More Than Five Funny, Useful Things

You know me. No posts in over five weeks, then three posts in five days... and you're in for a treat today, because in addition to being Doodle Bugs Teaching Five for Friday it is also Funny Kid Friday. I've been chuckling for a week every time I think of this story.

As I write this, we are having an ice day. The sleet is pouring down at just barely 32 degrees, making for one heck of a dangerous mess outside. The dog wouldn't even go down the porch steps until I scraped them! The ONLY good thing that can happen on an ice day is for school to be cancelled... and it was! Now you know why I am posting three times in five days. I even had time for a nice breakfast... well, actually the same breakfast I would have had if I were on my way to school.



I suppose that photo is not especially appetizing... a food blogger I'll never be... I think they take photos of their food before they eat it. snort. It should tell you something, that we are down to the last bit in just a couple days. This new recipe from a friend shot to the top of our favorites list. It is an oatmeal bake. It takes about ten minutes to put together, and 25ish minutes to bake. I put in bananas, dried blueberries, and walnuts, basically because that is what we had. I think I'll try it with raisins, or even canned peaches next time, but it will work with most any fruit. The fruit gets lovely and smushy in the warm oatmeal.

Click on the picture to download the recipe. I added vanilla to the recipe and dropped the brown sugar from half a cup to a third. Hope you like it as much as we do!
Here we go then with Five for Friday... the recipe was a yummy bonus  


1.  Check out the bumper sticker I saw in a parking lot. It made me chuckle, though some days I want to scream this to the world...



like "used to" counts. ha.

2.  Everybody young and old knows THIS book

But not everybody knows that Amazon made an animated VIDEO of the book. A WONDERFUL video!  It stays pretty true to Ezra Jack Keats style and storyline, but fills in the details with some wonderful snowy city scenes and new diverse characters. Here are some of them, both new...

And old. That little snowman is so Snowy Dayish, isn't it?

The story involves Peter and his neighborhood getting ready for the holidays, but even so, I'm going to show it to my kiddos now in January. It's just delightful and worth checking out. I am so glad I found it. You can see a preview of The Snowy Day and Amazon's other holiday special, If You Give a Mouse a Christmas Cookie, by clicking on the gif below... isn't he just as you pictured Peter to be?




3.  Speaking of snowy days, there are sooooo many snow and ice activities to do with kids. Even if you live in Florida, there are plenty. I collect them all on my Pinterest Board dedicated to all things SNOW. Find the latest crafts, science activities, books and videos by clicking below.

Here's one of the ideas I mentioned a couple weeks ago, but with pics. You take old plastic containers, fill them with water, drop in stuff, freeze, then let the kids get the stuff out. It would be really cute to drop a handful of penguins in there. Unfortunately, I readied this activity while at home over break and there were no penguins in sight.. plastic, or otherwise. There were lots of miscellaneous do-dads however. I stash most of these things in my pockets as I find them out of place in the classroom, intending to put them away, but they often make their way home until laundry day, and beyond. If I want a random do-dad, I look on the top of the dryer.

Here are the found items in water placed out on our deck to freeze.



We did a lesson on states of matter with water. If water becomes ice at 32 degrees, then a glass of water must be warmer than 32 degrees. And when warm water drips on cold ice, what happens? Well, the ice melts and releases the item... at least releases it enough for you to pry it out with your little kid fingers.

Here is the iceberg activity after the littles were at if for a while with the eyedroppers. They got a lot of things out.

4.  I posted about these two ideas earlier this week. I thought they were so worthwhile I gave them each their own post. If you don't know about pokey pin pages, or you stay away from them because you don't want to give the kids push pins, have I got the tool for you! Click to read about the pokey pens, some sources for pokey pin sheets, and some new paper you might not know about.

And this one is a FREEBIE. Kids love to cut snowflakes, but the little guys just can't... or can they? Check out this free downloadable template that my DH made for me and let your kinders cut to their heart's delight. Click to see post.

5.        

A former student stopped by my room the other morning just as the bell rang. His cousin is in my class this year. 

Student:  Hi, Mrs. Wright. Could you give this hat to Grant? He left it at my house.

Me:  Sure thing. I'll give it to him now.

As student turns to walk away...

Me: Hey, bud, you sure are getting tall!

Student: Thanks, Mrs. Wright, so are you!

If only I were growing in the vertical direction...

There you have it. Now see what everybody else is up to this Five for Friday on Doodle Bugs Teaching. Thanks, Kacey, for the linky.

