KEVA Planks are the Bomb

You guys, I have been wanting KEVA Planks for my classroom since last January when I saw a presentation about them. The presenter was amazing and gave me tons of ideas on how to use them. I was so excited! So you can imagine how excited I was when MindWare contacted me to review them here on my blog!

Disclaimer: This post contains sponsored content, affiliate links, and review products. Regardless, these are 100% my own opinions.



So what are KEVA Planks?

KEVA Planks are wooden building pieces. Yeah... it's simple. Every piece is the same unlike other building blocks and the size and weight of the pieces make structures incredibly stable. Take a look at this structure I found on the official KEVA website.

Back in January, I went to a STEM workshop in Orlando and one of the presenters was showing us amazing uses for KEVA planks in the classroom. In the beginning he showed us Brain Builders. Mindware sent me two packs of Brain Builders and I cannot WAIT to use them with my students in my classroom.

The Brain Builders pack (not the Junior version) has everything you need to get started. It comes with 40 planks so if you don't want to buy a large set, you can start with the Brain Builders and at least get started. The challenge for students is to use the 2D images to create a 3D structure.

Here's the fence I built.

You can see that I had all the views necessary in the 2D diagrams to build it. This was a Beginner Level card. The Expert Level cards are NO JOKE, people. I tried the rowboat... but... I decided to take a picture of my fence instead....

For those of you looking for STEM activities for little ones, MindWare also offers a Junior version of Brain Builders.

What I like the most about the Junior version is that it is very easily integrated into any subject area. I taught Kindergarten previously (now I teach Second) and I love how these challenge cards show letters, numbers, shapes, and even some cards for Science topics. I would have loved to see that moon and stars card when we did our Day and Night unit!

I chose the Structures set to start with for my classroom. It comes with 200 pieces but there are larger sets available. The Structures set comes with a booklet with ideas and inspiration for students to take a look at and get creative. MindWare also has other sets like "Contraptions," "Connect," and "Colors." Remember, all the planks are made to be the same. The booklets in each set will provide different types of things to build. Take a look at these pages from the Structures booklet I received with my set:

The tops of the pages indicate how many planks you'll need for the structures.

There are so many ideas on how to use KEVA planks in your classroom. Here are some that I came up with just by opening the pack. Think about what your kiddos will come up with!

I am so excited to use these with my students next school year. If you use KEVA Planks in your classroom, comment below! I'd love to hear your ideas! If you don't already use KEVA Planks in your classroom, take a look at MindWare's website to get started. Click the image below to head there now!

Five For Friday for the First of May!

Wait a minute... am I actually doing a blog post on a day other than Sunday?! Alert the presses!

In all seriousness, just like probably every other teacher out there right now, I am SO ready for summer and I am SO exhausted. But, I thought, so much went on this week that I should do a Five for Friday!

If you haven't heard of Five for Friday, it is a weekly linky hosted by Doodle Bugs Teaching! It is simply 5 random things/thoughts/happenings of the week! Click the image above to go to the linky and see what other teacher bloggers are up to. It's a super fun linky!

Alright, here we go!

We finished up our unit on shapes a couple of weeks ago and started our unit on measurement here in Kinder-land. To wrap things up, we made shape trains! I got the idea from Pinterest, but then cut the shapes too big... so I had to improvise... which turned out even better than just plain ol' paper!

PINSPIRATION:

 From Little Page Turners blog.

MINE:

The sentence strips wound up looking like railroad tracks! How lucky!

Later in the week, we measured our train with cubes and made a graph of how many of each shape we used on them. We also had just started our transportation unit. This activity really hits a lot of skills and standards and now my classroom "proud wall" is super cute and colorful!

If you read my previous post about the product swap I recently did (you can check it out HERE), you already know that the AC in my portable broke this week. It was horribly hot in there.

Yeah... we were NOT staying in there.

I shuffled out my 20 kindergarteners into an empty portable. We brought clipboards, a box of "movie centers" (the centers I put in empty DVD cases), and our backpacks. It was actually pretty nice! They had tons of floor space to sprawl out and all things considered, we had a pretty nice day!

I have posted about it before, but I placed a lot of center materials into empty DVD cases and my students wound up calling them "movie centers." They came in SUPER DUPER handy when I had to gather materials to move to another room on a moment's notice. I've been using them for a few weeks now and they are amazing storage savers and a huge hit with my students! If you can get your hands on a few empty DVD cases, grab them, and try a few. You won't regret it. Here are some snapshots of a center in a case as well as a freebie to make your own covers for your center materials.

