St. Patrick's Day Giveaway Winners!

So....I had 9 people comment.  Which is great!!! I'm not complaining ;)  But that just means I feel silly doing a random number generator for 5 people... :)

So that means that all nine of you who commented get the unit!! :)  Consider it my leap day gift to you!  I'll send it in an email!

I'd also just like to say how crazy awesome it is that I've passed 50 followers!!!! LOVE this blogging community!

Sale!!-New Items too!! and of course..a FREEBIE.

I uploaded three new things to TpT today...just in time for......the BIG LEAP YEAR SALE tomorrow!  I'm sure you have heard about it and I'm joining in.  Everything in my store will be 20% off AND you can get 10% off that with the promo code L2P0Y at checkout. :)  And...here's a glimpse at the new things!

Dice Games

The dice games pack!!  There are 12 different dice games in this.  Some concepts covered include: addition, perimeter, area, place value, number sequencing, addition and subtraction.  You can use single or multiple dice.  OR...you can use my favorite: dice-in-dice.  Like these...

Themed Roll & Cover Pack

Roll and cover dice games-students roll the dice and cover the number on their game board. For each theme in this pack, there are 2 boards. One is a simple 2-6 board and the other is a 2-12 board to use with multiple dice and addition.  There are 33 different themes.  Themes included are:

-New Year's

-Snowman

-Valentine's

-100th Day

-St. Patrick's Day

-Spring (4 different ones)

-Summer Fun (2 different ones)

-4th of July

-Back to School (2 different ones)

-Fall Fun (3 different ones)

-Thanksgiving (2 different ones)

-Gingerbread

-Elf

-Reindeer

-Santa

-Community Helpers (included-dentist, doctor, farmer, firefighter, mailman, nurse, police officer)

-Cowboy

-Penguin

-Earth Day

Ten Frame Fun

Number sense is such a key concept for young learners. I have found that subitizing (recognizing numbers quickly) is one of the biggest skills my students need practice with. I do this by using ten frame flash cards. They can be used in many different ways, but ultimately the goal is for the students to be able to recognize the ten frame set without counting.

I have included themed ten frame flash cards with multiple representations for each number. The themes included are:

Snowflakes, Hearts, Shamrocks, Eggs, Butterflies, Suns, Apples , Acorns, Pumpkins, Turkeys, Jingle Bells, Gingerbread Men

I have also included a simple set with just black dots.

PSSSSSSS-If you go HERE and download the preview, you'll get the set with the black dots for free. :)

And, just because I'm feeling the love today.  Here's a St. Patrick's Day freebie from my roll & cover pack! :)

  Click HERE to get it!

So, visit my TpT Store tomorrow and buy to your heart's content.  :) And don't forget all of my things are 20% off and if you enter the promo code  L2P0Y at checkout you will get 10% more off!

Thanks!!!

Liebster Blog Award-Thank You!

First let me say THANK YOU to Shannon at Tickled to Teach!  She nominated me for the Liebster Blog Award. :)

What it's all about...

The Liebster Award is awarded to blogs with less than 200 followers.  The award is passed along from blogger to blogger and highlights up and coming blogs.  Liebe is the word for love in Germany, which is where the award originated.  

Guidelines to accepting the award:

Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog.  Link back to the blogger who presented the award to you.  Copy and paste the blog award on your blog.  Present the Liebster Blog Award to blogs of 200 followers or less who you feel deserve to be noticed.  Let them know they have been chosen by leaving a comment at their blog.

My Liebster Blog Picks

Hands on TeacherGreat ideas here!!!

First Class Teacher

Fun ideas and activities!

Book Giveaway from a Fellow Blogger!

First Grade Bloomabilities is giving away a set of chapter books!  The coolest thing is that SHE wrote them! :) As someone who dreams of publishing a children's book or two eventually I think this is awesome!

She's doing a giveaway where she is going to give away a set.  The giveaway ends March 1st so head over to First Grade Bloomabilities to enter!

Thank you!!! & Coming soon....

First let me just say THANK YOU!!! It is incredible the amount of feedback and response I have gotten from my handwriting and number freebie this week!  For a newbie blogger it's like Christmas to receive such encouraging and positive feedback. :)  So thanks to all of you who pinned, followed and shared!

