Category Archives: Available for Purchase!
Tpt is having a sale!!
That’s right friends!! Tpt is having a sale to celebrate 3 Million Teachers using Tpt in some way!!
The sale doesn’t start until Thursday, February 28th, but go start filling up your cart right away!
I’ve made some new products to share with you and they will ALL (along with the rest of my store) be on sale for 20% off! Keep watching for the special code to type in at checkout so you can get up to 28% off!
First, I created a new set of Rainbow Pom-Pom Games! This set helps your students practice the 88 sight words in the Journeys reading series. Its played the same way the Rainbow Pom-Pom Toss game is, except with sight words!
If you don’t have the original game and really want it along with the new one, you’re in luck!! I’ve bundled the two together so you can have your students practice a variety of skills! Shapes, Numbers, Letters, Die Recognition, Sight Words and more! 33 different mats are included to help you reach a wide range of students and their abilities!
Finally, if you missed it last week, I created these “Ways to Make” practice sheets. My kiddos LOVE these! All you need is some mini-erasers, sheet protector, and some dry erase markers and you are go to go! This activity is great for practicing composing and decomposing numbers!
So there you have it!! Some new products that will be on sale beginning on Thursday!!
Kristen 🙂
Spring Problem Solving Pack
I finally got the new problem solving pack done! It snowed here last night, into today, 9 inches! So much for the first day of my Spring Break! It is supposed to be in the 50’s by Saturday though…still…it’s Spring!! 🙂
This pack is designed to cover April and May. It’s got 45 activities in it…and assuming you’re in school every weekday from April 1st to the end of May, you will have one for each of the 42 days that are included in that time. 🙂
Here are some pictures of the new pack. If you click on any of them, it will take you to my Tpt site where you can purchase it for your own. It is a little more expensive than my other packs, but it contains 2 months worth of activities, so I priced it accordingly. 🙂 It covers a wide range of Common Core Standard skills and I made each activity last at least a week, so you can really practice each skill with your students. 🙂
Let me know what you think!
Kristen 🙂
New Math Work Stations
Here is a look at some of our newest Math Work Stations:
These are my Winter Themed Addition Mats. The children roll two dice to determine the two numbers they need to write in the first two spaces. They then add that many cubes to each of the first two pictures. They then add them together and write the answer in the third space. I’ve laminated them, so we just keep reusing them. 🙂
Shake the Beans…one of my favorite addition games! I’d share it with you, but it’s copyrighted by someone else, although, I did make this one for use in my classroom because the one I had wasn’t looking so good! The kids shake beans (4 in this case) and record their answers as math sentences. The biggest rule they have to remember is that red always comes first. The red beans are always recorded as the first number. I use lima beans that I’ve spray painted red on one side. 
This game is called Dunk It Dominoes. I found it on Pinterest and made some labels for the cups. The kids pick a domino and count up the dots and place it in the correct cup. 
This domino mat was part of my Math swaps I received this summer (speaking of swaps, be looking for a special e-mail about an upcoming swap later this week!). The kids again pick a domino, count the dots, add them together, and place it in the correct column. 
This is a new Ten Frame do-a-dot game I made to help some of my kiddos work on recognizing numbers quickly. They stamp the corresponding number with the right do-a-dot stamper.
Kristen 🙂
Valentine’s Day Math Work Stations
Sorry that I’ve been a little absent lately…I worked really hard during at least 5 days of my winter break so that I could come home from school for a few weeks and just relax! I have some pictures that I’ve been taking and will get those posted later this week, but today, while watching the Inauguration, I worked on this set for Valentine’s Day/February Math Work Stations.
It’s a set of 5 activities that are quick and easy to set up and get going! I’ve included all the manipulatives you might need, but you can add your own if you want to. I found pink and red heart shaped table scatter at the Dollar Tree this weekend and some foam Conversation hearts from the Dollar Tree and in the Target Dollar Spot. I plan on using them with these activities in my classroom, but I will let the kiddos have the real Conversation hearts when we sort and graph them on the sheets included in this pack.
