Christmas Math Centers and Supplemental Activities- Giveaway!

Holy Guacamole it is Christmas season!! Woohoo!! Every year I forget how quickly fall goes by... I feel like Halloween was just a few weeks ago?? Oh well, I am okay with Christmas being here because it is my favorite time of year :) Don't tell anyone, but I even listen to Christmas music in the middle of the summer because I love it THAT much!! I am about to head out Christmas shopping but before I do, I wanted to let ya'll know that I added one more thing to my TPT store for the Cyber Monday sale and will hopefully be adding the other one later on tonight. To go to the packet, click HERE or click on the pictures below:

The one I just added is my Christmas Math Centers and Supplemental Activities Packet. Since this packet is only math focused it is shorter than my others and will also be cheaper too- wahoo for you! I am still working on the Christmas Literacy Centers and Supplemental Activities Packet and will hopefully add that one later.. and then a combo pack of both of them together. 

As usual, I will give this packet to the first two people to comment below telling me your favorite thing about the Christmas season :) Don't forget to leave your e-mail!!

Spider and Bat FREEBIES!

It is almost time for the Spider and Bat unit! Can you tell I'm excited?? In order to kick it off I am giving away two freebies! These two pages can both be found in my Spiders and Bats unit that is 30+ pages of science, math, and literacy fun. Click on the pictures to be taken to my TPT store where they are free!

Ten Frame Class Book

This year we are really hitting those ten frames hard. I feel like they have been implemented into almost all of our math lessons so far this year. Last week we took our class pictures for our Ten Frame Class Book that my grade partner found from http://www.k-5mathteachingresources.com/. If you have not been to this website yet, you need to check it out. It is AWESOME! Here is what the front cover of our class book looks like:

 This font is one of my newest obsessions from Kevin and Amanda's fonts for peas. It is called Pea KT Polkie Dot.

Then, on the inside pages, we had the numeral form and ten frame representation of a number on a piece of paper with the corresponding number of students in the picture holding the paper. So for example the number one page had the paper and one child holding it.

When we were all done, I printed off the pictures on regular copy paper, put them into sheet protectors and threw the cover together real quick for our first class book of the year. My students love reading our class books and especially love to see their pictures in them!!

Do any of you make class books?? If so, what are the topics you make them on? 

Hope you all had a Magnificent Monday!

 

Crock Pot Applesauce for Apple Unit- Yum!

Nothing gets me more excited about cool fall weather than a crock pot (ok, maybe wearing boots and cozy sweaters... but the crock pot is definitely up there!). I love my Crock Pot so much that I bring my Crock Pot in to my classroom a few times a year to cook with my little kinders. Cooking is one of our favorite things because it is fun to do, GREAT measuring practice and following directions practice, and best of all... you get to eat a yummy snack at the end! 

Every fall the kindergarten classes at my school make homemade applesauce to kick off our Apple unit. It is a huge hit and a wonderful reward for good behavior (I pull the classic "I am looking for someone who is following directions to be my next helper" trick ALL. THE. TIME. when cooking!! It takes a great direction follower to follow a recipe, and I love seeing my students who usually struggle to pay attention rise to the occasion). 

Here are the easy steps that we follow to make our class applesauce. 

1. Every student is asked to bring in one apple to contribute to our applesauce. I usually buy a bag of whatever apple is cheapest to bring in for the students who do not have one. We do lots of math activities with our apples and then the real fun begins! We have an apple peeler at school that has a gripper on the bottom. This thing is super sharp so I never let the kids use it, I just let them stand around the table while I use it. Ours looks a lot like this one from Bed Bath and Beyond:

2. Once all of our apples are peeled, I cut the long apple spirals into smaller pieces and place them in the Crock Pot. We then measure out two tablespoons of brown sugar, one teaspoon of cinnamon, and a cup of water. We pour all of this into our Crock Pot. Before we put our lid on, we put in two long cinnamon sticks. When all of our ingredients are inside, we turn our Crock Pot on high and let it sit while we go back to our lessons. The applesauce makes our entire hallway smell delicious!! Throughout the day we stir our applesauce a few times and I will break up any large chunks.

3. By the time we come back in from recess, our applesauce is ready! I usually put the applesauce into our bowls and let it sit for a few minutes to cool down. I would rather it be a little too cold than a little too hot! Typically when our applesauce is done it looks similar to the one below:

We will be making our delicious applesauce next week to kick off our Apple unit and I can't wait!! I will be sure to take pictures of the steps of our applesauce making and post them here. 

