Gone Batty!

Hard to believe that the first nine weeks of school flew by without me blogging one single time.  That's the kind of year it's been so far--crazy busy!  I'm sad that there hasn't been time to write more, but I've been like a salmon swimming up stream just to keep up!  And, the sad news is that the upcoming months aren't going to be much better in terms of how busy I am.  Oh well, that's how life is, right?

I did want to share these cute little bats.  The students made them and then made words with the -at chunk to roll up and put inside.  I got the idea from Kimberly Jordano, so I can't take full credit, but I thought they turned out cute, and the kids loved making them.  

Here are a few pics of the finished products.  Enjoy!

REKENREKS!

Happy summer everyone!  I can't believe several things:

• that we got out of school on June 8th--how late is that??!!
• that two weeks of summer have already passed by so quickly
• before you know it, it will be time to think about going back!

With all this talk about the new TEKS (for those of us in Texas), and the Common Core standards for the rest of you, we need to explore "rekenreks."  What is a rekenrek, you might ask?  It is a math tool for young learners, similar to an abacus.  It was first developed in the Netherlands, but it has recently hit the US by storm.  We will be using them extensively in our district next year.  So, I wanted to get a head start on mine.  I made them a couple of months ago, and I started using them in my class with great results.  The kiddos loved using them, and since it was the end of the year, they knew just what to do with them to make different combinations of numbers by composing and decomposing.  I can't wait to start using them at the beginning of the school year with my new crop of kindergartners to see how their little minds are going to open up!  

I saw several different examples of rekenreks made by others in our district.  But, some of them were bulky, others looked hard to make, and some even looked expensive.  I decided to design my own, and I love how they turned out. Here are some pics:

The first pic is my teacher one.  I used black foam board, just to make mine look a little different from the kids'.  I used a nail to poke the holes, and I used a very thick yarn to keep the beads from sliding all around. (In one of the videos I watched, the teacher had to keep holding the beads down because they were sliding all around, and I didn't like that.)  The beads are 

1 1/2 inch beads that I got from Jo Ann.  I just spray painted them so they could be two different colors.  (A word of caution: Be careful when purchasing your beads--the first ones only had a hole on one end--they were more like a finial!) I just tied the yarn tightly to the back and then used packing tape to secure it further.  Then, I went around the edges with cute duct/duck tape, and I added another piece of yarn at the top so I could hang it on my board.

The next 3 pictures show the student ones.  They are roughly 4 inches by 11 inches.  It just so happened that the foam board I got had those ghost lines on the back, so once I did one, it was easy to count the squares so they were evenly spaced every time.  Again, I punched holes with a nail, and then I used pony beads and pipe cleaners.  I pulled them tightly and taped them down with clear packing tape and went around the edges with duct tape. They feel very sturdy, but time will tell.  Kindergartners can usually find a way to tear anything up that you have! 

I made a class set of these, plus a few extra, so I should be good to go in the fall.  

One more thing--I was at a training yesterday, and we talked about rekenreks a lot.  Did you know that there is even an app for that???  There is!  Just put "rekenrek" in your app search, and there it will be.  And what's even better is that it's a FREE app!  

Hope you have fun making your rekenreks!  Let me know if you have any questions about how I made mine.  I'd be happy to try to help.

Ribbit!

Check out these cute little froggies we made this week.  It was our turn to make a project for our local nursing home, so since we have been studying life cycles and oviparous animals, these cute little guys fit right in.  We started with 12 X 18 construction paper, and then trimmed it to a 12 X 12 piece and a 6 X 12 piece.  The 12 X 12 piece gets cut into a circle, and the 6 X 12 piece is used to trace the kids' hands.  The hands become the feet of the frog.  Next, we used a white oval and a slightly smaller black circle for his eyes.  Finally, we cut  2 X 12 inch strips of red for the tongue.  It worked great to roll it on a pencil to make it curly.  The kiddos put the froggies together, added a nose and a mouth, then added cute messages for our friends at the nursing home.  They were super simple to make, and the class enjoyed making them!  Thanks to my awesome teammate Mary Brown for the idea!

Goodbye Static Electricity!

Why does it always happen that I get so busy that I run out of time to post on my blog?  I feel so bad that it has been so long---AGAIN!  But, here I am apologizing and wishing I had done a better job of keeping up.  I am going to try my darndest to keep going and be more consistent.  I always have the best intentions--I promise!

Anyway, the reason for this blog is to share with you what I feel like is a very important tip!  Get ready, because I feel like this has changed my life (well, not really, but it is still good to know info)!

Here is Helpful Hint #367:
Ever have a terrible time cutting out lamination because of static electricity?  Especially in the winter time--oh my goodness!  That stuff is everwhere, and my husband finds it all over the house. Honestly, I think it's worse than finding Christmas tree needles on the floor in the house 6 months after Christmas! 
I was racking my brain trying to think about how I could stop the static.  I tried rubbing dryer sheets all over my scissors and lamination, but that proved to be a ditch effort.  So, I was in Target one day, on the laundry aisle, and I spotted a can of Static Guard.  I thought to myself, oh well, why not try it and see what happens?  Well, lo and behold, it worked like a charm! All you have to do is lightly spray over the front and back side of your lamination AND the scissors.  It works great!

Check out the pic, just so you can see what the can looks like.

By the way, isn't that a super cute leprechaun 10 frame game?  Got it as a freebie on TPT!

So long for now--let me know if you have any other great ideas for getting the  static out of the lamination.  For now, for me, it's Static Guard to the rescue!

Snowman Making Words Activity

Today's post is a really short one:

I think this activity was one of my favorites so far this year. We did a snowman making words lesson, but we also made a snowman!  I have done the making words part of the lesson for years, but my fabulous new teaching partner, Annie, made this cute snowman  pattern, and I just had to do it too!  The kids really enjoyed making their snowmen, and once we finished making the words, they got to glue the letters onto his hat.  Here are a couple of pictures of the finished products.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Wow!  It's amazing to me how time flies when you are staying busy!  I cannot believe how long it's been since my last post, but the holidays were super busy for me.  Hopefully I can slow down some and post more in the upcoming weeks and months. 

I wanted to share a super cute New Year's activity we did this week.  I can't take full credit, because I got the idea from a fellow blogger.  Her blog is called The Sharpened Pencil, so check it out if you get a chance!  Anyway, we made these little faces with party hats, then added a party horn.  On the hat we wrote our New Year's Resolutions.  First, we discussed what resolutions are, and many of the kids had heard their parents talk about them.  We have been working really hard at my school this year on increasing our vocabulary, so instead of writing, "My goal is...", we wrote, "I resolve to..."  Everytime we use big words in our school, we all say, "WORD!" and hold up 3 fingers to make a "W".  It's been really neat to see their vocabularies increase, especially in kinder.  Our favorite word by far in my class has been "savvy."  Everyone just loves this word and they use it in their writing almost daily!  Ok...so I diverted a little...back to our projects.  I am going to post several pictures so you can get an idea of how they turned out.

My bulletin board out in the pod...

                            Carter said, "I resolve to be a better basketball player."

                                           Neil said, "I resolve to be a better brother."
                                         

                                        Adam said, "I resolve to not lose a puzzle piece."

                  Calah said, "I resolve to be the best tiny titan in the school!

It's kind of hard to see the background of the hats, but I used scrapbook paper, and the hats were really cute.  I hate that you can't see the prints very well...

My next post will be a super cute making words activity we did this week.  Stay tuned...