And...there are lots of projects happening on my end.  The dice game pack is in the works and debuting tomorrow....my first themed unit!  There will be a giveaway involved so stay tuned tomorrow night!

Numbers 0-20-FREEBIE!

Here's another freebie...but this time it's MATH related! :)

This pack includes handwriting practice, ten frame examples, even vs. odd, one more, one less, number partners, etc. for each number 0-100.  See examples below:

You can get it HERE!

Feel free to pin, share and follow! :) Hope it's useful!

Handwriting Galore-D'Nealian

I had a request from Brenda at Primary Inspired for my Handwriting Galore pack in D'Nealian style.  So...here you go!  It's FREE as well!  You can find it HERE at my TpT site!

Please feel free to pin, share, and follow to your heart's content. :)  And be sure to leave feedback!  I hope these packs are useful for you in your classroom!

Be on the lookout for more goodies in the coming weeks!

Permission to Pin!

Thanks to a post on Laura Candler's Corkboard Connections blog I was made aware of some "fine print" on the Pinterest user agreement.  Check out her post to see details.

I just wanted to let you all know you have my permission to PIN anything from my blog! :) So pin away!

Handwriting Galore

I put together some handwriting practice pages for the letters.

You can get them for FREE HERE.  If you download, please follow my blog, TpT store and leave some feedback!

Hope you find these useful!

Alphabet Galore!

I created an alphabet pack that has:
-An alphabet chart with corresponding pictures
-Half Page flashcards (ex: Aa)








-Half Page Flashcards-Capital (ex: A)

-Half Page Flashcards-Lowercase (ex: a)

-Quarter Page Alphabet Flashcards (ex: Aa)

-Quarter Page Picture Cards












They can be used in MANY different ways.  The quarter page flashcards and picture cards can be used for matching.  The alphabet chart is great for reference in guided reading groups or for writing folders!

The best part?? They're yours for FREE!  Just click HERE!

Also...feel free to follow my blog here!!!!

Daily News!!

If you are a teacher then without question you have had those students that walk in EVERY DAY with a fun story to tell you and all their friends.  :)  And as much as you want to hear the story, if you stopped to listen to all 20 something kiddos tell you a story you'd get nothing taught!

This year my team and I were introduced to something called Daily News.  It is a form of morning message, etc. but the kiddos take ownership of it.  Basically you gather the kiddos around a piece of chart paper and call on different students to share one sentence of exciting news.  It can be from last year, last month, yesterday or tomorrow. :)  When you start this, especially with kinders, you have to MODEL MODEL MODEL what a complete sentence looks and sounds like.  But they catch on, and FAST! After the student shares their sentence, the class repeats the sentence.  I have my kiddos count with their fingers how many words are in the sentence when we repeat it.  Then, you write the sentence on the chart paper.  The kiddos always are involved in the writing.  Now, at the beginning I always wrote the sentence but the kiddos are telling me what to do.  Some things you might hear kiddos say would be: No, that should be a capital because it's a name, You forgot your period, etc.  As we move on I let the student who said the sentence write sight words (ex: the, to) to make it more interactive writing.  After the sentence is written we always count the words again to make sure we didn't forget any!  Then I take a different colored marker and ask the student who said the sentence to tell me any sight words they see.  As they identify them I circle them.  Next comes the magic. :) I ask the class "What else do you see in this sentence?"  I usually take 3-5 students to identify other things they notice.   If there are things in the sentence that I noticed and want to do a quick mini-lesson on then I do this now.  For example, if the student's sentence was: "I went to John's birthday party last weekend"  I might use this as an opportunity to introduce compound words using "birthday."  Some of the things I focus on during this time are:
         -Parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.
         -Compound Words
         -Verb Tenses: Past, present, future
         -Plural words
         -capitals & lowercases
         -Punctuation: exclamation points, question marks, commas, quotation marks
         -Hidden Sight Words: they LOVE LOVE this one...basically finding sight words in other words
          (ex: "to" in tomorrow)
         -and the list could go ON and ON. :)
Now we only get about 3-5 students done each day depending on our time.  I make sure that I get to each kiddo before giving another student another turn.  In fact, once each student has shared, I post our "Daily News" in the hallway.  The kiddos LOVE it!  Then when I take it down, I cut apart the sentences and each student gets to take their sentence home.  They take such ownership in this!

