Back to School Goodies

Happy Back to School season!  Are you feeling as busy as I am?  I know many of you have been in school for a few weeks now, but here in the Pacific Northwest, we are just getting started.  My summer was wonderful, but not exactly relaxing for we bought a new home, sold our townhouse, moved, and traveled to Hawaii and New York.  Going back to work is getting me back on schedule!

I can't imagine going back to school without getting some new school supplies from the amazing Oriental Trading Company!  I was so thrilled to find a box on my doorstep a few days ago!  I brought it in and opened it right away, then rushed off to school with it.  Since I don't have students yet, I will tell you how I am going to use the supplies this year.

These Classroom Small Square Storage Baskets are adorable!  

They are so colorful, cute, and versatile.  They are not huge, but they are just the right size for our purposes!  I have so many thoughts about how to use them - putting them in my writing center to hold materials, using them to pass out to tables for art supplies, storing people colored crayons for each table group - but I think I will do something different.  I teach in a school with MANY transitions and so my homeroom students are not necessarily my literacy, ELD, or intervention kiddos.  I have supplies for my HR students, but need extra supplies for the students who come and go in my classroom.  I was thinking that these are the perfect size to hold extra crayons and glue!

I do use glue sponges, but some of my students prefer the glue sticks and they are on our school supply list, so I have these out for options.  I think these will be perfect for extra supplies for the students who come into my room for learning.

These colorful tubs also stack so neatly and easily that they do not take up much room on the shelf, and they will be easy for the children to pass out to the appropriate table groups.

Out of all the goodies I received though, I think the Plush Googly Eye Dry Erase Board Erasers are my favorite :) They are so gosh darn cute!  I can't stand it!  They are colorful, soft, sturdy, fluffy and erase a dry erase board like nobody's business.  Ha!  My kiddos will love using these and the great thing is, I have plenty so they can each use their own.  

Look how cute these are!

The best part is they work really well.  Going.....

Going.....

Gone!

Aren't those fun?

You know what else is fun?  This Warm Fuzzies Set!  

I have always adored the warm fuzzy feeling you get when students are complimented, make good choices, or show care and concern for one another.  Now, I have an adorable classroom system to celebrate the warm fuzzies that happen throughout our day.  

I bought this cute green jar at the Target Dollar Spot and I am going to add warm fuzzies from the plastic container to the green jar when something wonderful happens.  It might be that my kiddos were excellent in PE, or a teacher compliments our line in the hall, or a friend helps another friend tie their shoelace - there are many, many reasons.  Once the jar is full, we will celebrate or get some form of reward.  I am so excited to get this started in my classroom!

The last back to school goodie I wanted to share is a page for my Star Student.  It is technically a color your own all about me page :)

These posters will allow my students an opportunity to share some favorites, and information, and allow us to get to know each friend in class a little better.  This is a cute poster that the children will color and fill out at home, then bring back to class.  When the child brings the decorated paper back, we will go over the paper together and then I will hang it up on my Star Student board for a week.

I have the parents send in photos that I hang up on the board on the colorful stars.  All of the students in my class will be the Star Student by the end of the year.  We do a random drawing every Friday afternoon and it can be hard to wait if you are the last star student of the year!

Another new school year means new supplies and some fresh ideas.  I am so glad that I am able to start off my school year with some goodies from Oriental Trading Company.  

What are some new Back to School Goodies you love?

**The reviews of any products in this post are based strictly on my own opinion. Others may have a different experience or opinion about the products listed above. I was provided the products free of charge by Oriental Trading Company, and after using the products, I provided my honest opinion. No other type of compensation was received for this review. 

Book Bash!

I am so excited to be a part of Kinder Friends!  This is a great group of bloggers and I am excited to get to know some new online buddies.  We wanted to do a blog hop on a great topic that all teachers love - books!  Hence, the "Book Bash" was born!  Since the end of the school year is fast approaching, I thought I would write about a couple of my favorite end of the year books and share some activities and freebies.  (This blog post contains affiliate links for your convenience.)

