Dear New Kindergarten Teachers... I have a message for you

Dear New Kindergarten Teachers,
This is my annual letter that I like to write as school approaches. It is now August and soon you will be decorating a classroom for the first time or returning to a room full of boxes and dust. It all feels overwhelming but take a deep breath because I am going to guide you through some first steps in this process. Why me? I have taught this grade for over 25 years. I guess you would call me a veteran teacher. Sit back, grab a cup of Joe and read on.

1. Create a room environment that you love: Do not try to do everything at once. Clean up the room and be sure all boxes are put away. Put up fadeless paper or use fabric on your bulletin boards. This will save you so much effort in the long run. Stick to colors that are calm and pleasing to the eye. I am a big fan of black with colorful borders. 
2. Do not fill up your bulletin boards with "stuff." You can put up titles if you can't bear the empty walls but keep in mind that you want to fill the room with beautiful student work! Does that make sense?

You are going to want to set aside one bulletin board in your room just for writing. I use fancy clothespins and keep all their writing stacked together with the current one on top. You can dye these clothespins to make them colorful. I use medium size clothespins (smaller than standard ones) from Walmart. Check out this simple process and wear rubber gloves to do this.

Here is the perfect packet for that: This will provide you with a systematic monthly writing form for each month of the year. Click on the picture to take you there. My teachers love this product. At the end of the year you can collect all the pages, take a picture of each student for the cover and use this for Open House. 

Click on the picture to grab each item in my store! 

                                                                                                                   

You will need to focus on letters and sounds this year and these are known as Foundational Skills when looking at the Common Core. Students will need opportunities to do lots of word work to build their skills. This is the work of teaching them how to read. You will need pocket charts (at least 5-6), a carpet with colorful squares that accommodates your whole class and places for small group instruction and independent work. Stay with me. What kind of word work should you do: Here are some possibilities:

                      

Hot off the press:

Here is my latest alphabet packet that I love. It is simple and engaging since kids are using dot markers to identify letters of the alphabet. You can make a simple alphabet book from this and parents can review the letters with their student. I cannot wait to use this.

  I also created a bundle of beginning of the year materials that I think make life much easier

These are just simple little foldables that are a single page and require little prep. I send them home with parents to fold and many of them appreciate being able to help.

Throughout the year students need practice with letters and their sounds, as well as numbers. I use these in my classroom and love them. Why? I am a fan of cut and paste practice that students can do independently once it has been modeled. These are Common Core aligned and require some critical thinking since it has examples and non example.They are very simple and will support any reading program.

I am required to use the Open Court Reading program in my classroom but I found that the readers did not build enough fluency and did not give my ELL's enough support so I designed Sparkle Readers to help fill in the gaps. I have carefully aligned them to the Common Core and have both fiction and non fiction text. My kids adore these! I have 7 different sets. 

What makes these unique? I am so glad you asked me. I have dots under the text to help your young learners with tracking and I have also provided strips with the same text to use in a pocket chart so that you can practice the text with your students before you even hand them a book. You will love these and I keep promising to make more. I will make that happen.

What about those sight words. Principals want you to collect data and want students to be able to recognize these with great ease. These are words that appear in most emergent readers. This is my top seller because it works:

                           

                           
        

As the year progresses our students need to learn how to blend sounds to make words. How in the world do you teach that? These packets spell out the process and work well with young students. You will see a variety of them.

Some frosting on the cake:

Kindergarten students love to help in the classroom so I finally decided to make a job chart  to build community in my classroom. It changed the climate entirely. I spent time explaining the importance of each job and students looked forward to being assigned important responsibilities. It is the best behavior management tool on the planet! Mine is flexible and I show you how to "build" it for your specific classroom needs. How did I survive without this? Included in this packet is a book to run off for your students a

bout building community with jobs . It 's a "must have."

In kindergarten is is important to label everything in sight or kids use whatever is close by. Trust me I have learned the hard way. Backpacks need labels, cubbies, tables, and and journals. These are editable so that makes them well worth having! You just type in your student names. WOOHOO. I gained a lot of popularity with this little item... I am not even kidding.

