Sometimes You Just Need New CENTERS!

Sometimes you just need new centers!  Yes, I get bored with the same ol' same ol'.  Do you?  I do typically use the same things year to year, but every now and then I gotta try something new.  And, for some reason, I had an "extra" week with no theme this year, so that was the perfect opportunity to quench my need for something new.  So, I came up with ANYTHING GOES centers.  I was really focusing hard on introducing the alphabet and counting to 5.  So, I just wanted basic centers where they were doing letters, sounds, and counting; letters, sounds, and counting; letters, sound, and counting!  Ok, you get the idea.  These are very basic.  I want my students to feel successful in what they do, especially at the beginning of the year.  A lot of children have no concept of letters, sounds, counting, or writing.  So, we do a lot of tracing and then trying to write letters and numbers.  As far as beginning sounds, most of my students don't know this skill yet either so I make it easy for them to be successful.  I think that's super important!  There will be plenty of opportunity for them to show us what they know!  Here's what I came up with!  Click the image below to check them out!

If your kids love to roam around the room this is perfect for them!  Tape up the letters and let them go on a letter hunt!  

Plus, these GIANT magnifying glasses make it 10 times more fun!  

Aargh!!  We practice finding and labeling beginning sounds with this Shiver Me Sounds game.

This game is self-correcting which I love for beginning of the year!

Here's a cute pirate ABC book.

A lot of kids do not know one letter when they come to kindergarten so this one is perfect for showing students which letters match!  

I love reading the book LMNO-PEAS.  It's adorable!  So I came up with this center...all you do is grab a pea pod and then find the matching sound and letter peas.  So cute!

I had to do at least one center based on Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!  No kinder teacher can think of the alphabet and not think of that book.  

I love for my students to see words and letters in different fonts because they won't always see them in text the same way.  For this game, you get a tree and read the sight word.  Then, match 3 coconut sight words that match...all in different fonts.

Ok!  Math Centers!

I think this one was my kiddos' favorite one!  The cheese doubled the fun factor!!  

Counting is so much fun adding pepperoni and cheese!

To make the cheese I just cut very thin strips off of a foam sheet then cut the strips into little pieces.  They just grabbed a handful and sprinkled it on AFTER they counted the pepperonis of course.

 This one students had to use a car/bus to drive and count the dots along the road.

I got these little transportation counters from Lakeshore Learning.  I use them for everything!!!  

 The boys and the girls both liked this one.  I love how these one reminded them of their softball or baseball teams they played on this summer.  

This game is for working on number sequence and counting in order.

 And, for a just print, no prep, this one turned out pretty cool.  I've said it before, but if you do not have Pocket Dice you need to get some asap!  I use them all. the. time.  For real.  You can find them on Amazon!  Click on the picture below to check them out!

So, the kids just roll the cube, count the dots, and dot it with their bingo dotter!  

And, this one made us hungry every single day!  HA!  I kept forgetting my real candles for them to use as counters, but cut up pipe cleaners work just the same.  :)  

I chose to (before laminating) draw little black dots with a marker on the cupcakes so students knew exactly how many to put on each one.  I have several students who do not count to 5 yet.  This gave them a little guidance as to how many and what that number looks like as a set.  

There you have it!  Anything Goes Centers!!  

Introducing the Alphabet

One of my favorite things to do is teach letters and sounds to my Kinders...so I guess you could say my favorite thing to teach is READING!  

I just wanted to share a few ways I begin introducing the alphabet.  Many of these I shared in one of my presentation in Vegas this summer.

I like to pull the letter I'm introducing from our mystery bag.  I think it just creates suspense..gets the kids thinking...is exciting and fun!  Each day we put the letter in the pocket chart and sing the alphabet song and we stop at the letter we last put on.  Of course, they usually say, "I know what letter will be next"...and that's totally ok! 

These adorable little letters came from Poco and Pop.

We sing all kinds of songs from Dr. Jean, to Shari Sloane's Letter Pop, and Jack Hartmann.  

I also love Harry Kindergarten on YouTube and Have Fun Teaching.

Some of my favorite Letter Songs to use are from Heidi Songs.  You have to check out her Letter Sounds DVD!  It's the best!  I highly recommend purchasing this DVD.  I use it all the time and my kids remember the catchy tunes she has for each letter and sound.  

I love including pictures of my students on our alphabet cards and name chart.  It gives the students a personal connection to letters.

I use my discovery table from Lakeshore a TON for letters and sounds at the beginning of the year.  Here are a few ways we use it.

This game can be found HERE.

These are just foam puzzles from Dollar Tree and magnetic letters and shapes.  I use magnetic fishing poles a lot too!

Fine motor skills are so super important for young learners especially those who have little to no prior experience using writing tools.  These are great activities for teaching the alphabet.  You can find all of these activities in my Alpha-Frenzy Pack.

