Christmas Literacy FUN!

OH. MY.

I am SO excited for my latest creation!  I searched and searched for the perfect Christmas themed literacy centers for my Kindergarten kiddos and couldn't find anything that I thought truly fit with their needs and how we do literacy centers in my room.  So with the help of some cute fonts and clip art, I created a whole new resource!  

All centers are Common Core Aligned and come with worksheets to reinforce the skill.  Click the picture above or here to take you to the store!  On sale for a limited time because I'm just so darn excited to share these with you!

-Liz

Five for Friday!

Does anyone else remember the little theme song that went with ABCs TGIF back in the 90s?  "Gonna have some fun, show you how it's done - TGIF!"  Is it bad that I still often sing that to myself on Fridays?  Because I definitely do.  It's peppy!

But seriously.  I'm so thankful the weekend is here.  I love my little ones, but wow-oh-wow were they full of extra energy this week!  I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to celebrate the fact that I survived with five of my favorite things from this past week.

1.  Thanksgiving is EVERYWHERE!  I love holidays in Kindergarten because we do so many craftivities and decorate our classroom and hallways.  Here are some of our favorite masterpieces:

These sweet Native Americans were inspired by A Cupcake for the Teacher and oh how I love doing these with my students each year!  I tweaked the writing prompt this year for my Kindergarteners because while darling, the craft does require quite a bit of listening to create.  I knew if they had to write much more I might lose them, so I compromised a bit!  Next year I may omit the small picture of the pilgrims and Native Americans in the writing paper because it looks like by the time we got to that we forgot all about or Three Star Coloring....

I'm kicking myself because I didn't take any pictures of the pilgrims that go along with this craftivity, but I can assure you they are just as cute!  I loved reading what my little ones were thankful for!  Of course I had to display the student's work that said she was thankful for her teacher (melt my heart!) but I loved that one of my little guys wrote that he is thankful for numbers!  

 

Our next Thanksgiving craftivity was inspired by Just a Primary Girl and this year was the first time I tried this one out.  I adjusted the writing prompt again and had so much fun helping my students brainstorm some of the best parts of Thanksgiving!   A few of my kiddos cracked me up when they said their favorite part of Thanksgiving was taking naps!

2.  Our Christmas cards arrived!  

Ah, love being married...and merry!  I figure we only really have one Christmas to share our wedding photos AND send holiday greetings, so we made sure to find a cute play on words for our card this year.

3.  Jerry. Seinfeld.  

This SO happened Thursday night!  My husband, parents, and brother all headed out for a fun night to see our favorite comedian perform live.  No kidding, my cheeks hurt for hours afterwards from laughing so hard the entire time!  Laughing really is my favorite and I figured I burned enough calories giggling to compensate for the glass of wine I enjoyed on our night out.

4.  I'm finally getting over the horrible cold I've had for the past week!  Despite how we scrub and disinfect our classroom, germs still seem to creep in every now and then.  I won't post pictures of my recovery process, but I will promise that lots of Emergen-C and Clearquil did the trick for me!

5.   We are SO close!

I have a feeling a lot of teachers will be posting about this and it's so true - just make it to Thanksgiving break!  We go Monday and Tuesday next week, so I'm working on my plans to do lots of mini-Thanksgiving projects, a Fingerfood Feast, and, of course, GoNoodle breaks. :)

Happy Friday, everyone! 

Want to join in on the fun?  Link up here!  Don't forget to visit other blogs in the party!

Good Reads

My husband likes to tease me because he says I'm "obsessed with Facebook".  False.  Ok, partly false.  Truthfully, I do find myself scrolling through my newsfeed a bit more than I'd like to admit, but it's not always just to "like" photos of my friends sweet little babies or to take a funny Buzzfeed quiz (although, let's be honest, both of those are highly entertaining to me).  More often than not I have stumbled upon an article a friend posted, which leads to another article and then another.  

This past weekend it seemed like many teachers were using Facebook like I do because several of my teacher friends were sharing some truly amazing articles.  I wanted to share them here because I think they are not only encouraging, but empowering for teachers to read.

