Category Archives: Target
Rainbow Pom Pom Toss
I found this game online somewhere and sketched it in my idea book a few months ago. I finally decided to make it and I’ve tried it out with my kiddos and they LOVE it!
I call it Rainbow Pom Pom Toss (not sure where the toss part comes in because there is no tossing happening in this game! 🙂
All you need are dice and pom-poms. 🙂
Uppercase letters
Its really easy to play too! The children roll the die that you have programmed with the letters, numbers, or shapes that are on the mat. They place a coordinating pom-pom on the mat.
Here we are using the 1-6 mat. You should of heard the squeals of excitement when we played!! I’ve been asked 5 or 6 times today when we can play again! 🙂
These will be going into my Math and Literacy Work Stations. 🙂 I’ll also be using them in my small groups. 
I put the pom-poms in little buckets that I got in the Target Dollar Spot. The kiddos kept playing until their table ran out of pom-poms and then they put them all back and played again.
I told them if they rolled a number and didn’t have anymore pom-poms left in that color to roll again. I really wanted them keep playing and to learn to share. 🙂
We played with a dot die so that my kiddos had practice matching quantities on the die to the number on the mat.
I’ve also included mats for:
Lowercase letters a-z
Numbers 1-20
Dice 1-6
Shapes
And a blank sheet for you to write in whatever skills you would like for your kiddos to work on. I’ll be adding sight words later as well as pictures of two dice (when we start addition).
You can click on any of the product pictures to get your own. 🙂
Kristen 🙂
More Target Dollar Spot Fun
Hi All!
I created a pack to help with the composition and decomposition of numbers to 20. This pack also uses the small Halloween/Fall themed erasers found in the Target Dollar Spot. To play, you will need to purchase one bag each of the cats, ghosts, and pumpkin erasers (they come in bags of 60). I’m going to be using this activity in my new Math Work Stations for this 9 weeks. Head on over to my Teacher’s Pay Teachers store to purchase it:
(click on the picture below to go there)
I’ll be back soon with some more freebies that I’ve created today for my Math Work Stations.
Another Table Scatter activity!
I made a ten frame table scatter activity to go with the cards I posted earlier in the week:
You can get it at my Teachers Pay Teachers store!
Kristen 🙂
Target Table Scatter
I found this cute table scatter a few weeks ago in the Target Dollar spot. I only picked up the pumpkins and the leaves (I wanted to stay away from Halloween type things), but there were 3 or 4 other kinds available.
I knew I could use it for some fun math activities, so I made up some some pattern cards. You can download them in my Teacher’s Pay Teachers Store.
While you’re there, don’t forget to check out my sale on several of my items–they are 10% off until tomorrow!
Kristen 🙂
Pinterest Idea
I found this great organizer on Pinterest:
I wanted to make one, so I sent my husband off to Goodwill to find a used stand like this one or some buckets we could repaint to make cute. No luck, so off to Target he went and he came back with this exact stand! He also picked up some buckets from the Dollar Spot there and after some spray paint, the whole thing looks like this:
It was really difficult to keep my son’s supplies for homework from vanishing. This way, he can take the bucket he needs (my husband took the handles off the blue and pink buckets so they would take up less room) and bring it back when he’s done. This sits on the counter in our dining room and now his supplies are ready when he is!
I think they used soup cans that had been spray painted in the original and if I had eaten enough soup, I would have used those!
I think it took me probably 10 minutes to put this together, but about 1 hour while waiting for the spray paint to dry.
The stand was $19 and the buckets were $1 each, so the entire project was under $30. We had the spray paint from another project, so that didn’t cost anything. 🙂
Kristen 🙂
Target Dollar Spot
I found these awesome wipe off boards in two sizes in the Target Dollar Spot last week:
I thought the bigger ones would be perfect for small group work. I purchased 5 of them.
The smaller ones came in packs of 4, so I got enough for a class set. I thought it would be fun to practice writing our names on them or for showing me an answer to a question. 🙂
What would you use them for?
Kristen 🙂
Calendar
Here is a new photo of our calendar area this year.
On the left you see our straw count and our base ten blocks count. For the base ten blocks, I put little bits of magnets on the back and we stick them on a flat metal sheet I had. Next to that is the weather circle that I got at Target in the dollar spot. We have three children tell what our recess weather was like and then we place the arrows on the corresponding weather. We then record the weather that was mentioned most often on the weather graph above it. At the top are our Days of the Week and Months of the Year and you can also see our calendar. Off to the left on our large white board, we also have ten frames that we add a sticker dot to everyday. When we fill one ten frame, we tape up a new one and start adding to that one.