                                                

       

Are you exhausted from this post? Stay with me just a little longer. Common Core is all about using a collaborative model and I created a few things to build this at the kindergarten level. I have tried this products and had so much success. If you give children a bingo dauber they will engage in learning. This is a trade secret that few teachers know about. Here are my collaborative packets that you can whip out when you are being observed:

Check out the rest but I have tried to hit some of the hot spots for learning. Remind yourself to take one day at a time. Forgive yourself when things go south. It happens to all of us. Don't forget to go outside and play. Love your students. Remember to hug them and listen to their stories. 

I am having a huge sale in my TpT store so join the shopping frenzy Monday and Tuesday. Now is the time to buy these products that will get you organized and on your way to a successful year.

My entire store will be 20% off and you will get an additional 10% off from TpT using the code BTS14. Wowza. Now you can afford more! Have a wonderful year in the best grade there is. I love kindergarten.

Click on this picture to get to my store and happy shopping friends.

                     

                 

Teaching Letter Sounds: Back to School Freebie

I finally took the time to make Open Court letter-sound cards that can be used in a standard pocket chart. I love having these so that I can run them off and use them throughout the year. I made them to match the larger version that can be placed on your wall. If you never downloaded them you can find them here. 
Now I am ready to offer up these same OCR cards but they have been sized for your pocket chart. Why? I am happy to answer that. You can run these off for lots of literacy stations and routines to build a better understanding of letters and sounds. Use them as part of your daily routine.
Here is what they look like:

 Students can use these cards in literacy stations playing all kind of games. My kids like to set a timer and just make the sound for each card while a partner checks for accuracy. Memory games can be created where students either match the letter-sound card or match the sound card to the letter it starts with. This can be changed up many different ways.

At the beginning of the school year most of us like to do word work with student names and these cards provide the perfect opportunity to introduce the letter, the sound that it makes and attach this understanding to a student's name. This will require a lot of modeling at the beginning but soon students will be able to identify the first letter of their name and recognize the sound card that goes with it. This is another activity to do as part of your daily routine, picking just a few student names. Keep this easy and basic at the beginning.

Once you have worked on names you can begin to focus on beginning sounds. Select the sound card you want to focus on and see if students can place cards that begin with the same sound next to it. Give them a limited number of choices to start with. Always have an incorrect answer to make students think critically.

Later in the year students love doing these "riddle me" cards with cvc words, guessing what the words are, based on the sequence of the cards. These can become more challenging as your students build their knowledge. I love to do this as part of my morning routine and call it the mystery word. Students have wipe off boards in their lap and have to write the word based on the sound cards I use. Sometimes I put magnets on these so they can be used on a magnetic surface to change it up a bit. Are you having fun yet?

One more suggest comes to my mind. Once you have introduced all the letters and sounds hand out all the cards to the students on the carpet. Have them come up and place their card in the pocket chart , in sequence. You can have them say, "I have Pam the lamb /a/ /a/ /a/. Who has bouncing basketball /b/ /b/ /b/?" and continue until the end of the alphabet.
Do you have any ideas or suggestions? Leave a comment and I really appreciate you giving me some fresh activities.

How do I get these cards? Easy! You will just click on this image and it will take you to my FB page. Stay with me it won't be that hard (promise).

1. Now you are on my FB page so click at the top and "like" the page and check "get          

    notifications. Fantastic. I like you too. Be sure you are following me. We are BFFs now.

2. Now find those same little kids on the left side in the little blue box. Click on it and it will open 

    up since you hit that special like button.

3. The crayon box will pop up ( I love crayons). Click on that!

4. Now the file shows up and you can download it. I hope you love having these.

A Teacher Tip: BTS

August has just ripped around the corner and now we are officially in Back to School mode. Okay stop screaming "NO" and just sit back and enjoy a little tip to ease you back into the classroom when you can no longer hold off.

This is an easy project that I love since it is super cheap and requires just a few materials. My room is going to be designed with a Pete the Cat theme so I am using primary colors and sticking mostly to blue (hello), red, and yellow with a green accent. 

Recently I decided to check out IKEA for containers and any inexpensive materials I might be able to pick up for my classroom. I started wandering around but nothing caught my eye until I saw these picture frames. They were in the exact colors of my classroom but I wasn't sure how to make use of them. They were only a dollar and so cute.

I put them in my cart and decided to take them home in the hopes that something would hit me by the time I set up my classroom. I loved the bright colors and the stand that you screwed in at the bottom so they could stand easily. First I thought I could label various parts of the room with these, put directions on them.... My mind was spinning. I tossed more of them in my cart as my brain was spinning. Don't judge. It's a process for me. Hey I was just excited that they were in my color palette.

