Word Work

I just created a new item for my word work center. It uses words from Harcourt's Trophies. I used Donna Glynn's Mystery Words sheet and made my own sheets for my students. At the bottom of every page, I ask the students to create two for a friend. Here is my dilemma- how do my students know which ones to do? I was thinking getting something like this:

I will make a label for "All Done, please check" and "Friends, please finish me."

 Here is a sample page of my Word Work unit. Stay tuned for the whole unit.

Whole Word Work Unit

Shake Up

I have shakers, well two different varieties of shakers.  One kind are filled with something and in a container.  The other is made from egg cartons.  When I first started making these, I made them out of necessity- the only egg cartons I had, had openings in the top and the pom poms kept flying out!!!

I use them for so many things:

*Shapes review or identify.
*Identify numbers
*Identify letters
*Identify money or write amounts and students must make that amount using coins or dry erase boards
*Review word families- land in one spot, write or say a word from that word family
*Name something a particular color
*Place value- add 2 or 3 manips. child reads or records number (biggest or smallest)

*Really anything you need to review.

The list is infinite!!!!


To "play"

Program your egg carton with your skill.  Use a small manipulative such as corn, eraser, pom pom. So you don't have a zillion cartons, you could use garage sale dots instead of writing on the inside of the carton.

So put in your manip. and close carton.  Shake. Open carton. Where ever your manip. lands in, is the question.


Here they all are: (Well those that are made lol )


St. Patty's Shake Up-mini shamrock eraser
Bunny Shake Up- carrot eraser
Flower Shake Up flower
Spooky Shake Up spider toy
Bear Shake Up counting bear
Cocoa Shake Up- use with Polar Express small marshmallow
Penguin Shake Up penguin eraser
Snowflake Shake Up- snowflake- I cut apart snowflake garland
Snowman Shake Up snowman eraser
Gingerbread Shake Up gingerbread eraser



Themes I have used: (I will have these available soon too)

apple- uses apple seeds

band aid- toy bandaid

bone-mini dog bone

CC123-brown pom pom

crayon- crayon shaped button

Dental/Teeth (dental facts along with healthy/unhealthy foods) tooth (not real)

elephant- peanut

eraser- pencil top erasers

fishing- toy fish

frog/fly- toy fly :)

ice cream- mini eraser

lemonade- freezer lemon piece

movie- I use a shiny button to resemble a DVD

ocean-levels, animals sea life toy

pirate- tiny black ball (cannonball)

pizza-teeny tiny piece of pizza (was a Barbie toy)

turkey-feather

valentine- conversation heart

watermelon-seed

A fabulous place to get small trinkets is a cake decorating shop!

Please take a photo of your class using one and I will send you another one for free :)

Curriculum Map

So I found this photo on Pinterest:

It lead me nowhere :{ (Dislike when that happens)

Well I made my own- I don't have mad tech skills like the creator because I never could get the top box to fill lol

Get yours HERE

Some day I will learn how to embed a link into the photo-

Today is not that day lol

Maybe it is the day- I think it worked lol

Advanced Shaker

So I have a zillion, okay maybe not a zillion, shakers for kindergarten and early first grade, but next year my mom, also a teacher at my school is changing positions from reading specialist to second grade!  On a local selling group, I found this awesome shaker:

 I thought she could use it for those early finishers.  I want to have a recording sheet.  But how to store said recording sheets?  Not in their desks of course, they'd get lost in a minute! :)

Ideally, I'd like them to be kept by the container, but what if two were working at the same time? They couldn't be contained together... so help a gal out and the follow up post will include your own printable- in case you have this same shaker :}

What is in milk? A cow :) Mrs R how do they make strawberry and chocolate milk? There aren't pink cows Mrs R :)

Rain Forest

My students are still playing with the Valentine Shaker, so I made another one for the Rain Forest.

Get yours here: Rain Forest Shaker

So in my description of the spinner I use small counters of a frog, snake 

but I have no idea where I got them.  :{

My container broke and I put them into a bag.

I searched on line without any luck.

There is a photo of the bag on my website 

http://www.kinderpond.com/rainforest.html

but it doesn't really show anything lol

I also made the Rain Forest Spinner as well, as we are still playing with the Valentine one!

Get yours here: Rain Forest Spinner

I don't know why these are so popular :}

Rain Forest

We are spending the whole month in the Rain Forest.

Our LG (Learning Goal) is to name the 4 layers and some of the animals that live there.

To my K-1 group I read this book:

Our Trip to the Rainforest

Student Version

Then with the 2nd-3rd group I read this one:

Our trip through the Rainforest

Student Version

On day one, after we wrote our LG, we brainstormed things we knew about the Rain Forest.  However, when we shared some of our thoughts, one of my 5th graders said 'zebra' most of the others looked right at him and said ummmmm... no they live on the Savannah. 

Then I read The Great Kapok Tree.  We shared things that we heard that was in the RF.

Day 2

We began our journey by recalling the 4 levels of the RF.  We made a new page in our science log with the layers.  We began our trip with the forest floor. 

The K-1 group learned about tarantulas.

The 2-3 group learned about iguanas.

The 4-5 group learned about a tapirs. 

I printed off slips of paper with facts on them.  The students read the facts and they condensed them down to fit in our bubble maps.