A Crazy Week...

This week we are making our paper bead necklaces for Mother's Day,

 

Directions for making beads are here.

After the flour/water mixture dried overnight,
they painted the fabric with watercolors.

Creating batik watercolors on fabric to display in the art show,

Squeezing the flour/water mixture on the
fabric over the flower template.
Then, we let them dry overnight laying flat.

They painted all of the fabric.  Then, we
hung them up to dry overnight.

Here, you can see the green bunnies we used for subtracting.
We used them to complete our Jewel Subtraction page for 6.
We use a different type of counter for each subtraction page. 

I'll post directions for creating beautiful batik projects soon.

Subtracting from 6 with bunnies and sponge holders (we call them bunny slides),

Sponge holders fit right over their little arms.  Perfect for
composing or decomposing numbers.
We used them today to subtract from 6.

We demonstrated understanding of each subtractionsentence from 6-6=0 to 6-0=6.

The math subtracting pages are from our "Jewel Subtraction" on TPT.

and completing our formative writing tests, which includes thinking maps, icons for depth & complexity, and writing a narrative.

Yikes!

Kindergarten Graduation Song

Print a copy of our cute song, download an instrumental version of "It's A Small World" and you are ready for your kindergarten graduation.  Kids love this familiar tune.

You can find an instrumental version of the song on iTunes for $1.99 or less, but try to find one that's not too fast.  The one I use is pretty fast and the kids love it, but I struggle to turn the pages fast enough for them!  :oD

You can download the words to the song here on our TPT store.
Here are the first two pages of the song:

You can see the rest of the song by clicking the image
above and downloading it from my TPT store.  :)

And here is the chorus:

You might also like our End of the Year Candle Poem.  

We attach the poem to a candle made from their kindergarten crayons.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/End-of-Kindergarten-Crayon-Candle

Mother's Day Projects

Here are 2 great projects for Mother's Day that you might have missed.  These handmade beads are LoVeD, LoVeD, LoVeD by my kids' moms and the hats are just too cute!

You can see step-by-step directions for the beads here.

You can find step-by-step directions for the hats here.










My students started making the beads this week.

At first, many of them said, "I can't."  I started a few paper triangles on the toothpick for them and let them finish wrapping the triangle around the toothpick, adding the glue, and wrapping the triangle to the end.  Then, they slid the paper bead off of the toothpick and were so proud of themselves.  That gave them the confidence to start one on their own.

It always amazes me who ends up being really good at this and who doesn't.

If you plan on making either or both of these, it's best to start soon.

Enjoy!  And keep the FUN in the FUNdamentals!  :)
Palma

Magnetic Money Piggie

This is a great way to teach place value, coins, and counting to 100.

This shows Day 131:   1 dollar, 3 dimes, & 1 penny.

I use a metal pig.  Yes, a metal pig!


(If you don't have one, just use a cookie sheet and draw a pig with a Sharpie or glue a graphic of a pig to the cookie sheet.  See the picture at the end of this post.)

Add small, round magnets to 10 pennies and 10 dimes.

With a Sharpie, I drew 10 dots at the top of the pig and 10 dots on his snout.
I placed the 10 pennies on the dots on the top of the pig and 10 dimes on the dots on his snout.

I wrote the numbers 1-9 up both legs of the pig, I wrote 100 on his ear, and placed a paper clip on his ear.

Here is a different view for you.  

On Day 1 we placed one penny on the leg to the far right of the pig as we were looking at it.
We continued to add a penny each day.
When we got to Day 10 there wasn't enough room for the 10th penny, so we traded all 10 pennies for a dime and placed a dime on the pig's leg to the left.  The leg on the right didn't have anything on it now.
So, we had one group of 10 (the dime) and nothing in the one's column.

We continues to add pennies and cashed them in for dimes each time we accumulated 10 pennies.
When we had 10 dimes, there wasn't enough room for the 10th dime, so we cashed all 10 of the dimes in for a dollar bill which we clipped to his ear.

I also display the number of school days with number cards.  Here is a Freebie:  You can grab our "Perfect Number Cards" here.    These cards have the non-pointy four and the straight nine.

If you want to show the date in coins, you can use this model:

It was the 22nd of themonth.  We displayed 22 cents and we also showed 2:00.

Spring Planting & Writing

Yummy!

We planted our spring garden this week and had so much fun!
First, we had to remove the lettuce we planted earlier this year.

We got to see the roots attached to the lettuce.

      

Some children had never planted before.

        We planted organic, edible plants.

 Each child got about one square foot of soil to plant their organic, edible plant.

Soil, amenities, and plants are all organic.

Getting our hands dirty is so much fun!  :)

We also planted beans inside, but check out my SECRET TIP for successful beans sprouting.

The Secret Staples make all the difference!

Roots grow through the staples.  Beans don't get soggy.

Well, I guess it's not a secret any longer.  :)

And then, we write about EVERYTHING in our 4-Star Writing Journals with Rubric.

So, what is your class planting this spring?