Thanks for stopping by. See you next time!

Safer Tool for Pokey Pinning Pages!

Lookee, lookee, lookee, I've got something to Show and Tell! See what I stumbled upon! A new, safer, pokey pin tool! More like a pokey pin pen, though it doesn't start out as such. In the hands of teachers and students they become a great pinning page tool, one that is much safer than the push pins which are usually used.

First of all, you need to know what pokey pin activities are. Sometimes they are called poke-a-page or pinning pages, as well as pokey pins. They are printables of pictures, words, or numbers, drawn with a dotted line. Kids usually use a push pin to poke a hole in each dot, creating a pretty cool image of micro dots of light when the paper is placed on a window– sort of like a constellation in the night sky. It is a satisfying sensory experience to poke those holes, and it provides great practice for fine muscle control, too.

Here is a pinning page from From the Pond. There is a link below.

The problem for me was that I worried about my kiddos using push pins. I have EXCELLENT classroom behaviors 100% of the time... well, 90%... well... most of the time. But even the most responsible kids in the most well run classroom can get a bit mad annoyed with each other from time to time, and all it would take would be one little impulsive swipe with a push pin in hand and Yowee! A lot of damage could be done to people and things. So only on very rare and highly supervised occasions have we done pokey pin sheets... until NOW!

They look like pens but they have tips like this–

See those little balls on the tips? They are much blunter than push pins tips, yet they go right through the paper. And they have nice handles, too– it's like holding a regular pen. You can even put a pencil grip on it for your kiddos who need it.

They are actually manicurists' tools. I think they use them to marbleize polish on nails and place little gems. Don't even ask me how I stumbled upon them. I'm not a glamour nail kinda girl– I get a pedi two or three times a year, but my shopping does take me on mysterious, meandering paths sometimes.

We use them at the table with a carpet square underneath like this.

Or on our tummies on the floor carpet like this.

Our school OT says the tummy style provides particularly good fine muscle practice. And it provides a nice movement break as well. The kids really like doing pokey pins this way.

Usually the directions for doing pinning pages say to use two pieces of paper– one with the image copied on it, and then a black piece of construction paper, paper clipped under the first. The holes of light do show up better on the window when the paper is dark. I can't stand wasting two pieces of paper, however, so sometimes I just copy the pinning picture on a regular piece of white or colored paper.

Do you know about colored paper place mats? They are colored on one side and white on the other. They have all sorts of uses for teachers... like when you do folded paper projects. They are bigger than 8.5 x 11, but when you trim them down to standard copy paper size they will go through the copier. I can copy the pinning image on the white side, and then when it is done the kids can turn it over to have black. Also, the copier ink even shows up on the dark side, so you can run it that way as well. I've used both black and dark blue with great success. With their scalloped edges I have also used them to mat kids artwork. They come in 100 page packages for about five dollars at stores like Gorden Food Service. They are useful to have around just so you can experiment with a new type of paper.

Paper placemats that are colored on one side and white on the other are
another useful type of paper to have around the classroom.

It was a very gray, cloudy day when I had the camera out, so I took this picture on our light table. You can sort of get the idea what pinning pages are all about. The "go" didn't come out too well in the picture, but they look better on a window.




And here is some more REALLY good news– these tools are quite inexpensive. Over time they have fluctuated in price on Amazon from $2 to $5 for the set. I stopped by our local beauty supply store to see if they carried similar tools, and they carry what seems to be the very same item. They cost about ten dollars though, considerably more than on Amazon. If you are in a big hurry then maybe shopping local would be a good idea, but otherwise, click on the Amazon affiliate paid link below to see them.

Pokey pin downloadables are available on TPT, of course. I especially like Mel's from From the Pond and Krissy's from Mrs. Miner's Monkey Business. You can find them by clicking below.

I hope you find these new tools useful and you and your students have lots of fun and learning with pinning pages. I would really appreciate it if you'd Pin this idea for me! I think other teachers would be especially happy to find pokey pin pens.

Now be sure to check out all the other fun Show and Tells on Forever in Fifth Grade's Linky Party. Thanks Stephanie!

Thanks for stopping by!  See you next time!

No More Pencils! Sooo Many Tips!

This is a post I've been meaning to write for some time now. I'm going to tell you WHY I don't use pencils in my classroom, WHAT I use instead, and HOW I make it all work. I'm also going to tell you why I value a very special new pencil sharpener... you'll see that pencil alternatives AND good pencil sharpeners go together later. Through all of this I will give many tips, both big and small, about writing tools in the classroom. I share my five points through the Five for Friday linky.

