Product Swap with Hanging Around in Primary!

Hey ya'll! I have to share with you the most recent product swap I did! Just like last time, Melissa over at Jungle Learners hosted a fabulous opportunity for us bloggers to swap products and share with the world just how awesome they are! It was so fun last time, that I just had to jump on board again. And just like last time, I will be giving away a copy of the product I tried out and my partner in crime will be giving away a copy of MY product that she chose over at her blog!

To check out my last product swap with Sweet Sounds of Kindergarten, click HERE.

This time around, I was matched up with Christina over at Hanging Around in Primary!

Out of the products in my store, she chose to try out my 2D and 3D Shape Activities pack for grades K-2! Check out her blog post by clicking the image above or below. She will be giving one of my shape packs away on her blog so you don't want to miss the chance! In celebration of another awesome product swap I will also be putting the 2D and 3D Shape Activities pack on sale 20% off through the weekend! Yay!

Christina has a variety of Read and Write the Room products which are always a big hit with my class of kinders, so I was dying to try one of hers. I chose the Read and Write the Room Numbers to 30 pack. My kinders are working on numbers up to 20, but because of the 100th day the other day, we have been counting way beyond 20. I felt like going up to 30 would be a great way to practice those 2-digit numbers!

I printed out each 1/3 page card, cut, and laminated them. You don't necessarily have to laminate them, but you'll see why I did in a moment... After you print the cards, attach them to the wall around the room or in one area for students to locate and figure out which number should go in place of that tricky yellow question mark.

Also included is the recording sheet for students to find the matching cards and write in the missing number! I printed these in black and white to save on printing costs but they are provided in color. The pencil banner matches the cards on the wall so if you have more than one Write the Room activity going on there is no confusion on which cards students are to look for. Students look at the red letter at the top of the cards on the wall and write their answer in the corresponding box on the recording sheet. I really like how Christina made the labels with letters rather than numbers. It was much less confusing than labeling them with another number! And for some of my lower babies it was extra practice for letter matching. ;)

My classroom is a teeny tiny portable, but the bright side is I can staple to the wall! I don't have to worry about tape or sticky tack falling off the wall. Now you see why I laminated them... I put them near the water fountain. I decided that would be the best place because that is also where I have my 100s chart posted, so for those trickier high numbers that my students are still learning, they have the chart to refer to to help them! The image above does not show all the cards included. There are more to the right and the left scattered and mixed up. I have done Write the Room in the past where the cards are truly scattered around the entire room, but because of the location of the helpful 100s chart, I decided to have them a little closer together this time. 

I placed the recording sheet on a clipboard and the kids knew what to do right away! We do Write the Room activities quite a bit in my class so the activity was predictable, which is always a good thing when it comes to an independent center.

I really like this picture of these two kiddos sharing and helping each other. I usually do centers in pairs, but depending on your students and your classroom, you could do this with much larger groups. The feedback I always get from my students on Write the Room activities is that they LOVE to look around for the cards they need next.

Christina has a ton of other Read and Write the Room activities that look great as well and if your kiddos like this one, having these activities ready for them with varying skills will be great!

And now for the moment we have all been waiting for!! Enter the giveaway below for your chance to win a copy of Hanging Around in Primary's Read and Write the Room Numbers to 30 pack! She also has the pack on sale in her store through the weekend! And be sure to check out Hanging Around in Primary for a post on my 2D and 3D Shape Activities pack and enter that giveaway, too! And don't forget to check out the other bloggers who are swapping products this weekend. There are a TON of other giveaways going on on their blogs, too! I know I'll be entering them! Their links are below! Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Click through the blog names below to check out more swaps and enter more giveaways!

Five for Friday (After a brief linky absence...) March 21!

I haven't done a Five for Friday link up in a couple of weeks. I would completely forget and I didn't want ALL of my FFFs on Saturday! Anyway, I apologize for my absence but I'm glad I'm back!

Here we go!

Because of my absence, I didn't post about our Dr. Seuss week! On Read Across America Day, my class was on a field trip, so I decided to celebrate the good doctor's birthday the following week. And due to my absence from the linky the last couple of weeks, I'll post about it now. :)

We made Green Eggs and Ham!

(Sorry the picture is so dark... the lights we dimmed because we were watching Horton Hears a Who...)

Because I have a student with allergies who couldn't eat the eggs, we also made a Cat in the Hat snack which was a huge hit with the kids. I sliced up bananas and strawberries and used one little grape at the bottom. I gave them all a skewer and they stacked their hats and an A/B pattern. It was so much fun and all of my students could eat this healthy snack.

