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

Monster Math, Germs, and Funny Kid Friday

Happy October! Well, five weeks of school have come and gone. Hard to believe. There is NOTHING like the beginning of the year in kindergarten and I have lots to share. So happy that I can link up with Doodle Bugs to share five things and Always a Teacher & Forever a Mom for Fabulous Freebie Friday. And I include my monthly Funny Kid Friday tale. And shop-a-holics beware, there is great stuff to know about as well as freebies to grab, too.

1. Our new math curriculum suggests that we have a classroom math mascot, and this fit in perfectly with what I already do. I've had "monster math" for a long time– monster themed math bulletin board, fun little monsters that help us do math, this insane monster hat that I wear every once in a while to give us a dose of happy.

Okay, so I can't believe I put that picture on the internet, but the kids love it– his ears... or are they his arms... go up and down when you squeeze the flaps hanging down. I have another fuzzy monster hood style hat, which smooshes my hair down a little less. But hey, kindergarten teachers can't be vain, so I wear them both.

You can see either hat if you click the captions under the hats. Be sure to look at the adult style in the second version as that's the one that's nice and roomy. You can't go wrong with either one for about $12. And if you don't use it for math, you can use if for Halloween. Hurry. They'll go fast.

Flipeez Peek-a-Boo Monster Action Hat

monster hoods

Here is our math mascot– a monster puppet who brings big personality to our math lessons. Keep it engaging to enhance learning, right?  His name is Ten-Ten. Ten-Ten Twenty... the kids wanted him to have a last name. You can click on the caption to find him for sale. He is brilliant and the kids are in love!

30" Monster (Green)

If you don't use puppets in your classroom I encourage you to try. You only need one to get started. You don't even need to make them talk. I have a puppet, Baa Baa Black Sheep, who is very shy. Only I can hear him when he whispers into my ear. The kids know what he says by the way I respond to him.

Ten-Ten has a low voice because I had a cold when I first introduced him. He is easy to manipulate as he rests on my lap. An arm stick helps animate him- he points to objects we are counting, and he shows his heart is pounding when he gets excited over how smart we are. Not hard. And let me tell you the kids LOVE him. They would have him come out every day. I limit him to math, and sometimes he just watches us. That is allowed, you know, if you just don't have the time, or aren't in the mood.

2. I would be amiss if I did not share a GREAT DVD that I found.  It's called Monster Math Squad. I don't know how I hadn't heard of it before. It has 30 episodes, each about twelve minutes long. Each one highlights a different math concept. We've done numbers to ten, shapes, size, and pairs so far. It is a great way to begin or recap a lesson. The kids love the monster characters and little stories, while I love the math emphasis the videos bring. I have surprised at all the kids retain. Again, highly engaging stuff to fire up those neurons.  You can get it for just five bucks now, about half of what I originally paid for it.

3. The folks at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center have come up with a great info graphic poster... well, not great in that it shows there are a LOT of germs hanging out around school! Yikes! It is definitely something you'll want to see and share. Click on it to go to their site. They are planning on making it downloadable soon, so leave word in the comments and bookmark the page. I'm going to laminate mine and make a display in our main hallway.

4. And while on the subject of germs, how about a FREEBIE from my TPT store to help your kiddos wash their hands better?  It includes several posters, a song, and even a bookmark for the kids to take home. Click on the picture below to download it.  And if you want to hear how the song goes, click on this previous post to get the idea.

5.  And last but not least, my funny kid story.

It occurred to me several times this month that perhaps I was caught on the set of a Three Stooges movie. When you step back and watch newbie kindergartners you just have to smile. I watched one little tyke clear up after a special snack. She took a stray mini-chocolate chip to the garbage. Then went back and took a crumb to the garbage. Then went and took her napkin to the garbage. Then back she went to take her juice cup to the garbage... she eventually made it to the carpet with the rest of us.

At another point I called one little guy to come over and get something for his table. He got up and headed toward me, followed by everybody else at his table. Instead of going through the main traffic path, they all headed between two chairs which barely allowed one to pass, let alone five. They were sort of like pinball steelies trying to get down the shoot at the same time. I opened my mouth to give direction again, but then it struck me as so funny that I just sat chuckling and marveling until the five made it to me. The biggest marvel was that there was no angry pushing involved, just bounce, bounce, back-up, bounce, try again, until there they were, standing in front of me, happy as larks that they had made it, and ready to do whatever I wanted.

I'm chuckling again as I relive these video snippet memories in my mind. There is NOTHING like teaching kindergarten.

