbrella and see that Uu is the letter for that sound. Can you say student independence??? In the 1st quarter of kindergarten?? YAY!


Like I said, SO simple right??  I am kicking myself for not doing it sooner!

Try this and you will not regret it, I promise!  You could add actions to your current ABC chart, or for those of you that want to try it (but want to save time not having to create the actions yourself) I am offering my black and white ABC chart and a page with the motions as a FREEBIE! Just click HERE!

This freebie is included in my Alphabet Chart sets-- they all include the actions, large charts, poster charts (I took this to Staples and had it blown up for the chart on my board), and black and white versions (both full and half sheets) for printables. They come in multiple decors. If you have a special request for décor, please let me know and I will see if I can create it for you!


I would love to hear how this works in your classroom!  Happy teaching!

A Tour of My Zebra Print Classroom--and Freebies!

Hello!  I am so excited to show you my classroom!  I LOVE looking at other people's classrooms for ideas and inspiration!  I still have many things on my list of 'to-do's' but who doesn't, right??  I add a little more every year, and I am loving it!

If you can't tell by my blog design, I love bright colors, zebra stripes, and sparkles!  :)  The zebra is not only fun, but has a sentimental value to me....my grandmother became obsessed with zebra stripe decor in the years right before she passed away so it was something we shared.  I also believe she is a large part of where I inherited my love of children from, so I feel like a piece of her is in my room with me every day.  Hopefully I am making her proud!

So without further ado, let me take you on a tour of....

Here is the view when you first walk into my room:

Immediately to the right is my little 'teacher area', including my favorite piece in the room--my filing cabinet!  :)

A view of the board by the carpet area--up top is the birthday chart, below has our calendar, my 100's chart, my ABC Chart and my Daily Word Work.  Yes, this is still an ugly non-functional chalkboard...I have been asking for white boards for years and am supposed to finally get them this year--cross your fingers for me  :)

(If anyone knows where I can get a neon color or black place value chart, please let me know!  The red sticks out like a sore thumb in my classroom!)

Underneath are my classroom rules--I love how simple they are!  We recite these at the beginning of every day.

Turning around, the shelf where we keep our table supplies....

You can grab the table number labels for free here.

And my 2nd favorite part of the room--my small group table!  I LOVE crate seats!  Can you say storage??  Not to mention how cute they are and the fact that the kids love sitting on them!

Here is a view of my ABC Chart and Word Wall (on our coat closet doors).

And on the opposite wall, my number chart:

On the back wall, our mailboxes:

And color and shape posters:

I made poms to display table numbers:

I FINALLY got my classroom library organized last year with a system that works!  I got the labels from KinderCraze--they are great!

(and yes, that ONE blue basket drives me CRAZY!)  But I can't find these baskets at our Dollar Tree anymore!  :( 

My helpers are super simple this year and it is working perfectly:

Instead of a bazillion jobs, I just have 2 'Teacher's Assistants' each day and I call on them to do any task we need.  We have a 'Substitute' in case one of my Assistants are gone.  I then have a table helper at each table.  If you want to try it, you can grab this for FREE here!

If you like my Zebra Decor, I offer a GROWING BUNDLE in my TPT store!  This means that after you purchase, any other items I make will be added and you can re-download for FREE!  Yay!  I also have other decor options in my store such as chalkboard, dots, etc.

Whew!  If you made it all the way through this post, THANK YOU for checking out my classroom!  I would love to hear what you think!!