I'm the Martha Stewart of Early Childhood!

I guess I have been stressed lately, because this week I have developed a twitch in my right hand. Good thing fall break is around the corner! I decided to take a little time this morning to de-stress, so when I came across some scraps of brown bulletin board paper, I used my planning time to whip up a quick recycled-paper fall wreath.

First I cut a hole in a paper plate and wrapped brown paper around the plate, adhering it with tape.

Then I added brown paper flowers and leaves, using hot glue.

 To make the leaves, I cut three different sizes of paper circles, crumpled them up, and hot-glued them together in layers. The center of each flower is just a small crumpled ball of paper. For the leaves, I cut leaf shapes, pinched each one at the bottom, and hot-glued the pinched sides together. I glued seven flowers around the wreath, and then I glued the leaves in between the flowers.

The whole thing took about 15 or 20 minutes to make. How cute would this be in red and green for Christmas? Or black and orange for Halloween?

I am trying to find a way to make this wreath without using hot glue, because I think it would be a great activity for students to do. They could use papers from the recycle bin, old newspapers, or magazine pages. The leaves could be stapled at the bottom instead of hot-glued, and the layers of flowers could be stapled together... maybe they could attach it all to the wreath using double-sided tape. I just don't think white glue would be strong enough, and it takes forever to dry. Tacky glue? Glue dots? I know it could be done. What a great fall activity or Mother's Day gift!

Happy wreath-making!

One of these things is not like the others...

I just had to share this story, because it is a great example of what kids can do when you let them be creative.

The other day, I took my new sea creature math manipulatives to my kindergarten math groups, and I told the kids in each group to sort their pile of animals however they wanted. There are six different colors included in the mix and about fourteen animal shapes (although I would question whether some of them are really sea creatures. Tree frogs? Penguins?) Of the 30 kindergarteners who participated, most of the kids sorted their animals by color, and a few kids figured out that they could group all of the same animals together.

During one of my groups, however, one girl was busy sorting long after the others had finished. She had been asking questions while she worked, such as what some of the animals ate, but I wasn't paying close attention. When it came time for the students to share their method of sorting, she identified her piles of animals as "meat eaters" and "scaly animals." And I had to admit that she was correct! All of the animals in the "meat eater" pile did eat meat--even the seahorse, which eats teeny tiny fish--and all of the "scaly animals" did have a rough outer covering, or at least I could see how she thought they would feel scaly (this group included the turtle, stingray, and starfish).

I just love when kids surprise me with those unexpected moments of creativity and with amazingly perceptive responses. It's so great when they can think outside the box like that!

Writing about Animals

Blogging during the school year is harder than I expected! I have done a great job of documenting students' work and saving pictures in iPhoto, but I can't ever remember to post them on here.

I love creating enrichment projects for first grade, just little things that they can work on in their free time, and this year's group is just doing an awesome job with these projects! One activity I've given them is to imagine a day in the life of an animal. I have a box of animal names written on slips of paper, and they have to reach in and select an animal. I wasn't sure how well they would do at this, since they have to think from the perspective of an animal and then write about it--two things that are hard for first grade--but they are really blowing me away with their responses! Here are some of their stories:

"Slizzer"... how cute is that?!

Crazy for Clipart!

Today I wanted to share a fabulous resource I found for free classroom clipart! I have been working like crazy to create fresh new math assessments and math enrichment activities for my first graders, and I love this website because I can find easy-to-read clocks! No more trying to draw the hands myself! I haven't explored all of the 65,281 pieces of clipart on the site--I'm really just still super excited about the clocks--but I can tell this is going to be an invaluable resource!

Here is the link to the website, which is provided by the Florida Center for Instructional Technology: http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/

And here is a link to the math clipart: http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/sitemap/math.php Clocks! Angles! Currency! Probability! It's like Christmas came early!

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!