Pumpkins Galore and a Giveaway!

We have had a week full of pumpkin fun! I am linking up for Five for Friday to tell you alllllllllll about it. Stick around until the end for a chance to win some pumpkin goodies!

We cannot celebrate Halloween at my school due to religious reasons... however pumpkins = fall so they are fair game!

 "Five Little Pumpkins" was our poem this week. The kiddos loved it. This version is a little different than the one I learned as a kid--no witches or magic included.

We went on a field trip to the pumpkin farm on Thursday. The kids love it and so do I! If you live in the Nashville area, you should check out Walden Farm. They do a great job and make it easy for the teacher to have a stress free day--which is ALWAYS a good day in kindergarten.

After the farm, we did a "pumpkin discovery" activity with the pumpkins we picked on our field trip. 

This is part of a freebie by Nicole Ricca that you can grab here. There a lots of great whole group activities in the mini-unit she made!

We whipped out my new Pumpkin Math Centers this week. (Hang around to the end of this post for a chance to win them.) We are hitting numbers 0-20 HARD.

In this center the students put the pumpkins in order and then write the numbers on their recording sheet.

Here they count the pumpkins on each side, then decide which side is greater.

Here they practice number fluency by rolling a die and then reading the numbers in the matching row.

Here the students scoop a handful of pumpkins, count them, and then tally the amount.

This week was the first time I used dry erase pouches for my center recording sheets. (You can see them in the center pictures above.) Can we say huge paper saver? The kids love them too. Dry erase markers = the most exciting thing on the planet when you are five. Don't you wish a marker could bring you that much happiness?? I got my pouches with my scholastic dollars last year. Here are some similar ones you can grab on amazon for much cheaper.

Want a chance to WIN my Pumpkin Math Centers? Just leave a comment with your email address on this post and I will pick some winners by the end of the weekend!

I sent my Pumpkin Math Centers to all of you who commented. Thank you for reading my blog! If you missed out on this giveaway, don't worry! There will be plenty more. =)

Five for Friday (September 27th) with FREEBIES

I know, I know… I have been completely MIA in the blogging world lately. As you know, the beginning of the year is CRAZY--especially in Kindergarten. BUT I will try to do better and I have some freebies for you to make up for it. =)

Today I am linking up with Doodlebugs for Five for Friday (on Saturday...oops. I'm such a slacker lately!).

1.       This week we read “If You Give a Moose a Muffin”. Who doesn’t love the “If you give a…” books? Then, we practiced counting with a muffin freebie from Greg at Smedley’s Smorgasboard.  I plan on also using these muffins to practice patterns and ordinal numbers.

2.  We have been using these Alphabet Practice Pages for morning work. I love them because they are all set up the same way and after completing a couple, they are really easy for my kiddos to complete independently.

3.  I use a modified version of The Daily 5 in my classroom. All of my students “read to self” and “work on writing” at the same time. To add to “read to self” my students started to a letter hunt. This week we “hunted” for the letter S in our books. We also hunt for sight words sometimes. This is an example of the pages I have been making to use for our letter hunts.

4. We started math centers this week. I found some fabulous free centers on TpT and I also made one for you!

Here the students pick a card then make the pattern with pattern blocks. You can grab these free pattern block cards here.

Here the students pick a card and then make the pattern with cubes. I found these pattern cards here.

I made these apple matching cards. The student count the number of apples and match them to the correct number. Grab it for free here.

5. This year, we say a class promise at the beginning of each day. At the beginning of the year, we talked about what each of the parts mean and we use it as a reminder to have good behavior throughout the day. I am not sure where this originally came from, but you can grab a copy I made here.

Boot Scootin' Blog Hop with a FREEBIE! and Let's Get Acquainted

Howdy y'all!  I am so happy you stopped by! I am joining some of my fellow Tennessee bloggers and taking part in my first ever blog hop. Woo hoo! So exciting. =) Be sure to click through to look at all of the fabulous blogs and grab some freebies. Thank you to Elizabeth from Kickin' it in Kindergarten for putting this together for all of us! You're amazing!

