Lesson Plans and Lollipops

I'm Back!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Lesson Plans and Lollipops) — Mon, 25 Aug 2014 02:16:00 +0000

I have been back at work the past 3 weeks and it is totally draining me. If you didn't know, I haven't been to work since January. I had to have major Crohn's related surgery. I am getting back into the swing of things and I hope to have some things to share soon.

Last week, my class made a book using our new sight words "I am___." They drew a picture of themselves and glued their sentences to the page. I plan on adding a small picture of them to each page so we can read the book easier. Oh, did I mention I only have 12 students! I love the small class, but it makes me question job security. I think I need to go recruit. Lol, I'm not sure where you would go to recruit new kindergartners.

This year I plan on changing out my traditional play centers. We had a big training about "developmentally appropriate" practices in kindergarten and purposeful play. The sad thing is that we knew what was developmentally appropriate, but we were pressured in the past to do things that weren't. I'm so glad that we are moving back in this direction!

I hope everyone has a great week! I'm taking my camera to school tomorrow so I can, hopefully, post some pics.

Where Have I Been?!

noreply@blogger.com (Lesson Plans and Lollipops) — Mon, 21 Apr 2014 01:02:00 +0000

After all the craziness with the water around here, I ended up needing surgery. There was no way around it. I didn't want surgery, but I had to or I wouldn't get better. You see I have Crohns and I have struggled with bowel obstructions for the past 2 school years. In the past, they cleared on their own without surgery, but it required an NG tube and no food or water for a week. This time I spent a week in the hospital, went home, and had to return the next day because it was back. When I saw my bowels on the screen down in x-ray, I realized that I had a really narrow area and it wasn't going to get better so I finally agreed to surgery. I spent a month in the hospital. I haven't been to work since January and I don't plan on returning until next school year. I hope to start blogging soon with my ideas for next year. I am just now beginning to feel like my regular self and I'm getting excited for summer with my son.

School Closed Contaminated Water

noreply@blogger.com (Lesson Plans and Lollipops) — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 19:43:00 +0000

Our water has been contaminated by a chemical used to clean coal. I could smell it on my way to work yesterday morning at 7:15. They didn't find the leak until around 9:30 am. I thought something was wrong with my car. We don't know when we will be able to use our water again. This incident may cause long term effects. I'm not sure why this type of chemical would be contained along a river. It seems to me that this should be stored somewhere else.

Another Cold Day Off

noreply@blogger.com (Lesson Plans and Lollipops) — Tue, 07 Jan 2014 22:41:00 +0000

We have been off school the past two days because of extremely cold weather. It makes me wonder what they do in Alaska. I have been enjoying the time off though. I must admit that I haven't thought much about school this week. I have been working on becoming more organized at home. It's so easy for me to be organized at school, but home is a different story. I live with two really disorganized boys (one being my husband). While I do love them, their lack of organization is killing me. Our family resolution is to be more organized so we are working on changing some bad habits. I admit that I may also contribute to our lack of organization too.

Well, we already have a 2 hour delay for tomorrow which means I will wait an hour before heading to work. I have learned the hard way not to leave at my normal time. I have traveled dangerous roads in the past just trying to get to work just to pull in the lot and get the call that school is closed. This girl is not doing that anymore. Did I mention that I'm not really prepared for school tomorrow and the closings have messed with my plans? Oh, I will figure it out, but it makes for a rocky week.

I hope everyone is staying warm.

Happy New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (Lesson Plans and Lollipops) — Sat, 04 Jan 2014 19:32:00 +0000

I took a break from my digital life to spend more time with my family during the holidays. My husband bought me a new laptop for Christmas and today is the first day I have plugged it in and turned it on. I can't believe I let it sit in the box for that long!

My next step is to transfer my files over to the new laptop because my son will be using my old one. He loves going to Lego.com. He is a Lego genius! You know that age range they have on Lego boxes? It doesn't matter what it says. My son can build it on his own using the directions. He's only 7 and some of those boxes say 10-12 years on them.

I don't have anything new to share today. We started back to school on Thursday and had a snow day on Friday. I hear that we might be getting more snow so I'm not sure how next week is going to go. I do hope everyone had a great break and spent time with their families. Oh, yeah, Happy New Year!

