Blogging from McDonald's... with a freebie and a GIVEAWAY!

Oooh, I have a Freebie, a book review, and a GIVEAWAY today!! Thanks to Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching for her Five for Friday linky. Gotta love Five for Friday!

1.  What a glorious morning!

Well, THAT gorgeous morning was not THIS morning, but one last week. I love to see the dawn and that breathtaking sky, and feel like anything is possible. Usually I'm rushing around to get out the door with the oh-so-necessary three dozen bags a kindergarten teacher must always have on her person when she leaves the house. I share this so you can feel anything is possible on this Good Friday, too.

Because we don't have school today, I treated yesterday, Thursday, like IT was Friday. I mean it was the last day of the school week after all. On the way home I picked up a bunch of movie rentals– yes, we are among the rare citizens we don't have a million cable stations and movie subscriptions. We love Redbox where we simply grab a movie or two... or three for the night. I threw together a dinner and Jonathan and I settled in for mindless entertainment: Specter. Jonathan's choice, not mine... I've seen every James Bond movie that ever was because of the men in my life... brothers, boyfriends, husband... only one husband, thank goodness. We were halfway through when flicker, flicker, click. No power.

WHAT???? A whole glorious night of movie escapism ahead and now. no. power!!!! I even took a fifteen minute nap when I got home so I could stay up late! How were we to watch those red boxed discs now? Hmmpf.

I reported the problem to the electric company and signed up to get a text when the power came back on. We packed up the laptop, cord, earbuds, and movies- NOT Specter because it was stuck in the player which doesn't open without power– and headed to our favorite coffee shop. Coffee and chocolate cake only made the evening better. It was an adventure!!

Here we are camped out in the comfy chairs with the laptop between us. Gotta love selfies and how very attractive they make you look... my nose is really not that big...

We got back home about midnight, stumbling through the dark house and flipping every lightswitch as we went. We knew the power wasn't on yet because the porch light was still off, but for some reason we found we couldn't remember that fact from one room to the next. Stumble, grope, click. Hmmph. Stumble, grope, click. Sigh. Stumble, grope, click. Dang it why do I keep doing that! Both of us. Through the house. At every switch. I bet you didn't know there are magnets in lightswitches that make your hands automatically grope for them in the dark. What an interesting phenomenon.

This morning the power was still not on. No power, no heat, low overnight temps of 26 degrees. The adventure was over. I briskly hustled out of pajamas and headed off to breakfast with a teacher friend so I didn't have to open the fridge, and then camped out later at McDonald's to blog. McDonald's, on a Friday, when there is no school, and apparently not much else to do in town. Again, not so much an adventure. But what's a blogger to do.

2.

Aren't these adorable! And so easy to make!

One of my students brought this in to me yesterday. Well, one of my former students. Don't you just love when they come back to see you. A real advantage of teaching kindergarten is that you know the kids for their entire six years at school.

I thought this was so cute I took a shot. And it's pretty easy to make. A rice crispie treat "nest" formed by pressing the mixture into a muffin tin, then some frosting to hold the jelly bean eggs and a Peep bird to the nest. These are probably all the go on Pinterest but I had never seen them before. If I'm ever again in a phase of life when I need to make such treats, I'll try these. And I'm going to pin my own photo up  there so I don't forget about it. Pinterest: the memory I don't have.

3.  I blogged about this game idea which I found on Pinterest a couple posts ago. I report on it again because it is a HUGE HIT!!

That is a foam die in my kiddo's hand. You simply drop the die into the center dish and it bounces into one of the dishes around the edge. It works amazingly well. It bounces right into one of those depressions 99.4% of the time like pure magic. It takes work to make it bounce out... which means if yours bounces out you worked at it... and you lose your turn. Funny how it only took one or two off bounces for off bounces never to happen again. They love it that much.

The game edition in the picture has two word wall words per bounce. Every student chooses one of the words to graph with every student's turn, which keeps everybody engaged and the words being read aloud all the time... and it seems like there is strategy because you get to CHOOSE the word... I don't need to tell you I've been teaching kindergarten a long time to come up with this exciting game version.

With the one below, the die has letters on it, and the kids write the word that is made with the letter that is up and the word chunk landed on.

They write the word on the "earthling" side or the "alien" side of the recording paper- surely on Mars they must say words like tig and bap.

The kids love writing nonsense words on our Alien sheet. You can download mine by clicking on it above. So nice Jonathan can draw Martians. Let the kids use it for recording real and nonsense words with any word chunk/word family manipulatives you put out in your classroom.