Has anyone else discovered the wonder that is adult coloring books? I LOVE to color and can usually get away with owning crayons and coloring books since I'm a Kindergarten teacher, but adult coloring books exist, people! And they are awesome! My husband got one for me a while back and I've been coloring like crazy! It is so fun! Check them out!

I got my friend Heather hooked, too. It is so relaxing and fun! 

I've been doing some updating on my older products and I'm really excited to share the results with you! I have updated several products to include better graphics, more content, and materials better geared towards current standards. Click the images below to go check them out!

And last but not least, I will be moving to a new grade level next year! I'm pretty excited, but I'm sad to leave Kindergarten. I will be moving to...............

I think the best news of all that goes with this is the fact that I will be getting a real classroom and out of that portable! So excited! My allergies are so bad right now in that portable... 

If you have a second grade blog I should know about, please comment with the link below! I need some summer research material!

Have a great weekend, everyone! And happy Friday!

Free Choice in Kindergarten

I have been working on a presentation I am doing in June, trying to get prepared because it is BIG for me. I was asked to be a guest lecturer at the University of Florida on the topic of learning centers. I am....... nervous. O.O

Regardless of my jitters, I am insanely excited as well. Today, in preparation, I returned to my internship classroom where my supervising teacher still uses the system I helped implement for centers during the Reading block. I wanted to make sure I had some good pictures to use in my presentation and I think I snapped a few goodies today. I also had a BLAST with the kiddos. I miss them! My husband tagged along today and read them The Duckling Gets a Cookie?! by Mo Willems. They LOVE the pigeon series!

Anyway, let me explain the centers we used in our Kindergarten classroom. It took a long time to implement and it took a VERY long time for students to learn how to make good decisions and manage their time.

Here's how it works:

Students have a "person." They are just girl and boy die cuts from the library on cardstock that they decorated and we laminated.

Little paper cuties.

We put the little people in the top of a pocket chart.

Then, we used the center labels purchased from Teachers Pay Teachers HERE for $3. They are adorable. The center labels here are in a pocket chart and indicate the centers students can choose from that week. In the beginning, we limited the number of centers per week, but as the year went on and the students grew more accustomed to this method we were able to add in a LOT of different centers.

Next to the center label is a green index card with big dot stickers on them. The dots indicate how many students are allowed at a center at one time. This is a visual way to represent this limit and can be seen at a pretty good distance to quickly determine the number of students in each center. In the picture above, there are 4 students permitted to be in the Writing center at one time and based on the picture, no one is in that center right now! ;)

When students choose a center, they move their "person" behind one of the dots, as shown in the picture above. This little girl is going to Word Work!

Free choice is great, however the students have to have a way to work on different skills everyday. That's where the checklist comes in. If the students had all the choices, they would usually choose the same things day in and day out.

I created little checklists on strips of paper using the same labels (printed in black and white), with the week's dates, and stapled them into a file folder. Students can easily get their folder with their checklist and know which centers they need to accomplish by the end of the week. In the beginning, this was very difficult. Some students would breeze through them and some would wait till the last minute. Like adults, right?! Here's what a checklist looks like on my computer:

I use Publisher ALL THE TIME. I printed less when I made them in strips this way. I just printed them and cut them into strips and then stapled them in! It took maybe 10 minutes on Monday mornings. Not too shabby.

Students are given 15-20 minutes in each center. At first, I let students move freely through centers with no set time parameters, but as mentioned before, some students went crazy fast through them... so, I set timers as a solution and it worked well.

When students finish work in a center, they place their work in the file folder and then put their folder in the red pocket chart which is hanging on the other side of the blue pocket chart with their people in it.

This is the red chart labeled with their student number. I feel bad that the folders weren't in there. My supervising teacher is grading them! But they were filled with folders and papers!

This way made it much easier for little hands to file their work and easy for me to collect at the end of the week. I then graded work, made my notes, and stapled everything together with the checklist on top and sent the packets home on Mondays for parents to see their progress. Easy peasy.

I love this strategy for running centers. The students are given choices which they love. They can work with different students everyday rather than just the few in their reading group. They are learning independence early on and it has set in motion the development of time management skills and good decision making.

I also use free choice within the centers as well, which makes it easier on me because I don't have to change centers all the time! Students know when they go to Word Work, they can do magnet letter challenges, nonsense word cards, partner phonics games, etc. I won't delve into what each center has to offer in this post. Maybe another time!

