Julius for Scott Foresman Kindergarten

Here are a couple of ideas to go with Julius this week.

Click on Picture to Download

And here is another to go with "pictures of the sounds"  I forgot to save it as a jpg.  Whoops!  But you can still:

Download that one here!

I am reading this story with lots of books on pigs including:

The Three Little Pigs

Pigsty

My Lucky Day

If You Give a Pig a Pancake

We are going to do a lot of things with Character Studies in the books.  I know it isn't a whole lot, but something easy to assess the letter "Mm".

Free Back to School Unit

So I have been back now for a month with my 32 kiddo's.  Good news is we got an overage teacher and she took 6 kids with her!!!!  I love my little class this year!  

Here is a funny little story from my class:

Two of my students built a car from blocks. One pretended to crash and the other

"played dead". The "live" one runs up to him and was about to give mouth to 

mouth, but I caught him. The "dead" one sits up and says, "It's OK, I'm dead, he is 

supposed to do it." 

I am still laughing! 

 I LOVE KINDERGARTEN!!!!

Now, here is a unit from about 9 years ago from my old site LoveTwoTeach.  I still

 love creating, but I am loving all the new stuff from all the new FABULOUS 

bloggers.  Blogging seriously makes my life easier!!!!  Don't you guys just love the 

ideas, sharing, and love you get from blogging?

So, with all that said, here is an oldie, but goodie to help you with the beginning of

 the school year.

Classroom Tour,32 KIDS, and Blogger Friends STUFF!

OK, all of you who are bummed about only having a few weeks left for summer can now have a little sympathy!  I went back to school on July 5th!!!!!  I love year round school, but man ol man, I had a quick 3 week break!

Well, I now have 32 Kinder-Kiddo's!  I have 0 chairs and no tables left.  I am thinking of just getting rid of all my furniture to make room for all the bodies.  :)  There is no room at my school to make another Kindergarten, so I am making the best of the situation.

Here is a quick tour of the new room.  I was nice and organized, but with all my bodies, I kind of just throw stuff out of the way.  :)

I also feel like my room was decorated by all my blogging friends!

Our door into our classroom

Our cubbies:  I used my Silhouette  (teacher friends, do not by a Circuit machine!  Silhoutte does not use cartridges and you can use ANY text or picture made!!!!!  So much better!!!!) machine to cut out chalk board vinyl to put on their boxes and used a chalk marker to write their names.  Very easy to change names if a student leaves and a new one enters.

You can barely see the Pete the Cat Headbands in the cubbies from Fran at Kindergarten Crayons.  Love that book and LOVE her packet.  I have used pretty much every activity and they are so easy to use and K friendly.

More cubbies!  Excuse the books stacked.  I did use some for storage, but as the kids enrolled, I had to make way for more students!

I love my birthday banner from Poco and Pop!

I also love my Colors and Shapes by Poco and Pop.

My crayon artwork is by Honey Bunny Studio.  I bought frames at Michael's for $6.00 and used Command Picture Mounting to keep them in place.

Rainbow Names courtesy of Deana Jump!

My cute little chair I got for free and decided to Walsky it up for my reading chair!

I seriously love me some Polka Dots!  Mirror from Happy Everything and Love What You do Sign from Porter's Polka Dots.

More cute numbers from Poco and Pop!  I also have a sign by Hadar at Miss Kindergarten.  I also have a summer countdown picture.

More Poco and Pop letters and my posters from Honey Bunny.

My favorite thing, and I can't believe I didn't take a picture is my EMTanner Designs picture!  I found the company from Sydney over at Lesson's Learned, and pretty much bought one of everything.  I love this picture.  I have one that has me with a blonde bob, green eyes, freckles, and says Mrs. Walsky.  Of course, I hung it with pink and green polka dot ribbon.

Love it, and the kids adore it too!

I hope all of you are enjoying your last few weeks.  I have a bunch to share, but I had an Macbook emergency, which is where all my stuff was located.  I spilled coffee on my mouse pad on the laptop and now it won't work.  I am trying to dry it out with rice upside down.  I also ordered a magic mouse in hopes that I can use that when it is dry.  So until then, I am creating on the iMac.  If only I could find my stupid Adobe Illustrator CD to load on this thing!  Have a great week.  I know I will be passed out every night.  We teachers must have kidney issues as we grow older.  I don't think I have used the bathroom during the day in two weeks!  AHHH!

So excited to be nominated!

I am so excited to be nominated for Best Blog at Really Good Stuff!  Thank you to whom ever nominated me!  That just ROCKS!

Please vote for me or your favorite here by clicking on the button.  Good luck to everyone!  I don't even care if I win, I am just super excited to even get a nomination!
Voting begins July 1st!

