My Favorite School Supply

I discovered the greatest tip this week from the kinder teacher across the hall! Our district still has half-day K (hopefully not for long!) and I know that an annoyance for half-day K teachers is managing all of the name tags needed for the AM session, then PM session. I walked into Mrs. F's room one day and saw that she had used SHARPIE markers to write the names directly on the tables! It looked really neat (blue names for AM kids, pink names for PM kids) on the dark laminate tables; it reminded me of the black dry-erase boards cafes use with brightly-colored markers. (Sorry I didn't take a picture, but I would have felt strange snapping pictures in her room!)

Anyways, after getting over my shock at *gasp* marker on the tables, Mrs. F explained that they were called Sharpie oil-based paint pens and that the ink comes off easily with rubbing alcohol. Not to mention they come in a ton of cool colors and the ink is water-proof, fade-proof, and basically small-child proof.

In my class, I give each student a number (1-6 at each table), which is useful for a variety of things ("number sixes, get the colored pencils for your table! Number threes, get books for your team!"). I think this is originally a GLAD thing.  Anyways, I had stuck those garage-sale dots with their numbers on their name tags. 

As you can imagine, those dots didn't last long. The kids kept pick, pick, picking at them. Or spilled their water on them. Or somehow made them magically disappear. I was tired of replacing them, then having to change them when I moved kiddos to new seats. Suddenly, a light bulb went off in my head and I ran to Mrs. F's room to borrow one of her paint pens. Voila, problem solved! And the kids were excited to find these numbers the next day. 

Now I'm hooked on my new favorite school supply. :)

My Book of ABCs + freebie

I've had an alphabet book on my to-do list for months, and finally had the time to work on it thanks to this glorious long weekend. This was a fun opportunity to put my clip art collection to work! For each big product I post on TpT, I like to also post a coordinating freebie of some sort just for fun on my blog, so I put together some fun ABC match worksheets. Just click on the picture to download it from my TpT store.

Also shared on Manic Monday!

Now, onto my newest TpT creation! =)

My Book of ABCs has an alphabet chart, plus 2 worksheets for each letter of the alphabet, all featuring adorable line art from Scrappin Doodles, and KPM Doodles.

There is also a cut-and-paste review activity at the end of the book, which could be used for assessment.

The file also includes an ABC mini-book, perfect for emergent readers.

I've even thrown in a colorful set of alphabet posters for the classroom! Each vowel has a picture representing the short and long sounds they make.

To check it out, just click HERE! =)

I'm currently engrossed in a BIG project making mini-books for each letter of the alphabet, which I hope to have up soon!

Valentine's Fun

I absolutely love Valentine's Day - it's probably my favorite holiday to celebrate at school. This year we made this adorable owl craftivity from A Modern Teacher. This is a photo of my teacher example on the whiteboard. The boys made owls with red hearts and bow ties - SO cute. 

Underneath the heart flap I stuck on their school picture. It made the cutest parent gift and several kids told me the next day that their parents just loved them.

Then we did Conversation Heart math after lunch. I've made several of these candy math packets and the kiddos love 'em. Next I'll be doing jelly bean math for Easter. ;)

Sorting...

Graphing...

and measuring with candy!

And I HAD to share a photo of this adorable hair style one of my firsties came to school with. Her mom made a heart braid AND a heart part all around it. Cutest thing ever!! <3

I hope everyone had a fantastic Valentine's Day with their kiddos!

There Was an Old Lady FREEBIE!

WHEW! After working away the last 4 days on my newest idea, it's finally done! *insert cheers* My 1st graders love the There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a ____ (insert favorite book title here) books, so I finally bit the bullet and purchased ALL of the adorable Old Lady graphics from Scrappin Doodles.

I've had so much fun with them, creating 13 (!) new mini-books based on every possible variation of the book I could find. Some of these I didn't realize even existed, like There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Rose! for Valentine's Day. I found out about that just in the nick of time!

Inspired by all of the great things I can create with my newest clip art collection, (and believe me, I have way too much clip art for one person! It's a bit of an obsession now.), I've decided to create an Old Lady FREEBIE to share with you all! I made a set of three Old Lady sequencing worksheets, which can be used with any of the Old Lady books. The worksheets use both ordinal numbers and transitional phrases, all things I'm practicing with my kiddos. Just click here to get them!

And to check out my Old Lady mini-book MEGA pack, just click on the picture below to go straight to my TpT store! (ETA: product has since been updated to include 15 stories!)

Also shared on:

FREEBIE & More Mini-Books!

Happy Dental Health Month everyone! This is definitely a "holiday" I observe with my students every year. This year, I signed up for a county health employee to perform a dental health puppet show for my firsties. I'm looking forward to seeing how it will go! 

For Manic Monday this week over at Classroom Freebies, I've created this FREE dental health mini-book which you can get here:

I've been working hard on new mini-books this weekend and just posted set #3 on my TpT store! This set has 6 mini-books, including books based on The Hat by Jan Brett and The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. You can get it right here.

 I'm also working away on a big project - a mega pack of 12(!) mini-books based on all of the There Was an Old Lady books by Lucille Colandro and others. I love those books! This should be posted in my TpT store sometime this week.