I also made a Tic-Tac-Toe file folder game for our fun center. I found the idea on Pinterest and HAD to use it. I used it kind of like a "bonus" center for incentive for finishing the centers where they actually learned something. ;)

If you decide to make this as well... laminate the pieces!

I also used a game that I made that I posted about previously HERE. It is a Dr. Seuss themed game that I had originally used in a theater class I taught a few months ago. In the original class I used it for, I used it like a human board game, but this time around, I used a pocket chart that I found that fits the cards perfectly and I used it like a Jeopardy game. The game is sectioned into categories so it worked really well for that and since I used it whole group instead of small group, it worked out great that way.

Click the picture to go to the download!

We've been working on our shapes lately, which I'm sure a lot of people are, and we have done some pretty neat things. I posted about some of my activities HERE, but not all. We have had some really fun learning centers for shapes this week and I thank goodness for Pinterest! I found a lot of the ideas there!

PICTURE 1: I found this freebie on TpT for building 2D shapes out of toothpicks and marshmallows. I used it as a center this week and it was awesome! I can't believe it was free! Here's the link to Rachelle Rosenbilt's store and the free download.

PICTURE 2: I also incorporated a little Seuss into the mix with Prince Padania's pattern block designs. He's got some GREAT stuff on his store and the kids absolutely adored the Dr. Seuss pattern block pages. If you want to check it out before buying, I believe he has a Lorax freebie. HERE's the link.

PICTURE 3: We did some pattern block centers as well with masking tape, which they liked because they were bigger than the pattern block pages. Easy to make and easy to clean up!

PICTURE 4: And one of my favorite Pinterest finds is the picture in the bottom corner. I called them Shape Trace Bags but I'm not sure what others called them. It is SO SIMPLE. Cheap dollar store hair gel and food coloring. Draw a shape on a baggie with a sharpie and when the kids trace the shape, the gel holds what they drew in place. They were amazing. In the post I found on Pinterest, the bags were not secured down... but believe me when I tell you, using packing tape to tape the zipper part onto the table was the best decision I made this week...

And our FAVORITE anchor chart of ALL TIME, also found on Pinterest is....

Yeah... I went there. Huge success!

I am SO happy it is Spring Time!!!

We made wind socks this week out of plastic soda bottles and cut up strips of plastic table cloths. How cute are these?? We have a lot of things hanging from the ceiling right now so we ran out of clips, so we doubled up the wind socks. Pictured here are two hanging up hehe.

We cut the bottle's bottom off and had kids use sponge stampers with paint. The trick is to paint on the inside of the bottle, so if you decide to hang it outside, the humidity and water from rain won't wash the paint! Be warned that this is a messy project and to wear aprons for sure.

Because of St. Patrick's Day, I HAD to have some sort of fun leprechaun center! So, I incorporated it into my art center this week with a How to Draw a Leprechaun step by step activity. Their drawings came out so great! And the kiddos felt awesome because they were successful. I HIGHLY recommend step by step drawing with the youngsters because they love them, they are great for practicing following directions independently, and they will almost always experience success.

This is something my supervising teacher got at a yard sale or something. It's a chip holder from a gas station! It has tons of clips, so I decided to use it with my steps of drawing a leprechaun. I used index cards and a sharpie and that way every student could see it from their spot at the table and there was no fighting!

Look how awesome these turned out!!!!!!! OMG. I love them...

Tomorrow is my first official day of Spring Break! WOOO HOOO!

I am going to work on a few new products this week as well as a lot of work for my internship. When I return to school, I only have three weeks left until the end of my internship and then I graduate! I can't wait for my first classroom, ya'll!

Happy Spring!

Shapes Shapes Shapes

In the midst of the St. Patrick's Day chaos and the fact that this is the last week before Spring Break, I have to somehow teach these unfocused munchkins about shapes. What a chore!

Joking aside, we have been doing a lot of cool things with our unit on shapes. We are finishing up 2D shapes this week and when we get back to school from Spring Break, we will begin our adventure into 3D shapes!

For this unit, I created some centers that I decided to include in a 2D and 3D shape bundle for my TpT store. I really love how the activities turned out and how well they worked as centers in my math block.
Click HERE to see it or either of the pictures below.

I feel like a fool, though. I had the kids do all these awesome activities and I didn't get a good picture at all! I was so caught up in working with them and having fun with our shapes that I didn't pick up the camera. Maybe I'll do some review centers at the end of the week and sneak a few pictures in. Sorry, readers! But enjoy the Shape bundle!