Five For Friday Linky {Feb. 21}

Time for that Doodle Bugs Teaching Linky! Five For Friday! And this week, thank God it is Friday...

This week was a strange one from the get go. First off it was a 4 day week. I was happy to take the 3 day weekend last week but 4 day weeks are so weird! The kids don't ever seem to get into the swing of things with that extra day off and to be honest, this week, I had issues with it as well. I started feeling ill last Friday night and I knew it was just my allergies. However, my allergies sparked a full fledged TERRIBLE ear infection...

I have seriously not had an ear infection since I was a child! Now I know why babies and kids cry all day and night when they have these things! THEY HURT. And all week my left ear has been all stopped up making noise very different and anyone who has stepped into a Kindergarten class knows that there is noise sometimes. Oh man. Was I irritable. So it was a rough week for everyone. :(

Yeah..... Don't ever look at Web MD. I get so paranoid. I just have an ear infection but before I went to the doctor I was worried it was SO much worse! Haha. Just. Don't.

Even though this week was WEIRD, we had really successful centers! I have been doing something different for centers and this week was Week 3. I can kick myself because I don't have any good pictures! I will take them on Monday and share them more often because they are working well with this group!

But basically the kiddos are making independent center choices and must get certain things done by the end of the week. Last week I only had 6 kids finish their whole center checklist and this week I had 11! We are getting there!!

Required centers this week:

Super Spelling

Art: Abe Lincoln Mask

Weather Writing

Poetry

Teacher Table

Super Spelling

This center was a great one. We have this carousel picture frame thing my supervising teacher found at a garage sale and we use it for our spelling center. One kid on each side, one word on each side of the frame! Easy setup, too! They are using the Super Spelling sheet I created as a freebie. Students write their words in pencil, colored pencil and markers. Just adding in that extra feature of writing in something other than pencil made this center so much more enjoyable for the kids... even though they were doing MORE work and getting even MORE practice. Win for teacher!

Here's a link to the freebie.

Interesting story for you: my husband is a YouTuber and a HUGE video gamer. His YouTube channel is about gaming generally, but he has some video series of just life experiences and advice. He's very passionate about this videos and I'm so proud of him! He really dedicates a lot of time to it, but it hasn't gotten in the way of our time together or his job... both of which are important hehe.

Well, one of his video series is called "Life of a Guild Leader" which is really just about him. Sounds boring, but he's got pretty awesome insights and his videos make you think! I'm biased, but I think they rock!

Well, we had the idea to make a spin-off of "Life of a Guild Leader" and called it "Wife of a Guild Leader." Yeah. That's me. This video series is about how to incorporate a very consuming hobby (video games) into a relationship. A lot of non-gamers look down upon gaming as a hobby, but really... it's just another hobby! As long as it doesn't turn into an addiction or replace social interaction, let your spouse have their "me" time and do your thing while they're at it!

Anyway, here's the video to prove it. I feel like s STAR.

There I am! There I am! I made him change my wifey font to something cuter and change the boring white background he normally has to pink. He was pretty nice about it all!

If you want the whole experience, here's hubby's channel: BrutallStatic

I found this idea on Pinterest called the "I'm Done Cup." I'm sure a lot of teachers have something similar, but basically I have different tasks written on a popsicle stick. That's it! Simple as that! When a quick student finishes their work and I don't have something for them or there's not enough time for them to move to something else, I send them to the "I'm Done Cup." The tasks on them are things they already do, I swear. Like "Rainbow write your spelling words" is one of them... and they get so excited because it is on a stick.....

Anyway, one of them was "Write a litter to Mrs. Smith." This is what I received this week:

Translation: "I like Mrs. Smith because you make the best and fun centers."

<3

They like me. They really like me!

Get your leprechaun on! I have a new product and it's super sweet. Check it out and start getting ready for St. Patrick's Day, ya'll! Click the pictures.

Have a great and RELAXING weekend. I know I need it this week...

Freebie Time! (Super Spelling)

Hooray for FREEBIE TIME! I'm linking up again with Classroom Freebies and bringing to you a great tool I've been using in my Kindergarten class for spelling words. We call it "Super Spelling" and it is a great weekly center for practicing spelling words. The kiddos love to write in colors and they especially LOVE to write in markers, so this gives them that opportunity and it sneaks in that extra practice.

Click the picture or click HERE for the free download.

It's good for morning work, centers, homework, extra practice, or for those tricky early finishers.

I hope you enjoy! Leave me some feedback! I'd love to know how it is working out for you.