Some shamrockin’ fun!

It’s March!  Hurray!!!!  One of my favorite holidays is just around the corner.  I thought I’d share some of the fun things we’ve done in the past to celebrate.

We always read Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato.  I always try to read out loud with my best Irish accent (which I’m sure is ridiculous…😂).  Last year my class made these adorable potato people.    My class also completed these leprechaun directed drawings from First Grade Blue Skies.  They turned out SO adorable!!!

 We also worked on writing questions.  First we brainstormed some question words whole class and made a poster.  Then during our stations we worked on writing down the questions to ask a leprechaun.  I had this large leprechaun cut-out that I purchased from Dollar Tree.  I taped it to the door and had students ask the leprechaun a question.  Oh my goodness–this was SUCH a cute activity and I absolutely loved the questions that my students wrote in their leprechaun letters.  

I uploaded this fun activity as a FREE item to my TpT store!  Just click here to download.

We also had a little visitor at our house!  My kiddos were SO EXCITED!!!  He left little green footprints and shamrocks everywhere!  Here is a photo:

The visiting leprechaun also left green milk in the fridge!  Ha!

I’m looking forward to this silly little leprechaun visiting again (and I’m looking forward to Shamrock Shakes)!  We also have a little tradition of making green dinner that night.  I usually just tint some pasta and alfredo sauce and serve with broccoli–yum!  What do you have planned for St. Patrick’s day?  I’d love to hear all about it in the comments below!

 

 

 

Classroom Superbowl Party Ideas!

It’s almost time for the Superbowl, and that means that it’s almost party time!  Well in my classroom at least!  I’ve been busy collecting some ideas to bring football to my classroom, so we can learn and have fun in a SUPER big way!  I must say that I’m a little disappointed that the Chicago Bears didn’t make it this year :(.  My hubby and I are big fans, and I was hoping to teach my little kiddos the Bears Fight song…lol!  Well anyway, here is a compilation of some ideas :).

At last year’s classroom superbowl party, students graphed what team that they thought that would win:

Students graphing and making their 'predictions' about who will win the superbowl.

We also made a color themed football book with die-cuts, but you could also have students draw different colored footballs. You can download a copy of the book here:  Superbowl of Colors Book.

Check out this adorable art idea from Teaching Heart’s Superbowl Page:

This football player activity is too cute!

Pre-k Fun’s Blog posted a bunch of super cute Superbowl classroom party ideas.  I really like these stuffed footballs:

I’m also super duper excited to say that I found a Football Theme page from Making Learning Fun! Check out this adorable Cheerleader writing activity:

Speaking of cheerleaders, I think that now would be a great time to complete the name cheers that Mrs. Lee blogged about here in September.  What a cute idea!

A new blog that I found called 2Teaching Mommies was full of a ton of printables and wonderful football themed ideas.  Click the picture to be taken to their blog:

Here is a picture of a counting activity that is available to download from their blog.

So, I’ve been working a few new football activities for us to complete too!  Click below to download the worksheets:

football theme addition worksheet

Color I See Football Theme

And, of course you can’t have a Superbowl Party without food!

Did you know that they make football shaped Oreo cookies? Pretty cute!

This would be a cute and healthy snack.  The idea is from Food Chics;  click the picture below to be taken to their site:

 

Have fun teaching your little ones about the Superbowl, and feel free to share any ideas that you may have!

 

~Barbara

 

 

Great Resource!

A few months ago I found out about the Orange County Public Schools early childhood resource page.  This page is chocked full of wonderful resources.  Here are some of my favorites that we have been using lately:

This is the "Can You Find My Mitten" color word activity. My students love this song! I love it because it reviews colors and teaches my students to spell the color words too!

This activity is really fun too. It's actually just a laminated snowman picture and I placed magnet tape on the back. I use large magnet letters to place on the snowman's 'tummy' and we sing the Mr. Snowman song (tune of This Old Man) to practice letter sounds.

There are also a ton of printables to make books and flannel board pieces.  Thank you, thank you so much to the people that created this page, you are an invaluable resource!

So, if YOU want to check out this site click here.   Enjoy!

~Barbara

Hip Hip Hooray! It’s almost the 100th day!

Yippee!  We are quickly approaching the 100th day of school!  This is such a fun day for my students :).  I thought that I would post some ideas of things that we’ve done in the past and some wonderful ideas that other teachers have been sharing on their blogs.

I send home the note below with a ziploc bag.

Here is a copy of a paper that I have sent home in the past to help students with creating groups of 10:  make sets of 10.  I have to tell you, it’s very interesting what kids bring in to school!  In years past I’ve ordered products from the Really Good Stuff Catalog with my colleagues.  They sell these great stickers that you can place on the bags.  Just click on the picture below to be taken to their site.

We’ve also made 100th day crowns from The Virtual Vine.  Here is a picture of one of my students wearing the crown (I altered the picture to protect the identity of my former student):

You can download a copy of the crown here.

Here are some other wonderful ideas:

Fun in First Grade has some fantastic ideas like this on their blog. Click the picture to be taken there.