Now it's time for you to share your kid tale. Just grab my pic up there and use the in-linkz button to link up. Be sure to link back so everyone can find more. This will be up all month, so you can jump in any time. You can leave a tale in the comments, too, and bloggers leave your link so we can check you out. So many ways to share the fun.

An InLinkz Link-up

Fruit Snack Everyday? Yes, Way!

Oh, I am so grateful to have Fourth Grade Frolics' Monday Made It! linky to help spread the news about this system I developed to get GREAT healthy snacks into our class! You really gotta know about this! And this post holds a helpful Freebie, too!

In my classroom we eat community style snack, morning and afternoon, with everyone eating the same snack all together.

Did everyone get their squirt of hand gel first?

As both parent and teacher, I wanted to stay away from the cupcakes, chips, and candy that come into class when kids bring in daily snacks from home. We now know much more about how sugar is not good for our bodies and not good for learning. And we know how peer pressure from friends eating junk food trickles into families, even as they strive to eat in healthy ways. So I have parents supply two big boxes of shelf-stable, pantry items like crackers and cereals, about four times a year. The list that goes home includes only healthier choices to pick from.

But it gets better than that! You might wonder how it can be that parents only send in crackers four times a year to cover snack. Well, in this snack system parents supply fresh fruit and veggies for snack, too! And each family is only on the schedule four or five times in the year!

Yum!

Three families send in fresh produce each week. I ask for what amounts to one serving of snack for each child in the group–  a small bag of apples, a bag of baby carrots, half the number of bananas as kids, three cucumbers... you get the idea. I found over the years, though, that many parents happily send in more than this, easily supplying two class snacks per contribution. This means HALF OR MORE of our DAILY SNACKS are FRESH FRUIT AND VEGGIES. It's TERRIFIC!

Parents LOVE our snack system. When compared to packing two snacks every day, they save money and time by sending in class snacks less than ten times in the year. And both parents and I are happy that kids eat better overall... kids usually dig into fruit and veggies faster when their friends are happily munching beside them.

Sooo Good!

Here are the details that make it work:

Family participation is not mandatory in any way and I say that clearly to parents. However, over the ten years I've been doing this, I have come across very few families, as in maybe two, who never sent in produce at least some of the time. And, regardless, each student still got regular fresh snack as planned.

My school has a wide range of diverse families. One of the most striking things I discovered is that a household's economic means is neither a predictor of who will participate, nor how much produce will be sent in. Families who don't shop at fundraisers or book sales, for example, participate in supplying fruit. And my experience says that these very families are often the ones who show up at the classroom door with a whole grocery bag of produce!

If you teach at a school with extreme poverty, than this system might not work as described here. I encourage you to consider the benefits and think about ways that it could be tweaked so your students get more fruits and veggies, and healthier snacks in general. As a teacher, I've lived the adage where there's a will, there's a way. Before I developed this system in which all families to participate, I found three families who sent in enough fruit for each child once a week– one of them was not a parent at our school! In all my years of public school teaching we have had fresh produce... the will, the way.

Cukes become our favorite every year... Who knew?

It is not a hassle for me as a teacher. With all we have to do in our full days, I simply couldn't do it if that were not the case. I ask that parents wash the produce, but that's all. I've set up a space and routine for serving, and I've become a fast-as-a-TV-chef chopper... well, almost. Serving snack takes less minutes than everyone going to their backpacks to get and open snacks. Honest. And while I dole out and chop, we sing, do brain quizzes (like minute math), and talk to our friends. So although you could use your planning time to ready the snacks, you don't have to.

I make the schedule that parents follow by looking over the school calendar for the entire year. I list all the weeks we're in school and ask families to send in the goods on Monday or Tuesday of their week. Each week I assign three families to bring in produce. If it is a four day or less week, or there are days when we won't be having regular snack for some reason, I assign fewer families.

I discuss our snack system on Curriculum Night, and send home a letter explaining how it works. Although I like to discuss it at our meeting, this is not crucial to the system. The year I began serving fruits and veggies, I started midyear and it took off just fine. Also, there are always some families who miss Curriculum Night, and they come on board through the letter I send home.

As a help to parents, and to keep the snack program running smoothly, my Communication Parent (CP) sends home email reminders. My CP is a classroom parent who can't come in to help during the school day, but does have internet access. He/she emails a reminder to the parents of the upcoming week on the Friday afternoon before.

Quick FAQS:
- Crowds? This works in my classes of 18-22 students before needing any tweaking of amounts.

- Cleanliness? Each child gets a squirt of sanitizer hand gel directly before eating. We also practice "taking the first one our fingers touch." Bowls are cleaned after each use. My physician parents have had no issue with hand gel or community snack. With all the contact the kiddos have all day, snacking is probably one of our cleaner periods, because our germ awareness goes up with our healthy practices.