See What I Bought

noreply@blogger.com (Lesson Plans and Lollipops) — Thu, 05 Dec 2013 04:11:00 +0000

I'm late posting this. I crashed yesterday. I crashed again today, but I woke up earlier. Today has been CRAZY!!! It doesn't help that this teacher and her lovely assistant were crazy too! For example, a teacher was talking about her son moving to Nashville. I replied something along the line of "Does he like Texas?" Yes, Texas came out of my mouth. Umm, where did that come from? I should have known that when I missed the last stair this morning that it was going to be a crazy day for me.

So I took advantage of Cyber Monday and did a little shopping on TPT. Here is what I bought:

I bought the Interactive Math Notebook for Kindergarten Bundle from Karen Jones. I can't wait to start using these with my math instructions. These are aligned to the common core and fit in with what we are doing in math. I thought I would use them as a review or an assessment.

I bought these from Marsha McGuire of A Differentiated Kindergarten. I just love her stuff! She makes it easy for me to differentiated activities. I also purchased this from her.

I have been eyeballing this bundle for a while so I decided it was the perfect time to purchase it. I really drill cvc words. Most of my students will be able to read all the words right away, but for those who struggle word families are a great way for them to learn a lot of words.

I bought these from The Printable Princess. This is one of the first items I have bought from her and I love this! It's not too Christmasy (I think I just made a new word.) so I can use it with students who don't celebrate holidays. I also purchased this packet from her.

These can be used any time in the year.

I purchase the Phoneme Segmentation Activities from Tara West. This has saved me a lot of time and I can print them on my black ink only printer at school.

As you can tell, I love to shop! I'm glad I am supporting other teachers when I buy from TPT. I have always felt that it is important to use a variety of materials and get ideas from other places. It makes teaching and learning better. I don't feel that I should try and recreate the wheel so if I don't have time to make my own activities, then I search out ones that I can use. I'm working on something new and I hope to have it finished this week. When it is finished and posted, I will let you know because it will be 50% off for the first few days.

Oh, Spike the Elf on the Shelf is back this year in my home. He finally made his appearance last night. My son was excited to see him this morning. Did I tell you my classroom has an elf? We named him Mr. Snowflake. My son's class also has an elf and her name just happens to be Snowflake. Lol, I wonder if they are married.

My Plans This Week

noreply@blogger.com (Lesson Plans and Lollipops) — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 05:06:00 +0000

This week is about Hanukkah. We will be reading and learning about Hanukkah. I have a few Hanukkah books that I like to read to my class. One is Mrs. Greenburg's Messy Hanukkah by Linda Glaser.

I also like to read The Trees of the Dancing Goats by Patricia Polacco.

This book is long so I plan on dividing it over a couple of days. I have a few other books that I plan on reading. One is the Dreidel Song and the other one is Oh Hanukkah. I'm not Jewish, but I love the Dreidel Song. I find myself singing all the way through the book. I once had the song as my ring tone for the month of December. It makes me happy. :)

I also plan on reading the Jolly Postman by Allan Ahlberg and Janet Ahlberg. It's a cute way to introduce students to letters and letter writing. Then we will compose a letter as a class and label the parts of the letter. If we have time, students will write a letter to someone. I would say write one to Santa but not everyone in my class celebrates Christmas so we will write a letter to a friend or family member or even a teacher.

The rest of the month is devoted to learning about Holidays Around the World. I would share my Holidays Around the World patterns if I could, but they are really old and I have no idea where they came from. I inherited them from a teacher like 8 years ago. Which reminds me that I graduated college 10 years ago in December. Wow! Where has the time went?

My class will meet our elf tomorrow. I will have to let you know how it goes.

We will be learning about the letter B this week even though we already know all of our letter names and we have been working on the sounds forever. It's just our phonics focus for the week. We will be making a letter B Bear. I'll post pictures after we make them which is looking like we will get to them on Friday.

The past few weeks my class has been doing calendar along with me in a calendar journal and they beg to do them. I guess it's because we get a lot of math in with these journals. Now, I didn't make my own journal. I use Growing Kinders It's Calendar Time! Daily Calendar Book. This has been perfect for my class! I actually purchased it last school year but didn't get around to using it until this November. We also started using an interactive journal before we went on our break. I am going to just call it an interactive journal so we can put both reading and math in it. I might even make a divider for reading and math. They loved this too!

