TpT? or DonorsChoose?

Hello blogger friends!  I have had MANY, MANY, MANY, people ask me to open a Teachers pay Teachers store.  I cannot sell my things I post on my blog because I use DJ Inkers Clipart and you can't sell her "stuff".  I would have to recreate EVERYTHING I've made which would take too much time, plus I would have to purchase new clipart.  So, I probably won't be doing TpT any time soon.  However, I have many projects listed on www.donorschoose.org.  These projects are materials that I need and want for my classroom.  BTW, if you have never heard of donorschoose, you MUST visit and open an account for you own classroom.  It's totally FREE.  Many ask if they can pay me or buy my units and worksheet from me.  I would rather you make a donation to my donorschoose.org projects the same way you would buy something from a TpT store.  That way, the money goes straight to my classroom and to my kiddos.  I think it's a great way to give back to my classroom.  It's basically the same thing as TpT, but I don't get the money directly which is fine with me.  I would rather have the things listed on donorschoose.org.  I am leaving the link below so you can check it out if you are interested.  SO many of you have been so kind to make donations to my classroom already and I am so thankful!  You all know how time consuming making games are and sending thing through e-mail so I appreciate your generosity towards me.   I love sharing my things with you, so if you are interested, check it out!  It's really easy.

http://www.donorschoose.org/julielee

Julie

Space Centers and Activities

This week we have been learning about space and things in the sky.  Below are some pictures of our centers and some activities we did in class this week.

Rocket number order

we counted the stripes on Dr. Suess hats

We rolled the die and +/- cube to cover the stars.  My kids love these type of games.

Our pocket chart story this week

We practiced sounding out 4 letter words.  This was challenging, but they did great.

At this center they had to change the middle sound to the correct sound and stamp the letter.

The mystery can and sound graphing.  (The mystery can is an oats can...perfect to hold several objects and for little hands)

We practiced writing complete sentences this week too.

Stamping long vowel sounds

My kids are getting so good at coins and their value...this was a great reinforcer center.

Roll the money cube and write the value.

Space addition...they had to find the matching Earths...count each set and add them up.

Here, they rolled dice and found the sum

Counting sets of stars by 10

We balloon painted a white piece of paper and then made moons out of them...this was so much fun.  I saw this idea on a website years ago...it's not working now, but it was kindergartenhomestead2.com

Mrs. B. practiced a little subtraction with the kids after she read George Washington's Teeth.

It was fun.  They had to give away a tooth each time George lost one of his.

We made paper towel roll rockets and stamped a countdown to put inside.

Here are a few examples of our moons and facts.

I'm not sure if you can read the one on the left, but it says, "During a lunar eclipse the moon is red."  When I saw his fact I was like, Wow!

This one says, The moon does not have air.

This is the space page for our transportation fact book we will finish next week during our transportation theme.

TLC style earth page.

These are our day and night murals.  We talked about each time of the day and then we drew pictures and wrote what we were doing in each picture.

Dr. Seuss Activities

We had some great fun on Wednesday to celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday.  Check it out.  Oh, and my kids loved that my twin came to read to them.  She's a teacher too, but she's on maternity leave with her newborn.

Don't you just love pictures like this?  I love to catch my kids in moments like this!

They are reading Wacky Wednesday.

Eating Green Eggs and Ham

 Yum!

Our green eggs and ham graph

My twin reading Cat in the Hat

 She brought these adorable cat in hat hats for us to eat

My and my sister, Amy.

Friends...in our cat in the hat hats...

What is your favorite Children's Book?

Hello blogging friends!  I'm thinking about creating a proposal on donorschoose.org for new children's books.  I've seen a lot of great ideas out there that use children's literature books that I don't have in my classroom...for example, Pete the Cat.  Tell me; What is your favorite children's book (or two) that you teach with or to teach new concepts.  If you have new ones that have recently come out or "oldies"that you couldn't live without...I'd love to know about them.  Please share!  Can't wait to hear about the books and maybe how you use them.

Presidents

This week we had so much fun learning about presidents and our country with Mrs. B., our student teacher.  I'm so proud of her!  She has done a great job with the kids and they absolutely love her.  Below are some pics of us in action and some are not action shots b/c I forgot to snap the pictures.  Enjoy!

We are learning to recognize coins and their value.  This game is helping us learn just that.

I made this little odd/even game a couple of years ago and my kids like it so much I've made several more since then.  They just roll the number cube.  Next, they count out the pennies alternating between presidents.  Last, they have to decide if it's odd or even depending on if they have the same amount of pennies or not.

Practicing our addition skills with pennies.

Sorting and graphing coins

Stamping the middle vowel sounds for the pictures.

Practicing writing sight words

Sounding out CVC words

Mrs. B. let us "play" on our ActivBoard learning about money and coins.

Here is an example of our Abe Lincoln hats.  On the back is an envelope where each student got to put an important piece of paper in it just like Abe did with his hat.

Mrs. B. let us make American Flags with graham crackers, icing, twizzlers, and blueberries.

Thanks to Bailee's mom for providing the snack items!

The finished product...cute!