Seasons and a Freebie

I have just returned from a much needed beach vacations! We went to Destin and it was just beautiful! Seriously. You could not have asked for better weather.

I intended to post this before I left but I couldn't get it together thought it would be a great post to return to! We finished our Seasons unit the week before we left for Fall Break. We usually spend 2-3 weeks on Seasons. I posted about it here last year. Unfortunately, I do not have those free items listed in my Teachers Notebooks store because I  don't really have a store there anymore.

I do use Dr. Jean's Seasons song (from her Kiss Your Brain CD) to introduce the seasons. I feel like this song really allows the students to remember the 4 seasons in order and they love this song as well.

We also sang this little rap in class and the kiddos loved it as well.



Just as I posted last year, we make a book that includes each season. This is our cover.

 

The students create a Winter page by drawing a snowman and adding snow. We add a felt scarf, hat, eyes, and buttons.

 

 

We also do a Spring page by watercoloring a coffee filter and adding a stem and grass.

 

For summer we just paint a large yellow circle and add sun rays and google eyes.

 

Last, we place red, yellow, orange and brown tissue paper squares on a paper plate to create our fall tree.

 

All of these pages are done on the large 12 X 18 pieces of construction paper. When all pages are done, they are stapled together to create a large book for each students to take home. The kiddos LOVE this!!!

 

As we finish up our Seasons unit, we create a one page art piece to show the tree for each season. This includes cotton ball trees for winter, pink tissue paper buds for Spring, green torn pieces for Summer, and red, yellow, brown, and orange Q-tip paint for fall.

 

 

 

Do you teach Seasons in your room? You can grab the items to help you create these books as well as an emergent reader in my store by clicking on the picture below.

 

 

**Please note: The items in this unit are to go with the art projects you create in your classroom as shown above. The sayings for each season that I have on my pictures are from Dr. Jean's song. Due to copyright laws...I changed each saying for my unit. Each page in this unit is in black and white and intended to go with art projects or for the students to color and complete.  

 

You can also grab a quick Freebie PowerPoint that I use when teaching the 4 Seasons. I created this years ago and just added it to my store if you would like it for free!

 

 

 

 

 

3 comments Tags: seasons, teachers pay teachers

Share:

Product Swap

I am so excited to be linking up with Jessica in her Product Swap again. I had so much fun last time! Thanks Jessica for all of the hard work!

 

I was so lucky to be paired up with Melanie from Frog Spot. 

 

 

 

If you don't know Melanie, you should! She is the creator of some FABULOUS graphics. I am lucky to be in her premium club in which I receive a set of graphics EVERYDAY for a year! Yep. Not just one clip art, but a whole set!!! Okay, sorry. Back to the product swap.

 

I reviewed her Halloween Centers and Games Number 1-10.

 

 

 

This is a perfect classroom to use in my classroom around Halloween because we have just finished learning numbers to 10 and are digging more into these numbers. The graphics are oh so cute and there are tons of different games to play.

 

First I printed and laminated the games I was going to use in my classroom. Note: There are like 4 more games I am not showing up. It is THAT awesome. There are 2 different games on adding.

 

 

 

 

 

My poor little Scotch lamintor is making some weird noises. I think it about to go out so I switched to our stinky school laminator.

 

 

Then I began cutting and looking at the games to see when I will use them. Here are some of my favorites:

 

 

 Black Cat Pairs

There are different ways to play this but here is what I am showing. Students place dot pattern cards face down on floor. The numeral cards are distributed evenly among students. A student flips over a card and calls out the number on the dot pattern card. If the student has the matching numeral in his/her hand, they get to keep both cards and set aside. If not it is placed face down again and game moves to the next student. Think of this game as a higher order thinking memory game!!!

 

 

 

 

SPIDER BINGO

Again...lots of different ways to play. Each student gets a BINGO card. The caller student take call cards and calls out a number. If student has the number, he/she can place a chip on the number. First student to get their card covered wins.

 

 

As you see, you can play with numerals, dot pattern cards, or number words! LOVE THIS!

 

 

 

COUNT AND COVER

Student is given a card, die, and counters or cubes. Student rolls the die. Student has to find that matching number on his/her card and place that many cubes or counters on it. The first student to get all circles filled with the correct number wins.

TOTAL WEB

This is my FAVORITE because it is a skill we are working on and drilling hard. Students are to look at the numeral on the card. Students are to then look at the dot pattern. They are to count on from the numeral to find the total when you add the numeral and dot pattern. This is big in our Math in Focus books...to count on from a given number. Students place a clothespin on the correct number.

 

 

See? I told you this was a fabulous product!! You will want it in your classroom! She also has some great items in her classroom. I have used lots of her number worksheets as well! Love them! If you want to check out her product just click on the product picture above or click here.

 

I hope you will hop on over to Melanie's blog and see the review of my product that she is doing! To celebrate the product swap, I am having a 15% sale until tomorrow night on the items in the product review! This sale will run until Sunday night. Head on over there now!