Well, if you haven't heard already, TPT is on sale tomorrow and Tuesday. Everything in my store will be discounted 20% and if you use the TPT code CYBER, you will get an additional 10% off. This totals to a 28% discount. I did the math. It really is 28%. If you are wondering how, take 20% off of $10 and you will have $8. Take an additional 10% off of that and it comes out to $7.20. When you add the discount up, that was $2.80 off which is 28% of $10. It made sense to me all of a sudden. Lol

Happy Shopping! Check back tomorrow to see what I bought from the sale.

Happy Thanksgiving and Upcoming Sale

noreply@blogger.com (Lesson Plans and Lollipops) — Fri, 29 Nov 2013 04:57:00 +0000

Happy Thanksgiving! My husband and I cook Thanksgiving dinner for our family. That's right. Everyone comes to our house to eat. I'm just glad they are willing to drive an hour to come here for dinner.

Did you know that Teachers Pay Teachers is having a sale Monday and Tuesday?

I'm going to leave you with a song that is played on the radio this time of year. Enjoy! It's not Thanksgiving without hearing this song. I listen to Coach Kidd every morning on my way to work. Libby Jo is no longer on the air with him, because she started teaching.

Tie Dye, a Freebie, and Looking Ahead

noreply@blogger.com (Lesson Plans and Lollipops) — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 02:26:00 +0000

I took a small break from blogging this past week. I had a lot going on at school and at home. Well I'm back to tell you what we have been up to.

We did a little finger painting last week. I put red and yellow paint on the paper and the students mixed the colors. I gave each student a leaf to trace and cut out. These turned out cute. I'll have to remember to take a picture of the finished product tomorrow.

We learned about pandas and made a can, have, are chart about pandas. The students used the chart to help them write about pandas. We worked on writing 3 sentences about pandas. One sentence for each section of the chart. We also watch an online panda cam which was so cute. We even found video that was taken of panda twins and how they changed in the first 100 days. We loved the video so much that we watched it twice and invited the neighboring class over for the second viewing. You can go here to check out the video. Pandas are 100 days old before they get their name.

We made ~~Indian~~ Native American costumes last week. Each student brought in a t-shirt and I took them home to tie dye brown. I was told by the other K teachers that I did fancy tie dying. Check out my fancy work below.

After the shirts were dyed, we cut fringe on the bottom and the sleeves. We added a paper and ribbon belt that the students decorated along with our headdress and our patterned bead necklace. We worked on patterns while making the necklaces. Last year we strung pasta, but this year we used pony beads. I had a lot of pony beads in my cabinet so I thought we should use them.

My new Smart Board was installed last Friday. I am happy to have a Smart Board that works properly. My last one had issues. Oh, did I mention that I also got a new laptop?! Now I don't have to worry about the virus the last one had. Russian videos kept popping up. At least I think they were speaking Russian.

My wonderful principal walked in today carrying these echo mics. I have 24 for of them now. It so weird that he bought them for use because I was talking about them last week and how I use to have one to do my daily weather report with. Now I just need to figure out how I am going to use 24 of them. If you have ideas, please share them with me in a comment below. I'm begging.

Before I left school today, I got out my December books. This is just a few of my books. I actually have another tub of holiday books and more at home, but these are the ones I plan on using for the month of December. Above you will see Hanuka. Below you will see a stack of Christmas books. The stack is bigger than it looks.

I only have three Kwanzaa books, but I plan on adding to this collection and my Hanuka collection too. One more day of work and then I am off for Thanksgiving. Tomorrow is a half day for the students. If you are already beginning your December plans, then check out this freebie I posted last year. Just click the picture below to get your freebie!

Oh yeah, I updated my Gingerbread Math and Literacy Centers pack and my Christmas Fun Literacy and Math Activities.

How I Get My Kids Reading.

noreply@blogger.com (Lesson Plans and Lollipops) — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 01:34:00 +0000

So yesterday I said I would share my daily reading secret. It's really not a secret if you worked in my old school, because we all used the strategy. Every morning since the first day of school I have used a series of charts that progressively get harder through the year. The first 6 weeks of school my focus is on letter names, letter sounds, phoneme blending, and sight words. The chart would look like this (I would show you an actual picture of one of my charts, but they are on my school laptop):

Letter Naming and Sounds

G h A L g
H o p a O
A l g G P

When I show this chart, we go through the letter names first. I point to the left of the letter and I count to 3 in my head for think time. Then I tap under the letter and I use a castanet to make a click sound. This indicates to the student that everyone is to respond for the letter name. I go through the chart a second time, but we do letter sounds. Everyone responds every time. So students are seeing it, hearing it, and saying it.

