January Calendar Cards FREEBIE

Here are some free calendar cards to get your classroom prepared for the New Year! Click HERE to download this freebie! I hope you enjoy them. =)

Be sure to check out these sites for other great freebies!

  

Elf on the Shelf

Day One

We started Elf on the Shelf in my classroom on Monday. The kiddos are LOVING it! They are so excited to see where he will be each morning. Not to mention, it doesn't hurt to have "Santa's Helper" watching over them. ;)

The first day our Elf showed up with our Christmas Tree and his book. (If it is your first time to do Elf on the Shelf, like me, I really suggest getting the book! It explains the story and rules that go along with the elf.)

(Please ignore my pile of testing folders in front of  the tree...)

I introduced our elf by reading his book and talking about his rules. Then we voted on a name. My kinders voted for "Mr. L". I couldn't tell you why they picked that but hey, they love it! (and no... it was not supposed to be "Mr. Elf", that was also a choice) Towards the end of the day, our tree fell over on Mr. L. The children were SO concerned about if he was okay. It was so cute/hilarious that I had to try hard not to laugh. 

Day Two

Mr. L showed up with a cast on Tuesday because of his little incident with the Christmas Tree the day before. He was waaaayy up on the projector. Silly little Elf =)

Day Three

Today Mr. L got up on top of our board! I guess he wanted to make sure we remembered his name...

Behavior Chart FREEBIE

I FINALLY made a new behavior chart because my last one was falling apart. I had a "card" system before this because I was in a rush before school started and needed to get something together quickly. I love this new chart because gives students the opportunity to come back from bad behavior and even allows them to move up for positive reinforcement. It is simple yet effective. It can be used with clothes pins as shown, or with magnets on a board. All you have to do is cut it out, laminate, and put it together. You can punch holes and use binder rings or use ribbon to connect the pieces together. I hope you enjoy this freebie and get as much use out of it as I have! Click HERE to snag this freebie!

If you would like some more detail on how I use this chart in my room, scroll down to the comments. I went a little more in depth there. =)

First Grade and Kindergarten Common Core

I have FINALLY finished my First Grade Common Core Standards Set! It includes all of the math and language arts standards you need to post in your classroom! I love mine because they are so easy to change out and they are written in kid-friendly "I can" statements. You can snag your set here. I have also made a kindergarten set that is available here. I am planning on making a second and third grade set as well. This may not happen for a while because these take sooo long to make.

My First Post! (and first FREEBIES)

Hello! This is my first blog (and my first post) so please cut me some slack while I try to figure out what I am doing on here. =) I am currently in my first year of teaching kindergarten. Most of my kinders are higher than kindergarten level in all subject areas (thanks to their amazing preschool teachers and parents). This makes my classroom run a little differently than other kindergarten classrooms. (I, of course, still have some that need some extra help.) I teach at a very small private school in Nashville. I hope to share resources and products I have created myself as well as free things I have found from other educators. My classroom is about half the size of the average kindergarten classroom, so I also hope to share/collect ideas on how to organize such a small classroom.

I would like to share some free resources I have created and used in my own classroom. These are two different sets of hundreds charts to post in your classroom. You can get the chevron charts here and the black and white charts here. Included in each set is a plain hundreds chart, a chart for counting by 2's, 5's, and 10's. I have the black and white posted in my room (because I made them first) but I want to put the chevron ones up instead when I find the time.

Thanks for coming by my blog!