1.  THE WHYS

I don't use pencils in my classroom. I literally own about six standard pencils and I am the only one who uses them, and then only for recording assessments. There are several reasons why my students don't use pencils:
1. The sharpening of pencils is a PAIN... yes, I know all the systems to make sharpening easier, but I still don't think the various hassles are worth the time and effort on my part or my students'.
2. Pencils are difficult to write with. It takes considerable effort and strength to make a mark on paper with a pencil. I want my kiddos thinking about writing letters, writing words, and putting their thoughts on the page, not thinking about making the tool work.
3. I want to see my students' mistakes. Teachers glean a lot of insight into kids' thinking when we see the mistakes they make, like what their emerging skills are. And I don't want them working away at rubbing off or smearing their answers with the eraser. More wasted effort.
4. I find chewed on pencils with missing erasers depressing. Yes, that's my truth... maybe I had a bad experience with pencils growing up. When I see a pencil with a missing eraser I immediately pitch it in the trash.

2.  THE WHATS 

So I bet you're wondering what I use instead. I have two main writing tool alternatives.

One is Crayola Classic skinny markers– no I don't use "Washable" ones because the ink comes right off the paper making a bigger mess of hands than the classics. And classic markers wash out of clothes and off of hands just fine. I have yet to figure out why any teacher prefers washable. I buy my markers at Target when they go on sale for a buck a box. And yes, I buy a lot... like fifty boxes. Plus some fat ones for drawing. Significant budget goes to Crayola markers, but not to worry, you'll see I save money later in the post.

Our other pencil alternative is retractable pens, or "clickers" as we call them. Yes, the kids will click them at the beginning of the year, and one or two curious little engineers with inquiring minds will take them apart to see how they work– I put some out just for that purpose. However, with regular daily use, multiple times a day, the novelty of the clicker pen very quickly wears off.

My absolute favorite student pens are the Staples medium point 1.0 mm retractable pens with a comfort grip. The barrels of these clickers are generously sized and the soft grip makes them comfortable to hold. This pack of fifty pens includes three colors– black, blue, and red, and the bin costs just $11.99. $11.99 for fifty pens means the price per pen is just TWENTY FOUR cents!

The Dixon Ticonderoga #2 soft pencil, in the 72 bulk size is $12 on sale. That amounts to seventeen cents per pencil. And how long will those pencils last... you'll have to tell me because I don't use them. With all the lead dulling, tip breaking, and repeated grinding to get a point, I'm betting that box of 72 won't last too long in the classroom... to say nothing of the annoyance factor.  

How long did my bin of 50 clicker pens last?? Come on. Ask me. You know you want to know. I still had some left when I packed up the classroom from the bin I bought TWO falls ago. YEP. We got two years use from them. The ink in those pens lasts a long time. I'll buy another bin this year, but really, six dollars a year for pens is a very good thing for a teacher's budget. 

I invest more money in the Crayola markers, even though they are just ten cents a piece when on sale. The marker ink does not last as long because it dries out quicker, and the kids do occasionally use them to draw with as well as write. I let the kids write with markers for the first month of the school year and then we officially switch to clickers. They still get to write with markers sometimes, but I am careful to distinguish that skinny markers are for writing and fat markers are for drawing. It just makes the skinnies last that much longer. And they always get to draw with fat markers or crayons when they are writing with clickers. 

3.  One more WHAT

I would be remiss if I did not say that we also use skinny dry erase markers on clear eraseable envelopes. The best deal I've found is on Amazon– the fine tip Expo markers are about seven dollars for a box of twelve. I've found Lakeshore and the dollar store brands at good prices, too, and they work just as well. No matter the brand, make sure you get the fine point as the wide felt chisel tip gets smashed in when little hands use them. (The tips can be pulled out with needle nose pliers, but that is a hassle.) 

We use the C-line Stitched Shop Ticket Holders– I believe these were the original dry erase envelopes although there are various brands in use in classrooms these days. You simply slip whatever activity sheet you want the kids to be writing on into the sleeve. The kids fill out the sheet, then erase the sleeve so the next student can use it. This method really cuts down on the number of copies you need to make. 

And here's an extra tip– on Amazon the neon colored ones are ten for $13, while the black stitched ones come in a box of 25 for $23. You do the math. And the residue from the dry erase ink will not show up as much on the black edged ones as it does on the neon, so they look nicer with less cleaning. I know the neon ones are cuter, but for the money, and the reduced dirt, I say go for the black.