Cute Printable Alphabet and other funs stuff for the classroom!

I found the cutest site today that has some great printable games and flashcards.

It is called MrPrintables.com

Look how cute these are!

I also love the file folder games!

My Version of the Chicka Chicka Boom Tree

I have wanted to make a palm tree for years, and was inspired by Deana Jump's tree directions to "Just Do It".

Here is my version of the famous Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Tree!

I used a 12 inch Quick Tube from Lowes, which they gave me for being a teacher.  It was regular $4.99

I also used magnetic primer by Rustoleum, because I wanted the kids to be able to use it as a Working With Words station.

I spray painted the tube with brown flat spray paint.  Lowes told me to use flat which will last longer and clean with a Clorox Wipe if needed.  Who knew??!!

For the top, I took Deana Jump's suggestion and used an old umbrella frame.  I went to Joann's today and bought green felt for the leaves.  It is on sale for $2.99 a yard and teachers get 15% off.  Love it!

I cut out the leaves and then hot glued them onto the metal frame.  I bent the frame on each spoke downward because I didn't want any kiddo's to get hurt or poked in the eye.

Then I just sat the umbrella on top.  I am going to glue the umbrella to the top of the tree when I get to school.  

I am so excited that the magnetic letters stick.  I love magnetic paint!

I also made this bench today. 

I was going to hand paint the letters, but decided to use my Silhouette machine, scrapbook paper, and Mod Podge.  

It turned out pretty darn cute too.

Ten Frame Game

Here is the first of many games that I created, with inspiration from Debbie Miller's new book on Math Workstations.

Click  on Pictures to download!

I also included the Math Talk card to help students engage in more math language when working together.  

Coming Soon: Math Work Stations!!!!

I am creating tons of stuff to go along with Debbie Diller's new book:  Math Work Stations!!!!  

Going to a training today helped inspire tons of new ideas!!!!  I can't wait to share!!!!

First, how cool are these?!?

DecaDots!!!!

These are so going in my Ten-Frames Basket!!!!

I am also loving the Ten-Frames Card decks!!!

I also love this Box by Origo!!!!

Everything in the box is AMAZING!  If you have a math wish list, add this to it!!!  I kind of took it over and I am holding it Ransom from our Title 1 math. 

Free Ocean Animal Unit

I hope everyone is enjoying their last few days of school. 

I am excited, but sad. 

I was offered a job in "KINDERGARTEN" at my children's school.  The school is a block away from my house, so I can walk to school everyday with my own kiddo's.

The decision was difficult because I was going to a brand new school with new everything!

I prayed about it, and decided that I needed to be a mom first and then a teacher.  I know...shocking for all of us teachers.  We give everything to our students!

I am sad to leave first grade, but kindergarten is my passion!  I love it more than any other grade.

So...with that said, I may have to change the title of my blog.  Not sure what it is going to be....

Anyways, as a thank you to all of you guys for putting up with my MIA, I am giving all of you my first ever unit I made.  It is about 9 years old now, but it has some good stuff in it for K-1 classes.  It is black and white, so it will be easier on ink.  :)

Download Ocean Unit Here

Serious Hate Mail for Teachers?!!!!

Sorry guys that I have been MIA.  Life always throws you curves, but nothing more than I can handle. 

 I just wanted to post a little hate mail.  :)  Seriously...at poor teachers, non the less!

I don't mind publicly displaying her information because she has chosen to attack poor little old me.  Unfortunately, it is a strike against all of us in our profession.  This comment (I guess) is on my post back in December on how I taught my class (who suffers from generations of poverty, violence, and low economic status) to use proactive and kind words with each other, instead of being reactive and using violence.  Silly me for teaching social skills to my kiddo's.

The entire contents of the email are displayed for you laughter and conversation!

On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 11:31 AM, Louise Owens <thewinebabe@gmail.com> wrote:

At least you refrained from saying that your proactive manners lessons would be the funnest thing you are doing from your class.
Do first grade teachers now have to use words that have been distorted beyond all comprehension by mindbendingly dull middle managers to teach manners?
Or would you advise your students to proactively avoid a sticky situation by punching the other kid in the face first.
No wonder kids are so dumb these days

(Comment as I read email: Not sure if mindbendingly is even a word?! 




