Book Recomendation

This past weekend I went up to a little town in Wisconsin and I took my daughter to their library.  It was a small library with a small children's section but they had tons of little toys for her to play with and she loved it, which gave me time to browse books.  I then came across this gem in their new book section.

What I didn't know is this book isn't so new and many of you out there already knew about it.  Well if you are like me and just finding out about it now here is a summary.

Summary:  It is the first day of school for Penelope Rex and she is excited to meet her new classmates and make some friends.  However it is hard to make friends when you eat all your classmates and the teacher makes you spit them all out.  Penelope later learns a valuable lesson when the class pet, a fish, bites her. 

This is such a cute story and is perfect for a dinosaur unit, back to school or just for a fun read.  You can look for the book at your local library or on Amazon.

Counting Bears Graphing

The school year is coming to the end and I love no prep activities.  The following activities is one of those.

I grab a handful of my counting bears and create a cupful for each student.  They then sort them and graph based upon color.

There is a color graph if you can print in color or laminate them for a center or there is a black and white copy where students can color the bears the correct color by reading the color words and then graph.   It's a great end of year activity.

Check it out here at my TPT Store.

Book Recomendation

In March I normally do my own fairy tale unit, but this year all the fairy tales I found at the library were a little scarier then I wanted so I switched to fables and found this awesome series.

Classic Fable in Rhythm and Rhyme

These fables are put to music which gives them a fresh new spin that engages that students and allows them to sing along.  Each story starts off explaining what a fable is and it gives a quick synopsis of what the story is about.

The Fox and the Grapes

The stories also have highlighted vocabulary that you can pre teach and each book has reading activities and questions at the back of the book.

The Lion and the Mouse

The Boy who Cried Wolf

I really love this series.  Check them out on the links on Amazon or see if they have them at your library. 

Snowball Sight Words

I love creating products that are simple and easy to use.  These snowball sight words are one of my favorite.

This winter activity was created for a fun sight word center where I printed out the snowballs, laminated them and then placed them in a bin full of cotton balls. The students had to dig through looking for the sight words and then write the word they found on the recording sheet.

You can also use them as a write the room activity where you tape the sight words up around the room.

Over 90 sight words are included from the entire Pre-K and Kindergarten Sight Word List, including a blank page to write your own.

Add and Clip

I am always looking for easy to use math centers for my room.  So I created this add and clip activity.  Not only can students practice their fine motor skills by using a clothes pin to identify their answer, but they also are able to count the dots which provides support for those who are still learning their facts.  It's a low prep center.  Just print, laminate and cut.

I also have a heart themed version which is perfect for Valentine's Day or even just to use all year.

You can find both products here in my Teacher's Pay Teachers Store.

What's the Missing Letter: Christmas Edition

So learning how to put things in alphabetical order is such an important and yet boring skill.  So to help my students practice abc order and fluency in a fun way I created this product that is the perfect center for the upcoming Christmas season.

Missing Letter Center

This fun activity allows students to fill in the missing alphabet letter with an expo marker and comes in an upper case and lower case set.  My students were excited to be able to use the expo markers with this center.  It was an instant hit.

Christmas Sight Word Practice

Sight Word practice is so important and instead of using flash cards I love to use games.  A class favorite is our sight word spinners.  Here is a sample of our color and black and white version.

The average child needs 4-14 exposures to a word to make it stick, which requires lots of repetition. Each spinner covers 5 sight words which makes reinforcement easily manageable and still fun.

These spinners are easy prep.  Just print, add a paper clip and pencil to your station and you are ready to go.  Students can either color a box every time they spin a word or they can write the word in the box.  These are great for morning work or centers.  You can find them here in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.