Bulletin Boards Oh My!

I thought since these are crazy months I would just put up some of my past bulletin boards. I really have gotten into bulletin boards this year because of changing grade levels. It's actually nice because you need fresh ideas and bad because you need fresh ideas. Catch 22!

Look Who's Been Spotted in Kindergarten
I was going to put the kids names on the spots but it looked to cute.
Pinterest gave me this idea...so cute.

All Aboard for Learning. Each life boat had the students names on it.
My classroom teacher next door did this cute one. She used
her cricut for the boats and anchors.

Colorful helpers. Another pinterest idea. I used 2 cardboard
boxes to make the base. Covered it in yellow. Added
the green, the black, and the letters. I used dollar store
crayon cutouts.

College Begins with Kindergarten. My favorite so far. 

We had parents come in and help with this one. I just found some clip art eyes and lips they
choose from. They painted the paper plates and some yarn and they turned out great.

 Click here for the template for the cap.

Please don't eat me. I kept the flowers up from my last bulletin up
because they were so cute. Sorry about the angle but across the hall is one big wall.

I painted each of the kids hands. Saw this on pinterest. I let them draw the eyes, beak, legs,  and wattle. Had to
look up wattle since I was clueless about the red thing under the turkey was called.

We are off to Arica. When we did an Africa study I tracked our progress on the bulletin board.
Every time we learned about a new place I drew a line. to that destination.

Phonemic Awareness

I apologize for not writing sooner but it was one crazy week full of conference, field trip, Harvest festival, and more. Sometimes as teachers we don't even realize how much we have crammed into one week until of course it's over. This was the longest four day week for me. We didn't have school on Friday for Nevada Day. It's still weird we get a day off for Nevada....never got that in Colorado!

Teaching the alphabet can be tricky. One thing I learned from all the trainings I've been to is that Phonemic Awareness is very important.  I always try to take a complicated term and make is less complicated. To me it means students know the sounds the letters make and how to break a word into those sounds. In order for students to become the best readers they must have phonemic awareness. So I created this smartboard project that I use daily for each letter. I don't have any letters on the pages so the students fully understand each letter sound and don't get used to the letter yet.

 For each letter I include 2 pages. The first one is a circle map page. For each correct sound they put it into the circle map. If it isn't correct it will disappear behind the circle map. The middle picture represents the sound the students are working on.

For the second page I use a T-chart. I either have a thumbs up or down, happy face or sad, and even yes or no for the 2 sides. If it the pictures begins with the same initial sound for the sound they are working on, then they put it on the yes, happy face, or thumbs up side. If not is goes to the other side. My students love the take turns touching the smartboard. Pluse my administration loved it because they loved graphic organizers.

If your interested in getting this visit my TPT store here. Enjoy because I really love this one.

New Obsession

Have you heard of Voki? Ok so I couldn't sleep last night and was doing a pinterest search on education stuff and found this.  Its http://www.voki.com. Go check it out but I warn you it's addicting.

You can add your own character, background, and even your voice. You can insert it into any lesson. Maybe your kids don't want to listen to you or you want to spice things up but it is seriously fun. I called into the number and felt foolish talking to a phone but it really works.

To add voice you can text to speech, use a microphone, or even cooler phone it in. Not as cool as ET phone home but pretty close.

I've heard you can even put it into notebook but you need to make sure your smartboard notebook software is Smart Notebook 11. If you don't have it you can download it here!

Even if your not sure what you could do with it check out voki.com. They even have a for a classroom section but I only glanced at it. What do you think?

Number Identification freebie

In honor of this being my first week of blogging I am giving this smartboard out to everyone for free for 2 weeks before I post it on TPT. I love to share...that's what teachers do best.

I have been looking around a while for just a plain old smartboard that students have to say the number, write the number, or find the number. Instead I made one up. It's nothing too fancy but does the trick and is colorful.

Once the students click the monkey, a number appears.

This has sound so the students have to write what they hear. It cracks me up that the female voice is British.

Students either hit the dice or spinner and find the number. Numbers will disappear!

Anyway, these are 3 of the 5 pages. Click Here for the freebie. If you are having trouble with the download let me know since this is my first google documents. Remember you must have Notebook in order for this to work. If more people are interested I can try to make it into a powerpoint.

Computer Programs for Kinder

Every school is different but you have to find out what you have at your school. We had ipods at our school for a year before I found out. So ask around. You never know what is stashed in some corner that people don't use or what programs the school has purchased.

There are some great programs at there. Some are even free.