You can use the bounce tray to practice lots of concepts in reading, math or, well, anything. You'll find the dip tray at dollar stores. Post-it notes easy to use because you can switch out the same tray for many uses, though I do have several of these trays now. I shared it at our staff meeting with K-5 teachers. It really is fun to bounce and I caught several teachers giving it a go after I shared it. hee. I strongly recommend it to any teacher, no matter who or what you teach.

4.  My friends at Flashlight Press sent me a brand new book that is just hitting bookstores. It is called Hammer and Nails, written by Josh Bledsoe and illustrated by Jessica Warrick. If you are a regular reader you know I love the books Flashlight chooses to publish, and this one does not fail my high expectations.

This is the story of Darcy, whose plans for a playdate are foiled when her best friend gets sick. It's Daddy to the rescue as he orchestrates the day with activities from both Darcy's and his to-do list... except that they do them Daddy-style. Dressing up, mowing the lawn, Hair Salon and doing the laundry take on whole new meanings on this special day.

For the teacher or parent who keeps an eye out for learning opportunities, this delightful book is full of them. Dealing with disappointment, being flexible, trying new things, and making the mundane events of life FUN are all underlying themes in the book. I can think of lots of times in the classroom and in family life when this book would have extra appeal: Father's Day; as a baby gift inscribed with "Think of the good times ahead;" or as a gift for a daughter from a Papa who shares this approach to life.

When I read this one to my class, before they ever saw it, I asked what a book called Hammer and Nails might be about. Construction, of course. Then I asked them again when I showed them the cover. Hmmm. Then I asked a third time after we read it. That lead to a discussion of the meanings of nail and what a homonym was. Common Core standard on word meanings- nailed! snort.

Here are some shots of the book.

OF COURSE it has great endpapers and About-the-Author blurbs... a requirement for every good kids' book.

I told you it was good. You want this book and you can find it here...

5.  .... OR I might just send it to you!!!! Whoot Whoot! Yep, this is the giveaway I've been talking about. Well, writing about, but in my head I'm talking to you... babbling actually... excitedly babbling, as this is my FIRST ever giveaway. Flashlight has been oh so gracious enough to send me an extra copy. And all you have to do is sign up below. Yes, you have to follow via Bloglovin or email when you sign up because Flashlight Press wants more readers of the reviews I post, and I want more readers, period. All these wonderfully insightful, exciting, funny ideas I write about should be read by more people, right? So just fill in your name, how you are following, and your email address (so I can tell you when you win) into the Rafflecopter entry form below. Names and addresses do not become public on the blog. Rafflecoper will "pull the name out of the hat" on Saturday, April 2nd, at midnight eastern time, so you can enter until then!!  If you are already a follower, enter the contest and tell me how you follow. Come on, what do you have to lose?? I know you'll love the book!!


a Rafflecopter giveaway



Ping!!! Hey, I just got the DTE message that the power at home is back on!!  Goodbye MickeyD's. I'm outta here!

Except, whoa, I almost forgot... the giveaway for Hammer and Nails is only my FIRST giveaway. A Hue document camera and another book are on the way- this one from Usborne! Be SURE to follow so you don't miss 'em!

See more, more, more good stuff by checking out Five for Friday!

And one. more. thing. Do you know about Oh-My-Heartsie Girl's link-up? We're talking lots of posts on tons of topics. If you're a teacher, mom, wife, daughter, grandma... you'll find something!  Click.

Well two. more. things. These bloggers are fired up and provide a great way to peruse blog topics on their Sunday Link-up, too. Click to see.

See you next time!!!

Friday Five with a Funny

Happy Friday! Here's five things you'll want to know. Thanks to Kacey at Doodle Bugs for the weekly Five For Friday linky. I love it as a blogger and a teacher.

1.   Do you participate in the Colgate Bright Smiles, Bright Futures Educational Oral Care Program? It's terrific and available to Pre-K and Kindergarten teachers for Free.

Lots of stuff comes in the free kindergarten kit

The kit includes a teacher activity book, a class book with small student copies, posters on toothbrushing and toothbrush recycling, a well done cartoon DVD that stars Dr. Rabbit and some super heroes, and a toothbrush and toothpaste for each child to take home. I use it as part of our science unit on the human body. Your kiddos will enjoy learning about oral hygiene with these engaging materials.

To get information click here on  Colgate Bright Smiles, Bright Futures or call 1-800-293-4502.

2.   A few quick snips and you have two new kinds of math card games. I chopped off the corner numbers of dollar store playing cards and turned them into subitizing cards. Kids can play Top It or any other game that uses cards to practice their subitizing skills.

