Hibernation

We read Bear Snores On and compared it to a Non-Fiction book on bears. My kids then wrote and illustrated to show bears in the summer and winter. This one was So cute I had to share!

I am back! Plus a freebie and TPT updates!

Hey all my blogging friends I'm back and what a crazy fall I've had! I had my hands full to start the school year but overall have a great group of kids. Then this past weekend I fell at a wedding and hurt my ankle and foot causing me to take 4 days off this week while I was at home with my leg up. I'm attempting to return tomorrow on crutches since I'm going stir crazy at home. So I thought I'd announce my return to blogging with a freebie! 
So in our kindergarten classes we use colored glue to help students with fine motor development and to get them excited about using glue bottles correctly. To make colored glue, take a bottle of Elmers and add a few drops of food coloring. Shake it up and leave it upside-down overnight to let the food coloring to move through the bottle. So the kids use the colored glue to make dots on seasonal pictures they have colored. We let them dry on the heater and they take them home the next day.
So here is my October Bat Dab Will Do Center for my blogging friends. Hope your kids love it as much as mine do!
Also since I've been home for the week I started gathering and bundling the different handwriting and alphabet sorting activities we do at school to share on Teachers Pay Teachers. I posted my Alphabet Handwriting Practice Set that we use for morning warm-up activities. The second set I use in small group to work on sorting and fine motor tasks with dabbers and letter recognition. We use the large letters to do an end of the week fun letter activity like turning the A's into apples. I've posted samples of both items and many others on my TPT site. Please let me know if you like them and as I go through my computer I will continue to post more!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Alphabet-Handwriting-Practice-Set

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Alphabet-Handwriting-and-Sorting-Pack-2

- Lindsey

Sorting Rubber Ducks

My rubber duck sorting collection continues to grow and the kids love it!

Question of the Day Graph - Need help!

Hey bloggers I need your help! My team has talked about doing a question of the day to graph with our class this year and I'm trying to come up with the best way to do this. There are products out there that are made for this like these two from Really Good Stuff... but... I'm going to have up to 27 kindergartners and neither of these are the most kindergarten friendly. Plus I'm told the yellow graph's magnets don't stick very well even though there is enough space for my class.

Pre-K Pages Graphing

Does anyone know what this is from?

So I'm looking for ideas of other products or something I can make to have a daily graph. I don't have a Promethian or Smartboard.  I don't have a ton of magnetic blackboard space and the kicker is how to fit up to 27 kids.
If you've done class graphing that can be changed everyday to a new question in your room or know of a picture of something like on the web please link up with me. I've been searching pinterest and blogs for ideas but keep coming up empty handed. Help!
-Lindsey

Summer School

Well after the horrible thunderstorms last week delayed our start, summer school finally began this week! I'm teaching kindergarten in a 2nd grade classroom so as you can imagine everything is a bit big for my kiddos but they like it! Here are a few pictures of my room. Updates to come about my experience with the 4 and 5 year olds in a bit!








- Lindsey

End of the year!!

5 more days to go!! Today was my last regular Tuesday of the year, next week our last day is a half day!! So tonight I worked on my end of the year gifts for the kids. Many thanks to Pinterest for ideas as Target's summer section for the $1 crazy straw water bottles!


I also used my Scholastic points to order each of my kids a copy of the book, I Knew You Could!



Let's just say what I learned this year is that having 23 kids adds up to making everything more expensive instead of the 17 kids that I had last year. I love them all but don't know if next year when I'll have even more kinders if I'll be able to continue to afford all the fun activities I do with them. Guess I can't worry about that now. TTFN!
- Lindsey

Dinosaurs

So a little while back my math dinosaur which I used for addition and patterns appeared on Pinterest and I have been asked for the pattern to make it. I will first say the original idea is not from me, I found it online somewhere last year, but I do have a tracer for the body.If anyone knows who I got it from please let me know and I'll link up to give them credit.
























So I took a picture with hopes that it would help!

I'd recommend saving the picture of the tracer and putting it in a word document and stretching to get the right dimensions. He is 16 inches long and 6 inches tall. I hope this helps teachers who were looking for my dinosaur!



- Lindsey