One of my favorite books of all time to read is The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson.  Do you know The Gruffalo?  He has knobby knees, and...............you will get the reference if you know the book!  Ha! Ha! If you don't know the book, you should!  The Gruffalo is a delightful tale that rhymes, introduces different characters, and is full of surprises!  I was first introduced to The Gruffalo when a student brought the book in for her birthday.  I said I would read the book and I was blown away.  I kept saying how cute this book was and my student kept saying "I know!"

This is an excellent book that rhymes and is a story that you will want to read over and over.  It is the tale of a little mouse who is walking through the woods and he meets other animals who want to eat him.  He scares them off by telling the animals that he is meeting a Gruffalo, and describes a scary character.  The animals scurry away and then much to the mouse's surprise, he runs into a Gruffalo.  The Gruffalo is hungry, and the mouse looks tasty.  Will the mouse live?  And if so, how?  You must read it to find out.

I love this book so much that I wanted to extend our learning and focus on comprehension skills.  I created a literacy pack that is full of activities to reinforce sequencing skills (with many opportunities with picture cards for the pocket chart, a worksheet, crowns and a storyboard with puppets).  This also has many differentiated worksheets to practice character, setting, cause and effect, and more!

I wanted to share a cute freebie from the pack.  It is a storyboard in color with the characters from the story (there is also a storyboard in B&W in the big pack).  You can laminate them and put them on popsicle sticks and have your students retell the story.  Click on the image below to download your freebie.

Check out the preview below of the skills you will find in this packet.  If you like the freebie and are interested in more, you can find the packet in my TpT store here.

Another end of the year favorite is Humpty Dumpty by Daniel Kirk.  This is an adorable story of Humpty Dumpty that rhymes and is so enjoyable  Humpty wants to go to a birthday parade for King Mo, but Humpty's mom is worried about her little egg.  He promises to be careful and off he goes with his friends.  Well, Humpty can't see in the parade and so he climbs a wall - uh-oh.  It turns out that King Mo likes puzzles and gives it a whirl after all the king's men tried.  This story rolls off the tongue and is just so endearing.

After reading this story, we make a brick wall.  I fold a piece of white paper and staple it about 1/3 of the way up.   However, you could also have your students glue this (only on the sides) to save time.

The egg pattern I have is on thick cardstock.  I trace the egg pattern on different colors of construction paper.

I let the children pick the egg and have them decorate one side "regular" and one side "cracked".
They make a brick wall pattern on the white paper.  Then, they glue down the poem and can recite the poem and act it out.

If you'd like the words to make your own Humpty Dumpty, click below.  I did update the way the poem looks from my example.  This was back in the day before TpT and all the cute borders and fonts, and I was at a school that used D'Nealian.

I hope these ideas help you add some fun into the end of your school year.  My last day is June 10th with students.  How about you?

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Make sure to hop on over to Brittany's blog, A Kindergarten Love Story, to find out about some of her favorites books!

Navigating a New Normal

Well hello there!  It has been quite awhile since I have written - but it is for a good reason I promise you.  My life has changed so very much since my last post and then I sort of disappeared for a bit.

This story starts many years ago, but I will abbreviate the story because it is a long and heartbreaking one - until now.  My husband and I got married in July of 2009 and at that moment, we decided to start trying for a baby.  After a year, we decided to seek professional help.  This led us on a journey of many, many myriad fertility treatments while simultaneously pursuing adoption.

Meanwhile, while our lives were happy together, we longed for a baby to complete our family and at times, the pain was unbearable.  During this time, we would see our friends and family get married, get pregnant, have children, and repeat.  It seemed that everyone was able to have a baby - except us. Have you ever noticed that when you want something, you see it everywhere?  It seemed that everyone was pregnant, holding a baby in their arms, pushing a stroller, or getting picked in our adoption pool.

My husband and I did not share our feelings with many people.  It was too painful to discuss and I usually ended up crying when talking about it - so, I tended not to talk about it that much.  I also went to therapy to deal with the loss of not being pregnant and that was incredibly successful and healing for me.  I realized I didn't need to be pregnant to have a child.  I was proud of myself for being able to let that go and move forward - that didn't seem possible at one point.