Reading is Writing!  I want my students to get started with writing right away and writing the alphabet is a perfect start.  These activities can, again, be found in my  Alpha-Frenzy pack.

We journal each letter of the alphabet through hands-on activities.  This journal can be found HERE.

You can try it FREE HERE to see if you'd like to try it with your kiddos.

I found textured foam at Michael's Craft Store and die-cut letters for my kids to use as tactile letters for tracing. 

I love these cute little anchor charts from Cara Carroll.  I hang these on my board and refer to them often while introducing and teaching each letter.

I found this little "Letters on the Bus" printable from Mailbox Magazine years ago.  Its great for a quick little letter chant and for small groups.  

Finally, there's TONS of fun ideas to incorporate into teaching the alphabet.  A favorite is popping letters out of balloons while listening to Who Let the Letters Out.  Afterward, we put each letter that popped out into a pocket chart in alphabetical order.  

We also love decorating our very own kid-made alphabet that hangs in our classroom all year.  It gives the students a sense of ownership to the alphabet.

I hope you found this post useful!  Hopefully you can take some of these ideas and use them in your own classroom!

Thanks for reading my blog!

Classroom Tour Blog Hoppin's Teacher Week '15

Hey y'all!  Remember me??  I have not blogged in forever!  Gosh, school started and...well...you know how that goes.  I have been in school about 3 weeks and let's just say my classroom doesn't look like it did the day before kids started!  HA!  I didn't change up my classroom much this year because I kinda did that last year and I still love it!  I snapped a few pics of some new things and then I'm gonna share my post from last year in case you missed it.

I finally bought a black pocket chart and made some changes to my center board.  It runs the exact same way, I just made some new cards and such.  

I still adore my chalkboard numbers from Hope King and my Alphabet from Special Teacher for Special Kids.

We are busy, busy getting acquainted with the alphabet.  I love these cute little letters from

Poco & Pop!  To introduce the letters, I pull one or two out of the mystery bag each day.  

We are fortunate to have lofts in our school.  My kids love going up here to read.  I added these cute little battery operated lantern lights from Target this year.  They look great when the lights are out during rest time.

Um, I finally got around to getting pictures printed for my frames that sit behind my teacher table.

Yes, it took me a whole year!  But, I love that it makes my room feel home-y and cozy.

Instead of names, this year I put pictures of my kiddos on their work display area.  I really like the way it turned out.  

Here's a full on view of the board in my room where I display work.

I chose to go with all white paper on the black fabric background.

And, this is the door to my classroom!  Again, I printed each child's picture  to display above their name.  Love!

*******************Here's the View of my Classroom from Last Year*******************

Whole Group Rug Area

 Word Wall

 Writing Center

 Love the chalkboard baskets from TJ Maxx

 My writing rings are put on this jewelry organizer from TJ Maxx

 My Small Group Teaching Area

 Cute banner from Target

 And, this is how I organize student supplies...along with some flowers!  

LOVE Back to School Sale!!

Who doesn't love a good sale?!?!  This is probably my favorite TPT Site wide sale of the year.  

Everything in my store is 20% off plus the extra tpt discount!!  You can't beat it.  I can't wait to empty my wish list!  How about you?

Happy Shopping!

Here's 5 of my favorite Back to School units I use in my classroom!  

It's Christmas in July!!!

Hey y'all!  I'm back from my first trip to Vegas!  If you follow my blog or Facebook you probably know I presented 3 sessions at I Teach K.  I had so. much. fun.  Seriously...I had some of the sweetest feedback and the BEST participants in each of my sessions!  I hope to be back with some picture from my trip, but for now a little Christmas in July with Blog Hoppin'.  Our annual Christmas in July kicks off tomorrow.  Go HERE to see the original post.

Follow me on FACEBOOK HERE to see updates throughout the week of what's on sale.

I thought I'd just go ahead and start with a bang and put 2 of my favorite Christmas resources on sale!!  See the image below to see what I'm putting on sale this week!

Try it FREE Tuesday!!

Hey y'all!  My sweet friend Hadar over at Miss-Kindergarten is featuring me for her Try it Free Tuesday summer blog series.  Go on over and check out what you can download for FREE today only from my Guided Reading for Kinders pack. 

Go to Miss-Kindergarten's website to download this freebie today!!  You can grab the full product HERE.

Hump Day HALF PRICE sale!!!

It's HUMP day!!  And guess what that means?!?!

Each Wednesday of the summer I'm going to offer  1 or more products from my TPT store to you for HALF PRICE!  Yep, half price!!  Look for the button below to show up on my Facebook page.  If you don't already follow me on Facebook then you'll want to do that so you don't miss out on these great deals!

Click HERE to go to my FB page!

Click the button below to go to my store.  The 2 products shown on the button below are my featured HALF PRICE items for today!  These are PERFECT for Back to School!!!