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n this is a huge favorite and great fun for the littles watch out of the corner of your eye for kids ripping it off of each other just sayin if you ever come to a conference and meet this wonderful lady please force encourage her to sing you a song and use her magical cards it takes real talent to do this quickly but she rocks it out she is a total show stopper when she does her version of the 3 bears don t let her try to squirm out of it she is hilarious remember i said this you don t want to miss this trust me you are finally at the end of my post are you whispering amen and i want to thank you for hanging in there with me i use the apron a million more ways but i am sure you need to feed your kids or call your mom so i will end it here blogging changed me important friendships grew i am a better teacher note to sandy you have been a blessing in my life more than you will ever understand thank you for always being there for me and always supporting my crazy ideas you are always willing to make time for me my only regret is that we met just a few short years ago we should have met in kindergarten you will be my forever friend i love you thank you for all that you do for teachers and most of all for our children the best friendships are unexpected please be my valentine posted by fran kramer at 4 30 am 7 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels apron lady sandy welch show and tell aprons wednesday january 11 2017 post vacation winter work this is my last week of winter break and i have been really busy trying to create new activities for my students to keep them engaged after being home for endless amounts of time what would help them reconnect and make them want to come back to school i decided to wander around in target where inspiration is everywhere and planned to hit the dollar spot to check out the christmas clearance i found these adorable erasers and could not resist buying them they would make perfect math manipulatives and i knew the kids would love new ones on top of this the snowmen trees and penguins were just 30 cents a bag score over the week i bought more of these as i found them and finally realized that i needed a container to hold and organize them joann fabrics has these containers on sale so i bought 2 of them and realized i might have gotten carried away with my eraser obsession so now i had to come up with some way to make use of all these little erasers since january is the month where i hit teen numbers hard making ten frame cards was an obvious must have these look pretty cute with images on them to match the erasers i can build numbers ask them to show me one more or one less and talk about strategies for counting these numbers quickly and efficiently make sense these can be used with number cards as part of a center where they work independently with a partner i am hoping my students have been practicing their sight words over break but i am not sure this will actually happen a teacher can pray so i made a variety of these simple spinner games that they will be able to do alone or with a partner during center time my kids love spinners and mini erasers so i think this will be a hot ticket item i knew my students would need more practice identifying teen numbers so i created winter themed bingo boards that could be played easily with a friend the ten frame cards are placed in the middle and each person takes their turn flipping the card identifying how many dots are on there and covering the number with a glass bead easy to make simple to use i color coded the cards to match the boards so the kids wouldn t mix the cards up who am i kidding that will be a disaster the minute i walk away if you have ever read this blog you know that i am obsessed with pocket charts and routines that i love to play with students to help them learn the sight words this time i am hiding a snowflake behind a card and have a snowflake chant ready to go i have lots of pictures that reflect a winter theme to help them build important vocabulary that i want them to become familiar with many of them might not know thermometer icicles or various arctic animals this is a game my class is very familiar with but they will be thrilled to see new cards with new pictures i love all write the room activities and this one will be a real challenge for my kids they have to look at each card and decide how many more will make ten i have been working on this for a while and will practice it in small groups before i release it to be done during center time i love calling it slide and glide to go with our winter theme january is when i start pounding teaching word families so now i am forced to be creative and really think outside of the box once i have introduced several sets of words i am putting these cards in my sensory table for the kids to pull out with tongs their job will be to sort them and link related words together to build their word families i think they will love this activity and are ready for a challenge i will take pictures of them using these when i get back what do you think our common core unit of study is about weather so once i finish with snow i will talk about other kinds of weather and made write the room cards to match sunny rainy windy etc i created flip books which are simple and only have the kids record the first letter of the word i want to keep this simple and build on their knowledge over time for my top kids i will differentiate this and have them write the whole word since this will be easy for them to accomplish word families are another opportunity to teach young students a strategy for decoding a simple word by looking at chunks here is an example of sunny weather cards and the related activities i love keeping it simple so kids can be successful and gain confidence right have you ever taught your kids how to play scoot it is so much fun and the kids are up and moving around the room one seat at a time solving a problem or answering a question kids love this and they are learning so much it is important to practice how to move and be clear with your directions so it does not become chaotic i have them stand behind their own chair sit in their seat solve the problem and stand behind their chair when finished then i call scoot and they move one seat over to solve the next problem this is a blast and a great way to assess the skill reflected on your task cards try it this is for math here is another version of scoot where students have to count the number of syllables in a word based on the pictures provided be sure to go over this vocabulary ahead of time so children can identify the cards accurately i need to work on counting to a hundred and my students need lots of practice with this i want to use these charts as a scaffold to build their fluency with a counting sequence i find that it s better to start off pretty simply and build on as students build their skills for example a starting point can be 15 and you can have them count to 35 ask your students about one more or one less and show them how to figure this out have them discover number patterns and how they are helpful you know this stuff but it might be a good idea to provide each child with their own chart in a page protector ask lots of questions and have students explain their thinking that s it for now i will add on a few activities as i come up with them i hope you got a few ideas and this post was helpful