Save A Turkey! Eat more...

Found this cutie on Pinterest. I am going to use this to go with a writing project that we did last week. We talked about the Chick-Fil-A advertisements, and made our own advertisements to help save a turkey (I got this idea while browsing the walls at another school I was at for a meeting). It is a simple stem: "Save a turkey. Eat more ____!" You can click here to download the file.

Money, Money, Money

We are about to introduce coins (penny, nickel, dime, quarter). These are simple take-home readers that I made to go along with our money unit. I read the corresponding Welcome Book before we make each one. If you do not have these you can check them out here.

October Bookmark



These are the bookmarks that I hand out to my students in October. We use these for writing prompts. I print them on cardstock and have the kiddos keep them in their pencil boxes until the month is over, then they take them home. Click on the pic above to grab it for yourself!

Goodbye Apples, Hello Pumpkins!

At the end of our Apples unit, I always let the kids make apple pies. This is a kid friendly recipe that I got several years ago from a very wonderful parapro:

Ingredients:
Canned biscuits (large)
Canned apples
Butter
Sugar
Cinnamon

1. Give each student a piece of wax paper & let them flatten their biscuit.
2. Give each student some butter to spread on their biscuit with their finger.
3. Place 1 or 2 apples on the biscuit & sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.
4. Students fold their biscuit over & pinch the edge to close.
5. Fry or cook until golden brown.
6. Eat!!!

Tip: Don't forget your can opener!

Color Words

Some of my kiddos are having a hard time learning their color words, so I created this bookmark that they can store in their pencil boxes. I gave it out today to my independent group during our math block and it really helped! Click on the picture to grab it for yourself.

Wheel of Reading

I wanted to share an activity from our Starfall lesson today. It is called the Wheel of Reading. It is basically a kid friendly version of hangman. If students guess a letter that is not in the teacher-selected word, it goes in one of the eight sections of the wheel. If a letter is guessed that is already in the wheel the teacher places a check mark in the wheel. This way students learn to be better listeners so they will not lose a turn. The teacher gets a point if the wheel fills up before the students guess the word. This will be a great activity to use on the rare occasion that we finish something sooner than planned!

Educational Websites

Welcome to my blog! I love including technology in my lessons every day. So, for my first post, I am going to list some of my favorite educational websites. Here goes...

www.starfall.com
At my school we are using the Starfall Kindergarten Curriculum. This companion website is awesome! My students love going to this website during their computer time and learning about letter names, letter sounds, and so much more!

www.abcmouse.com
I just stumbled across this website this past weekend while browsing for lesson ideas. Public school teachers can sign up for a free account which allows you to enroll your students individually, or as five groups. You can create assignments for each student/group to complete, and keep track of their progress. Differentiation at its best!

www.literactive.com
This website has many many games for practicing early literacy skills. There are also online books and nursery rhymes that are great to pull up and display on your ActivBoard, or similar device. One of my favorite sections is the "Road to Reading" which can be used to introduce the letters of the alphabet.

I realized as I was typing these that all of these sites are literacy sites. Does anyone out there know of any really great math websites for kindergarten students? If so, I'd love for you to leave a link in the comments below! I am excited to get this blog rolling, and I hope that someone out there will benefit from it the way I have from so many others.