Without any delay... here is your FREEBIE!

It is a skip counting center with a recording sheet and a cover page with visual directions. With this, your kiddos can practice skip counting by both 5 and 10. Not to mention, it is perfect to add to your spring centers! Click on the picture above to grab the freebie.

If you like the freebie, be sure to check out my other springy centers in my April Showers Bring May Flowers set.

Your next stop in our Boot Scootin' Blog Hop will be with Kelly at Young & Lively Kindergarten.

She has tons of great ideas with pictures so that you can see exactly how she does things! Her blog rocks!

Now "scoot" on over to check out Young & Lively Kindergarten and don't forget to check out the other Tennessee bloggers so that you can grab up your freebies!

Let's Get Acquainted

This week we are supposed to tell what three things we would want if we were stranded on a desert island.

1. Cell phone

Even though I'm sure I wouldn't have service on a desert island, I would still want to have my phone close. You never know, maybe I would get lucky and it would work. Oooor I would just play on it or listen to music like I always do (until it died anyway). 

2. Chap stick

I always HAVE TO have my chap stick and it HAS to be Burt's Beeswax. I would definitely want it if I was stranded somewhere. I put it on all the time at school and my kids always ask me why I am putting on lipstick. It makes me wonder if they go home and tell their parents that I put on lipstick all day long. 

3. A Hair Tie

I can't stand to have my hair down most of the time. Its always in a ponytail unless I am working (sometimes even then) or somewhere I need to look nice.

Don't forget to link up and hop through our blog hop!

Thanks for stopping by =)

Double Linky! Let's Talk About Blogs, Baby and Five for Friday (April 5)

Let's Talk About Blogs, Baby!

Melissa from First Grade Smiles is doing a "Let's Talk About Blogs, Baby!" linky party.  I love it and it is perfect for newer bloggers! Here are my answers:

The question I added is:

"How often do you post on your blog? How much do you think is too much/too little for blogs you follow to post?"

I would love to know what you think since I am still sort of new to the whole blogging thing. =)

Be sure to link up so that I can see your answers!

Five for Friday

TGIF!! This was my first week back from spring break. It always takes me a little while to get my head on straight when we've been out of school for a while. I was worried my kids might be a little wild, but they were great!

Here's a quick look at my week:

1. This afternoon we played an (unplanned) math game. I think I've seen something similar on pinterest somewhere, but I randomly thought of it this afternoon and my kiddos loved it. I loved it too because it is a quiet game. =) A lot of you have probably played something similar. We played with time cards, but you could really play with any matching game.

Here's how we played: Students stand in a circle. Pass out one card to each person. Without talking, students have to find their match. (We matched digital clocks to analog clocks with the same time, but you could match upper and lowercase letters, shapes, addition problems to their sum... you get the idea.)

It was nice to do something unplanned and fun in celebration of Friday!

2. I ordered some book bags with my free $10 from Scholastic. I really want to send them home next year! The only problem is... I can't figure out how I want to do it. I have looked around online, but I haven't found what I'm looking for. I would like the kids to do an activity with their book, but another issue is that the bags are too small to fit a regular sized piece of paper. I would LOVE to hear any of your suggestions and how you do it in your classroom.

3. Here's a peek at a couple of the centers we've been doing this week. They are from my April Showers Bring May Flowers set.

Here the kids pick a pattern and complete it. Then they color the flowers on the recording sheet to match the pattern. They LOVE pocket charts.

Here the kiddos match rhyming words and then write them on the recording sheet. Our copier at school sometimes makes worksheets tiny with no warning. Drives me crazy but I can't stand to waste the paper and copy it again!

4. So today, my kiddos were practicing marking their vowels. They put a "line for long, smile for short". One of my kiddo's papers looked like this:

I obviously had a hard time figuring out if those were lines or smiles. When I asked her what it was, she said, "It's a smile that's talking". I couldn't help but laugh at that. =D

5. We started a countdown to summer this week. Only 29 school days left. That is so insane to me! I can't believe I am almost done with my first year of teaching. Where did the year go?

Don't forget to link up and have a fabulous weekend!