Kristen 🙂
New Goodies!
I’ve been wanting to post something new for a week or so but our internet is running PAINFULLY slow and with two of us in grad school now (my hubby is working on his Administration degree), it’s even more painful!
I stopped by Target yesterday for some retail therapy and to pick up some things my sister told me about. She said that she got some microphones for $1.00 in the party section (for my niece’s b-day goodie bags) and when I asked what kind they were, my son said like the ones I have in my classroom that echo when you talk into them. I went to Target a few weeks ago to try and find them and they had some back near the toys but they weren’t $1.00 ($1.99). I got four of them from the toy area. Yesterday though, I found them!! I also got some cool glasses to go with them (think–Buddy Reading Work Station!!!). I’d really like to try adding a new station this year to my LWS and I think that these will work really well!
I also noticed a new “teacher-y” section on one of the end caps near the office supply area at Target. Bulletin Board stuff, name tags for desks, write on/wipe off charts, and some other cute things–very reasonable too!
I would get some of it, but my goal this year is to pare down as much as I can–I’m tired of not being able to put things away and find things when I need them! 🙂
Kristen 🙂
New Pictures
Here are some more new pictures from my classroom:
Our Meal worms…
Meal worms are really easy to keep and you get to watch the life cycle happen over and over again. I just put corn meal in the bottom and some apple slices and carrots. You also will need to add some water in a dish that the meal worms cannot get in to keep the humidity up.
I got the 2 tanks, lids, a gram scale (for weighing the meal worms), 2 microscopes, and a hand held microscope from a Donors Choose grant in May.
Here are some new pictures of my Literacy Work Stations.
This is the ABC/Word Work Station.
Right now, we have letter cards on a ring in the bag with Wikki Stix. The children make the letters with the Wikki Stix.
The children also have the opportunity to put Wikki Stix on each others names at the ABC/Word Work Station. These are laminated.
Here is our Listening Station. The black and white bags hold the books and CD. The headphones are stored in a cleaning tote. I am using the head headphones from my non-working leap pads.
I also have several books and their CD’s available on the ledge just above the books. I try to put the newest titles on the ledge and the older ones in the bags.
The is our Pocket Chart Station. Last year, I used a full size chart, but this year, I decided to make it more kid-sized and used these pocket charts from the Dollar Spot at Target.
I took all of my kids pictures and glued them on sentence strips next to their names and then laminated them. The children sort the names by “Boy/Girl” or Alphabetical order. I’ve also added a poem about Pets (you can find it in the Interactive Charts Book that goes along with Building Blocks).
This is my Drama Work Station with the Chicka Chicka Tree in the top bag. Two other bags also now hold the drama props for Brown Bear, Brown Bear and Mouse Paint (I got them all through a Donors Choose grant).
A look inside the Chicka Chicka Bag. There is the large tree, the velcro letters, and an copy of the book.
The Brown Bear, Brown Bear bag. The book is missing…! 😉
Overhead Work Station
These are the overhead transparencies I made to go along with Brown Bear and Chicka Chicka. The children use the pictures of them I printed on transparency sheets (see two posts ago) and put them in the blanks. They then read the words and then put a new child’s picture in.
I also made some to go along with Cookie’s Week and I’ll post those soon.
Big Book Work Station
I found these cute pointers in the Dollar Spot at Target and we use them for pointing to words in Big Books and for reading the names and words at Pocket Chart Station.
Now for a few random things! 🙂
I got these puzzles at Wal-Mart for $3.00 each. They show the life cycle of a frog and a butterfly. We’ll be using the butterfly puzzle next week, when we learn about Monarchs. I’ll have it in my Science Work Station.
I also found these cute signs in the Target Dollar Spot. They are great for using signals rather than trying to talk over all the children! 🙂 I use them as reminders when we are sitting on the floor. They work really well!
I had a few questions about the kind of hooks I use to hang all the bags up around my room in my Work Stations. Here is a picture of them.
Here’s a close up of them.
I’ll be updating with more pictures in a little while! Enjoy your Labor Day weekend! 😉
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 🙂
Kristen's Kindergarten 