Our adoption agency is Open Adoption and Family Services in Portland, Oregon.  It is centered in the Pacific Northwest (with offices in Seattle, Portland, and Eugene) but they appeal to couples and birthparents across the country because of their position on openness.  We like this agency because they offer All-Options Counseling to birthmothers (and birthfathers), and once in the pool, the birthparents are the ones who choose the parents of the child.  That was so meaningful to us.  We were so excited to enter the pool and did not expect to be in the pool as long as we were and that was so hard just waiting - it was out of our control!  I felt like I was stuck in "The Waiting Place".  You know, the place where everyone is just waiting in Oh, The Places You'll Go! by Dr. Seuss.

One good thing about being in the pool so long was that we did make some good friends who were also in the pool.

The other good (and BEST!) thing about being in the pool so long (27 months to be exact) was that we were picked by a loving birthmother who chose us to be parents to our beautiful baby girl!  We have nothing but the utmost respect for her choice and look forward to continuing to build a relationship with her and the birthfather.

Our daughter, Rebecca, was born on November 15th and we got "The Call" November 16th at 5:20 PM.  It was a regular Monday at work and I was just packing up to leave when I saw a call coming in from our agency.  Needless to say that was an amazing phone call and I called my husband right away.  We ate a quick sandwich at home and then headed into Portland to meet our daughter and birthmother, whom we now consider our extended family.

I called my principal on the way to the hospital to say that we got the call, and I won't be in to work the next day, or for that matter, for quite awhile!  Ha!  She was very supportive and excited for us, as was my entire staff, and all of our friends and family.  There were a few nearest and dearest who knew how long and hard the journey was for us, and how sweet this moment actually was.  I believe every parent is thrilled to meet their child and has nothing but love and amazement in their hearts.  But we had such a long wait, that this moment was a bit surreal and extra special that it was only natural that many tears of happiness were shed.

Life has been amazing ever since she came into our lives.  We absolutely adore her and love seeing her smile, and grab toys, and do many "firsts".  She is an amazing baby who is happy and easy-going and has brought such joy into our lives.

Fast forward to today................how does all of this work?  I know how motherhood works and I am LOVING it!  I just don't know how to be the teacher I used to be (I don't want to spend all those extra hours at work now with my sweet baby girl at home).  How do people blog with a baby?  How do people update their Facebook pages, Instagram, and/or continue to create products for Teachers pay Teachers?

This is what I am trying to navigate now.  I have a new normal.  My daughter and husband are my priorities and I believe that is the way it should be.  I do so enjoy teaching and always worked outside of my contracted hours in the past, but I would rather be home with my baby girl than do that now.  Does that make me a bad teacher?  I hope not.  I don't think it does.  It just makes me a teacher who is rethinking my preps and time management.  It makes me a teacher who is going to be turbo at work every free minute so I can still do my best for my students, but be able to let work go at the end of the day and not bring anything home.

I can't figure out how to find the time to blog and part of me wants to let it all go.  I have only been blogging for about a year, and while I love it, it is time consuming.  But I have had fun blogging and have enjoyed the connections and friendships I have made because of it.  I don't want to give it up, but clearly, I am finding it hard to make the time to write.  I'd like to *try* to commit to blogging once a month, but honestly, even that seems challenging.

I have a few products I am working on for Teachers pay Teachers just sitting on my computer.  These are things I was working on, and they are still in the same place they were as of November 16th.  If I am blogging, or creating, then I am not giving my full attention to my daughter.  She is young and needs a lot of attention, and I want to be providing my undivided attention and shower her with love. We have waited a long time for this moment and I don't want to spend it in front of a computer.  I want to spend it with her.