   

4.  SOME HOWS 

Okay, there are a couple of HOWs that I need to answer. First of all, with no erasers, how do kids correct their mistakes? Well, we use what I fondly refer to as the baseball method– three strikes and it's out. We learn how to draw one line through the middle of the letter or word, then one strike across the top, and one across the bottom. Yes, I know we as adults know that one strike will do it, but the little guys just don't think it is "fixed" enough with only one line. To take away their tendency to scribble and completely obliterate mistakes, wasting ink and making holes in paper, I came up with the baseball method. With three strikes, the kiddos feel they have thoroughly identified and marked out the mistake.... and the baseball metaphor gives me another quick teachable moment (usually half the class does not know how baseball is played), and it makes it fun.

My tip for storing the clicker pens is to teach the kiddos to click the pen "closed" so the ink doesn't mark up the bottom of the caddy. This way the retracted ballpoint end points down and the ink stays at the tip ready to write for the next day. They get it. It works really well.

Another suggestion– I put both the black and blue pens out for writing right from the get-go, right after the first month of school which we spend writing with skinny markers. A choice of black or blue is good and eases them away from the full rainbow of choices. I save the red pens for the revision writing unit to use for editing. I'll add here, for any remaining skeptics, that when I went to Teachers College for a week of Lucy Calkins training, the kindergarten team recommended writing with skinny markers at the beginning of the year, too. They were not too fond of pencils for the same reasons I give here. I felt somewhat justified in my uncommon rejection of classroom pencils.

The HOW of how I store the dry erase pens includes several not-so-obvious tips, too. I stumbled upon this tray while looking for a pen holder of certain specifications. I wanted one that would hold a table group's worth of pens and leave the marker caps in plain view, so we could go hunting immediately for any that turned up missing.

This black tray (also available in blue) comes from IKEA. It is supposed to be for making long skinny ice cubes for water bottles. However, if you turn it over it holds five dry erase markers really well. It you leave it right side up there are six slots, and that's good if you have six kids at a table. I go to the trouble of labeling these markers, one for each kiddo– it leads to much more responsible use. I put colored binder clips on the trays to distinguish which table group the pens belong to– no type of sticker or tape would adhere to the rubbery plastic. And a bonus, they stack really well. The whole system is a good one for us.


5.  And now...

I have a pencil sharpener to recommend. Yes. You read that right. After a whole post on how I DO NOT use pencils, I have cause to talk about a pencil sharpener. You see, although we don't use regular #2 pencils in class, we do draw with colored pencils. I like the brands that have softer leads as they seem to hold more pigment. My favorite brand for special projects is Faber-Castell, and for everyday use we use Crayola, the best of the common school pencils, I think. The problem is that colored pencils need to be sharpened quite regularly. AND another problem is that they shouldn't be sharpened in an electric pencil sharpener– something to do with extra wear on the blades and motor.

Chances are if you read any blogs you already know that this really neat-o pencil sharpener from Classroom Friendly Supplies is all the rage. The sharpener holds the pencil in such a way that it feeds the pencil in just the right amount for a sharp tip, with no over-sharpening. The kiddos only need to crank the handle. It comes in groovy colors to coordinate with any classroom decor. It is surprisingly quiet, too. And the price is very reasonable at only $24.99, or if you go in with teacher friends and buy three, each one is just $17.99.

When I heard Classroom Friendly Supplies was looking for blog reviews, I immediately thought of a REAL pencil sharpener challenge for them. heh, heh, heh. (evil laugh) I emailed the company and asked how their groovy sharpener did with COLORED pencils.

Their response was a true one: "Colored pencils are the kryptonite of most sharpeners!" They rose to the challenge though, and sent me one, free of charge, to test it out.

My honest recommendation: It worked great! The kids figured out how to let it hold the pencil, it went in as promised and came out with a sharp point without being ground to bits. All this was as promised.

How many kids does it take to sharpen pencils? snort.

When customer support emailed their response to my question about colored pencils they added that it might be best to have the kids only partially sharpen colored pencils. When the tip of a colored pencil gets very sharp the tip is more likely to jam, they said. I don't know if it jams when you sharpen it all the way, because I modified the directions for sharpening our colored pencils for another reason. Drawing and coloring with colored pencils is better if there is a lot of lead exposed, but with a slightly rounded tip, not a sharp point. So I told the kidpeople to load the pencil into the sharpener then give it three turns of the crank. They were also instructed to only sharpen when the leads were about gone. When the pencil went into the sharpener in this dull state, three turns of the handle put a perfectly rounded tip on the pencil.