Then it hit me. I could make table numbers to guide my students around the room. I liked this idea since it would create more organization for my little guys. So I built a very simple temple and popped a number in each frame that my friend Pete is holding. This frame is clear on both sides so I put the image in the front and back which makes it idea for viewing. I think the kids will love having these and I can direct them to various parts of our room

Here is a final picture of these once I finished them. They took no time at all to put together and I think the results are adorable. I still have a lot of other frames and need to consider using them in other parts of the room. I can label the class library, stations, etc. The sky is the limit. What's your idea? Leave a comment and let me know!

Who Wants An OCR Freebie? Raise Your Hand and Hit Download!

My district has not purchased a new reading program in many years. So I am faced with the challenge of implementing the Common Core while using the Open Court Reading program in my classroom. Over the years I have worked hard to make this program effective but now I have some new knowledge and will change it to reflect best teaching practices.

The Letter-Sound cards used in this program are quite large and I will not have the wall space necessary to hang them up. What's a teacher to do? Make them smaller and a little bit cuter! I am so happy with the results and decided to give them away as my first BTS Freebie. Does that make you jump up and down?

These cards can be hung up in rows but need to be visible to your students as you refer to them. The best case scenario is to hang them where your students can reach them and use them as an anchor when sounding out words. Some of you might prefer punching 2 holes in each card and stringing them into a banner using brightly, colored ribbon. I would break them up into a few rows if you decide to do this. Cute, right?

You might want to make more than one set of these cards and let students use them in literacy centers. If you are interested in having this freebie you can download it here or click on either picture to access it.

Here are just a few ideas for using these cards:

1. Hand them out to students at your opening. Start singing the chant for these cards and as you sing about each letter the child holding it pops up to show their card. ( Thanks Meredith for this fantastic idea.)

2. Place them within the reach of your students and let your child of the day point to each card as you go through the alphabet.

3. Use these cards for phonemic awareness games recommended in your manual.

4. Hand out the cards and have students line up in alphabetical order.

Make these interactive and students will stay much more engaged!

Stay posted and look for other OCR freebies as we head back to school. If you download these I would really like you to leave a comment and follow me. I hope this helps any new teachers who are getting their classroom ready

What's In Your School Supply Cart?

So yesterday I wanted to make special clips for my classroom and headed for Walmart to grab a couple of boxes of crayons, after my workout. They are on sale for fifty cents. Later in August they are usually even cheaper so you might want to hold out. However, in the craft section they have all kinds of chalkboard signs for less than $2.00 and they come in a variety of shapes and sizes. I grabbed a bunch for my classroom and can use a white paint pen to make my signs! So adorable. Obviously you can use chalk to remove it when necessary. The easel was a bit more but still reasonable and I could not resist. 

Next stop was Joann's and I was going to get some ribbon for a banner I am making for the classroom but their school supply section was all on sale and not much was left but I am so happy with this adorable ipad cover that was originally $14.99. Deal!  The word tiles were originally 9.99 and the Fiskars holders had been 10.00 each. I am not too keen on the color so I might spray it something else. They are perfect for kids to use to move supplies around so I grabbed what was left. That was a real bargain.

My last stop was Office Depot again and the Sharpies were pretty much gone but the clearance section in the back of the store has some cheap deals that I was thrilled to throw in my cart. I love all the gorgeous colors that post-it notes come in and rarely do I see the lined ones on sale. Each pack has a variety of beautiful shades. The Sharpies were so cheap that I was just greedy. Now the Post-It Note Holder comes with a subscription to Evernote and you can make the notes digital. I will check that out and get back to you!

What's in your shopping cart? Have you found anything I should be buying? Share please.

Back to School Bargains for the Week... don't miss Fran's picks

It is way too soon for me to be thinking about going back to school but as I cruise around I cannot resist picking up a few million things. I love the Dollar Spot in Target but I try to be selective about my purchases. The file tote bag is a must have for three dollars and I could not pass it up. It is perfect for files you need to carry. I might get a few of them. They could be "cutified" for teacher gifts with a label and some adorable file folders.

The mini pocket charts are back and I love them for the kids to use at literacy and math stations. I bought the crayon banks because they will be adorable in my room and we collect pennies for community service and counting to  100. The banners were only a dollar and match my room to perfection! I cannot wait to use them. I can even trim a bookcase with these since they are small!