Two new things to do with playing cards

After I cut off the numbers I had a pile of corners and was about to throw them away when- duh- I realized I was looking at another game. I put the corner numbers in a little monster cup (see below) and let the kids pull them out to play addition/subtraction, place value (by pulling two numbers), or any game at all that requires numbers. Just one more twist on the math game theme. I did round the cut corners as they were rather pokey.

3.  Speaking of chopping, I would be remiss not to mention one of my favorite crafty tools. This little six inch mini paper cutter is SO useful. It made the playing card cutting project fast and easy. I just lined up the same spot on each card and the cards were all uniform with smooth, straight edges. It's also particularly handy for chopping photos.

I use this all the time

And when I went searching for it for you, I found it is on sale half price at Jo-Ann's RIGHT NOW. It's only $9.99 with shipping at $1.99. You can have it next week! Click on the photo to go to Jo-Ann's.


4.   Lookee-lookee.  One of my student's parents knows me well. It's not every parent that buys a toddler snack cup as a teacher gift, but I'm so glad she did. This little holiday gift has been useful in the classroom for math in lots of ways.

He holds all sorts of small pieces for monster math

Sometimes he holds our little monster game pieces, or dice, or the number corners I just mentioned above. His teeth are soft rubbery plastic so little hands can go in and take out the piece. He's cute as can be and if you have a monster theme, or a monster math theme as I do, you need one, too. Check him out. He's neat and cheap.

5.   It's Funny Kid Friday– Yay!

For many of us it is assessment time. I was doing a running record with one little guy and he struggled to read the word "draw" in "draw pictures." He stayed with it, though, using various strategies, and finally got it.  "Draw pictures! Whew! That was hard." he said, looking up at me. Then he shook his head and said, "Why didn't they just say make pictures? That would have been a lot easier!" I had to laugh and agree. Maybe he has a life as an editor ahead of him.

Now it's your turn. If you have a funny kid story to post, link up below. Grab my button so readers find more stories, too. I do the link-up on the first Friday of every month during the school year and it's open all month. It's easy to include a funny tale as one of your five for Five for Friday and then link up with both parties. And if you are not a blogger just leave your story in the comments. I love to hear kid stories and I'm not alone.

You can head right on back to Five for Friday by clicking below.  See you next time.

An InLinkz Link-up

Freebies, Pets, and a New Liebster Link-up

Happy Friday! I'm linking up, as I LOVE to do, with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday. Thanks, Kacey!

1.  Calling all Liebster bloggers! If you accepted a Liebster Award there is a new link-up for you! When I first saw a Liebster Award on a blog, and then later when I was nominated for one, I went looking for info. After I did the work of accepting, I thought, hey, other people are going to wonder what this is, and how to find bloggers who have it, so let's gather info and bloggers together. If you're curious, click on the award to find more info. And if you are a Liebsterer (is that a word?) then be sure to link up to find new readers.

2. In my long career as a teacher I've had just about EVERY kind of classroom pet: rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, mice, turtles, newts, frogs, crabs, anoles, even snakes, to say nothing of visiting baby squirrels, raccoons, and opossums... no, the kids didn't get to touch those very adorable, but WILD critters. I really like animals, so much so that a friend jokingly calls me St. Kathleen of Assisi.  And I very much believe in having kids learn about animals in hands-on ways. HOWEVER, kindergarten is not what it was years ago... she says needlessly. And no matter WHAT, pets take extra time and expense which now must go to other things. So this year, as we embarked on the pet unit, I went to the pet store with EASY in mind.

I was thinking hermit crabs, but when they told me that the substrate had to be completely emptied and changed weekly– cha-ching– and the temp had to be at least 75 degrees all the time (what classroom is above 62 these days?) and maintain high humidity... well, I changed my mind.

Kidpeople are now the proud adoptive parents of three guppies– two females and one male– and a snail who is probably more fun to watch than the fish at the moment. With any luck, however, the guppies will do what guppies do, and we'll have lots of baby guppies in short order. I got the special floating nursery so the laws of the sea won't rule– you know, bigger fish eat the smaller fish, even when the bigger fish just gave birth to the smaller ones.