See the little cuties counting the turns of the handle
on their fingers. hee. 

Another little colored pencil sharpening tip is to sharpen both ends of the pencil. That way drawing can happen for twice as long before a sharpening is needed. You can't really see the pencils in the cup to see that this is usually the case.

Needless to say, the pencil sharpener was a GREAT hit in class, both with the kiddos and with me. I will be using it over in the art area for years to come. I can heartily recommend the Classroom Friendly Pencil Sharpener because if it can do tricky colored pencils so well, it can certainly do any regular pencils that you might stubbornly continue to use after reading this post. snort!

You can find the sharpener by clicking on the icon below.

Whew, thanks for staying with me through this rather long post. I hope I gave you food for thought! I have been asked several times to explain how I get away without using pencils and I hope this explained it. I encourage you to share your thoughts and ask questions in the comment section below. I also ask you to PIN! PIN! PIN! if you found some ideas worth remembering and sharing. I would be thrilled to see it shared on Instagram, too. I hope you'll try going pencil-less this year. I swear, you'll never go back.

Now scootch on back to Five for Friday. So many good things are out in the blog-o-sphere. Thanks, Doodle Bugs Teaching for your ever wonderful linky!

See you next time! By the way, next time is going to be Monday, and it will be a tutorial on a new photo app I've discovered. Don't miss it.

P.S. If you haven't already, quick click on the pic below and enter to win a $100 TPT gift certificate. You can have up to twenty chances and you'll also find twenty freebies of various kinds if you go through the blog hop. My freebie is a writing packet from my TPT store, but HURRY! The giveaway and freebies end Friday night! 

Think–Talk Sticks and a Freebie Link

Okay, so I'm doing another post for Monday Wednesday Made It! I have little tool that could be useful in many classrooms, and now that Monday Made It is making it's move for the school year to just monthly, I don't want to wait to share. I call them Think–Talk Sticks.

These can be used lots of ways

This idea has two sources. I found it through Betsy Hubbard's post at Two Writing Teachers and she gives credit to Kathy Collins from The Educator Collaborative. Kathy originally used her sticks during reading. She has students place their stick near a character in a picture to talk about what the character might be thinking or saying. Betsy furthered the thinking by applying them to writing workshop. Betsy gives each of her students a stick to hold up when they are formulating their ideas and planning what to write, and then they turn it over when they are ready to share with their partners.

When I read about the sticks being used in these two good ways, I thought of yet another time when they might be useful and that is in group discussions. When I ask a question kids could show they were thinking of their answer, and then when they were ready to share, flip them over. I'm hoping it will increase student engagement by giving kids an action to show on the outside of what's going on inside their head. Some kids are always ready with answers, but others need a bit of help, and this would let students know what the expectation is. I would be able to say, "I see soandso thinking of their answer and I'll watch for him to let me know when he has it." And besides, think-talk sticks are fun and there is good purpose to pulling out a widget every once in a while– remember the brain grooves on novelty.

For all these reasons, I was all about the sticks. Betsy has a freebie sheet of the think and talk balloons– thanks, Betsy! You can simply cut them apart and glue them on either side of a stick. This being the season of extra hands available for cutting and a hot laminator at the ready, I decided to fancy them up a bit.

I happened to have black Post-its on hand, so I stuck the think bubble to the Post-it then laminated. I laminated the talk bubble, too. Hot glue worked well at attaching them to the sticks.

I didn't have any colored sticks at home, so a few seconds with some Sharpies and the sticks had color front and back. I color sticks like this sometimes because I like the uncolored stripe down the edge.

It was a lot of effort in cutting but I'm happy with them in the end. I'm not suggesting you do all this crafting, I sure don't usually when it comes to little sticks. I do encourage you, however, to click on Betsy's bubble page below to read her post and get her freebie. If you don't know about Two Writing Teachers check them out while you're there. This group of educators does a fantastic blog and I hardly ever miss it because I come away with new things to think about every time.

Click to go to Two Writing Teachers for the freebie

I bet if you make some of these you'll not only use them in the ways mentioned her, but in new ways, too. I love teaching tools that can be used over and over to stimulate student thinking. If you don't have time to make them now, Pin! Let me know in the comments what you think.

Trot back to Monday Made It. Find more stuff.