Saturday, April 28, 2012

Exclusive FREEBIE for Mother's Day

EXCLUSIVE FREEBIE CLOSED!!!
I announced last night that I would be closing access to this exclusive freebie today. I have sent out over 1,000 Mother's Day booklets!! I appreciate all who visit my blog and I was so happy to offer a great FREEBIE! I hope you, your students, and their mom enjoy this! :0)

If you didn't get a chance to grab it you may still get it for only $2 at my TpT Store...

This book is to be completed with their mother's help! I even like to send it home as an at-home project on Mother's Day weekend. When the kiddos have finished they can bring it back to school to share. Then, mom gets to keep it!

This is a 12 page printable book that is $2 at my TpT Store. However, I am offering it to  all my blog followers and Facebook followers for FREE!!!!! How cool is that!

Oceans of Fun

Hi! I'm Kerri from Ms.Kerri and Her Krazy Kindergarten. I'm so excited to guest blogging over here. This is my first time to be a guest blogger. I've been racking my brain since Jeannie asked for some guest bloggers about what to blog about. I have some ideas of things I want to blog about but I'm afraid they might stir some things up and you don't want to do that at someone else's house. Then I thought about blogging about a new game that I'm working on for my class that uses a plastic bowling set from Wal mart. Then I thought about blogging about the new ipod touches I have for the classroom. But I finally decided to do a post on some ocean activities that we've working on.



We started by reading these two books. One was fiction and the other was non fiction.We discussed what it meant for a book to be fiction and non fiction and found interesting words. This is how I do my vocabulary instruction. Inspired by a workshop by Tim Rasinski. We harvest words from the text. The words they chose were seaweed, shark, kelp, crab, ocean. I put these on my interesting words wall. Then we practice spelling them and using them in our writing throughout the unit. They've since added foam, tides, and currents to list after a poem we read. After we read the books, I split the class into two groups. One group had paper that said the ocean is and the other had paper that said, the ocean has. They brainstormed and then worked on writing and drawing on these charts.
We read some other books about the ocean and animals that lived in the ocean. We made a list of these animals and they picked one to draw and label a picture of. We then talked about what facts are and they had to make a web of their animal and add facts to it. The last part is turn the web into writing and make the sea animal to go with it. We haven't finished this process quite yet. But you can check out my blog later for pictures of the final product.

The next part of our ocean unit was the Mystery Box. I bought this from Abby at The Inspired Apple. If you haven't checked this unit out you should. I've used to introduce several of our science units and the kids love it. I had put shells in the box and other things you find at the ocean. My clues were:
1. I live near the ocean.
2. I am many colors.
3. I am many shapes and sizes.
4. I am a home for animals.
One of my students guessed the ocean, which was a pretty good guess. After we examined the shells a little bit, I gave all them a shell and page to work on. The page has a box for each sense other than taste to draw and write about. Then a place at the bottom to write a sentence. This is where I messed up and now you get to learn from my mistakes. I went over the directions but didn't model enough. So the day they worked on this was disastrous. The next day I took a shell and modeled what I wanted them to do. They turned out a little better. Thinking about it now, I think I should have done this together.

Here are some examples of their work. My higher students got this with no problem. I probably could have let them go with it after the modeling and then worked through it with the other students.



Next week, one of the centers the kids will go to is a science center. I've been wanting to start this forever. So better late than never. I'm setting up all the shells and other sea life items on a table. They can explore the items with magnifying glasses and then record their observations on a sheet like we've already done in class. I hope I've given you some ideas for things you can do with an ocean unit or another unit of study in science. I think this method could be applied to any unit of study. I've got a freebie to share with you. The clipart on this sheet is from scrappin doodles.

Science Observation Sheet Thursday and Friday of this week we're going to be talking about the rain forest as part of Earth week. We're going to compare oceans and rain forests and write about our favorite. So be sure to hop over to my blog on Friday and check out the fun that we had. 
If you like these ideas and this freebie, I would love for you to come check me out at my blog.






Ms. Kerri and Her Krazy Kindergarten
Thanks Jeannie for letting me stop by and share a bit!

Thursday, April 26, 2012

End of Year Celebration Invites

Ok, a few days ago I posted my kindergarten graduation invitations (boy that's a mouth full)... Lots of people told me they don't do a graduation as such...really more of an end of year party or celebration.......Soo.... I made some that might you if that is what you do.

Take a look!!


I hope you like these - CLICK HERE to download for FREE!! Tell me what you think! :0)

I also found this AMAZING blog post from Jennifer of Simply Primary!! It is the most super-duper way to wrap up the year by "having a ball" - LITERALLY!! You gotta see it! She even has a SWEET freebie there to go with her idea! It makes me want to sacrifice our kindergarten graduation in lieu on a beach party celebration!
                           
                           

Spring Color by Number

Well hello there!  I'm Tessa from Tales from Outside the Classroom.  I'm so excited that Jeannie is letting me share some ideas with all of you!

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about math lately.  I am a reading person and have a reading specialist license.  But over the last few months, I've been spending most of my time thinking about math.  I've been trying to brainstorm different ways students can practice math-especially math facts.  I've been creating a ton of games, some spiral review packs, and finally some fun worksheets for students to practice.  I really didn't expect the worksheets to be a big hit, but the ones I created for Easter were HUGE!  Did you see this floating around Pinterest?
After seeing the success of my my color by number activities, I decided to create some additional ones for spring to share with all of you.  These practice addition facts to 20.  There are 3 different pages.  You can download it for free by clicking on one of the images.

  If you like these, come on over to my blog sometime.  New followers are always welcome! :)
Thank you so much to Jeannie for opening up her blog to so many guest posters!

Tessa Maguire is a former reading teacher and differentiated instruction coach.  She currently is in a dual role administration and curriculum coaching position. She spends her days helping her K-3 teachers find what works best for them and their students. She blogs about the resources she finds and creates and she shares tips and strategies for effective instruction.  You can find out more information on her blog Tales from Outside the Classroom http://talesfromoutsidetheclassroom.blogspot.com




Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Kindergarten Graduation Invitations

Ok. so I am in full END-OF-YEAR mode.....sure we have 5 more weeks of school, but it's never too early to plan for the end, is it? :0)

Anyhoo.....here are some super cute and fun graduation invitations you can send out for the biggest day in kindergarten --besides the whole first day of school!!

I can smell the end coming.....just right around the corner!


I hope you like! If you do please drop me a little line below.....I am hoping to make lots more little end of the year treats! :0)