Are any of ya'll hungry yet from looking at those yummy pictures?? I sure am!

More Colors!

Today we worked a little bit more on our Colors Unit. We did our experiment with mixing different colors of food coloring to see what the end result would be. My kiddos LOVED this and did a surprisingly good job filling out their "data sheets". Here is a pic of one of their completed sheets:

We also finished our "Color Word Graphs" today. Here they are:

 

You can see these activities, the ones from yesterday, and more in my unit on Tpt. Here is a better look at some of what is included:

Have a good night!!

First Few Days of School

We are officially on our 5th day of school and things are starting to settle in nicely. We have been able to start on some "real lessons" this week and I am excited to share one of them with you (I say "real lessons" because while there is more meat to them than last week, it is still only the 5th day of kindergarten!). We have finished our Chicka Chicka Boom Boom name trees. These were super easy for the kids to do, the most challenging part being the accordion folding. Luckily my kiddos are all very hard workers who are independent and want to do the work themselves. For this lesson the students had to write their names on the first line, and then count the letters in their name and write the numeral on the second line. This ties together both our Chicka Chicka study and our study of our names. I guess it technically counts as handwriting practice and math since we practiced recognizing and forming our numerals too. So this one little lesson accomplished a lot!! Here are a few of our finished trees:

You can definitely notice the beginning of the year kindergarten handwriting!! I cannot take credit for this idea because, like so many other things I do, it came from Pinterest. Speaking of Pinterest, I have one more picture below from my grade partner. Ya'll she created the most adorable tree for her bulletin board that she saw on Pinterest and I just can't let it go without being seen! 

This idea is especially genius because we will be studying apples soon, and then as we head into fall she can switch out the green leaves for fall colored ones. It is hard to see from the picture but she used scrapbook paper to die cut her letters on, which is something we both LOVE to do. It just adds that little extra touch to make it a teensy bit cuter! 

I hope you're all having a great week!!

Alaska and a Little More Back to School Prep!

You know you are a blog addict when you are on vacation and can't wait to get online and post to your blog!! We did not have very strong internet access on our cruise (and it was SUPER expensive) so I had to wait until we got to our lodge in Talkeetna, Alaska to post and I have been going a little bit crazy! Well first let me tell ya'll that if you have never been to Alaska, you have to come at least once in your life. It is absolutely beautiful and so much of the nature up here is still untouched and unaltered. So without further ado, let me go ahead and share a few pictures!!

 This was the view from our hotel in Vancouver, B.C. where our cruise took off. The floatplanes that you see out in the harbor are EVERYWHERE up here. One of our tour guides joked that the floatplane is Alaska's state bird :) I also thought it was so funny that the building out in the middle of the harbor is a gas station to fill up your boat! I have definitely never seen that before!

This was just a pretty little creek we passed while walking from where our ship docked into Skagway, Alaska. I thought it was pretty and I would share :)

And then this is the beautiful Hubbard Glacier that we woke up to one morning off the side of our ship. I feel so blessed to be able to see a part of God's Earth I've never seen before. I have about three hundred more pictures (literally!) I could post but figured I would spare ya'll the family photos and move on to what's next...

What I've been pinning! Yes, even though I've been on vacation, I've still been pinning... I need to go to Pinterest Anonymous! Anywho, here are some of my favorites:

This is an adorable gift for parents that the kids can make for Open House. It is a pizza box that can hold some of their projects and has their handprints on it. Cheap and adorable? Yes, please!

This one doesn't have much of a picture but it is a great game. Every day there is a "Hundred's Chart Thief" who comes and steals a few numbers from the chart. The other students have to raise their hands to tell which numbers are missing. I can only imagine the excitement over being the "Hundred's Chart Thief"!

Well let me just say an huge THANK YOU to Ms. Pasqua for this post because ya'll, you can buy pre-made pom poms! This just saved me a lot of grief because I am not nearly as crafty as the rest of ya'll!! I have attempted and failed quite a few pom poms and was stressing about how to make these for my classroom. She got them from Party City.

And last but not least, "Fishin for Addition!" I don't think that is actually what the original pinner called it but I thought it was catchy. Your students catch two numbers using a magnet and add them together. So simple yet so fun!