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. =)

Giveaway WINNER!

Welllllllllll today is the last day of my Fall Break. Did I accomplish as much as I was hoping? Of course not! I forgot my computer cord soooo that made it impossible a little difficult to complete things for school, TpT, or this blog. Oopsies. BUT I did crochet three scarves... that counts for something, right? Plus I got to enjoy lots of time with the fam which is never a bad thing.

And now to announce the winner of the fabulous new PINK sharpener from Classroom Friendly Supplies.

*drum roll please...*

Congrats Yashika!! Check your email so that Troy can ship your pencil sharpener! I hope you love it!

Thanks to everyone who entered and a HUGE thanks to Troy for allowing me to host this giveaway! We have a field trip to the pumpkin farm this week, so that should be fun and exhausting at the same time. =)

Five for Friday (October 11)--WIN a Pink Pencil Sharpener!

Today was a teacher in-service day for me, and now I am on Fall Break! Yippee! I am linking up with Doodlebugs for Five for Friday to share a little bit about my week. Stick around until the end for a chance to win a fabulous pencil sharpener! (Plus an Apple FREEBIE!)

1. We have been working on the letter "R" this week. Each week we make an anchor chart and the students supply words to add to the chart the begin with the letter we are working on.

This week one of my kiddos gave the word "rude". I thought that was hilarious. Wonder where they hear that...? hehe

2. Here is an apple center we used this week. It was supposed to be a "roll and cover" center... but I totally did it wrong so that dice could not be used. Oops. SO it became a "pick a card, count the dots, and cover" center.

You can grab this FREEBIE here.

3. Did you see my other Apple Counting Freebie from last week? Get it here.

4. I have been working on some pumpkin math centers for after break and *hope* to have them finished by the end of fall break. I always end up doing nothing on breaks... and when I say nothing, I mean not. a. thing.  I can't be the only one. Here's a peek at where I am with them so far.

5. Now it is time for a GIVEAWAY! I have TWO of these sharpeners myself and they are simply the best. (Click here to check out a review I did for them.) Now is your chance to win one! Troy has introduced a new PINK sharpener in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month. One dollar from each pink sharpener sold is donated to one of two cancer charities (Caleb's Crusade and Susan G. Komen for the Cure). Enter to win below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway


And now time for a nap. Why? Because it is break and I can! Have a great weekend friends. =)

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.

Fan FREEBIE!

I finally gave in and created a K-3 Connection facebook page. I really have no idea what to do with it yet, but I have created a fan FREEBIE for you! Read about it below and then click here to "like" K-3 Connection and grab the freebie!

Star Tables Behavior Management System

I have added "Star Tables" to my Behavior Clip Chart as a part of my behavior management system. This is a group system where students are rewarded by tables or groups. I find this can help keep the classroom under control more than when you reward/punish an individual student's behavior because the groups start to work together to earn the reward. Students will redirect their peers behavior because they want to earn a star.

How to Use Star Tables

Basically, when a table or group is making good choices, they earn a star. Groups can also lose stars when they are not doing what they are supposed to. Each group earns as many stars as they can for a week (or however long you'd like). At the end of the week, the group with the most stars gets a reward. 

To stick the stars to the table posters I use Tack it Over. I learned about it from a professor in undergrad and its pretty awesome! Basically you paint it on the back of something laminated and it dries tacky so you can stick it on things and pull it off again! It is cheap and it lasts a long time which is a major plus in my book.

In my class, the "Star Table" gets a small trophy that sits on the table for the next week. This is the smallest, cheapest, dinkiest, trophy in the world and the kids WANT it SO badly. They really work hard to earn it. Click the picture below to see where I got my trophy.

Head on over to the K-3 Connection facebook page for this freebie!

Five for Friday (August 23)

As always... TGIF! I am linking up with Doodle Bugs for Five for Friday and sharing five random things about my week.

1. We finally started our modified version of The Daily Five this week. We started to build our stamina for Read to Self. It seems like it takes about a billion years to get the kids to a decent amount of time, but once they are there it is amazing. So far, we are up to two and a half minutes.

2.  I started back at Vandy for the semester. I don't even really want to think about it yet.

3. I finished my classroom jobs display and we started to use them this week. Woohoo! Jobs make a teacher's life a little bit easier. I like how they turned out and it matches my other classroom decor!

4. Have you heard of this stuff? I learned about it from a professor in undergrad and its pretty awesome! Basically you paint it on the back of something laminated and it dries tacky so you can stick it on things and pull it off again! Great for centers or putting things on the board you need to move around. I use it for my star tables which is my number 5.

I looked for this stuff at every craft store in town and finally ended up buying it from amazon. I just love amazon.

5. This is a new addition to my classroom management system. I plan on posting about this tomorrow. It is going to be my first Facebook Fan Freebie! So be sure to "like" K-3 Connection or come back here to grab it!

The FREEBIE is up! Click here to read more about it!

Five for Friday August 16

It is Friday! WOOHOO! I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday.

1. I am participating the the Back to School sale on TechersPayTeachers this weekend (August 18-19). You can get 28% off of my entire store! Just use the code BTS13 at checkout to receive the full discount. I have a few things myself that I've been eyeing to buy during this sale! I always love a good sale.

(I borrowed this graphic from Doodle Bugs--too cute!)

2. I have created a link party where you can share your "Must-have" item/product/etc. every month! Click here to link up and see my monthly must-have!

3. Here's a look at my word wall. I added the kiddos names with a picture of each of them. They LOVE seeing themselves up on the wall!

(This is from my Word Wall Set.)

4. I finally received my paper daisies to display my table numbers. I have seen these all over pinterest and I just HAD to get some myself!

I bought three daisies from Amazon. Click below to have a look at them.

5. Grad school starts back for me next week. It feels like I just finished the summer session. Boo!

Have a great weekend!