Years ago I had guppies and it just so happened that the bowl was at home during break and on our kitchen table when Mama Guppy delivered! The four Wrights spent all dinner mesmerized as we watched this wonderful glimpse of live birth. These little specks, all eyes with a tiny hair of a tail, and more like mini-tadpoles than fish, started zipping around the tank, all naturally searching for a place to hide. Guppies are "livebearers" and they give birth to dozens of "fry" at a time. It is REALLY neat to see. I'm so hoping the kidpeople and I can catch this spectacle again. And if not, there are various videos on YouTube to watch. Caution: some of those videos have commentary not suitable for kindergartners.

Here's what our new Guppy habitat looks like:

Purple rope lights wrapped around the bottom and at the back
of the bowl make for nice effect.

The snail is right on the front of the bowl, and you can see one of the guppies outlined nicely. All of them dashed to the front of the bowl when I got out the camera... figures I have hambone fish! Floating on top is a water hyacinth that I rescued from my pond before the first frost came. I don't know how long it will last in the bowl, but it saves me buying other water plants for a while. Competing for attention is the small castle in the bowl- the kids tell me mermaids live in it. Who needs fish when you can have mermaids! Let this year's pet adventure begin!

3. In case you didn't see my post earlier this week, I have a new FREEBIE up on TPT. It's a goodie for November– a poem for the pocket chart and TWO different class books for the kids to contribute to. Lots of classrooms make "No" books in NOvember, in which kids list things that are no longer around when we reach November. For example, "No leaves on the trees," or "No more sandals." Well, I included a template for this "No book" just to make things easy for you. Then I went one step further and gave November a positive spin by making a template for a "YESember book," where kids can list all the things that they CAN do in November that they couldn't do before, such as have Thanksgiving, wear sweaters, and jump in leaves." Click on the book cover below to download this Freebie from my TPT store!

NOvember and YESember class book FREEBIES!

4. AND if you choose to teach the words No and Yes to the kids with the help of the books, then I have a silly game for you, too. Do you remember the old jumprope rhyme about the train?

Engine, engine number nine

Coming down Chicago line

If the train should jump the track

Do you want your money back?

And then the player has to say, yes or no, and it continues like this:

Y-E-S spells yes

And you are out!

Or:

N-O spells no

And you are out!

Well, I turned it into a kindergarten spelling game. All the kids sit in a circle with both feet pointing in. It is a tight circle, and as I'm sitting in the circle, too, all the toes are hard to reach. I use my long handled tapper to reach everyone around the circle.  We go around the circle with me tapping each shoe and saying the rhyme. The one tapped on "back" gets to answer yes or no, and then I continue tapping as we end the rhyme, and the "out" toe gets pulled back from the circle, to the moan of the outed player.

Engine, Engine Number 9 game

They sit there getting out one by one, each one thinking they've lost, because that's how most games go. Here's where the game gets interesting. I continue tapping until we are down to just the one last grinning player, then ask, "So who won?" Everyone shouts the last child's name, of course. Then I say that in THIS game everyone who gets OUT wins! Now there are shouts of joy, except for the last fella who thinks he's lost afterall. But the game's not over yet! I repeat the rhyme one more time, taping this one last toe with every beat, until he is also out, and a winner.

I point out that sometimes "out" doesn't mean you're the loser, and there's always a way to let everyone win. I surprise them all by whipping out a Skittle for each child. Whoot! We never get a prize when we win games in class! I end up with a happy, winning crew, all of whom can spell NO and YES quite well!  

5. Okay, it's not officially Funny Kid Friday, but it is Friday, and I do have a tale to tell from this week, so I share... minus the link-up.

Click to find more!

Do you have any "Factoid Boys" in your class? I hate to sound gender biased, but most years I have a couple little boys who just latch on to random facts in the biggest way. They tell me details about black holes and volcanoes, and all sort of interesting science-y stuff. Girls can do this, too, of course, but over the years it has been mostly boys, and so a teacher friend and I refer to them as Factoid Boys.

This week I introduced the magic of 32... 32 degrees that is. I explained that's the temperature at which water freezes- even the dew on the grass in the morning freezes and become frost. I told them that it was supposed to get down to that in the coming nights, so every morning when they get up they should quickly look out the window. They might see the ground is white and it won't be snow, but frost.

I was pleased with my little enrichment lesson that wasn't in the kindergarten curriculum, and was about to move on when my favorite Factoid Boy's hand flew up. This little guy rarely puts his hand up, preferring the blurt-out method of discussion, so I felt I had to encourage this and called on him. And what did he say?  "Now, we REALLY need to discuss Farenheit and Celcius."

It is kindergarten I'm teaching, right???

Click on Five for Friday for more fun!

The post Freebies, Pets, and a New Liebster Link-up first appeared on kidpeopleclassroom.com