Easter Activities

I am sitting here enjoying my 2nd day of Spring Break.  We only get Thursday, Friday, Monday off in my district which kinda stinks!  I am greatful for those days but it's hard to force yourself to relax and unwind.  It does kind of defeat the purpose!

Anywho, I wanted to post some pics of a few of our Easter activities.  I had ZERO time to prep for Easter activities.  On Monday, I did a really cute story/activity with the kids but forgot to take pictures before I sent them home.  I found a new book new book this year called "The Best Easter Eggs Ever" by Jerry Smath.

It was a cute story about young rabbits designing a new Easter Egg for the Easter Bunny.  I read this then followed it up with a cute, simple painting activity. I gave all of the students a blank template of an egg (I had one but you could easily draw your own.)  They all designed their own Easter Egg.  I couldn't believe how great they turned out.  Even those lil guys who still scribble and could care less about staying in the lines really put a lot of effort into it!

On Tuesday, we had no time for our theme activity but I managed to squeeze in another new book I got from Scholastic called "The Legend of Jellybean and the Unbreakable Egg" by Joe Troianta.  It's adorable!!!  By far one of my new favorites, and the kids loved it!  Next year, when I have more time, I will probably do a cute color-mixing activity with this book.

 



 Then on Wednesday, we did our Jellybean Egg-stravaganza!  Wednesday was all about Jellybeans!  It's a good thing I don't like Jellybeans or I would have been 10lbs heavier by the end of the day!

I got these cute activities from Simply Kinder.  I thought I had the greatest tip EVER to give to my loyal followers but I'm sure it's not original.  It's still a HUGE time saver though so I'll post it.

Before hand, I poured a bunch of bags of Jellybeans into a bowl and scooped them into plastic eggs.  All of the Jellybean activities we were going to complete were prepped just by doing this!  Well, actually my daughter did this for me but you get the point.  Super simple and the kids loved it!  It was so much easier then pouring a gazillion jellybeans into little cups for them.

I transported them to school in a cute little basket from Walmart ($.97)



First, they emptied their eggs and sorted by color.

Then they made Tally marks for each color (Sorry, can't get the pics to rotate....UGH!)

Then we graphed each color.

I know this activity is in no way original but it is always a HUGE favorite for my kiddies. They get to eat the Jellybeans when they are done.  I also let them keep the eggs.  One of my kiddies replied, "we get to keep it FOREVER!"  Gotta love them!

I am currently working on a cute Farm Unit since our field trip to the farm is next Friday.  Can you tell trying to keep my head above water I'm a little behind right now!  Stay tuned for that...should be posted by the end of the weekend.

I'd love to hear about any fun activities you did with your kiddies.  Post your comments below.  Have a great weekend!

 

Tuesday Tips- Guest Post from Buzz Into Kinder

Hi everyone! I am so excited to be guest blogging today at the Kindergarten Pod! I am Carrie from Buzz Into Kinder and I thought I would share some of my guided reading tips today!

I hope you find something new to take and use in your classroom!

1. Monster Fingers or some sort of tracking device.

I will shamefully admit that I thought I could live without these and I did live with out these for almost three years of teaching. Then in casual conversation one day someone told me they were doing an oriental trading order. I asked if I could throw something in and split the shipping. So I grabbed these suckers. Now I don’t know how I lived without them. I had a kid ask me last week if I could put some of these in the treasure box! I think yes- if you want to point to words at home- let’s do it! Plus for when I can get  72 of something for $7.00 I am all about it.

2. Find noise makers you like and stick with them.

When I am in guided reading I don't plan for transition time. When I say rotate I mean walk quickly to your next center we don't have time for discussion. This is because I want to ensure that I squeeze every second out of the day and especially when it revolves around individualize instruction. This year I have two distinct noise makers one that means rotate and one that means we are getting too loud. I use a classic bell to switch and the the most wonderful sounding star wand to signal that we need to lower voices. The best part about the star wand is that it starts off at a high pitch and slowly fades out. FYI I am not musically inclined it could start off low but either way it starts loud and fades. Best part is- this star wand is 5.95! One of my teammates bought one and then we all had to have it!

You could also make a fun rainstick out of a paper towel roll and some cool duct tape!

3. Elkonin Boxes and Making Words Cards

This activity is definitely a favorite in my classroom. My kids love making words and I love it because it really tells me who can segment sounds, who knows letter recognition, and who truly knows and can apply their letter sound knowledge. I have this handy little tool kit from Home Depot to store my letters and I printed the vowels on yellow paper. 

