Wednesday WOW & Highs and Lows

First off, I am joining Em @ Curious Firsties (very late!) for her weekly linky party Wednesday Wow!

I have two WOWs to share this week. The first one is about pencils. I'm sure I am not the only teacher that felt like I was spending way too much time sharpening pencils. So one day I gave all of the kids a decorated pencil, but first I put their number on it with a Sharpie close to the eraser. Then I took a piece of tape and wrapped around the number. (Sharpies aren't always permanent, are they?  ;P) My sharpening time has more than cut in half. No one is purposely breaking their prized decorated pencils and in fact lots of the kids write with it until it is as dull as can be. 

The next WOW, I found by accident. I haven't seen any one else mention it so I don't know if it is new or just not well known. Baby Einstein has 3 videos called "Meet the Sight Words". I found it one day when I was looking for a sight word video for the kdg kids to watch while I worked with the firsties. It was tough, my firsties wanted to watch it instead of listen to me (imagine that!). They are very entertaining, take a peek.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL15fKo2AIE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UPtxRsigKg

I could only find number one and three on You Tube. they also had videos on letters and numbers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtEAJJwdpbY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxkonVn-M6Y

Next I am joining Jenny @ Owl Things First! for her linky party Highs and Lows.

I'll start with my high. I gave the kdg kids a song about plants for their poetry journal. It was the first thing they put in it and I wasn't sure if they would like having a journal or not. My firsties love it and I thought the kdg kids would too. Last week I had them add "Do You Know the Muffin Man?". It was so cool I had a group of girls singing the plant song while pointing to the words. We had only sang the song 2 different days and they were getting every word right!

So my low this week was to discover to thieves in my classroom.  : (  I had asked two of my boys to stack our chairs and then come to the computer lab. They spent waaay too long in there, but I didn't think anything about it until a day later I saw one of them with a handful of colored pencils. When I questioned him, I got nothing. After school, I looked in their crayon boxes, one didn't have anything but crayons, the other boy's box was full of markers and colored pencils. Now if he had been really smart and only gotten one brand, I might not have known, but no, he had Crayola, Crazy Art, Scholastic, School Specialty...it was obvious that he hadn't brought them all from home.  The next day I grilled them, one cracked but the other kept insisting that he hadn't taken any that the other boy had put the stuff in his crayon box.  I told him that for future reference, if he were with a friend that stole a car and he did nothing to stop it or didn't report it, he would be in the same amount of trouble.  Anyway thanks to their brothers, the truth came out. One has a kdg brother in class with us and he mentioned that his brother also had some Caught Being Good coins and some marbles (He told his mother he got the coins for good behavior!). The other boy's brother was wearing some necklaces that looked like some from my prize box, I asked him where he got them from he said his brother gave them to him. It just got worse as the day went! I told them I was not going to call parents, but if I were them I would come clean because their brothers might let it slip! I do not like having thieves in my room, I hope their life of crime ended last week!

How Cool Is That? and Freebies!!!

About a week and a half ago, I got an email from SmileMakers. They offered to let me choose any item from their catalog if I would review it on my blog. Well I was just beside myself with excitement! They definitely made me smile. ;P I got online to look at their catalog and narrowed it down to 6 items. They have so many wonderful products, it was hard to choose.  I wanted to get something that I would use, not just leave it in the box collecting dust. After thinking about it for awhile, I ordered the 

Jumbo Magnetic Spinner. 

Since it is magnetic, I can hang it on my whiteboard.  It comes with 3 double-sided write on wipe off cards. there are also a list of ideas to use for classroom management or for reading or math games. I have several learning games that need spinners so I thought the spinner would save a lot of time making different types of spinners. Once I got it out and looked at it, I realized it will work perfect for my sight word graphs. In the past, I have use a large, foam dice covered with paper and every week I would either put another layer of paper on it or cover last week's words with stickers. the write on wipe off card will be sooo much easier, plus the kids will LOVE it! I, also, won't have to worry about a stray dice being thrown a little wildly. ;)  I took it up to school with me  to take some pictures. My daughter graciously agreed to act as Vanna White. The first few pictures are showing the different cards available.

Card with 12 spaces

 Card with 32 spaces

Card with 8 spaces

 Card with 4 spaces

Card with 6 spaces

 It is very easy to change out the cards and the marker erased cleanly. When my daughter turned the spinner, it stayed in place, she didn't have to hold it, so it has a nice strong magnet. If you would like to check it out, you can find in online HERE. I absolutely LOVE it!!!  Thanks SmileMakers!

Check out Smile/makers, they have a lot of great products and they offer special perks for teachers.  : )

As I promised, I have a freebie for you. Here is a blank sight word graph, if you don't have one of these spinners, you can use a large dice with stickers. Write the sight words you want the children to work on at the bottom. The kids take turns spinning or rolling the dice. The first word to the top is the winner.

Sight Word Graph

 I also made a poster for the hallway using my sock monkey theme. It will print on 8 1/2 X 11. I'm going to print it poster size using 9 sheets of paper. You can grab a copy of it HERE

Monday Made It

I'm joining Tara from 4th Grade Frolics for her weekly linky party Monday Made It.

This week I completed several projects for school. The first idea was  a ten frame made from popsicle sticks that I got off of Pinterest. I changed mine up just a bit by using colored popsicle sticks. I was going to use a my hot glue gun to put the sticks together, but it was at school so I used  Tacky Glue and it worked fine. I am using foam cubes from Dollar Tree as my counters.