Mrs. Larremore posted a wonderful unit full of pictures and printables on her blog.  Check out her version of the 100th day ladybug, I think that my students just might have to make these this year!  Too cute!

Chalk Talk’s 100th Day Unit Ideas

Kinderblogger also as some fantastic ideas and printables for the 100th day of school on her blog.  Check out her 100th Day Book, what a great addition this will be to our station activities next week :).

I’m also re-posting some 100th day printables  from this posting here.

• 100th Day Bulletin Board Signs
• 100th Day Trail Mix
• I Could Eat 100 Writing
• 100 Pennies Stamping
• 100th Day Measurement

I’ll try to post some pictures later of what we ended up doing for the 100th day of school.  Have fun celebrating everyone!

~Barbara

Smart Board Resources

So I’m a little behind in my postings, but one awesome thing that I have in my classroom that I’m SUPER excited about is a Smart Board.  I can’t wait to use it with my little kiddos next year!

As you can imagine, there are a ton of wonderful resources available on the internet for this type of technology.  I just wanted to share a few resource links with all of you that I have found.  Feel free to share any of your favorite Smart Board resource links too!

• Here is a link to a discussion board about calendar resources to use with your Smart Board:  Smart Board Calendar Resources
• Learning Differently has a page FULL of wonderful links to games, etc to use with your board.  You can access this page here.
• Reading Matters has a wonderful page for Smart Board resources to use with Harcourt’s Storytown Reading Curriculum.  I don’t use this curriculum, but there are lots of useful links to use within any kindergarten or first grade classroom:  Storytown Resources for Kindergarten
• Paraportal.com has a great page full of links to use with a Smart Board for students in preschool through first grade:  Prek-1 Smartboard Fun Links
• ABC Teach also has a page with lots of links to Smart Board resources.  You can access this page here.

Ocean Theme Ideas and Links

I thought that I would share some of the activities that we completed this summer in my special education preschool classroom.  This summer the theme was Ocean.  The students had a blast learning about various ocean animals, and I also integrated basic skills such as letters, counting, shape recognition and color recognition into this theme.  Below is a compilation of activities, ideas and links to share with you.  Enjoy!

C is for Crab:

• We made paper plate crabs (see picture below) and reviewed the color red.

• We completed the Letter C worksheet from First-School.  Students used crayons to practice rainbow writing the upper and lower case letters, then they colored, cut and glued the objects that started with the letter c their papers.  You can find the worksheet here.
• We also read the Crab poem from the poem book “Commotion in the Ocean”

• We also later read Eric Carle’s book, “A House for Hermit Crab” and discussed how our crabs and the Hermit crab were the same (they both have claws, etc).

J is for Jellyfish:

• Students traced the letter J and talked about things that begin with the letter J.  We used this worksheet, that you can find here for the letter J.
• Students water colored paper plates and then we later added tissue paper strips to make the tentacles for our jellyfish.

S is for Seahorse:

• We watercolored sea horse clip-art that I found from The Mailbox’s Ocean Themed book.

This book retails for $7.00 from The Mailbox and is full of great ideas.

• Students colored seahorses and rainbow traced the letter s.  We used this worksheet from Lee Hansen.
• We also read Eric Carle’s book Mr. Seahorse. We talked about how daddy seahorses are special.

T is for Turtle:

• We painted paper plates green and had green construction paper shapes for students to glue to make the body parts.  We used the following shapes–large circle for the head, large triangle for the tail and 4 small rectangles for the legs.  After students painted their plates their were asked to identify shapes and glue them to their plates (i.e. “find the circle and glue this to the top of your plate”).  We also used a lot of positional words during this activity (i.e. on top of, bottom, side, etc).
• We completed this letter T tracing activity.
• We also completed a variety of activities that day related to the color green.

Here are some other great ocean theme pages to check out:

The Virtual Vine’s Ocean Theme

Pre-Kinder’s Ocean Unit

I’ll keep posting ideas as I load the pictures to my computer from summer school.  Thanks for looking!

~Barb

Another Version of a Handprint Art Book/Calendar

The other night I was at a friend’s house for dinner and she was showing all of us the book that her son made in preschool.  It is a handprint calendar, and I of course had asked if I could take some pictures of the project for future reference.  I took the pictures with my phone, so they aren’t the best quality.  Also, I changed the cover to protect the identity of her child.  Anyway,  I thought that I would share them with all of you.

This handpint is an Easter egg

This handprint is a boat

This handprint is a reindeer

I think that these handprints are suppose to be snowflakes

These handprints make a shamrock

These cute handprints made a sun

This handprint is a heart

This handprint makes a flower

Here is the cover. I like the idea of it being a picture of the child holding a sign with the year. What a good idea

This handprint is a flag

Have fun making your own handprint books and please feel free to share your ideas and photos!  I’d love to see them!

~Barb

Handprint Art Books

I’ve seen the hand print calendars that people often do for parent Christmas gifts, but to be honest with you, I found that project to be a little overwhelming.  So–I put my little spin on it and created hand print art books for the year.  I have to say that these are simply adorable! 