I also use elkonin boxes when we use these cards. I think it helps the students to visualize how many sounds they are listening for and allows them to have a place for their letters or possibly I am slightly OCD.

If you need some new Elkonin Boxes download them for free at the end of this post!

4. Have a "Turn It In" Bucket
If you are going to have students completing work at other centers that you want to look at have them turn it into a bucket or have them keep it at their seats. As you can see my bucket is nothing fancy. Just a place located next to my reading table so when a student comes to the table to turn it in you can point quickly and quietly to the bucket.

5. Showcase
Showcase and reward the students who put in tons of extra effort at their centers. Not only do I want the students at my reading group working to their fullest potential I want ALL my students working. Students know at the end centers I will go through my bucket. Students who do an excellent job on their work can put it up on the "Super Center Work" board. Students who need a little bit of extra help on their center will complete it as morning work or during our intensive instruction time at the end of the day.

6. Have Buckets for Each Group
These little buckets were the best thing I have ever made. They are labeled for each of my groups and have the books I will be working during the week. These buckets make it so I have everything I may need at my finger tips!

 Thanks so much for letting me guest post today!

"Some Bunny" Linky Party!

I have a confession to make.  I'm not proud of it but it is part of who I am today.   I used to view blogging as another "chore."  GASP you say!  I know, I know, it's a disgrace.  But my dear friends, I dare not hang my hang in shame any longer.   I have grown to LOVE this lil ole blog of mine.  I love that I have new followers.  I love checking out other people's blogs.  I love the ability to share thoughts, ideas and products that I have found useful or inspiring!

So, to celebrate some of this love, I decided to join in on a cute linky party going on called, "Some BUNNY loves your blog!" 

When I decided I wanted to start featuring guest bloggers, I knew instantly who I wanted to be my FIRST blogger.  I love, love, love the useful tips and ideas this blogger shares.  I first "cyber-met" Miss Martin from Miss Martin's Classroom on the TpT Forums.  We always seemed to be answering the same posts with the same answers.  I knew I wanted her to guest blog (and Deanna was busy that Tuesday......just kiddin!  I crack myself up!) 

If you follow my blog, then I would definitely recommend following her blog as well.  She has some really great ideas and products to share.  Go head on over and give Miss Martin a little Bunny-love!

Couldn't Help Myself!

Happy Wednesday everyone!  Can't chat long tonight......can barely keep my eyes open!  I made a cute Easter-themed Skip Counting activity to put in my Math Center.  It is pictured below.  Click the picture to download your FREE copy. 

Just print, cut, and laminate.  I plan  to hole-punch each side so the kids can use linking chains to put them in the correct order (fine motor practice :))  Enjoy!

Tuesday Tips

Hope your week is going great!  I can only post a short blog tonight because I am currently DROWNING in paperwork!  It seems our district woke up and realized we better get rolling if we want to retain any little ones so the teachers are scrambling to get their ducks in a row and provide the necessary documentation.  Oh, and did I mention report cards are coming up again.  UGH!

The first tip is something I have used all year and I love, Love, LOVE it!  I used to use rolls and rolls of tape to hang masterpieces in the hallways at school.  It would take FOR-E-VER to hang everything.  So this year, since I was going with a purple and blue color scheme, I laminated purple and blue paper, hung it on the wall (well actually I rubber cemented it :)) and attached clothespins.  And voila, when you need to change out the work you simply unclip the work and attach the new work.  This has been a HUGE timesaver.  No more hours and endless pieces of tape.  Here is a pic from Mrs. Terhune's First Grade that shows how she did it with a different color scheme but you get the idea.



I've been looking to find a solution I'm having in my classroom right now.  I can't figure out how on earth my kids go through crayons so fast.  I'm starting to think they are eating them.......no, seriously!  We use table bins in Kindergarten so everyone at the table uses the same crayons.  I emptied 2 packs of 24 crayons in each bin at the beginning of the year.  Since then I've put an additional 2 packs of 24 in each bin.  In case you're counting, that's 96 crayons time 6 tables!!!  I have never had a class eat so many go through crayons like this.  Even with alllllll those crayons, my kiddies never seem to have the colors they need.  "Ms. Hill, we don't have red!"  "Ms. Hill, Table 4 has two yellows!"  I've started to dred coloring activities!  Well no more!  I found another cool idea on Mrs. Terhune's First Grade that might help!