happy new year posted by fran kramer at 11 00 pm 5 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels activities for new year january centers monday october 3 2016 keeping centers super simple hi there i have not blogged in a long time but i am begging for forgiveness i am trying to wrap my head around a new classroom structure known as staggered day this might not seem like a big deal but for 25 years i have worked with a partner so now i am totally on my own and have to rethink how to set up for this it took me a long time to figure out a functional room environment down to where to put my tables and how to set up my centers i struggled and kept changing it up until some of my friends came in and tossed half my furniture out the door and reconfigured my room thank goodness they took pity on me without another adult in the room i had to change up my lesson plans and plan activities in a very different manner centers could not be monitored by another adult and we are not given aides with that being said i had to fly solo and figure it out i realized that my centers would really need to be super simple or they would crash and burn which would be a total disaster i also saw from my roster that i had a roomful of boys that needed to be more physically active before i hit them with the real work of kindergarten so i want to share some of the ideas i came up with and you can see what you think first i realized that i needed to store these ideas in a notebook with photographs and any files necessary to make these again if they got loved to death so i made several notebooks which are filled with getting started activities that do not involve much academic background my students are ell s with limited preschool experience i wanted them to love school and sneak in some of those crucial skills to make them successful in school most of those adorable little boys have not held a pencil or scissor and this becomes a struggle right from the start many of our students cannot write their name and need to strengthen their fine motor skills i don t want them to get discouraged and this is an easy activity to help build their muscles without being too painful the tweezers are from the dollar tree but you can change this up with tongs which are a bit easier if they are not ready for counting then just let them put the pompoms in containers or sort by color i used an old muffin tin i will hate myself when i want to bake and i glued bright papers inside finally i added the numbers for those that can handle this differentiate as needed easy to throw together right lacing cards are another tool for building fine motor skills and most kids love doing these once they get the hang of it why did i make these i made them much bigger and easier to manage the cords can be purchased in any craft store we talked about school supplies before i modeled how to do this and put kids with a capable partner to keep things moving all you need is clip art cardstock and lamination to make this happen it took no time to throw together grab a hole puncher and just make holes around the image no sweat playdoh is always a huge favorite in my room but i found kids getting a bit restless after a few days of using rolling pins and making snakes they were not ready for letters yet but i was doing guiding drawing with them and they were loving it that gave me the idea of making mats where they could add details to the picture they loved this and i am working on a packet that might become available it was so much fun to watch them as they thought about how to make each mat more interesting and their creativity was amazing this was super easy to slam together and can be used throughout the year i can connect them to each theme too some of my students knew some of the letters of the alphabet and were ready for a more challenging center but not something that required too much interaction from me we all love all the font sorting cut and paste activities that we can grab i even have one in my store however i love that this is more interactive and i have a colored sticker on the back of each letter so they become self checking my students love playing this with a partner and taking turns turning over a card and placing it on the right mat students can be partnered strategically so they do not struggle with this this center is easy to make and can be used for many months as you introduce the letters this is simple and not too complicated to put together i store all the pieces in small ziplock baggies here is a peek at a few of my kinders playing this what do you think this is one of my favorite centers and i did a lot of kid watching when i had students doing this activity students had to decide what 2 pictures went together some students did this with ease but others did not have the vocabulary to support this and had a more difficult time my ell s obviously found this more challenging i made this center self checking too by putting matching stickers on the back of each set that formed an apple easy peasey students made some combinations i might not have thought of and this made for interesting conversations i knew i had to create centers that would be fun for the boys so i made these alphabet roads that kept them busy with the matchbox cars i provided they loved finding the first letter in their name or their friend s boys and cars go together like peanut butter and jelly so i kept brainstorming ideas that would float their boat as the saying goes more centers on the same order i added racing flags and monster trucks to these numbers and i found that running them just on colored paper saved me ink and they were just as happy doing this many of them knew their numbers and this was an easy way for me observe that without stressing out using an assessment i made several sets of these to keep the whole gang happy i laminated some sets and put others in page protectors easy right okay this was my best center ever i took jumbo sticks walmart and painted them black then i made white dotted lines using a paint marker i made zillions of these and the poor hubby was non too thrilled that dinner was not even on my radar that night then i decided to make signs and buildings so the roads would be more interesting how could i make these stand up no problem i used binder clips i taped the signs to smaller sticks and even used a photograph of the front of the school obviously i just added a bunch of little cars and they let their imaginations run wild this was a hit score the more academic kids enjoyed putting these simple fishy puzzles together and helped each other put them in alphabetical order too it was a challenge that they enjoyed if they had the background knowledge to be successful this could be done as a guided activity in your guided reading groups too the template is simple and took very little time to put together tracing is another worthwhile activity for those littles that still need to strengthen those hands in a non threatening way all you need is an expo marker pull out those fancy colored ones and a small eraser this takes little prep and was another center the kids really liked i punched a hole in the upper left hand corner and used a ring to keep them together finally i used those dollar frames from ikea to post the i can statements that go with each learning station now my administrator will have a clear understanding of the purpose for each of these activities many of them also require creativity p...