Finally back!

I have been computer-less....aarrrrggghhh!!! I have learned it is hard to survive without a computer. My laptop did not do what I expected it to do and I got angry...I did not throw it, like I wanted to. However, I did slam it shut and unplug it without a proper shut down and it decided not to work any more. I have to admit it was a great computer for the last 8 years...the guy at Best Buy was shocked that my Toshiba had lasted 8 years....but it did and was a great laptop. I hope my new HP is as good! So far I am loving it.

I have been working at school but I can't save PDF at school...I know! I just wish they would update us. Anyway, I am going to post some freebies at the end of this post...and at my TPT store.

Santa sent my class an elf named Elvin to watch over us for the holidays.Here is how he arrived!

Yesterday, he was found in our sand table (which houses our pompoms), he had written his name...and was playing in the pompoms! It was cute...see...

Unfortunately, one of our friends touched him and from what Santa sent in the letter with Elvin, he should lose his magic. :( Yesterday afternoon we were all so sad. I am home today for a doctor's appointment...so I will have to see if he has shown up when I arrive tomorrow. I don't think that he will, I think he is going to be gone. I have a plan though! We may have to write Santa some letters to see if he can reset Elvin's magic and send him back to us. 

So, I do several different units to help the students enjoy the holiday season. I try to have fun activities and educational activities. Here are a couple of FREEBIES to help you out during this season!

Gingerbread Counting Book

Gingerbread Men Graphic Organizer

Gingerbread Writing

Santa's Elves Graphic Organizer

All About Santa's Elves Writing

Hope you enjoy and have a happy holiday season...or better yet MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Jen

Apple Pickin' Time

Well, we welcomed fall this weekend and if you are an early childhood/elementary teacher (as I am) you will probably celebrate Johnny Appleseed's birthday this week! I am looking forward to the celebration...this is one of my favorite times of the school year. My class will do a number of activities that revolve around apples and the apple life cycle. I found lots of great things on Pinterest...how did we ever teach before Pinterest and Teachers Pay Teachers??? These are two of my greatest sources of activities. Some of the things that I found on Pinterest were printables, so of course, I printed them! Other things were photos of activities and I was able to recreate them. One was an apple investigation. If you click on the apple below, you can download a copy of the sheet.

I hope that you are able to use it. We are also making homemade applesauce, as well as making Johnny Appleseed pan hats. But my favorite part is the taste testing. The students are so funny during taste testing. They are so sure that they will not like something, that they usually find is not so bad after all! Can't wait to see what our favorite form of apple product will end up being. 

Happy fall y'all! Have fun this week!

Jen

Cool Common Core Website

Hello Friends! Just wanted to drop a little line about a website that has free log in for August and September. All items on the site are Common Core aligned. The standards are on the site for grades K-6, and have activities, lessons, Smart Board files, videos, music and all kinds of things linked up. Imagine finding anything you need for any given Common Core standard right at your fingertips (literally!). Go check it out!

http://thecommoncore.us

Hope you enjoy!

First Linky Party Link Up for me!!!

I have linked up with Teaching with Z for a linky party about the first day of Kindergarten. I have to admit that this is only my 2nd year teaching Kindergarten, so my plans are not to MY level of expectation yet...but they are coming along. So...on the to the things that I have planned for our first day...so far. 

As students arrive, our grade level has a color sheet that all students are given to color. It includes the date and our school name. It is really cute...and made with DJ Inkers clip art (link posted below). Generally, parents walk their precious little ones in on the first day of school and we (the teachers) are caught in what I call doorway conferences. 

After we send the parents off to the BooHoo Breakfast, we get down to the fun with the kiddos. I start by welcoming the students with several welcome songs inviting them to the carpet area. We always sing "Good Morning" (I think it is Greg and Steve). As that ends, we sit down and  spend some time discussing our carpet rules. We also go over "Our Promise to Each Other" and talk about classroom rules. Because I believe in keeping the students interested, we get up and sing again...this time Dr. Jean's "Hello, Neighbor", along with a couple of other songs...maybe even an alphabet song/video (from HaveFunTeaching). 

After a couple of songs, I read "First Day Jitters" to the students. We complete an extension activity about why or what they were most scared about before coming to school. This year, I am also going to serve Jitter Juice (Hawaiian Punch and Sprite)...found this on Pinterest! (Gotta love Pinterest)!

We do lots of walking in the halls the first week of school. This is mainly to get the students accustom to where everything is as well as how to walk in the halls. So, we will take a school tour, and learn how to go through the lunch line as well as find our lunch table. We will discuss lunchroom behavior while in the lunchroom. 

We also teach our students how to use their supplies during the first week of school. The first day is the use of their crayons. I found a really cool coloring expectations chart on Pinterest (click on the pic below to find it on Pinterest) this summer, so I will be creating my own to use in my classroom. We also teach our students that they must use at least the same number of colors as they are old...so, if you are 5, you need to use 5 different colors in your picture. 

We also do our first day of Calendar Math (on the SmartBoard only). We will get into the students recording Calendar Math in September. However, this year I am starting Number of the Day...and the students will help and record this activity on their own. 

Our (the teachers) main goals the first couple days of school are to make sure we get the student's fed and back home the correct way. If we accomplish anything else we find ourselves on cloud 9!!! It's like herding cats some days in Kindergarten...especially the first few! Hope this is helpful to someone!

DJ Inkers Coloring Sheet (our version and a blank)

sorry it is not editable...I am just learning some of this stuff!

Have a great first day...whenever yours arrives!

Jen

WILD TIMES...

My life has erupted...I am crazy busy with trying to put my classroom back together (from the floor waxing), get things copied for my classroom, helping the newest member of our grade level (since I was chosen as GL chair...by default...everyone else left!), and answering 5,000 questions about everything under the sun (it feels like!). 

When I returned home from school today, I sat down and my mind and hands wandered to working on my TpT store. So, I have posted several new items. You can get to my store front by clicking here. Here a couple things I posted today!

                       

I am so excited about the new items I posted. I feel like my products are getting better, the more I work on them. The last item is really for 4th grade AL History. It was a fun project that we did during class daily. The students loved and hated it. It was a wonderful classroom management tool as well. 

I have a friend that is using dogs as her classroom theme. So, I am constantly thinking of things that she could use. The dog themed binder covers come in two different organizational mnemonics, the first is D.O.G. which means Daily Organizational Guide. The second (I came up with on my own, thank you very much!) is F.I.D.O. which means For Individual Daily Organization! I am so proud of me for figuring that last one out! I hope you find them as cute as I did!

The F.R.O.G. organizational binder cover means For Really Organized Girls/Guys. I have another Kindergarten friend that is using Flowers and Frogs as her classroom theme. And she is the reason that this binder cover came to mind this afternoon. I sent her a freebie of some personalized name/lunch tags and then thought an organizational binder cover would be cute too! I have also posted a simple frog name tag at my TpT store. The name tags look very similar to the binder cover.

Funny thing is that I am not using either of these themes in my classroom. I am using owls. Luckily, my BFF is using owls too and has already made our organizational binder cover. Whoo...one less thing for me to do! 

I hope I can get my mind back on getting my classroom ready! I will try to post some pics of the room soon! Thanks for playing along tonight! Hop on over to my TpT store and buy something!

Also, please leave a comment and tell me what you think! I would love to have some feedback!

Working Hard???Hardly Working!!!

It is summer time...shouldn't I be playing?? How is it that I am working my hiney off??? I have gotten my self into several new endeavors this summer. One being my TPT store. I am enjoying making things, but don't want to post too many that I have not actually tried in my classroom. I have redone the ReadWell K homework pages. I have made them in two packets...Units 1 to 10 and Units 11 to 20. I hope that if you teach ReadWell K, you find these items useful.

I have also been working on a website with a former principal of mine. It is aligned with Common Core and will be a wealth of resources for teachers and homeschoolers everywhere! When I get the go ahead to link it up I will. It has all kinds of resources...including SmartBoard files, worksheets, website links, songs and videos. You will want to be able to access this when it is complete. We are hoping to release grades k through 5 sometime in August! So, that is what I have been spending most of my time working on.

I am so excited that I will get to reenter my classroom next week. This summer our district decided that our floors needed waxing and I completely agree with them. I am so excited that I will have clean and beautifully waxed floors to welcome all my new Kinder friends. I have so much that I want to get in and change and do in my classroom...so Monday can not get here soon enough. Only problem is that I can't put any of my classroom furniture back in place myself. I am not allowed to lift anything over 10 pounds for about 4 more weeks...since I had to have my gallbladder removed 2 weeks ago. Doc says that MAYBE by the time school starts I can try a few things...but I MUST take it easy. So, I guess I will be giving anyone who is willing a good workout! One day I will be able to return the favor!

Hope you are having a fabulous and fun summer!
Jen

Not so easy after all!

This is not as easy as I wanted it to be! My head is going nuts with ideas! I am trying to slow my brain down so I can actually make some new things. I still have lots of questions...like where does everyone find all these awesome graphics?? I know about Scrappin' Doodles and Thistle Girl...but where else do you find graphics? Also, what are the policies on using their graphics? Does it depend on the graphics maker? Can y'all give me some ideas and feedback?

I have made a cute owl months of the year set for the classroom. It is a freebie, since I used DJ Inkers fonts on the set. Click on the picture below to get to the site to download this set! Enjoy!

Hello Again and a New Freebie

I know it has been a while since I have been here. I had to get my computer updated! Love my brother-in-law! He is my computer guru! I needed to have Publisher added to my computer...my computer is about 7 years old and probably on its last legs! So, I have to be careful and see how much longer I can make it last, while I save some cash to buy a new one! I will be getting another Toshiba...this has been an awesome laptop and I will be purchasing another as soon as I can afford to do so!

 I have a new freebie for those of you using a Doggie Theme in your classroom. It is not alot...but just a little something. It can be found on teachers pay teachers as well. I have placed it in my store there as well! I will try to link my blog and store before too long. I hope to post much more this summer and next school year.

I am also working on a new project with a former principal. It should be great for all of us going to Common Core! This is just sneaky speaky! I will let you know more as we develop our project!

First Upload

Okay so, I am going to try my first upload to my blog. I hope this works.

This is the Unit 5 Kindergarten Homework for Read Well.

Here goes!

6/15/12 I had to change the link since I am selling this work on TpT. 

Blog Changes

I have decided that I am going to change the way that this blog works. I am going to start posting about things that I am making for the classroom for other teachers to use and get ideas. I have been blog stalking a lot lately and I am as creative as some of these other ladies and want to share with others. I also plan on starting to make and sell things in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. My store is not up yet...but I hope to have something in there soon.

Since our school district uses Read Well, I am going to post the homework that I use...that I have made using a template that some of our first grade teachers use. I will try to keep things on the Kindergarten/1st grade level. I hope that I can do this.

I will try to post my first thing tomorrow!