Now, my priority is my daughter and my family, but I do enjoy all of these other aspects of my life as well.  I am bloggy twins with Chrissie Rissmiller from Undercover Classroom.  We feel a kinship with each other since we used the same blog designers (Blogs Fit for a Queen) and our blogs were launched around the same time (hers came out maybe a week or so before mine).  I saw on IG that she was hosting a Blog Birthday Giveaway and that made me realize that mine was also coming up and that I hadn't blogged in a little bit.  She had some great words for me and I really appreciated hearing this advice.  She said "Your blog will always be there, but your baby will only be a baby for a short period of time."

That is so true.  I needed to hear that Chrissie, thank you!

We have waited a long time - the wait seemed interminable - and now I want to cherish it.  I don't want to be tuned into social media like I was before.  I want to put the phone and computer down.  I want to be present.

So how do I do it all and still stay connected?  I am not sure yet.  I am trying to figure this all out.  If any of you have tips on how to manage all of this, please share!  For now, my baby girl is waking up from her nap and I want to go snuggle her.

Educational Goodies!

Autumn is here and the back to school madness has settled down.  My students are getting the routines of the classroom down and we are chugging along in our day to day kindergarten adventure. I wanted to add in some extra educational goodies in our kindergarten day and so I was thrilled when my box from Oriental Trading arrived to my classroom!  

One of the things that came in my box was this adorable Fall Apple Magnet Craft project.  This project was all ready to go with each apple in its own little bag.  The foam pieces had a sticky back and so all the children had to do was peel and stick!  They were able to choose their own color and design.  They could also do this independently, with the exception of poking out the seeds.  The seeds were little and so that was challenging for some of my kiddos, but it was great fine motor skills practice.  These had magnets and so to finish the project, a magnet was stuck on the back and the children had a great project to bring home.  This project fit in so nicely around Johnny Appleseed day and our apple unit.  They did complete this project one:one with my wonderful Instructional Assistant, but they could have been completed whole group because of the ease of this cute craft.  She basically guided them in their craft, and helped out when needed.

If you are like me, then you love cute and colorful supply holders.  These Classroom Small Round Storage Baskets are perfect for holding small supplies.  They are not huge (hence the word small) but they fit my needs perfectly.  Sometimes I need a little basket to throw in a math manipulative for an activity, or a craft supply, and these are so handy and sturdy that I will continue to get a lot of use out of these.  I also love the Roll and Color page from The Kindergarten Connection (see green basket).  These baskets were the perfect size to hold the dice at our table and keep them in one central place for the table to access.

This is my first year teaching full-day kindergarten and I am loving it!  I feel like we have so much more time in our day and I am enjoying the extra learning taking place.  I thought these Fun Shape Word & Number Swatters would be a perfect way to get my students up and moving and exploring our classroom for words and numbers.  They loved walking around the room swatting different words and I was impressed at some of the places they found print.  I know we will continue to get a lot of use out of these and they are already asking about the next time they can walk around the room looking for words and numbers!

We use Reading Street for our reading program and the children are already starting to practice reading decodable books from our program.  Currently we are working on the high-frequency words we have learned and practicing concepts of print.  We are reading left to right, word by word, and only what is written on the page.  These are big skills for kindergarten children!  These Bookworm Word Spacers are actually meant for writing to help the children space out their words.  While we will use it for our writing, currently, I am having them use them for reading so they can move the bookworm along the sentence and isolate each word as they read.

Wwwhhhhooooooo doesn't love talking about owls in the autumns?  Ha!  We have been reading owl stories and learning about nocturnal animals.  This Fall Color Owl Ornament Craft Kit owl craft is so adorable!  This was another craft that was easy to put together.  It came with sticky backs and so the children were able to complete this project on their own.  They did get help from my IA with tying the ribbon through the hole at the top.  While this came with everything peel and stick and ready to go, I did need to reinforce the wings with glue dots.  The sticky portion was small and so it needed a little something extra to help the wings stick on the side. But, they currently look great hanging on my cabinets and bulletin board next to an autumn addition project (and freebie you will find below!).

