PEEPS, jelly beans and more jelly beans!

Well, the week before break is finally here!  We are going to spend the week on Easter treats!  The first couple of days we are focusing on PEEPS...  from my Learning with my Peeps unit.   I really love the Technology and Science activities in this unit!   It ties together my favorite things in the classroom-  eating :) - technology- and science!    There are several experiments that you can watch on a computer or Interactive WhiteBoard and  Scientific Method sheets to do.  My kindergartner at home LOVED doing these!  It was really fun!  My students love experiments, so I know they will be a hit!

As if thePeeps aren't enough- Towards the end of the week we are doing Jelly Beans from my Jelly Bean Unit!

Both are for sale in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store!  I also came up with a couple of Jelly bean inspired freebies that are in the store as well.  A number word/number matching activity and a group of Jelly bean themed literacy activities including 2 books for students to make!

 You can go to my store HERE.  I am excited to do the riddle book with my students!  I know they will LOVE IT!  I made a kindergarten version of jelly bean math as well.  I love to make things I can use with my own child and that I can share with his teacher!   

So that is what I have been busy doing this past weekend!  I am so excited to finally get my store going that I am having a

SALE!!!

(anyone who knows me, knows I LOVE A SALE!)

Today went so fast, I could hardly believe it!  Hope the week goes the same way!  Can't wait to spend a little time with my boy and girl!!!  

Hope your week is awesome!!!

Julie

3 days til the weekend, 2 freebies, and 1 more set of report cards til summer break!

So I made it through yet another grading period and could not be more thrilled!  I have been so nervous about this round of assessments, but it turned out way better than I thought!  So yay!  Tomorrow is my little one's preschool screening.  How can they grow so quickly!?  I can't wait to share this milestone with her.    3 more days until the weeked!  It felt like today was Wednesday, so I am all thrown off...  missed a special yesterday (first time EVER)  sheesh---  I think it is just time for a Spring Break!!!

So we are in the midst of all things spring and Easterish...  I LOVED the Reindeer Applications I found through PINTEREST and decided to come up with one for an Easter Bunny...  I found one on a Kindergarten blog, but needed to step it up a bit...  so I combined a bunch of ideas and came up with this...

Here is the link...  Bunny Help Wanted

I took the kids pictures with Bunny Ears to hang with them in the hall and they are all too precious!!!  My favorite sentence a student wrote was "I can hop with a basket real good!"  How hilarious!  Love how they got into it!!!

The other freebie of the day is a little throwback from our state testing...  we cheered on our third grade buddies by giving them some kind of note and treat for the day.  Here is our PEEPS inspired treat:

You can download it from this link: Somebunny Special...

The graphics are from www.scrappindoodles.com  love them! 

The borders are Ellie Lash from That Girl...  love her blog!

Finished the whole Hungry Games Trilogy!   Now what???  

Have a great night!

Julie

Leprechauns and all that fun stuff!

What a fun busy weekend!  My kids spent the last two days trying to find "evidence" of Leprechauns in our house.  I spent the last two days trying to find our house!  My husband worked all weekend, so it became the perfect time to get out warmer weather clothes and go through the kid's rooms and put toys we don't play with anymore into the garage sale bins.  It feels so good to purge, but wow, how do we end up with all this stuff!  and the amount of Happy Meal toys..wowza...  I'm thinkin we need a whole lot more of home cookin!  I also found some time to put the finishing touches on my next Packet...  I am in the process of gathering Math Center activities that I have been making for the new Common Core Standards this year.  I have to say I am LOVING Common Core so far!  We have so much more time to work on concepts and I am impressed with how well the students understand so much more deeply---  and all of them are getting it because we spend so much more time on them in centers.    This is how I run my math centers:

3 times a week I have about an hour (give or take) and I try to get in 4 fifteen minute centers. 

Center 1: they get to go on computers.  I make them do Xtra Math first and then they can do ABCya.com or Kid's College.  Xtra Math is great for math fluency, takes about 5 min after rhe initial 20 min testing, gives me information about what they are acomplishing, and (THE BEST PART!)  it is FREE!  Gotta love it!  I also signed my own kindergartener up to do this at home.  It is great because I can send home their pin numbers and they can work at home.  I get to see both home and school scores!  LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!
Center 2: Some kind of math fluency game.  It is either on the whiteboard or a small group work.  I have about 10 I use all year and just change up the facts.  It really helps with managing the center. 
Center 3: a game or activity that goes with the main concept I am working with.  Sometimes I sit with the group and help, sometimes I pull students from another center to remediate or get in some extentions and sometimes I test students one on one for our district assessments that require it.
Center 4:  This one is the wild card...  sometimes I give the students the manipulatives we will be using for the next concept and let them play however they want with them.  Sometimes you just have to use the pattern blocks to make a wall or a really long snake out of the unifix cubes!  I find that giving my students "play" time with the manipulatives, the novelty is gone when it comes time to use them and they say on task better.  Sometimes I will put out something and let them make their own explorations...  a scale and a bunch of objects, that kind of thing...  then I make them draw and write about what they did.  I have a few listening centers I have made that go with math skills and this would be the center for doing that as well.  It is kind of the "whatever I need it to be'" center.

That being said,  here is my first bunch of activities I would use in Center 3...

I just uploaded it into my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.  You can download it here!