My response:


On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 10:47 AM, kristen walsky <kwalsky@gmail.com> wrote:

YIKES!  It sounds like you would benefit from a Covey session.  We are a Franklin Covey school and our behaviors have DRASTICALLY reduced and quality of learning has increased due to the use of the 7 Habits.  I invite you to our school or even AB Combs in NC to see the proof in action.  My kids are not dumb, and we focus on proactive and positive behavior and learning.  No child is ever dumb, yet alone called stupid.  I am sorry to hear you have had such an unpleasant experience with your education  and what sounds like towards children. In fact, Covey Leadership teaches our students to not be so reactive in situations like this. I invite you also to go into a Kindergarten or First Grade class in your community to see how hard all teachers are working with children.   As teachers, we must pick up a lot of  skills that are not taught by parents. Children are our future, and we work hard to make them leaders, learners, and pleasant respectful citizens.

 

Dr. Kristen Walsky Ph.D 


Her response:

Wow. I am the mother of a 9th grader at one of the top schools in the country and am continually amazed, bemused and saddened at the lack of English skills among teachers.

 

Teach your children to think for themsleves and not mangle the english language to the point that I wouldn't be able to hire them as a bartender because they sound like backwoods hacks. 

Comment as I read email: Notice the grammar mistakes in her response.  (I taught middle school English, and could probably teach her a little too.  Themselves is spelled wrong and English should be capitalized)


I just had to share!  While I live in West Virginia, I have spent most of my life in Tampa, Florida.  I am proud to be fluent in Spanish, English, and backwoods hacks.  :)  


I guess Mrs. Owens you are truly in trouble!  I teach college, write books, teach children, and lobby for education reform.  What makes me chuckle is that I can't wait for one of my students to become your President!  Hee, hee!

Free Everyday Math Apps for Ipods!!!!

Great news for all of us Everyday Math Teachers!

During the NCTM conference, all EM Apps are free to download! 

I love Free!!!!

All of our favorite (well kind of) games are on Itunes!

All you need to do is search Everyday Math in the Itunes store and start the downloads.

Here are the dates of the free downloads

Honey Bunny Studio Winner and Why I have been MIA....

Sorry for being such a long time to post the winner for the Honey Bunny Studio Giveaway.  For the past 3 weeks, my mom has been having health issues.  

She got out of the hospital and had been doing great for a week.  

Then on Thursday, my dad called me and said,"Your mom is being down right mean.  She won't listen to a word I say."  

He took her out to dinner and right in the middle of dinner she fell into a seizure (she has no history of ever having a seizure).  She had seven seizures in the matter of 2 hours.

It has not been fun.  We finally got her stable today.  This is the first day she has not had a single seizure.  

It is tough to see your mother not know who you are, or who her grandchildren are (she lives for those kids).  

It was so sad in the ER.  She was like a child.  She kept asking when her parents were going to get there (they have been dead for 20 years). 

 I had to break it to her that her parents were no longer living and she broke down like it was the first time she had ever heard the news.  

The only good thing is she doesn't remember the pain of the seizures or anything after each one.  God is granting her peace through this ordeal.

So, now you know why I have been MIA, and took so long to announce the giveaway.

So here is the winner....

Briana said...

I "liked" Honey Bunny Studio on Facebook.

mrsfailsfrogs.blogspot.com

Congrats!!!  Please email your info and I can pass it on to Honey Bunny Studios. My email is:

kwalsky@gmail.com

More Rock Theme Ideas

First, thank you to everyone that shared ideas!!!!  

I am making some more stuff, but I am sharing what I have done for now.

Click on the rock to download!

Chocolate Chip Excavation

I did the Chocolate Chip Excavation years ago with my K's, but lost all of my stuff in the move to WV, so I made a little activity to launch our Rock unit.  

Click on the picture to download:

Monster Clipart For Teachers

Here is my try at monsters.  Again, let me know what you think... (be gentle...remember I am new to graphics:))

Feel free to use them on your stuff that you sell or share.  :)  

Click on the picture and you should be able to download the zip file.

Rock Ideas????

I am getting ready to start a PBL on Rocks for ALL of next week, and I need some ideas on Rocks.  I got the fabulous resource form Chalk Talk on Rocks, but I need some more stuff.  I am supposed to teach this all day for 5 days.

If you have anything or any good sites on Rocks, would you be willing to share????  I would love it, and be forever grateful!!!!  I could then put everything together for all of us in a pdf and share giving credit to everyone.

Thanks a bunch!

You can email me at kwalsky@gmail.com.

Nothing like waiting until the last minute for planning!  ;)

Kid Clipart for Teachers

Here is the first batch of clipart for you to use on your materials for TPT or TeacherEBooks.  All I ask is credit by putting clipart by first-grade-teachers.blogspot.com.  That is it.  All of my clipart is going to be free!  I am going to work tonight on some more stuff.  I am completely addicted.  

I am not sure how to download an entire folder on Google Docs, so I have to do it like this:

Boy 1

Boy 2

Boy 3

Girl 1

Girl 2

Enjoy them!