My next chart has sight words. It looks something like this:

the a am little a
she my the am she
little the am she the

This chart changes as we learn more sight words. The chart usually has about 15-20 words to read. I point to the left again and count slowly to 3 in my head. Then I slide my finger under the word and click my castanet again so students know when to respond.

The next chart I have is for my eyes only. I usually black out my Smart Board for this. I use a green, yellow and red Unifix cube. I tap each cube and give a sound for a three phoneme word with each cube. Then I slide my fingers across the cubes as a cue for students to respond with the blended word. My chart looks something like this:

/c/ /a/ /t/ = cat
/s/ /i/ /p/ = sip
/p/ /o/ /t/ = pot

There are about 10 words that we do like this every morning and it includes long vowel sounds too. Sometimes the words will have 4 phonemes so I add an orange cube to my Unifix train.

After the first 6 weeks, we start blending cvc words. The chart looks something like this:

top hot log sit rip
log hog lot tip hip
Tam am ham sip pot

The chart has 15-20 cvc words using the letters that we have spent some time focusing on. The first few weeks that we do this, the chart may only have 5 words, but it increases until we have 15-20 to practice. For this chart, I point to the left of the first letter to indicate think time. I tap under the first letter and everyone gives me the letter sound. I repeat this for the second letter and then we go back to the beginning of the word and blend the first 2 sounds. Then I touch to the left of the last letter for think time and I tap under the letter for everyone to tell me the sound. Once I hear the sound, we go back to the beginning of the word and blend all three sounds together. Then I slide my finger quickly under the entire word for everyone to read the word quickly. This is called sound by sound blending. After doing this for 6 weeks, I add another chart with cvc words. The first chart we practice sound by sound blending. The second chart I touch to the left of the word and slowly count to 3 in my head. Students have to think in their head what the word is. Then I slide my finger under the word and everyone reads the word.

After the first 12 weeks of school, I add another chart. This chart is phoneme segmentation. Students do not see this chart, but it is on my laptop to remind me which words I am having students segment. I give the students a 2 or 3 phoneme word and they tell me the sounds that they hear in the word each time I raise a finger on my hand. I tell the a word "sap." They repeat the word. Then I hold up one finger and the kids say /s/. I hold up a second finger and they say /a/. I hold up a third finger and they say /p/. I do about 10 words every day like this. I give them harder words later in the year.

Once they get the hang of doing the charts, they only take about 5 minutes. I will say that later in the morning, I flash alphabet card for letter names and then again for sounds. I also use flash cards to review the sight words. In the afternoon, I use number word flash cards and numeral flash cards. Right now we are working on number words for 1-10 and numerals 1-30. Additionally, I review sight words at the beginning of every guided reading group and the letters and sounds at the beginning of the groups that still need this practice.

I hope this helps. My teaching partner and my lovely assistant are amazed at how well my class is reading. Last year, everyone in my class (except 2, but one of them had the ability, she just didn't come to school) met the end of the year DIBELS Benchmark at the middle of the year Benchmark and half my class was reading above grade level. I don't claim that it will work for everyone, but it has been working for the majority for several years now in my class.

Do you have any strategies that are really working in your class? I would love to hear about them. Leave me a comment.

Freebie Friday and I am Featured!

noreply@blogger.com (Lesson Plans and Lollipops) — Sat, 09 Nov 2013 05:04:00 +0000

Yay! I was featured on Teaching Blog Addict! Check out this week's link up to get great freebies from fellow bloggers!

Here is what we have been doing this week.

I really challenged my students this week during our guided reading time with a little rhyming cvc word bingo. Talk about challenging! Most of my kiddos could do this without any problems and it was more challenging for them. I have about 3 kids out of 16 who really struggled and still need work on sounding and blending. We will be playing this more. This is from my Thanksgiving Small Group Reading Activities pack. Click the picture to learn more about the pack.

We have been working on our writing. The students dictated sentences to me about leaves. Next week I will cut up their sentences on strips of paper and give it to them to put back together. They will glue their sentence onto a piece of paper and illustrate. We will use our illustrated sentences to make a class book about leaves.

We also wrote about bats. I love some of the words they gave me for this chart! Did you know that bats have a predator other than humans? They are called cave crickets. They look like a granddaddy long legs to me. When a bat smacks against a cave wall and injures itself, the cave crickets will swarm around it and eat the bat. Interesting? Isn't it? I learned that on a cave tour years ago so if you ever go spelunking, beware of the cave cricket.