The other project I have been working on is finishing up the Hunger Games Trilogy!  I decided that I have been out of the loop for too many of these big crazes and I was ready to jump in.  and YUCK!  I cannot even believe how horrible the premise is for these books!  Yet, I cannot put them down!!!  I just can't wait to see what will happen next!  Not exactly the "feel good" happy, inspiring books I am usually drawn to, that is for sure.  I read the 1st one in a day, the 2nd last night and finished it today and I am about 60 pages into the next!  I do read fast...  so off to learn more about the MOCKINGJAY!!!  

Have a great week!

Julie

Sunshine! Glorious Sunshine!

I can't even imagine how we went from winter to this incredible weather!  Yesterday morning when my class was graphing our weather for the month, I noticed the day that was marked for snow and asked the kids if that was a mistake!  We even checked weather.com to make sure!  Wow!  That hasn't been that long!  So I spent my day working on changing out winter to spring for my kids clothes...  quite a job!  It is one of my least favorite jobs because I get so sad that they will never wear any of my favorites again!  I did get out the new I bought on clearance last summer and am pretty excited about the new wardrobes! 

I have also been working on my new unit to put on Teachers Pay Teachers...  it is a set of Comparing Numbers Math centers/ tub activities that my students have been loving!  Hopefully I will be getting that out by the end of the weekend! 

Here is an example of one of our sight word activities we have been doing.  I made it out of a punchball from the dollar store.  (they come in 3's)  I was excited when we were reading yesterday because one of my strugglers said excitedly:  "This word was on our sight word ball!" and then he said it.  There is hope yet!

I just use a sharpie to add on the words that our traditionally hard from our list.  (I do throw in a couple of easier ones too so it isn't so overwhelming!!!) 

So I am off to blow bubbles with the kids!  Love these sunny rays!

Julie

Beautiful Weather and Springtime Fun!

Wow!  I could live in this kid of weather FOR-EV-ER!  The sunshine and the signs of spring---  keep them coming is all I can say!  I have decided that we are going into the "not-quite-summer-yet prepared-ness mode" in my classroom.  You know, the things you do to keep them attentive so that you can try to get some kind of learning into them...  usually it starts the beginning of May, but we have WAY WAY WAY too much to do to let them start the coast mode! 

Steps to "not-quite-summer yet" summer preparedness:

1. LOTS of large motor movement breaks!  We do about 5-10 a day.  Many times in between centers and after sitting for more than 20 min.  Our latest fun has been dances on our Promethean Board and YOUTUBE!  

2.  Monitered movement-  somehow all this sun gets these kids motors running!  I have changed up some of my centers to be ones in which standing, throwing, and moving is involved.  Large number lines, sigh word toss, and write the room are good standbys.  I used a punching ball ballon to make a fun sight word toss.  We practiced how to use it today in a whole group and hopefully it will go well in the center tomorrow!

3. BUDDIES: Now that our state testing is over, we are using our 3rd grade buddies as much as we can.  The kids work hard during silent reading to practice for when we meet, and work to earn time wth them.  We are also starting to work with them to help with our writing.  The 3rd graders we buddy with are awesome role models.  LOVE THEM!

4.  Good old fashioned bribery! I am not too proud to offer a bribe!  Right now we are working to earn a day of chewing gum by filling up a gumball chart with circle stickers.  We are also going to work for a popcorn party with our 3rd grade buddies next.   I also offer incentives such as: if you work quietly during the center I will let you all lay on the floor when I read the next book or whoever is working hard gets to pick the next song we dance to!  Random lunches with me also perks them up a bit!

I LOVE spring and all the fun things that go with it!  I made a fun unit tied to the Common Core for First Grade and then added a bunch for my kindergarten teacher friends (and my son's class!)  It is all based on the sugary PEEPS!  I have added it to my slowly growing Teachers Pay Teacher's Store!

LEARNING WITH MY PEEPS LINK!

It has some fun books to use in shared reading, reading center activities, links to use with a SMART, PROMETHEAN, or other INTERACTIVE WHITE BOARD, Science, and Math.  All of it is adaptable for Kindergarten, First Grade, or anywhere in between!  It has been lots of fun and the kids are way excited to dive into the PEEPS sitting on our shelf!

Hope your day is great and you are getting the same awesome weather!  11 days until Spring Break! 

:) 

Julie

March madness...

So far March has come into the Gesin household like a lion...  we have had injuries and a rocky start!  Last Monday I took a little tumble in our garage thanks to all the stuff I just had to bring back and forth to school and a missed step.  After a couple visits to the chiroprator and advil, I am slowly getting back to normal.  Saturday, we were beginning the love of Spring when my son fell and got a concussion!  I think today we are all healthy and pretty much pain free, so we have lots to be thankful for!  I love when the time change comes and it starts to be outside weather.  It has been wonderful not to have to huge mess when I get home of toys thrown about and to sit and draw with the kids on the steps and driveway while we grill out!  Tonight we even had time to bake some cupcakes and bananna muffins for some yummy treats throughout the week,  Not to shabby!

One of our fun moments:

CRAZY HAIR DAY!  So funny...  boys with shorter hair have very little options for Crazy hair day so we came up with a plan...  the next time one came around we would cut his hair into the coveted MOWHAWK...

So even though I really don't care for Mohawks, I think he looks awfully cute in one!

Hope you get to enjoy the great weather!   14 Days until Spring Break!!!

Julie