Saturday, March 22, 2014

Seuss Rewind {freebie!}

Hey yall!
 
This has been a whirlwind of a month and I have been such a slacker!
I've been meaning to post about our Seuss-week for ages now, but time is really slipping away!
 
So let's just rewind for a second :)
 
Seuss week is my absolute favorite week to teach. I love planning all the fun activities, but we can never seem to fit it all in! I'm thinking next year, we'll make it more like a week and a half :)
 
Here are just a few of the fun activities we did that week:
 
I told them their goal was to read at least 24 books by the end of the week. We used these punch cards from Crayonbox Learning. Their prize was a cute Seuss-themed pencil :)
 
We went to the media center to listen to a story from the media specialist. She read "If I Ran the Circus."
 
 
They talked all about imagination and using it to create their own animals. Then they used modeling clay to bring their animals to life!
 
 
 
The teachers on my hall decided to all dress up to read to classes. We rocked it!
 
 
We read "Barthlomew and the Oobleck," then made our very own oobleck.
 
 
We read "Green Eggs and Ham." So, of course, we had to try them for ourselves!
It was unanimous.....green eggs and ham are tasty!
 
 
We also made these yummy "Cat in the Hat" snacks.
 
 
 
We read tons and tons of books, then gathered data on our favorite Dr. Seuss book.
"Green Eggs and Ham" was a class favorite!
 
This printable came from Lindsay over at Teacher Bits and Bobs.
I snagged it up a couple of years ago before the big Seuss to-do, so it's not available anymore :/
We also read "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish," then sorted and graphed rainbow goldfish crackers. Notice the food theme???
 
I forgot to snap a picture, but we used my printable below.
Click the picture to snag your copy!
 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7Fo8OLW9tuVTzhZUlM2T1AtbWc/edit?usp=sharing
 
We also wrote about our favorite Dr. Seuss book, made a birthday cake craftivity for the great Dr., illustrated our own ABC book using fun Seuss characters, and watched "Horton Hears a Who."
 
Even though Read Across America Week is long over, hopefully you can take some ideas away for next year!
 
Happy Saturday, friends!


Sunday, March 9, 2014

Bright Ideas Blog Hop

Hey yall!
 
It's that time again...time for the Bright Ideas Blog Hop!
 

In our classroom, we have books. We have lots of books.
We have baskets upon baskets upon baskets of books.
 
And I love for my kiddos to have access to all those wonderful books.
But there are some books that I like to keep hidden away in a little drawer...
 
That's right...I hide some of my books from my students.
Why?
 
I hide them because they are special...they are books that I use to teach!
And I want to keep them in nice condition, hence the need to hide them from those eager little fingers.
 
I have a very simple system that I use to organize all those wonderful books for teaching specific lessons.
 
 
I keep them all in this little filing drawer in my teacher cabinet. I organized them by topic and put them in hanging file folders.
 
Need books on plants? Check the drawer.
Need books about Earth Day? Drawer.
Need books to teach nouns? Yep....they're in there!
 
Here's some close-ups of the tabs.
 


 
Each file holds books that I will want to use when I'm teaching a specific topic or holiday, so I don't have to spend time looking through the shelves.
Notice how they are not fancy or cute....just simple, yet effective.
 
Here's an example of some of the books that are in my "1st Week of School" file.
 
 
I meant to snap a few more pictures of books that are in other files but it was Friday afternoon and....well, you know how that goes!
 
I told you it was a simple system! I hope that you might find it somewhat useful.
 
Now, for more useful teaching tips and bright ideas, check out Kindergarten Smorgasbord!
Greg is going to show you how to make something that is a must in every elementary classroom...glue sponges!
 
SSK
 
Or you can just use the linky below to find another bright idea!
Happy hopping, yall!