Two different kinds of patterning cards are included and a recording sheet is included so the children can record their patterns. I’ve also added a Valentine’s Day “Make ____ on the Ten Frame” that is very similar to the winter and fall themed ones I have created before. I also put in a “How Many to 10?” game where children look at a Ten Frame with hearts in it and figure out how many more they need to make 10. There is a spot on the bottom of each sheet for children to write the corresponding math sentence. I’ve added a recording sheet for that activity as well, so using 2 different colors, students record combinations to 10.
I’m giving one pack away, so hop on over to my Kristen’s Kindergarten Facebook page and leave me a comment telling me what your favorite Valentine’s Day Math activity is! 😉
Click on the picture above to get your own pack> 🙂
Kristen 🙂
iSpy bags
I’m hooked! On Pinetrest that is! I found this idea a few days ago and had the materials (mostly) laying around.
I found this great tutorial here and l decided that because I had most of the materials already laying around, I could make some of these. I went to Jo-Ann’s and looked for things that were small: beads, rhinestones, buttons, etc., that would fit inside one of these bags. I also purchased two 32 oz. bags of plastic pellets, used to fill up dolls/children’s toys. I have made 13 so far (they are not all pictured). I also purchased some bags of trinkets from a store on etsy. (LOVE etsy!)
The items you see laying on the white paper will eventually be printed off, laminated, and attached with grommets so that the children can use a dry erase marker to circle the items that they have found.
Wouldn’t these be great with magnetic items inside as well? 🙂 For the bag with the numbers, I was thinking it would be great addition and subtraction practice for the children to find a number, then roll a die to see if they would add or subtract the next number they find! You could do all kinds of things with these! Use them in Work Stations, make them easy or difficult…how about putting sight words in them and letting the children write them as they find them? How about printing the words in tiny font and using a magnifying glass to read them and then say them out loud? The alphabet bags could be used to spell words…the ideas are endless…do you have any other ideas? Leave them in a comment here! 🙂
I am thinking of making some to sell. I made mine so that they correlate to units or themes we are working on in our IB units. So far, I’ve got one for ponds, letters, numbers, recycling, gingerbread men/women, animals, pets, and a few just for fun ones!
Let me know if you might be interested in purchasing one or two…I’m thinking $10 for each one, with laminated tag included and attached. 🙂
Kristen 🙂
2010-2011 LWS Progress
Hello Everyone!
I’ve had the craziest two weeks I can remember at the beginning of the school year! You’re all probably experiencing or about to experience the same thing. I can’t put my finger on what it was, but all of it together had tired me out! 🙂
I’m slowly introducing Literacy Work Stations in my classroom. We haven’t officially used any of them yet (except for the library work station), but I hope to get them going later this week. I still have 3-4 more to introduce and then we’ll be ready to go.
I did add/change a few things this year and some I can show you and some I cannot not (I want to not post the names of my students on my blog), but I can take pictures of things without names and explain them in detail.
Management:
You can search for LWS on my blog and see how I managed them in the past. I’m sticking with something similar, however this year, in the interest of KISS (keeping it simple silly!), I printed all the names on pre-purchased business cards. I don’t have to write all the names out and when a new student comes in, I just print out one new card at a time. I also copied the work station labels and chart labels right from the back of Debbie Diller’s book (Literacy Work Stations). This made everything for uniform and the labels all have the names of the stations in English and Spanish! 🙂
Overall:
I would stop what you’re doing right now and go hit up your Target Dollar Spot for the fabulous re-usable bags they have for sale for a dollar each (I got lucky one day and got ten of them for .50 each!!). I am using them for everything this year! I’ve purchased all I can find. They have had them out since the holiday season last year (I used them for stockings for my extended family and Easter baskets). There are always new designs. The ones now are black and white and are near the gift giving items. Anyway, buy lots of those (haven’t ripped one yet) and use them in place of baskets and buckets to stow all your goodies in! I have them in my Word Work station, Listening Station, Pocket Chart Station, Drama Station, and somewhere else I can’t think of right now! 🙂 I hang them on the wall with those 3M hooks that can be removed later and not take the paint off, but they stick almost anywhere (I haven’t ever had any fall off). You just buy refill packs of the sticky tabs when you need more. I thought I took pictures of them but I can’t find them on my camera, so I’ll take some tomorrow at school.