 

8 comments Tags: linky party, product swap, sale

Share:

Pumpkin Fun

Today was absolutely exhausting so much fun! Seriously, it was fun but whew wee!!! I'm pooped people. Thank goodness tomorrow is just a PD day so I can rest my mind and body. We had a fun filled pumpkin day. The kids each brought in a small pumpkin and had the chance to explore their pumpkins. They measured it with cubes, counted the lines, decided if it will sink or float, and dug right in and counted the seeds. (Okay, we didn't count all of them. After all, we have only been counting to 20!) I used a form from Sprinkles to Kindergarten's unit titled Playful Pumpkins.

 

Okay. Funny story here. I have a sweet little ESL student who was going to check to see if his pumpkin would sink or float. We quickly found out he doesn't know the meaning of "carefully" place the pumpkin in the bucket. He straight up threw it in there and a HUGE amount of water came splashing out (hence the soaked paper towels). We about died laughing. I swear I thought I was gonna pee my pants.

 

We also created our Five Little Pumpkins book that I posted about here (you can grab your freebie here).

 

I read It's Pumpkin Time to introduce how a pumpkin grows.

 

 

This is a great and simple book to teach this process. My awesome assistant also brought in a vine with yellow blossom and small green pumpkin on it from her yard. They loved this! We then make this to show this process.

We also had  a vist from a local pumpkin patch. She can in a did a great little 30 minute presentation and showed the different kinds of pumpkins.
I also have a room mom who makes adorable and delicious cookies. She brought in Pumpkin Spice Shortbread Cookies with Crusted Cream Cheese Spiced Buttercream icing. Ummmmm...YUM!

 Our room was a HOT MESS when were finished with this day but we had fun. The kids had learned a lot and fun. That is what is most important! We are off for fall break now! I'm beach bound in 2 days! :)

 

 

3 comments Tags: pumpkins

Share:

Currently

Yippe!! I LOVE me some October!!! Not as much as November (my birthday month) but I do love it. I love Halloween. I love fall. I love FALL BREAK. I love sweaters. I am linking up with Farley for her currently series.

I am so excited to be headed to Floriday on Saturday! Oh how I have missed it and need it! I would love to know what you are currently doing! Just head on over and link up:

3 comments Tags: linky party

Share:

Five Little Pumpkins (Freebie)

Whew Wee! I swear if I didn't know better I would think a blizzard was coming. My kids were WILD today!!!!! We only have 4 days this week! :) Kids are out on Friday then next week is....FALL BREAK! I am beach bound baby! Although my mind is on the beach, we are doing fall activities. We are studying pumpkins this week. Thursday is our big pumpkin exploration day! I will share more later in the week. I just wanted to quickly share with you a freebie I made to go with the poem "Five Little Pumpkins".

This is a little reader you can make with your students. The words are all there to go with the poem. Students only have to illustrate the pictures! I hope you can use this in your classroom. If you do, I would love some feedback!

1 comment Tags: freebie, pumpkins, teachers pay teachers

Share:

The "Count" of Halloween

I am so excited to finally be posting this book! My mentor teacher introduced this book to me when I first began working with her 11 years ago! (I cannot believe I have been teaching that long. EEK!) She began using it 30+ years ago when she was student teaching!!! She has now retired and is moving to a beautiful island in a beautiful new home. Sigh. I asked her about using the book, tweaking it a bit, and posting it on TPT and she said SURE! So...here it is!

 

This is an ADORABLE numbers 1-10 craftivity book to complete in your classroom during the Halloween season! There are many different ways you can do this ranging from print and color to full on crafting! We do so many crafts at Halloween in our classroom so we go ALL OUT!

 

I begin this book at the beginning of October in my classroom (think next week) and do 2-3 pages a week until the holiday! Each student makes their own book. I know 200 copies seems like a lot but it is so worth it when you see their little faces light up as they read it and take ownership in that they made it! We mostly do the craft version except for the last 2-3 pages, just due to time.

 

I try to finish these up a few days before Halloween. I make sure they are bound and we pass them out at our Halloween party and read/sing the book to our parents! Did I mention this book is actually "sung" to the tune of "The Muffin Man".

 

I swear you will love this book! Just click on the image above or below to grab yours!

 

 

4 comments Tags: crafts, Halloween, numbers, teachers pay teachers

Share:

The Price is Right

Please tell me y'all watched The Price is Right as a child? Please tell me I'm not the only one that is that old. I loved that show! Still do. I remember watching it when I was home on maternity leave. Good memories!!! Imagine my excitement when Lakeshore Learning contacted me about doing a review on their Plinko game? Uh, yes!!!!

I whipped that puppy out in reading groups today and they LOVED it! The games comes with nice wooden chips with great pictures. The students drop a chip at the top and it makes it way down the board. The chip will land in one of 3 spots at the bottom: Say the Beginning Sound, Say a Rhyming Word, or Say the Ending Sound. This game was perfect for my higher reading group. They are sounding out CVC words and can identify the ending sound of words as well as rhyming words. Look at how much fun they had!

I promise your kiddos will love this game. My other kiddos were dying to try it. Give them a few months and they will all be ready! This game is great for K and early 1. Lakeshore also has this game for other grade levels as well!

Do you want to get your own PLINKO game. Well, Lakeshore just made it a little easier. They are offering a 25%  promo code for my readers. Just click below to go there.

3 comments Tags: Lakeshore Learning, phonics, review

Share: