More color word sheets!

Let's face it. This year has been a less than "stable" start. My class list has changed 4 times and I'm currently teaching 26 littles. I have 21 girls and 5 boys. We also no longer have ANY planning time at school anymore. It STINKS. I'm EXHAUSTED. I'm hoping now that my list hasn't changed in the past week and that my BIG fundraiser event for my OWN children's school (I run and organize it) is OVER, I can BREATH.
I have had some fun with my OWN kiddos as you can see in my picture!!! Go Dawgs!!

I had someone ask if I had any other color sheets.
I DO! I made a few new ones this year. I made them because the old ones I have all have two or more color words. For many of my littles, it's TOO much.
I hope you can use these!


    Yellow sheet  Red sheet Red and Yellow Sheet

Miss Heidi is coming, Miss Heidi is coming!!!

There are just SIX more sleeps until MISS Heidi comes to not only MICHIGAN, but to MY school! We chat on facebook and I feel like she's an old friend now! I personally can't wait to spend the day with her at the Michigan Kindergarten Conference!! Not only that, but Heidi has been so gracious to agree to spend some time with my little kiddos after school. But wait, it gets BETTER. My principal has arranged for transportation for all the kids who ride the bus for after the event! Can you tell we are EXCITED?
If you haven't heard of Miss Heidi, she's just amazing:) She's developed a great program(Heidi Songs) to help kids use singing and motions/movement to learn to recognize letters, numbers and sight words. She also has many other great products available! Check out her website HERE!

What I love about Heidi is she is the real deal. She's an actual classroom Kindergarten teacher in a high needs school! Plus she is not only creative and keeps making great products, but she has a giving heart! She has a great blog to that gives freebies to her subscribers. I love that!
 You can get updates on new products and freebies HERE!

I knew the power of song and movement quite early in my teaching career. HOWEVER, I really didn't use Heidi's materials to their full potential until last year. (I've had some of her items for the past 6 years!) Just recently I ordered Jumpin Numbers and Shakin Shapes. I've played the DVD for less than two weeks. My kids KNOW those songs and the motions! I can't wait to see how great this translates into progress for my littles who struggle with numbers!

I know this has been a supercharged advertisement for Heidi Songs. The truth is, when I really love and believe in a company and product, I shout it from the rooftops!
So if you haven't check out Heidi Songs, do it now!
(For the record, in a poll taken by three K classes in my school, our favorite songs are Black and 7!!)

I'll be sure to update with pictures from our meeting!

Whew! Conferences are over! (For the most part!)

November is always such a mad dash! Between wrapping up Halloween (and when Halloween is on a weekday having the over candied detox the next day) and finishing quarterly report cards, there are some REALLY long days!
We are moving full steam ahead with Daily 5. My kids do an AMAZING job. SO much so, that I worked my guided groups out, about 2 months earlier than normal! I have a "daily 5" purple folder (Yes, my theme is purple and white for KState Wildcats!) in their caddies/baskets. We also keep writing journals and crayons/pencils, etc in there. These caddies tend to get MESSY. When I had cubbies, I had a cubby fairy. Well, here comes the caddy fairy to the rescue! I made these cute labels for the clean caddies! I know I have ONLY one, so I will put this on their table in the morning, with four treats (treats that aren't out already!:)

 Grab it here!











This year's conferences were held in the cafeteria. While it was nice to sit next to other K teachers so we could talk ideas when not conferencing, it also meant not getting ANY work done in my room during down time! I did however do two new things at conferences this year.
1. I made song books from my Heidi Songs download for the Sing and Spell #1 cd. We are using this first list as our "base" word this year in my school . We practice the songs daily and I wanted something for the kids to use at home. Not only can they SING the words, but they can READ the words too! You can view this product here! (It's a GREAT purchase for $5!) If you haven't heard of Heidi Songs, check out her website HERE:) This is SUCH a great tool!!

2. I made word rings with the words from Sing and Spell #1. Basically I made a table with 25 blanks (3 per row, 8 rows plus one extra box). I typed each of the words in the table. Then I printed on green paper, laminated and cut apart. Punch a hole in the same corner for all words and attach to a metal ring. (I bought mine at Meijer for a little over $2 for 25!) Wahlah!! Then the ring goes home for practice. Once the student can read ALL 25 words with NO help, they go on the pizza party list!
In December we start our pizza parties for students that know all the sight words! This is a GREAT motivator. Once they learn the sight words and turn in their word ring, they get a NEW list. The great thing is they are then able to qualify for the NEXT pizza party if they learn the 2nd list! I usually have 3-4 students who make it up to 2nd grade words! We have parties 2-3 times more during the year so all students have a chance. I give up my lunch one day and we make it a PARTY! In the a.m, the participants make their own placemat on construction paper. I buy pizza, breadsticks, juice boxes and treats. Then I give those kids a "super star" sticker AND a pencil. This is a VERY cool reward for those kids!!



I can't believe November is already almost halfway over!
Have a great week!

Batty fun freebie!

Our field trip was AWESOME! We had sprinkling rain most of the day and found some muddy trails to the pumpkin patch but the kids LOVED the cider mill and pumpkin patch! It was so cool seeing kids who were new to our country stand in awe of a live pumpkin field!

Tomorrow starts our week of bat fun! I finished the emergent reader for "The Old Lady who Swallowed a Bat." I added color words to help kids practice reading the color words AND so we could make a retelling bead bracelet later in the week! (I had some kids sort my big bead container, great fine motor work!)
I wanted to share the reader and hope to take some pictures of the retelling bracelets this week.
Don't forget: B-b-b-bats, the only mammal to take to flight! :) (I can't wait to share that big book and song with my kiddos!!)
Click  HERE  for this freebie!

I've gone batty!!!

Wow! The first 6 weeks just flies by! I went from 17 kids (12 boys and 5 girls) to 25 kids (17 boys and 8 girls) in a matter of weeks! My room is MUCH more crowded!! I'm wearing tennis shoes to keep up with all the boys!! We are going full steam ahead with Daily 5 and so far have conquered Listen to a Story (Thanks to my DonorsChoose Cd players!) and Read to Self. Getting to Read to Someone Else tomorrow and Working with Words next year!
It's mid October and we are looking forward to heading to the cider mill/pumpkin patch soon! Our school has a large population of ELL students. This means doing traditional Halloween activities might not work. I've always done a few days on bats, but this year I'm going batty and doing a WHOLE week!
So I've got big plans!
1. I'm working on an emergent reader for "The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat". I remember last year how amazing the Gingerbread emergent reader/retelling bracelet from Kindergarten Crayons worked for retelling. Fran used beads on a bracelet for retelling, using one color for each character. That's my plan for this book too!!Last year I had students who could retell weeks after based on looking at that bracelet!!
2. I have seen the games where you put programmed cards in a pocket chart and hide one little card behind one of them. The kids read a card and try and find the hidden card. Well, I've made one using numbers and BATS!!

You can get your free copy HERE
3. We will be doing a schema/new learning/misconceptions chart. Can't wait! Plus I am going to make a labeling sheet!
Hope you are not quite so batty as I am:)
Susan

Reinventing the wheel.....

Sometimes I easily find JUST what I want . I'm not a fan of reinventing the wheel and there are many amazing K teachers out there making things I LOVE.
We've been working on recognizing color words. My collection of color word worksheets seem to be a bit hard this year. Actually, every year they tend to be hard for many kids. I really wanted a sheet with pictures for just ONE color, not mutiple. Right now we are on blue.
I searched TPT and google and never found JUST what I wanted.
What's a K teacher to do? MAKE MY OWN!! (Even though I am fighting a sinus infection and REALLY need to go to bed.
What's a super cool K teacher to do with that sheet?
Why SHARE it of course!:)

Click Here to get your copy!!!

SWEEET things for my classroom!!

I spent today putting together things at home to get ready for working in my classroom again. Basically I stopped procrastinating and finished some projects!

First up: LAMINATING! 
I don't know about your school, but our laminator is constantly either out of film or broken! I found a deal on amazon.com about 18 months ago for a pocket laminator by Scotch. WOWZA! This thing ROCkS! It only cost me $16 and it's great! Yes, I can only get an 8 1/2 x11 sheet in , but it works FABULOUSLY! Plus, I found 5mil laminating pockets on amazon for under $20. Seriously, this is the ONLY size to go with! (You can use plain printer paper and not tag board and still get great results!! )
Here's a link to the pockets I use:
5 mil laminating pockets, 100 for under $20!

Then you can purchase the laminator also!:
Right now it's $30, but keep your eyes out, it sells for less often! (Some stores carry it too!)
Scotch laminator


One of my favorite papers to laminate was this  pete the cat freebie from Heidi songs! Can you see my new Pete the cat I ordered from Amazon too? My littles will LOVE him!!  I need to get velcro on the pages (see Heidi's post) but that can wait til later this week!

 Another project I finished up was my gumball sight word center. I purchased a gumball from where else...AMAZON. :) I used gems and homemade modge podge recipe from Pinterest to add sight words. My helpful hint would be to print the words REALLY small, cause those gem suckers are super small ! I also did numbers and letters...

Finally, I found this GREAT sign on Pinterest!! I laminated it and put it in a picture frame. I sing this song with my kiddos daily for the first few months and they LOVE it. I have a book with pictures, so this will be icing on the cake!!

 Click  HERE to get this great freebie!
Hope your year is off to a fabulous start!!