My lovely assistant was absent today and I had a sub assistant. She told me at the end of the day that she was really impressed with the reading ability of my class. She hasn't been in a kindergarten class that is reading like mine. It made me one proud teacher! It made me think, what am I doing that is different from the other teachers? I know what it is. It's a little strategy that I use daily that I learned when I taught in a Reading First school. I still use it the first 5 minutes of every day. I'll share more about it tomorrow. ;)

This week, I made a new listening log. You can get it here for free! Just click the picture below. Happy Friday!

Thanksgiving I-Spy Freebie

noreply@blogger.com (Lesson Plans and Lollipops) — Sat, 02 Nov 2013 23:23:00 +0000

I survived Halloween 2013!!! It wasn't that bad, but I will say having parents and kids in costumes for a Halloween celebration can be hectic! I wish I took pictures this week of some of the things we have been doing, but my phone camera doesn't seem to be working correctly so I dug out my "regular" camera and I will be back to snapping pictures next week.

This week we studied bats and spiders. Did I tell you I have a student in my class who likes to bring me spiders!? Ummm, your teacher hates spiders kid! Bring me a puppy, kitten, ~~snake~~, but please don't bring me a spider.

We made a can, have, are chart about bats and the students wrote a sentence using the chart. I also gave them a little bat drawing lesson. They think I should be an art teacher. Lol! I have also been told this week that I should be a music teacher. That is more likely to happen than an art teacher. I can read music and I do play a clarinet and an alto clarinet.

Back to the bats. My students learned some new vocabulary this week. When we were creating our chart, I heard words like mammal, echolocation, and nocturnal. Oh, this makes a teacher proud! Let's hope those words stick.

I started working on this little freebie yesterday with the intention of posting it yesterday, but then I started watching television with the hubs so it didn't happen. Here it is now! Click the picture below to grab your freebie and thanks for stopping by. Oh, by the way, I'm having a sale in both of my shops this weekend. All items are 20% off through Monday.
Teachers Pay Teachers Teachers Notebook

What are topics are you studying this month? Leave me a comment below and let me know!

Word Family Spiders

noreply@blogger.com (Lesson Plans and Lollipops) — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 02:02:00 +0000

I finally took a picture with my IPhone of our word family spiders. Ever since I updated my IPhone software, the camera only works 40% of the time. The most annoying part is that I can no longer change songs using my car radio. How safe is it to change your song with the phone? It still comes through the speakers and the phone part works. Apple, if you hear me, fix this issue ASAP or I'm switching to an Android!!!

Here is a picture of our spiders.

The -ig word family.

The -at word family.

We talked about two word families this week, -ig and -at. I let them pick the word family and the words from the ones that we listed on the board.

If you are wondering how I explain word families, I relate it to their families. I explain that word families end with the same letters and it's like a last name. Just like they have a last name that tells who their family is. Then I explain that the first letters are like a first name and they are different, just like family members have different first names. They seems to understand and recognize word families quickly. They also realize that they rhyme.

Tomorrow is our Halloween Celebration! I love Halloween because of the free candy that ~~I steal from my child my~~ gives to me. I am the official household candy thief! Oh, I'm sure I'm not the only parent who does this when no one is ~~protecting~~ looking at the candy.

If you are wondering where I got the word family spider craftivity, it came from Susan Moran Jones-TGIF. It's a freebie from her store. Thank you Susan!

What are your plans for Halloween tomorrow? I'm going trick-or-treating with my family.

Monday Madness and a Spider

noreply@blogger.com (Lesson Plans and Lollipops) — Tue, 29 Oct 2013 04:14:00 +0000

This is my Monday Madness ramblings. It seems Mondays are really busy days in my classroom. I must over plan because I don't get everything finished. I am hoping tomorrow, I will get to make these cute little word family spiders that I found here.

Sorry, I wish I had a picture to share. I took this from the creators TPT store. It's a freebie from Susan Moran Jones-TGIF and I can't wait to use it. I'll will post one tomorrow after we make them.

My camera on my IPhone hasn't been working properly since I update it. I don't know what the problem is but I hope they have an update soon to fix it.

I'm keeping this post short tonight as I am sleepy and going to bed. I didn't realize how popular my Candy Corn Making Words activity was going to be so it is inspiring my next project. More to come soon.