This article, published here, stopped my in my tracks.  I read it twice, just to absorb it all a little better.  The article is an open letter to classroom parents about THAT student: the kid who is angry, overly-active, loud, needy, aggressive.  The student I personally have had many times in my class, who can bring me to tears at the end of a particularly rough day.  The child that leaves me feeling exhausted over a battle that never should have been a battle in the first place.  The student who I swear will be personally to blame for my first gray hair.  The kiddo who warms my heart like no one else could when a little smile pops up on a usually clouded face because he learned how to write his numbers to fifty.

I started reading this article on my teacher pedestal, identifying with the author because I have all too often felt frustrated that I couldn't be brutally honest with all parents and guests who enter my classroom to explain about THAT student.  But as I continued to read, I was reminded of all the many reasons THAT student is THAT way.   Not that these reasons make THAT student suddenly easy to teach and reason with, but I was reminded to take a step back and look beyond the outbursts and tantrums.  To remember that his little heart needs just as much love, if not more, than even the most well-behaved student in class.  To think about responding to her defiant attitude with grace rather than anger.   I needed this article as a check-point as we complete another semester to remember my favorite part of teaching: the love and nurturing I have the opportunity to provide each day.

This article, found here, is all about Teacher Power (you know, like "girl power" but for teachers).  In response to an article published in Time Magazine about Rotten Apples (bad teachers) an assistant principal fought back against the scrutiny we hear all too often about how teachers are failing.  She is so sharp in her response, making me feel not only empowered by her stance to protect all educators, but to think that I share a profession with some seriously amazing people who will stop at nothing to help their students succeed.  Highly encouraging!

As we near Thanksgiving, I'm reminded once again how thankful I am to be a teacher.  I'm thankful I get to spend my days with little minds and hearts that will one day grow up and change the world around them.  I'm thankful I work with so many men and women who share my passion to make these little learners feel loved and cared for while also teaching them math and how to read.   I'm thankful that I can share my passion through technology to connect with other teachers who can help build me up, whether that's through blogs or articles on Facebook.

And ok, I'm thankful for Facebook too :)

-Liz

Super Thankful!

I truly do love how this time of the year reminds me to reflect on all that I am thankful for.  I'm thankful for so many things and feel truly blessed!  When I saw this linky from Primary Powers, I knew I needed to link up!  Not only is it super cute, but it's made me feel super thankful!

Click the Super Thankful Linky above to join in on the fun!

-Liz

Gobbling up some letter recognition!

Transitioning from first grade to Kindergarten has been quite the learning experience for me.  On one hand, it's an absolute blast:  I know exactly where my students need to be at the end of the year and I've found it's easier for me to differentiate because of this.  On the other hand, I find myself spending hours thumbing through other teacher blogs and TPT for new activities, lesson ideas, and small group learning games since most of my current stock is geared for first grade (seriously, what did teachers do before blogs and TPT?!).  

Recently, as I was trying to find a Thanksgiving-themed activity for small groups, I decided to tweak one of my favorite products I created a few years.  The original game practiced sight word recognition, but I changed it to focus on letter and sound recognition for my younger little ones.  I'm loving Kindergarten and all the new and exciting things I get to teach, but I still want to share some of my favorite past activities with my new students.  My kiddos have loved this game so much that even my reluctant readers are eager to come to small group!  For some groups I only use one set and focus on letter recognition, but in other groups I have the students identify the letter and the letter sound.

 I wish I had a better picture of my cards (I guess I was just too into the game!) but I've found a great way to jazz up the appeal of turned-over cards and to prevent curious eyes from trying to see through the back is to use Do-A-Dot Markers on the backs before I cut and laminate.  Easy and quick and sure beats a boring white card!  (I also bent the rules a bit and scatter the cards instead of keeping them in a stack.  Little arms can't always reach to the stack easily!)

I am so thankful for my new grade level and new blog that I want to share this activity with you!  Get your free set here! 

Shameless plea:  If you download this, could you please consider following my blog and/or store?  I'm seriously bursting with excitement in Kindergarten and would love to connect with more teachers like me!

If you're interested in working with sight words, the original Gobble, Gobble game is still in my store as well!

-Liz