I will say that this is one of my FAVORITE things.  It models writing, gives a chance for meaningful mini-lessons, reinforces sight words, sentence structure, letter sounds, etc, and gives the kiddos a chance to share their exciting stories!  Some days they even ask if we can do more! :)  You can also have them do it in the mornings when they come in...that way they know what they are sharing.

Here's a picture of one of ours from last semester posted in the hallway:

Also...my FAVORITE markers of all time:

I love Mr. Sketch too...but these are SO bright and rich!

PS.  Don't forget to add your ideas to my dice game post for a {FREEBIE}!

Dice Game Ideas??? and Giveaway!

I am wanting to put together a fun packet of all sorts of math games that you can play with dice.  I have a recent obsession with the double dice (the dice INSIDE the dice).  I have quite a few ideas but thought I would open it up to the blogging world and see what other ideas you might have! 

So here's the deal--if you
comment here and share your dice game idea
AND
follow my blog!
...when I finish up the packet I'll send it to you for FREE! :)  Just be sure to leave your email in your comment with the idea!  I'm hoping to finish it up in the next few weeks.

Let the sharing begin!

Giveaway from Fellow Bloggers!

 and

have some GREAT ideas on their blogs!

See their post HERE for an awesome giveaway!



Guess My Word-Sight Word Introduction with Technology!

During my first year of teaching I used something called "Guess My Word" to introduce our new sight words.  My kiddos loved it and so did I, but I saw a technology integration idea in it! So, I created a powerpoint for each sight word so we could play "Guess My Word" on our SMART board. :) The kiddos LOVE it!  You can also use it just on a computer that is projected onto a TV or a screen. 
I've posted a pack of 50 with instructions on my Teachers Pay Teachers site.  The 50 words included are the 50 we teach in kinder.  See the list here!  You can also download a preview file that has instructions and one powerpoint file for the sight word "like."

Here's a screenshot of the first slide.

All you do is click on the letter the student "guesses."  If it's right it links to a slide with a smiley face.  If it's wrong it links to a slide with a sad face.  The star always takes you back to the first slide.  When you're done, click on the checkmark to check your work.  {When we check ours I let them whisper scream the word. :) They LOVE it!}

If you like the idea but have different sight words you teach, I would be more than happy to create them for your list!  Just shoot me an email {laceykyates@gmail.com} or comment here with your list and I'll get to work on it!

100th Day of School: Number Cards 0-100!

On the 100th day of school my kiddos did an activity called the 100s House that I got from a teammate.  They LOVED it!  They worked as a team to put the numbers in order.  It took a while but it was a good gauge of which kiddos needed more hundreds chart practice and was fun for them at the same time. :)

I made the number cards to go with the "houses."  Each of my tables is a color and each house matched the table color.  I was concerned about the numbers getting "lost" so before I laminated/cut them I took a marker and color coded the back of the number sets to go with each house (ex: the numbers for the blue house had a blue line on the back of them).  You could also use color dots (like the garage sale dots) to color code as well.

I created a set of numbers that showed the 5s and 10s patterns.  You can get them HERE.

I also created a simple black and white version with no patterns.  You can get them HERE.

They can be used for so much more than the 100s house!

 

Daily Five Anchor Charts!

At the beginning of this year I wanted to try the Daily Five with my kinder kiddos.  It has been WONDERFUL!  I introduced the "five" slowly.  Every time I introduced a different activity we filled in an anchor chart.  Then I posted these on bright colored paper so they could remember what they were supposed to be doing when at that activity.  It was a great reference for them and an easy way for me to remind them as well!  Get them here.

I also posted the chart below in my room so kiddos could reference how they could read a book.  At the beginning of the year it was great since most of them weren't reading the words yet.  It gave them a lot of confidence to know they could read the pictures too!  You can get this {freebie!} here. :)

If you haven't already, check out the Daily Five from Gail Boushey and Joan Moser! You can get their book here. 

It's a great resource!!



Numeral Formation-SMART Notebook

After creating the letter formation SMART notebook activity, I wanted one to go along with numeral formation.  So, I made one! :)  You can find it at my Teachers Pay Teachers site.