Overhead Work Station:
I’m introducing this one tomorrow and have been busy typing up parts of books that we have read (Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?) and printing them on transparency sheets.
I will use these on the overhead along with pictures of all my kids that I printed on transparency sheets. I printed them in black and white using iPhoto on my Mac. I will cut the pictures apart and the kids can put pictures of each other in the blank spots and read the words. I printed them using the “contact sheet” option, so there are 12 kids on a sheet.
Pocket Chart Station:
I wrote everyone’s name on a sentence strip and attached a color photo of them to the end of the strip (again using the “contact sheet” layout in iPhoto), and laminated them all. I showed the kids how to sort them by boy/girl (I wrote the boys on blue strips and the girls on pink strips) and how to sort them alphabetically.
Drama Station:
I’ve added the props for Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and Brown Bear (you can purchase them from Lakeshore) to the dollar spot bags I got at Target and hung them on the wall using those 3M hooks. You can see pictures a few posts down of my Drama area.
Listening Station:
Also using the dollar spot bags (I promise to take pictures of them!!), I placed a copy of Brown Bear and Chicka Chicka 123 along with their CD read-alongs in the bags. My old tape player quit working last year and all our media specialist had was a CD player (which I’m excited about!!), so I’m switching everything over to CD!! 🙂 This week, we will be reading Mouse Paint and I don’t have a CD for that, so I just made my own!! 😉 I opened Garage Band (on the Mac) and read the book slowly into the mic. I left spaces for the “turn the page sound” and added those in later. I also added subtle background music in so it would help hide the fact that it sounds like I was reading inside of a tin can! 🙂 I burned it to a CD and now we have Mouse Paint on CD for our listening station! 🙂 I might be open to adding them to my Kristen’s Kindergarten store if there is enough interest (I’ll be doing this with lots of other stories!). It was easy to do and took me about 20 minutes from the time I read to burning the CD.
I’ll get some pictures taken this week of those things and get them posted. Hope this was enough to tide you over! 😉 Today is my grandmas 91st birthday, so I’m off to bring her some birthday cheer! 🙂 Grad school starts tomorrow (8/23)…nervous!!! 🙂
Kristen 🙂
More Ponds
Hi Everyone!
I am sorry that I have not posted in what seems to be forever…but duty called and I had to attend NSTA in Philadelphia and I was busy getting ready for that, so everything else seemed to fall by the wayside! 🙂 Never fear!! I have some more pond ideas to share with you and then I will post a gallery of NSTA photos if you are interested in looking at those.
Just a few notes about the pictures:
In three of them you see where the students sorted various pond pictures into groups that they considered acceptable. I think the two groupings that are pictured show Pond Animals/Not Pond Animals and Reptiles/Not Reptiles.
You will also see us acting out the book “Splash!” by Ann Jonas. Several years ago, I created “masks” for each character in the story and we act it out using our pond rug!
The last picture you see is a sheet I made so that we could physically act out “Five Green and Speckled Frogs”. The children begin with all the frogs on the log and as we say the rhyme, they write numbers below and move their frogs above.
Questions?? fuzzlady77@hotmail.com
I’m working on a Pond Unit that I will have available for sale shortly (not today, but probably next week sometime). It will include a book list, Five Green and Speckled Frog math mats, 5E model plans, Literacy Work Station plans, a word search, a sheet of resources/materials and alternate activities. I’ll let you know when it is posted!
Kristen 🙂
I’m still here!
Hi Everyone!
Sorry for the delay in posting…I’ve been taking loads of pictures, but I haven’t found anytime to post them. I’m busier than usual this November and am having trouble finding time to do much of anything!!! I’ve taken on several things at school, am preparing for our school Holiday Bazaar, and preparing materials for a few Kindergarten get-togethers. I am also getting ready to speak at two state conferences in February and March. I also have a rubber stamping business on the side and I just finished preparing materials for our class on Saturday.