Here are some pictures:

August handprint which is a crayon box. Paint the middle of the hand yellow and the outsides green. Paint the fingers various colors. After the paint dries, add the word 'Crayons' to the yellow portion.

September hand print. Paint the palm red, but do not paint the fingers. Next paint the index finger brown for the stem. Use the other index finger to paint green to make a leaf.

October hand print which is a ghost. Paint the entire hand white and then dip the tip of the index finger in black paint to make eyes and a nose.

November hand print which is a turkey. The palm and thumb is painted brown and the fingers are painted various colors to create feathers. I added the other features with Sharpie markers after the paint dried.

December hand print which is Santa. Paint 1/2 of the palm pink and the other half red. Paint the thumb red as well. Paint all other fingers white to make the beard. After you have student stamp this part, then dip their index finger in white paint to make a 'pom-pom' at the end of Santa's hat. I added the facial features with markers after the paint dried.

January hand print which is a penguin. Paint the fingertips and haf of the hand black. Paint the center of the palm white and the thumb and fingers black. I used white reinforcer labels

February art. Paint both hands red and overlap to create a heart.

March handprint art. Paint the top of the palm pink. Next paint the bottom of the palm and thumb green. Paint the fingers orange to be the leprechaun's beard. Iadded the details with markers after the paint dried.

I will add some more photos later as we continue to finish our books before the end of the school year. 

Here are some links with ideas and printables if you decide to do a similar project:

1. ABC 123 Kindergarten’s Handprint Calendar Page
2. Katie’s Nesting Spot Handprint Calendar Ideas  this blog post is where I truly got the idea to complete this project!  Here ideas are too cute, and I love the poems that she has with her handprints as well.
3. Handprint Calendar Printable from Mrs. Bainbridge  this link also has great poems to accompany each monthly handprint.
4. Handprint and Footprint Art Blog  this entire blog is devoted to these projects.  There are lots of cute ideas!

Feel free to share your ideas too!  I’d love to hear them :).

Happy Mother’s Day!

We just finished up all of the Mother’s Day festivities within my classroom and I thought that I would share what we did with all of you.

We held a Mother’s Day and Family Tea to celebrate with our families!  This was so much fun!  First we made invitations to send home.  You can see the invitations here:  mothers day tea invitation idea.  I copied these onto construction paper and student’s water colored the first page.  Then we cut out each tea pot and stapled them together at the top.  My little students were so excited to take this home to share with their families.

We also performed a few songs for our parents the day of the tea party.  We sang the following:

• I’m a Little Teapot
• Each of Us is a Flower
• Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
• I Love Mommy

It was very cute!  After our performance, student’s passed out the cards that they made.  Here is a picture of the card:

Here is a picture of the inside of the card:

If you are interested, then here is the poem for the inside of the card:  Mother’s day flower poem.

After students passed out their cards, we then had station activities to complete with their families.  I set up basically three stations.  The back table featured refreshments–juice, water, and cookies (I know I didn’t actually have tea :)).  Students were able to decorate and eat a cookie there.  The next table had tea pot frames to decorate that I purchased from Oriental Trading.  The final station was a picture station, where students took a picture with their families.  Here are some pictures from our classroom:

These were the chairs for the parents to view the performance.

This was the program on each chair that featured the morning festivities.

Yummy refreshments

Cookie decorating table

Frame decorating table

If you would like ordering information on the Tea Pot frames, then you can click here.

There are also many great websites that are wonderful resources if you are considering holding a Mother’s Day tea/performance in your classroom.  Here are some of my favorites:

1. Green Gables Kindergarten— scroll down to the bottom of the May page for a TON of great ideas and printables for your Mother’s Day theme.
2. Little Giraffe’s Mother’s Day Theme— wonderful ideas and pictures here.
3. Preschool Education Mother’s Day Ideas–there are lots of art ideas and activity ideas here.

I’d love to hear how you celebrated Mother’s Day in your classrooms.  Feel free to share ideas!

~Barb

Letter Journals

This school year we have been working on a weekly project for our letter of the week.  It is basically a letter book and we glue various die-cuts to the pages to correspond with the sound that we are learning.  I originally got this idea from one of my colleagues during summer school, and put my little spin on it (thanks Becky :)).

I’m planning on sending this book home at the end of the year so students can share it with their parents.  Here are some pictures of the book below:

This is the cover, and I decorated it with colorful letter die-cuts and laminated it for durability.

Here is an example of the inside pages

Even if you don’t have access to die-cuts, there are many different ways that you could use this letter book.  Students could cut out pictures of items from magazines or the newspaper and glue them to the corresponding letter pages.  Also, they could simply cut out or stamp various letters on the pages as well.  Lakeshore learning also sells some great materials that would be really great to use with these letter books (what can I say, I love Lakeshore’s products :)).

I can’t find a picture to post, but these letter sound rubber stamps would be great too:  Lakeshore Learning Letter Sound Rubber Stamps.

For more great journal ideas check out this wonderful book:

This book retails as an e-book for $15.99

Happy journaling to you!

~Barb