Palma  :)

Friday Freebie

 I'm offering these perfect # cards with the four that's not pointy and the nine that's straight.

This Worked Today.... I Hope it Works Tomorrow!

The K teachers at my school were saying how noisy the kids got this week, so I tried something today and it worked like a charm:

As the kids entered the room, I told them how glad I am that I have the best class at our school.  I listed the reasons why (like they come in quietly, they put their backpack away, they sit down on the rug without touching anyone, etc.).  Well, they acted exactly like the class I described!  Perfection!   :)

And the great behavior continued all day!
Now, let's see if this works again tomorrow!  :o)

This cute kitty has nothing to do with this blog post.  I just thought you might leave a comment if I posted a cute kitty.  It gets lonely not hearing from anyone.  :)

6 weeks young.  :)

For The OCD Teacher.... NO MORE MISSING CRAYONS! :)

My name is Palma and I am often an OCD teacher.  :oD
That's why I came up with this crayon box organizer.

This template fits in the large crayon box.

So neat and organized!  :)     Love it!

When inserted into a crayon box, the children can easily see if they have all of their crayons.
And, if a crayon is missing, they can quickly see which one is missing.

Students simply match the colors on the template to their crayons and the box stays organized and full.
No more missing crayons!  :o)


Here is the template for the small, 8-count crayon box.  You can see how it looks inside the box below.

These templates fit into the small box
of 8-count crayons.  You print the
 templates, cut them out, glue them into
 the empty boxes, and replace the crayons.

And that's all!  

Organized crayons, easy to spot which crayon is missing, and crayons stored in 

rainbow order.    Now this OCD teacher is very happy!  :oD

This is what itlooks like insidethe box.  

You can find my crayon box templates here.

When I Grow Up... A Great Career Writing Bulletin Board for OpEn HoUse!

This project integrates writing with social studies and makes an awesome bulletin board for Open House!

I got some X-rays from my dentist.

~I take pictures of the students dressed up looking like what they want to be when they grow up.

~I have collected a variety of "dress up" clothes to represent many careers, but you can also get creative and improvise:
*Use a man's white shirt to look like  lab coat for a doctor or a scientist.

*Use stuffed animals for your future veterinarians to hold and take the photo by a sink.

*Use a tricycle for your future race car drivers.

*Stand a future politician by your flag.

Then, they write about what they want to be when they grow up using one of these templates.

We take some photos outside.

                                   


The parents love to read each one on my bulletin board.

This little guy brought in a hat and
cover-alls to look like an
archeologist.  :)

This was the 1st year I had a zookeeper.  :)

He brought in a live fish in a bowl of water! :)

We set this photo up in our playhouse.

You can get the writing templates here.

You might also like our career puppets.

We have:

 a police officer

a fire fighter

a chef

a ballerina

a construction worker

a baseball player

The old man can be a clerk

Have fun with this project.  :)                               

Let's Make Purple: Literacy & Art

I already use the story, Mouse Paint, by Ellen Stoll Walsh, to teach about color mixing.....

..... And I already use the story Little Blue and Little Yellow to teach about creating green from blue and yellow.....

 ..... But I needed a story about purple to go with this sweet, purple mouse, so here it is!

I'm so excited to introduce The Tale of the Purple Mouse.  

It's a mini book for students to complete about 3 little mice who have very unusual names:  One, Two, and Three!  :)  Click on the image to see these graphics a bit larger in my TPT store.

The focus of this mini book is:
Color words:  red, blue, and purple
Number words: one, two, three, four, and five
Elements of text:  characters, setting, problem, and solution
Art concept of color:  red and blue create purple

SO MANY SKILLS IN JUST ONE MINI-BOOK, RIGHT?  :-D

HOW TO MAKE PURPLE PAINT:
Put a little red paint inside a sandwich-size Zip-lock bag; down in the bottom corner.
Put a little blue paint in the other bottom corner.
Press out most of the air and seal.
Write each child's name on a "mixing bag" and let them squish the bag to mix the paint.
They may take it home to paint with a Q-Tip.

                     

ALL OF THAT IN ONE 7-page MINI BOOK!  :)

We also have a cute purple mouse puppet that goes perfectly with this story.

Quick As A Cricket: Nouns & Adjectives in Kindergarten

Based on the book, Quick As A Cricket, by Audrey Wood, we created this darling 8-page mini book.

Introduce nouns and adjectives in a way that kindergarten children can understand.

Read the book and list the animals in our mini book on a chart.
Students brainstorm adjectives to describe each animal.


We have included two copies of this mini book.  One has the nouns and adjectives to go along with each picture already printed on each page in a dotted font.

Over 18
pages in this
download. 

The other mini book has a blank space on each page where the adjective goes.  You can encourage higher level thinking skills by using the  adjectives you brainstormed for each animal and have students pick the adjective they want to write on each page.

This is also great to use with older students who can come up with their own adjectives.  When older students finish their mini books, they may share them with the kindergarten students at your school!  :)



This mini book would be great to read with our CRICKET PUPPET.
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Cricket-or-Insect-Puppet