- Hungry? Kids always have the choice to eat or not. Even when they don't eat much, they go just another hour or so before having the chance to eat again. I encourage a "tooth bite," which is sticking one corner of one tooth into the selection. Funny how it's usually not as bad as they think.

- Yucky? Kids are permitted to say, "I don't care for this" one time. They are not allowed to say it more than that because it would be rude to the kids in our classroom community who like the food. The few kids who say this often say it right before they munch it all down :)

Snack was out on the veranda this spring day.

To make this all easier for you to see and use, I have a FREEBIE download for you to mull over. I include:
– a sample snack blurb to distribute to families describing our community fruit/veggie snack plan
– a sample nut-free, pantry snack list. This is the list I ask parents to choose from when they send in their boxes of snack for our pantry cupboard. Sometimes teachers don't want to have community style snack because they worry about kids with nut allergies. With community snack, I'm the gatekeeper doling out what everyone is eating, which makes our snacks more safe for allergy kids to be around. And the allergy families are happy, too.
– a sample parent schedule for bringing in produce throughout the year, which gives suggestions for produce to try.
– a sample email message that is sent to families by our CP.

Click on our basket of bounty to get to the FREE DOWNLOADS.

I would sure LIKE it if you would follow me! Various tips, tidbits and downloadables like this appear here. And we do believe in freebies :) Also, to my blogger friends, I'd love if you'd spread the word about this way of snacking and send readers on over to check it out. I think kids will benefit tons!

If you already have ways to get less junk and healthier snacks into your classroom, please share in the comments! If you're inspired to give it a try, I'd love to hear that, too. And even more terrific would be if you come back and let us know after it becomes your norm, or if you're a blogger, blog away. When you stumble upon something that works for you and your kiddos, you can't help but want to spread the word.

I say with great enthusiasm– try it, you'll like it!

Be sure to ask any questions you have below, too-- I'll get back to you! My hope is you'll put this healthy snack system in place for your kiddos.

Now click to head on back to more good ideas! Thanks, Tara!

The post Fruit Snack Everyday? Yes, Way! first appeared on kidpeopleclassroom.com

I'm Gonna Wash Those Germs– a Freebie for a Song!

I have been accused of wanting life to be a musical... and well, I come pretty close to getting just that. In my class we sing our way to the carpet, to line up, to eat snack, to count, to calm down, to wait, to say goodbye... you get the idea.  I do usually limit my song bursts to the classroom, only occasionally in the halls... and pretty much never at the grocery store or Target :)

But I better not lead you to believe that I have a wonderful voice.  It is only average, with a flat note thrown in every once in a while to keep me humble. That doesn't stop me though. The kids don't mind my crooning, in fact they love it, and our music teacher says my kids are always good singers. We know that kids learn through song. The brain hangs on to songs, so it is just one more learning technique to utilize. I once got extra points in an ed class when I knew the words to the Preamble. And I only remembered the words because I learned it as a kid on Saturday mornings from Schoolhouse Rock!

But back to musicals... I love Singin' in the Rain, The Sound of Music, Camelot, South Pacific...  So when I can sing them, I do. Not every song we sing in kindergarten needs to be sung to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, after all.  Take the hand washing song I made up. It's based on "I'm Gonna Wash that Man Right Out of my Hair" from South Pacific.  My words so lend themselves to the original, that I bet this little ditty is being sung somewhere already.

I'm gonna wash those germs right off of my hands.
I'm gonna wash those germs right off of my hands.
I'm gonna wash those germs right off of my hands,
And send them on their way!

In case you don't remember that song *gasp* enjoy this little snippet as a refresher. I keep coming back to my own post to watch it :)



It is so much fun to hear the kidpeople singing away at the sink!

Just for fun Jonathan drew up our four steps to hand washing and put in the words to the song. (Did you know that hand washing can be broken down to just four, one word directions? That's on the poster, as well.) It's a FREEBIE you can put up in your classroom, too. It comes in B/W and color, and in three versions– two with the song, one without. So whether you share my love of singing or not, the little poster will remind your kids to wash up. You can even use it as a shared reading– it's fun to explore the word, "gonna"– and make copies for the kids to color and take home during your health unit. To download from TPT, click on it below.

Just wait until I tell you what I do with Tea for Two... but that's another post!

Have fun!  Let me know if you like it... please, please, please!

And now this is linked up with Teaching Blog Addicts Freebie Friday.  You can click on the icon below or the one in my sidebar and find MORE great teacher freebies!

The post I'm Gonna Wash Those Germs– a Freebie for a Song! first appeared on KidpeopleClassroom.com