It was time to buy new mini buckets for each student and they had them in just the right colors. I was jazzed to get them and now I just need to make labels. I was dancing up a storm over this find! Woohoo I love containers. Stop judging. I get it.

My husband actually picked up the two sets of puzzles for me when he was in Target. Boy do I have him trained. I didn't ask for them but he gets it now! I can give you tips on this if you need some. I don't need these but he was so thrilled with his purchase that I was extra enthusiastic. Do not ever turn down a husband buying you things for your room. Trust me.

This bargain was a hot one to say the least. I walked into Office Depot with the ad in my hot little hand and asked where the scissors were. I was bummed because they were so crummy so this cute, young girl came over to help me get over my disappointment. Well first she realized I was a teacher and told me I had no limit on quantity. I resisted throwing me arms around this total stranger. Now I was a little more interested. Nothing was grabbing me until I hit the Sharpies and asked in my best teacher voice if  all of them were a quarter. She said probably not but she would adjust them. Holy Guacamole! Sharpie has come out with their version of paint markers that are great but not cheap. I had visions of using them on black chalkboard items to make signs for my room. I bought a few zillion and felt like I won the lottery! Woop! Woop! She told me the glue sticks were great and to grab some. I was not about to argue with this chick. She also grabbed twistables for me for a couple of dollars off the clearance rack. Life is good.

Next stop was the Dollar Tree and I loved these trays for students to use in work stations to hold their materials. They also had some cannisters that will be perfect for holding supplies. Once again they went with my decor so I was all over these. What's a dollar or two or three?

Costco has always been a dangerous place for me to shop. It should be called the Hundred Dollar Store. Who leaves with just one thing? I salute you and respect your control if you do. Naturally I hit the aisle with school supplies and flipped when I saw this set. I love binders in every color. White ones depress me. I know I have a problem? I am making a binder (or two) for each month of the year to hold my stuff. I need to be better organized... right?

By the way my whole room is going to be done in Pete the Cat decor. I am making it all so stay posted. My kids adore him and I am giving them what they love the most. That's why everything will be red, blue, and yellow with a hit of green. What are you buying and how are you doing your room this year. Leave a comment cause I want to know.

Did I Meet You In Vegas? I Sure Hope So!

I just got back from a week in Vegas at the I Teach K Conference.  I will continue this saga for a few days as I try to clean  up my house and do about a bizillion loads of laundry. 

We live in Southern California so my husband spent the entire morning loading the car with so much crap stuff that it's amazing that we had room for us! Somehow he packed it all in and off we went.  He was super excited to get away from real life and was all about setting up the Kindergarten Crayons booth. I was chewing my nails worried that we would not sell a thing and who needed the anxiety? Right? This is what greeted us when we hit Vegas in the 108 degree weather. Why would anyone live here?

We got up at the crack of dawn (vacation?... not so much) because vendors had to set up by 7:00. The poor man brought all our stuff up by himself and set up the booth. I was busy screaming, crying and hugging my friends. I was also drinking coffee and getting the lay of the land. It was fantastic to see old blogging friends and meet a billion new friends.Some are hereos in my teaching world so I gushed all over them.  Meanwhile the husband was working his buns off while I am in the middle of party central. I never even checked on him. Don't judge. I am a horrible wife. Note to self: check on the man who is slaving to make your booth at the I Teach K Conference beautiful. He deserves a break and some lunch...Let's just say I was not exactly on my game. Classes were so much fun and I filled my notebook with brilliant ideas I cannot wait to try.

When I finally decided to check on the poor man and help with the booth I ran into one of my favorite bloggers, Erin Anderson from It's Owl Good In Kindergarten. She is teaching transitional kindergarten this coming year so I sent her to Palma Lindsey's presentations. She loved them and I got a chance to hang out with her while the husband actually worked and sold packets. What can I say. I will do better next time. Check out Palma at KFundamentals if you want some adorable projects to do with your young kinders. 

Once I stopped hugging and screaming I started to help in the booth and met so many amazing kindergarten teachers. Michelle was precious and I loved her personality. When she talked about her kids her whole face lit up and made me realize how magical teachers really are.

