When math is hands-on, I have found that students will engage, no matter how difficult a math concept may initially seem. I have seen this over and over during my years in the primary classroom. Building math fluency, as well as student confidence in math, is critical in the early elementary years. In order to help my students be successful, as well as build those foundational math skills and fluency, I created this student-favorite activity... Solve It Strips are a series of ... READ the POST
Learning ABCs – Games and Centers
A-B-C-D-E-F-G, let's learn the alphabet, yippee oh yee! I love teaching the alphabet because the possibilities are endless for ways to introduce and review all of the letters. In fact, I have an entire Pinterest board dedicated to Learning ABCs, full of hands-on games and crafts for little learners. Over the years, I have tried out many of my ABC Pinterest finds, but I want to share with you a few of my favorite games and activities that I have successfully helped my own kiddos learn their ... READ the POST
Pocket Chart Number Match (Freebie!)
Number match-ups are one of my favorite ways to practice number recognition! We spent this afternoon working on recognizing numbers to 10, and one-to-one number correspondence. I whipped up this simple pocket chart match, that was a fun and quick review. You can use these cards for review in a few different ways. First, display the numbers 1-10 in the pocket chart, and have students find the matching amount of cubes card. Second, you can display the cube cards and have students find the ... READ the POST
Classroom Communication Tools (Freebies)
One of my passions as a teacher has always been finding and implementing new classroom management strategies! Having anywhere from 20-36 students (depending on my grade level) made it necessary to have strong, positive communication tools in place, to help maximize every minute of instructional time. So today, I want to share with you three classroom communication tools that I have had great success with, and will hopefully help you in your classroom, too. The first communication ... READ the POST
My Favorite Turn-In Basket
This simple clip turn-in basket is one of my favorite classroom management tools ever! This sweet little basket is what finally freed up my recess time, so I wasn't spending the first half of it sifting through homework, figuring out which students did or did not turn in their homework. Not only is this turn-in basket super easy to make, it also lends itself nicely to being a student "job," so that students are in charge of the clips each day. If your students have class numbers, then all you ... READ the POST
The Toothpaste Lesson
One of my favorite activities to do with my students is "The Toothpaste Lesson." As early as preschool, most students are exposed to the phrase, "If you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all." I think it's great that they learn this, but what is even better is when they learn and understand "the why" behind the phrase. Words are powerful! They can make a person feel amazing or they can make someone really feel hurt. Once words are spoken, kind or unkind, they are ... READ the POST
Letter B and Letter D Reversal Posters
There are so many wonderful anchor charts out there on Pinterest for ideas to help with letter reversals. We have been working on visual discrimination when reading lowercase letter b and letter d. Once I introduced my kindergartener to the "b is for belly and d is for diaper" picture it has stuck! In fact, when we were reading our CVC words today, he smirked as soon as he came to a "d" word....I know he was thinking about that stinky diaper. :) This is the picture that I found on Pinterest ... READ the POST
Friendly Bat Directed Drawing
Meet Frank! He's my Friendly Bat. We had so much fun drawing our bats today, that I wanted to share it with you. This Directed Drawing is perfect for October, or as an addition to a unit on bats. Here are the steps I used to direct the drawing of the bat: 1. Draw a circle in the center of your paper. This will be the bat's head. 2. Add a half-circle connecting to the center circle on the left side. Add another half-circle connecting to the center circle on the right. These will be the ... READ the POST
An Apple (Candle) for the Teacher
I wanted to share some cute apple tags that I made for my kids' teachers this year. I thought it would be fun to put a twist on an "apple for the teacher," so I snagged up some large, three-wick, apple scented candles from Bath and Body Works. I wrapped each apple candle in red cellophane paper and taped a green ribbon "stem" on top. Then, I attached a cute apple note to each candle. And that's it, we had apples for the teachers that would last a lot longer than a Granny ... READ the POST