This Turkey Craft Kit is probably the cutest thing I have seen!  It is a sturdy material with colorful pieces.  Each kit was individually wrapped and all of our pieces were accounted for.  This project needed to be glued so we did this project whole group.  I modeled how to do it, and then the children copied mine.  It became a directed art project and yet each child still had their own personal touch.  This is such a cute craft!!!!  I hung these on my bulletin board at the end of the day on Friday and I got so many compliments from fellow teachers.  They look great filling in our bulletin board out in the hall.  They are sharing the board with a 10 Little Turkeys FREEBIE by Teacher's Breathing Space which is also adorable and educational.  Be sure to check out both of these projects!

I happened to have pumpkin (so old I can't find them on the website anymore!) and leaf foam pieces from Oriental Trading Company from a few years ago and decided to create a little addition project to go along with them.  I had a parent helper come in and had the children roll big dice in dice.  

The children used the big number on the dice for the leaves, and the small inside number for the pumpkins.  The children colored their project and then added the correct amount of leaves and pumpkins to their paper.  After the foam pieces were added (the pumpkins had to be glued down and the leaves had a peeling foam back) they recorded their numbers and added them together to find out how many in all.

                             

While I can't offer you foam pieces through cyber space (as much as I'd like to do so!), I did create this freebie for you to use.  If you have foam pieces, use them!  But if not, you can copy the leaves and pumpkins and enjoy this fun autumn addition freebie with your kiddos!

You can get the freebie here, or by clicking the picture below!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

**The reviews of any products in this post are based strictly on my own opinion. Others may have a different experience or opinion about the products listed above. I was provided the products free of charge by Oriental Trading Company, and after using the products, I provided my honest opinion. No other type of compensation was received for this review. 

Scary Things *Freebie*

                                                                                    Photo Credit: FreeImages.com/Greg Jordan

Tis the season to talk about scary things and read scary Halloween books.  While we talk about scary things, it only gets so scary in kindergarten.  Luckily, most books aren't that scary, and they usually end up with a happy ending - phew!

Something I like to do every year is read an assortment of scary seasonal books and then ask the students to make a list of scary things.  They really come up with some good ideas!  I make this chart and draw a little image next to it for a reminder.

I have been doing this book for years and don't even know where it originated.  I know that at one point I remade it.  The version in my photos that I am using with my students this year, shows a DJ Inkers font (which I don't have a license for commercial use so I am not using it in my freebie), and Comic Sans (I know, the dreaded comic sans).  But hey, back in the day, comic sans was the cute and different font!  Now I know better, and have invested in loads of fonts.

**But, just for the record, I do not share in the distaste for comic sans that so many others do (I know, please don't throw rotten eggs at me!).

After we make our list, we get to work creating our book.  The children think about which scary thing they want in their book, and then they copy the word, and illustrate the photo.

We are also working on beginning writing skills in kindergarten.  We are working on drawing a detailed picture, and since I let them use markers (woohoo - that is cause for great excitement in kindergarten!) they are really trying their best!

We have one page left on Monday, and then we will take the time to share our books out to the class.  Check out the cute writing and illustrations from my kiddos:

You can see how hard at work my students are.  They are loving this project - and so am I.  It is always a fun experience each year.  They get very excited about their creations and they always come up with the cutest drawings!

I printed out the book, cut them in half, and then stapled black construction paper on the outside of the book.  I glued the cover down on the front.  You can also do this, but you can also keep it simple by running the book on white paper and stapling it in the copy machine to save you time.

As you can see, this is an adorable book!  I jazzed it up for the freebie, and will be sure to use that format next year.  But I wanted to get the book going in my class this past week and didn't have time to redo this packet until now.  If only we had like 6 more hours in each day!

I created this freebie for you and it is now in my TpT store.  You can find Scary Things here.  I made it with new fonts, added a border, and even made the pages so you can have some differentiation.  I hope you can use it this week to get ready for Halloween!  If you don't celebrate Halloween, this is still applicable with the season of autumn, and bats, and spiders - oh my!

You can see some of the images from the new and improved, (and comic sans free), Scary Things book below!

This FREE Scary Things book can be found in my Teachers pay Teachers store.

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope you have an incredibly fun, and calm, week :)