I saw lots of my Southern California girls and had to grab a few pictures of them because they are the best in the west. Here is Hadar from Miss Kindergarten and her partner in crime is Kristen from A Teeny Tiny Teacher. They are smart, talented women who are so much fun to be around. If you don't know their blogs go check them out because I love all that they do! Why wasn't I that smart at their age? I also had the pleasure of sitting in on Greg Smedley's class and had a blast listening to him. He is such a sweetheart. You would love him too. His blog is right here and is filled with great teaching ideas. I finally met Terri Izatt from Kinder Kapers. We have been internet friends for several years and I loved meeting her and chatting. It is always so much fun to meet a friend in person and hug them!

Here are some of my friends who I hang out with on FB. They are talented women with busy lives and a whole lot of skills. When we see each other we feel like old friends. I think we have been meeting in Vegas for about three years. Check out their blogs when you get a chance.

The food in Vegas was fabulous and we went to so many great restaurants. After classes and working in our booth it was nice to treat ourselves to delicious food. It was a real treat.

Here is a picture of my sweet friend Sandy Welch who sold these adorable aprons that are like mobile pocket charts. She is so talented and sold out of all her gorgeous aprons in a single day! Can you believe that? She was shocked but I was not surprised at all. This is a fantastic product and I am thrilled that she sent me one during the year. Otherwise I would be whining up a storm! Please go on her blog here and check out this apron. Do not get jealous that I already have an adorable one and now I want another one. Her principal, secretary, and teacher friend came to help her at her booth. Read that again... her principal. They believe in her and came to support her. That's what teachers do for each other.

I am going to end here for tonight with this adorable blogger Mary Amoson. I loved meeting her and attending her session. No one loves kindergarten more and Mary can make anything fun. She was one of the best parts of this trip to Vegas. Go over to her blog and tell her I sent you. I know you will fall in love with her. Sharing Kindergarten is the name of her blog and this southern mama has a lot to offer kindergarten teachers!

That's it for now. I have to fold laundry, put away groceries, and unpack my suitcase. I will add other pictures since these are just a few. If you purchased something from me I deeply appreciate your faith in my work and I hope it is useful. Thank you for coming over to my booth and I hope we chatted for a few minutes. I love the work that you do for children. I love kindergarten. It was a week filled with memories that will keep me warm until next year. Did I meet you? If not, let's promise each other we will do it in 2015!

Much love to you,

A Huge Freebie Cause My Bags Are Packed and I'm Getting Ready to Go...

Raise your hand if you are headed for Vegas for the I Teach K conference and blogger meet-up. Woohoo!  I am so excited to be going again this year! I love the presenters and my big focus is on Common Core. Yup, obsessed but need to learn as much as I can! This is my 5th year attending but there is one big change. I have a booth this year. The hubs had so much fun selling at the California Kindergarten Conference that he is all over this one. Fingers crossed that I sell something (chewing my nails from stress) so he isn't crushed.

My house is a train wreck with stuff everywhere as the husband puts all his bags and boxes together. Is there any order to this madness? I'm not too sure but ya gotta love his enthusiasm. He is way into this. I think he should have been a salesman and not a dentist. It took him three days to find his Kindergarten Crayons tee shirt so wish him luck! We have binders of my products in a big bin (who made all this crap) woops-powerful education material and piles of cards, tape, ipads, signs...  Yikes. The piles are everywhere.

As he is jumping around prepping for the big event (no I am not even presenting this year) I decided to be organized and make my annual notebook with customized pages to carry around with me when attending classes. Now I am offering it to you as a freebie. Yes you can hunt me down and thank me with a giant hug and a little gushiness (not a word trust me). It's pretty darn cute if I say so myself.

So here is the deal. Run off the pages you need and make more than one copy of the notes page or any thing else that suits you-whatever. I ran off the handouts for each session too and included those in the back. Does this make any sense at all ? Finally, I took this hot mess to Staples and had them bind it for $5.00 with a clear cover on the front. It looks impressive. I feel smarter. I'm not but don't tell anyone. Click on any of these pictures to grab this or you can just click right here.

Now here comes the good part. Stop at my booth (it will make the husband so happy) and chat with me and let's take a picture together! How cute is this little number? I made it last night when I should have been sleeping. I used black chalkboard paint and just ran the letters off and cut them out. Easy-peasy I pinky swear. If you want to buy something we will become new BFF's. See you in VEGAS...