Can anyone guess what I'm making this weekend?!?!?!

This last tip comes with a link and a warning.  You will simply melt when you see all the cute ideas on this site. One of my summer projects is to make chair covers for the back of each seat.  Well with 25 kiddies each year, I'm going to need a LOT of fabric!  This is a picture of the seat covers I found but I have to say they are wayyyy to busy for my OCD eyes!  I will be making mine in purple and blue (are there any other colors?!?!)



http://fancyfrugallife.com/a-classroom-organization-tour-of-mrs-gs-class/

This blog post is definitely worth checking out but don't say I didn't warn ya! 

I hope you found something cute that you'll be able to use in your classroom.  If you have some cute ideas, PLEASE contact me so I can feature you on an edition of Tuesday Tips.

Let me just tell you, I have something SUPER special lined up for next Tuesday.  You won't want to miss it!

Do you have any ideas similar to the ones I posted?  Please share with me what you do to stay sane in the classroom.

Easter FREEBIE!

Wow, is it me or is March just FLYING by!  The last two months have been one holiday / celebration after the next.  Since my mish-mosh St. Patrick's Day Freebie was wildly popular, I decided to make up an Easter Freebie.

This product comes with an April Calendar, Easter-themed Word Wall cards, "Find the Jellybeans" game and a word-building game.  Just click on the picture to get your FREE download.  Enjoy!

Friday Fun and a FREEBIE!

I have to say that coming off of last week I wasn't sure how this week would go.  We had to change our schedule with our fifth grade because they were taking state testing.  As you can imagine, Kindergartener's do NOT adapt quickly to change in routine!   Well to my surprise, it turned out to be a fairly decent week.  Today was by far the best.  We celebrated our first Friday Fun-Day!  Read all about it here.

Anywho, I've been feeling bad about not posting a freebie lately.  And let's be honest.....can any blog post that begins with a freebie actually be a bad post?  I think not!  So here it is.....it's nothing fancy but a cute activity for your Math Center.

Provide students with one or two dice and a marker/counter (jellybeans would be cute.)  Students roll the die/dice and hop that many spaces.  Just click on the picture to download your freebie!

I've been busy prepping my center activities for next week and wanted to share some of them with you.

In my Math Center I have the following activities for next week:

My students have just started working on Base Ten blocks.  We are working mainly on the teen numbers but some of my smarties need a bigger challenge.  Students have to match the base ten blocks to the corresponding number. 

This one is my favorites!  These cards are for addition practice and they are tiered for differentiating.  I have students on all three levels right now so I really like that everyone will feel a sense of accomplishment.  I put these cards in the center with expo markers, magic erasers (for cleaning) and various counters including an abacus.  The kids love these activities!
These two activities are in my Spring Math Activities product which you can access by clicking HERE.

In my ABC Center, I am finally leaping into the new millenium (13 years later!) I made a game I like to refer to as a common game I can't say because of copyright violations / Word Board for the kids.

I love and hate this product!  I love it because I personally am a wordie!  I love word games, building words, putting words together, scrambling words....well, you get the point.  I unintentionally very purposefully intrigued my students by putting the board out this week.  We aren't going to start using it until Monday but they are dying to know what it's for.   The hate part comes in because I hate the way I placed the letters on top.  I really should have placed the letters closer together instead of trying to be fancy!  Oh well, live and learn.  I have all the letters printed, laminated and ready to go!  And yep, you guessed it......I'm giving it to you!  Click here to download the PDF.  Hope you enjoy!

This next activity is one of my personal favorites as well. My kiddies this year REALLY struggle with vowel sounds.  I just finished up our DIBELS testing and thought they would do really well since we've practiced soooooo much...../u/, /u/, up!  Well they didn't.  I don't think they even remembered any of it.  I was frustrated.  I needed something to help them practice.  I created this self-checking vowel set and I absolutely LOVE it.  My kiddies are finally picking up on that important medial vowel sound.  Can I get an Alleluia!



This is everything you will need for this center.  I have EXPO markers in the center with Magic Erasers from the Dollar Store.  They really are magic when erasing marker from lamination!

I made them self-checking by writing the word on the back of the card.

This is my Vowel Practice Cards set.  There are 30 cards in this set (color and black and white.)  To download this product click here or click the pictures.  

 Well thanks for hanging out for this looooooong post.  I've been trying to photograph as much as possible in my classroom so I can share it with you!

What are some things you have in your centers this week?