Starfall:

Starfall is free and easy to navigate for kinder. Click the picture to go to the site.

I start off slow with the ABC's and Learn to read section. I always starfall up in the bookmarks at the top so it's easy for my kids to get to. Plus they can see the star next to the site and know where to find it. It has great songs, alphabet activities, and little books. Also my students love to click on the holiday activities on the right side.

ABCmouse:

ABCmouse is free to public schools. Woo Hoo for us! I've only used it a few times so far but my kids hardly needed any tutorial once I got them on. Teachers need to put in their code but the kids really like it.

You can start your kids at different levels but most I started at 1 or 2 since they are just learning computers. Most of my kids don't have computers at home so its hard teaching them the rules of computers and navigation.

Ticket To Read:

I love this site but I haven't yet tried it with kinder. It has the phonics portion that my kids could use so I will try it more and let you know. My school purchased it but I know you can purchase it yourself. Tickettoread.com

I always change the password to a number though since the password they give is so crazy long.

Enjoy!

If you have other great sites let me know because I love going to the computer lab.

Pumpkin Activities

Science for this month consists of ......you guessed it pumpkins. So pinterest is my favorite thing right now because it's full of so many activities. Talk about technology making my life easier.

 Pumpkin Circumference
  Yes the kids could barely say "circumference" but  it was fun.

All you need its:
1. A pumpkin
2. String
3. Masking tape to put their names on
4. 3 labels (Too short, Just right, and Too long)

I showed my kids how to measure the circumference how to measure a pumpkin. Then I showed them examples of way too small and way too large. Each student was able to cut of a length of string they thought was just the right size. After each kid cut their string they were able to come up and we predicted if he was too short, too long, or just right. Surprisingly we had one just right.

 

By the way you gotta love my Raymond's right above Too Short...Oh so so so short.

Pumpkin Life cycle

AtoZteacherstuff has this great printable . My kids were able to cut it out, color, and glue it in order.

Here's what it looked like when we finished. My favorite thing was that they they said each white thing looked like a toilet. Oh I love it! Yes it kinda does.

Clip Art and Font

I love to create things whether it be a new center or a SmartBoard project. But having a Mac and its lack of clipart and great fonts really bothered me. I didn't want to spend a lot of money just to make my stuff look cute. Plus when you try to sell stuff on Teacher Pay Teachers teachers love cute stuff.

Here a just a couple of things I found that either are free or cost very little!

1. Open Clip Art

 This site is AMAZING better than hot chocolate on a cold day. Click Here! It's called Open Clip Art and it runs by donations. Any person can add to this site and it's free to use with no restrictions. It's got a great selection.

2. Teachers Pay Teachers

I also LOVE LOVE LOVE FONT and what's better is when it's free. Everyone has to post one free things but most teachers have several! It's way better than Times and Arial. On a Mac the font is fine but I want something that pops! Teachers pay teachers has a lot of free font and backgrounds (link above). The only thing is a lot of people want you to give acknowledgements to them which is totally understandable. So I always make copyright page that I add to my projects if I plan to sell them. Here's what mine looks like..

3. KM Doodles

Next up if you like font this lady is AMAZING! She draws this stuff by hand then scans it into her computer. Genius.  She always has great sales, combo packs, and for not too bad of a price. Sometimes you have to spend money to make money.

If you want to check her out just Check Here!
You can always find her on Etsy too. I put another example of some of the great alphabet and numbers she has. Also she has great clip art too.

Pumpkin Happy Book

Jessica Meachum has this great emergent reader that my kids loved.  Click here to go to her website to download this free version of the Pumpkin Happy book.  My kids loved drawing the different faces on each one.

 Some of my kids said they didn't know how to draw a sleepy pumpkin so I wrote zzzz's on the board. My kids were OBSESSED and they all wrote Z's...I love Kindergarteners. So funny. I also love the eyelashes my one little girl wrote.

              Pumpkin Update: If you wanted pumpkins for your classroom go to Walmart. I got these pumpkins for about 9 bucks. Yes Please!

Halloween Smartboard

It's Halloween time which means it's a great excuse to get creative with that SmartBoard. This has 16 slides of sorting halloween shapes, counting, and of course my favorite pumpkins. Nothing is better than a Jack O'Lantern with an amazing face. 

Check out  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Shapes-Numbers-and-Fun-Smartboard-October-Math#
if you are interested.

I'm just excited to get back to creating smartboards again since I've taken a break for a few months. The only problem is like some of you know....you just can't stop creating things.