Bingo, part two

I'm pretty proud of myself today... first, I came up with a new idea for a bingo game and put the whole thing together in about ten minutes. Then I learned how to upload PDF files onto Blogger! In honor of this monumental occasion, here are the bingo cards I made today on the website I shared yesterday (http://www.print-bingo.com)
Letter Sound Bingo

There it is... Letter Sound Bingo, courtesy of Print-Bingo.com! I made a set of word cards with the target sound underlined, and as I randomly drew the cards out of a box I would say something like, "This is the beginning sound in the word 'sad,'" or "This is the middle sound in the word 'pet.'" I threw "sh," "th," "ch," "wh," and "qu" in there just to make it a little more challenging. I would share the word cards I made as well, but I just drew them on construction paper at the last minute so they're really not that fancy. The kids really seemed to love the game, and it was a great way to start the year and begin assessing their phonics skills!

Bingo is my middle name-o

Tomorrow morning I am starting my small group rotations in senior kindergarten. I do something different in each of the three classes, but it basically boils down to pulling leveled groups into the hall for various reading and math activities. For my very first rotation, I'm planning to do something simple that will give me a quick baseline look at the students' reading abilities.

Fun fact about me: I love to play bingo. I will create a bingo game for any skill, and I think I'm pretty good at making the game a little more challenging than just finding a number and trying to get five chips in a row. Later in the year I'll pull out my old standbys--Time Bingo and Money Bingo--but for now I'm sticking with simple sight words.

I thought this would be a good time to share one of my favorite online resources: http://www.print-bingo.com/
This site lets you create custom bingo cards for any skill! Click on the link on the homepage that says "I've read enough. Let me generate bingo cards!" Then click "Custom bingo cards with your own word or phrase list." (There are templates you can search through, but I've never looked at them.) You can design every aspect of your game: whether there's a free space in the middle, the text inside the free space... you can even change the top of the card so it says something other than "bingo." (My money bingo game says "money" at the top!) The bingo cards are uploaded to your computer as a five-page PDF, with two cards per page. If you need more than ten cards, just close the PDF, click the "create cards" button again, and it will generate ten totally different cards using the same word list. So easy!

I have so many ideas for Bingo games that are just waiting to be made! You could do states and capitals bingo, where you call out the state and the students have to find the capital on their cards (or vice-versa); vocabulary bingo (call out the definition, they look for the word); maybe even periodic table bingo (not that we have a need for that in early childhood!)

I'll share my time and money bingo cards once I figure out how to post PDF files on my blog!

Plastic rhinestones are a girl's best friend

We've been in school for two weeks, and our new little people are starting to look like first graders! They're getting the procedures down and settling into their classroom routines. My job during the first few weeks of school is to assess, assess, assess. I may complain about the piles of paperwork I have to score, but secretly I love data, and I love collecting all of this information about the students. This year I decided to be extra-techy, and I used Google Forms to create online score sheets for a couple of the baseline assessments that I administer. It's a genius idea--all of my data is instantly put into a spreadsheet, and it saves me at least a ream of paper. Of course, the internet chose this week to stop working, so I haven't been able to access my Google Forms and finish my assessments. To help relieve my frustration, I indulged in a little bit of hot glue gun therapy...

First I made some blinged-out clothespins...

...and then I used them to decorate my friend Amanda's bulletin board! (It was her idea; I just did the hot-gluing.)

Then I made my own bling-y bulletin board, perfect for showcasing student work throughout the year!

I just couldn't resist adding some sparkle to my boring Sharpie pens :) They look fantastic worn behind the ear, ha!

One man's trash is another man's--or teacher's--treasure

My tiny room is filled to the brim with so many math manipulatives and phonics games that I can't even keep track of what I have. I hate throwing things away or passing up freebies because I am convinced that anything can become a cool math game. At the end of the school year, a generous parent gave me a bunch of her old teaching supplies, including a set of see-through pattern blocks to use with an overhead projector. I don't have an overhead projector, but I stashed the blocks in a container somewhere on my jam-packed shelves.

So I just came across those blocks again, and I had a flash of genius! In five minutes I created my own set of magnetic pattern blocks, which I'm really excited about! I hate when I'm explaining a pattern block activity and the unfortunate children sitting at the ends of my awkwardly arranged trapezoid tables can't see the demonstration going on in the center of the group. Now I can demonstrate everything on my whiteboard, and everyone will be able to see!

I know that's not terribly ground-breaking, but I get excited over the little things :)

My awesome new magnets!

Bulletin Board Makeover

I went to the movies last night, and as the previews were rolling I suddenly had a brilliant idea for my bulletin board. Why do those flashes of insight happen at the weirdest times? Luckily I remembered my idea this morning, and after a few hours of selecting the perfect font, cutting, laminating, and stapling, this masterpiece was born:

Our theme for the year is "putting our creed into our deed." I love this theme, mostly because I've spent the past few weeks figuring out my own creed for the year. (I should get extra points; I was doing this before I even knew what our theme was!) My personal creed comes from Colossians 3:23, which says, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not human masters." I shared this verse with the students last year, and I'm looking forward to writing a new chapel talk tying this verse into the theme.

My bulletin board is a giant word web. I used yarn to link the words "creed" and "deed" with words that would help make the theme easier for the kids to understand. Here are a couple of close-ups so you can see what the small words say:

I tried to make the word "creed" meaningful by linking it to concepts that our students understand, such as best effort, the Golden Rule, our school's honor code, and glorifying God.

For the word "deed," I created a web of activities, like reading, math, and recess, that the students do every day.

It took quite a while to staple all that yarn to the board... I'm considering spending the day tomorrow luring people into my room so I can show off my hard work!

New Year, New Blog!

In-service is upon us, which means we are just days away from the start of a new school year. That means new crayons (I really do love them), new faces, and a new blog! I am not new to blogging; however, I am brand new to blogging about my classroom. My goal this year is to do a better job of documenting my lesson plans--the good, the bad, and the ugly--and to share my ideas with other educators. I've become pretty good at borrowing lessons from others, so I figure it's about time I start giving back.

I saw this picture in my friend's classroom (proudly displayed on the wall, where it clearly belongs). It is just such a perfect example of why I love my job so much.

 Pickles wearing skirts! You can't make this stuff up!

On that note, I have a ton of new ideas that I want to try this year, and I can't wait to share them here on my blog. Some small goals that I'm setting for myself include incorporating QR codes into a project or two; finding a new way to organize the work that students produce during Round Robin small groups; and implementing a new "Word of the Week" program with the first graders. I'm hoping that typing them here will help keep me accountable.

Happy new school year, fellow educators!