After making those, I guess I had ten frames on the brain. My daughter was making some scrambled eggs and I thought I could cut the end off of an egg carton and have a ten frame that is very easy to make.

When I was reading Kimberly @ Funky First Grade Fun's post, I immediately had an idea for another type of ten frame. this picture was my inspiration.

When I saw these place mats, I thought, "Hey, I could make a giant ten frame to use on the carpet with the whole class. After thinking about it I decided it would cost too much to buy all of the place mats. Then I remembered that I had seen some foamy coasters at Dollar Tree that I thought might work. It wouldn't be as big, but the frame would be easier to make. What I ended up buying was some foam grippers, they were bigger than the coasters. I got a piece of foam board to make the ten frame. I used some washi tape and black marker to make the grid.

Here's a picture to show you the size comparison.

My next project was super easy. I got it from Teacher Tipster. 

I bought 8 pool noodles and the bag at Dollar Tree (again). I ended up with 15 tens and about 20 ones.

While I'm talking about Base Ten blocks, look what I found at you guessed it Dollar Tree.

 My next math project seemed like a great idea to help kids with coin values came from Nikki @ Teaching in Progress. All you need is unifix cubes, coins and tape. She used the same color of cubes. I just thought the different color towers would make it easier for the kids to see quickly how many there were.

I finally did make something for reading. The idea came from this pin. It's another quick and easy one. Write sight words on ping pong balls. The kids pick up a ball, if they can reading it they get to make a basket. The colored ping pong balls were 6 for $1.00 at Walmart, the white ones came from Dollar Tree, 8 for $1.00. Sorry for the blurry picture.

 I bought these two "baskets" several years ago and I have never used them. I believe I bought them at Mardels.

I made one thing  help with classroom management. I got the idea from HERE. The pinner said the kids were supposed to write kind things about each other and put it in the box.

My final project for this week is a bulletin board redo. Don't look too close, the board was in worse shape than I realized. I'm hoping since it is just for me, it will hold up. Here is what I started with. It had felt that had been stuck on top of the cork. 

I spray painted the frame black and then used some spray adhesive to attach the fabric. The fabric doesn't match my colors exactly, but it was some I already had. Wish me luck, I'm trying to recover my office chair in the same fabric. If it turns out OK, you'll see it next week. ; ) 

Have a great and productive week!

Monday Made It

I'm linky up with Tara @ 4th Grade Frolics for her fun, motivating and creative linky party Monday Made It.

The first thing I'll show is something I found on pinterest that I thought Delaney and I could do together.

This is the picture from the pin which was showing you how to tie die using sharpie markers and rubbing alcohol. Here are the supplies we used. (notice we ditched the cup.)

We just put a lid from a large tub (which if you are a teacher I'm sure you have at least one of those lying around. ;P) inside a washed t-shirt. Then we went a little crazy making different types of designs. After we made a few designs, we used the pipette to put drops of alcohol on the design. We were a little impatient, we used a blow dryer to dry the alcohol so we could make some more designs. Here are the fruits of our labor. It was a lot of fun and very easy to do. I'm going to use some vinegar on the designs to help set in the color. The white t-shirts are the most vibrant, but the light blue and green worked too.

My next few things are for the classroom. The first one was simple. I bought Sight Word Stick Centers by Reagan Tunstall from TPT. It has 10 fun activities for kids to do and all I had to do was print out some pages and write some sight words on some Popsicle sticks. Now I'm ready to go.

My next project was another find from pinterest. It came from Donna @ Math Coach's Corner. It's called a rekenrek. it is a mathematics calculations tool that is supposed to give children a great visual model for developing a strong sense of 5 and 10. She gives step by step directions how to make them she has a link with more information on them. Here is what you need, pipe cleaners, beads and fun foam.

They were easy to make and they didn't cost much, especially sense I already had some of the items. Here is my finished product.

OK, I have one more thing I made for my classroom. It came from last weeks Monday Made It by            A Teacher Without a Class . She made a multiplication game using legos and socks. I just changed it up a bit to do addition. I only put 2 legos in each sock. I found a six pack of socks for $4.00 at Big Lots and I had already had legos. So all I did was to put different sets of legos into each sock, tie a knot in the top and then numbered each sock. 

Check out her sight, she even has a recording sheet already made.

Smarter than a Box of Rocks - A Sight Word Game with a Freebie

I wanted to share a little sight word game at I came up last week with it while I was cleaning and packing up my classroom for the movers. I haven't tried it with my kids, but I am going to use it this week when I start tutoring. 

While I was going through my "stuff" I found some polished black stones I got from Dollar Tree. I had written a sight word on each rock with a silver Sharpie.

I had seen the idea to play a sight word game using the rocks. I always have the kids turn them over so they can't see the words. If they can read it, it goes in their pile. I came up with a slight variation that I think the kids will love. If they can read the sight word, they put it on their side of a balance scale. who ever has the heaviest words wins. Just a new twist to an old game. NOTE: After looking at the rocks, I am going to go back and spray the rocks with polyurethane to keep the letters from rubbing off.

I made up a little recording sheet for the kids to write down the words they read. Grab a copy if you want.

Smarter Than a Box of Rocks!