If you want to check out what we’re doing, you can check out my posts from last November…we’re basically doing the same things and I will be adding lots of new things for Math very soon. My plan is to post on Saturday or Sunday this weekend. It was convenient for me to post at school, but when I tried last week, I found that our firewall is blocking me from doing that now, so I have to find time at home…and with a 5 year old running around…well you know how that goes!! 🙂
In preparing for the two conferences I am doing in February and March, we will be getting the new Farmer’s Market “Winter Packet” together, so I’ll be posting that along with our PowerPoint that we put together on my Kristen’s Kindergarten Store as soon as that’s done so you can see it too!! 🙂
If you’re in the Indiana area, you can see me at ISRA and HASTI in February and March along with some of my colleagues…we’re so excited to be sharing our ideas.
See you for an update on Saturday or Sunday!
Kristen 🙂
Classroom Photos 2009-2010, Long Post! :)
I charged my batteries in the camera and took some pictures. I’ll take you on a tour and you can also check out my photos from last year here to see the differences.
Everything is mostly in the same place, but a few things were changed. First, I’ll start with some general views:
This is a look at my new computer area; last year the table was perpendicular to where it is now and there was a tall white cabinet in front of the back half of the blue bulletin board you see there.
Looking at my Listening Center Work Station (it’s on the backside of my writing station)
Library Work Station–I moved the book cases around and added my light up palm tree for some fun
Calendar area, bench where I sit, my Big Book teaching cart
The back of my big book cart, this is where Drama Work Station will go–tentatively, I may move it
A view of the mess that is my room! 🙂 The house, loft, my desk and a few tables
My desk, this year I stacked my filing cabinets and moved a table next to my desk.
We moved my son’s train table from home to school and it’s up in the loft now.
Here’s a view of the rest of the loft
My pocket chart stand my hubby built last year–I’ve come up with some new ideas how to use it! 🙂
I use this pencil pouch to store what ever the children are working on at Pocket Chart Work Station
Here’s the new part: I’m using the back of the chart for Magnetic Work Station during LWS. Below is an explanation…
Here’s an upclose view. I just hung it on the 2nd rung down with some of those metal binding rings.
I put magnetic letters in these pencil pouches and velcro-ed them to the stand…
Here’s the velcro
Sometimes, the children will not be using the board with the spaces I’ve defined. Instead, they will use these sheets I made last year.
I put magnetic strips on the back to hold them on.
Here’s the desk where my student teacher will sit–do you think she has enough prizes from me?!?!
Binders–waiting for my classlist to arrive so I can write names on them and put their sheet inside for practicing their name
I signed my classroom up through TerraCycle so we can recycle our snack and Capri Sun containers. These are some I purchased from Target to show my children.
After our first round of Getting to Know you, we will put beads into plastic water bottles with sand so the children can find the letters in their name.
This is how I’ve organized them.
Some birthday certificates I got from the Target dollar spot to recognize birthdays.
A game called Whiz Kids from Discovery Toys I will use with my kids this year. You pick a letter and a category and then get the number of points on the letter card if you can name something starting with that letter in that category.
This shelf sits next to my bench and will be home to several Literacy Work Stations.
My small group area, parent volunteer area, and where the wonderful, amazing Pam will work!! 🙂
Listening Work Station
The tape recorder sits on top of the cart and the tapes and head phones are stored in the drawers
My basket of things for Pam (yeah!! Pam!!) to copy and pass out to the kids for me.
There it is…I’m going back tomorrow to clean up some more and work on pulling things out for my Math Work Stations and figuring out where they will go! 🙂
Kristen 🙂
New Materials Available for purchase…
Hi Everyone!
Sorry that I have not posted in a LONG while…we went on vacation, my sister had a baby, and I’ve been taking classes!
In the few minutes I’ve had here and there, I was able to create a few more documents that I’ve posted on my Kristen’s Kindergarten Store blog.
Kristen 🙂
Kristen's Kindergarten 