Freebie Friday!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Lesson Plans and Lollipops) — Sat, 26 Oct 2013 04:23:00 +0000

It's Friday so you know what that means. Friday freebie! This week's freebie is a number the room activity. My students had so much fun writing the room that I thought we would number the room next week. I know many people do this as a center activity, but I did it whole class last week since I had two grades in my room at one time. Yes, you heard that right. I don't usually have two grades so luckily I had printed out a differentiated write the room activity from my new Write the Room CVC Words and Pictures pack. It was a true lifesaver! You can learn more about this pack by clicking the picture below.

Here's a look at the cards.

Look how engaged everyone is!

I also received my Elf on the Shelf with the new Birthday book and outfit free! I was one of the first so many (can't remember the number) of teachers to register on their website. I can't wait to use this in my classroom throughout the month of December and for student birthdays!

Please excuse the bad pic, my flash would not cooperate and I usually use my IPhone. I really need to find my camera and take it to school.

Thanks for stopping by. You can grab your freebie by clicking the pic below. I would love to hear from you. Leave me a comment below and let me know what you would like me to blog about next.

Fall Trees and a Pumpkin

noreply@blogger.com (Lesson Plans and Lollipops) — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 02:32:00 +0000

Today we finished up our fall trees. We used the same pattern as our apple trees, but use red, yellow, and orange to make fall leaves. I call up to four kids at a time to a table to paint while the rest of the class is working and playing at traditional kindergarten centers. This is what we do the last 30 minutes of the day and it allows time to do individual assessments and to get everyone packed up to go home.

So last week we did a class pumpkin. Every class did one and they were auctioned off at our Fall Carnival. Well we kind of ran out of time to really spend time on our pumpkin so I thought we should do something simple.

Presenting.... Our Pumpkin

It's "pumpkin pie."

These are the things I come up with when I am under a time crunch. Lol! I wonder if they were able to make money off my pumpkin. I didn't glue anything down, so they could have carved anything they wanted. I missed out carnival because I fell asleep and woke up the next afternoon. No kidding. I couldn't believe that I was that tired and my son didn't bother waking me up on a Saturday.

In other news (I always wanted to ~~say~~ type that.), I have had this little organizer sitting on my desk and I have been wondering what I should do with it. Any ideas? Leave your comments below.

Friday Freebie on a Saturday

noreply@blogger.com (Lesson Plans and Lollipops) — Sun, 20 Oct 2013 02:12:00 +0000

I fell asleep as soon as I got home yesterday. I can't believe I slept that long! I'm also excited to say that I'm a dot com now! Check it! Just type www.lessonplansandlollipops.com. I think it's super cool! I learned to follow directions and make it work too. Well I have had a super busy week and I didn't have much to share. Sorry about that, but next week is more promising. Oh and my retired aide is subbing next week for my wonderful new aide. I miss her, but she is happy in retirement land. We still go out for dinner from time to time so it's all good.

Today, I made a word building activity to use with my kids this week during guided reading. I color coded each set of letter card so they are easy to sort and the kids can keep them separated easier. I also included a work mat for them to make the words on. This is a CVC word making activity with teacher directions. The cards are cute little candy corn which is perfect for this time of the year. All you have to do is print out the letter card and a work mat for each student. Laminate and cut apart to make them last. I like to store my letter cards sorted by color in individual baggies. Then I put all the small baggies in a larger baggie or page protector. I also put each of the work mats in a page protector and store everything in a 3 ring binder. If you click the picture below, you can grab your freebie. Before you go, leave me a comment and let me know if you would like to see more activities like this. Thanks a bunch!

Conferences

noreply@blogger.com (Lesson Plans and Lollipops) — Wed, 16 Oct 2013 01:18:00 +0000

Today was parent-teacher conferences. I wish I had more for you tonight, but tomorrow is our first day this week with kids so I should have a better post tomorrow.

Leaf Week

noreply@blogger.com (Lesson Plans and Lollipops) — Sun, 13 Oct 2013 23:50:00 +0000

This week we will be learning about leaves. We are going to start by going on a fall scavenger hunt. My students have a scavenger hunt sheet so they know what to look for. Then we are going to sort our collections and graph the results as a class using our document camera.

Since it is leaf week, we are going to finger paint. Then we are going to trace and cut out a leaf after our paint dries. Here is what the leaves looked like last year. I would share the pattern, but it was hand drawn and it's too large to scan with my printer.

We are also going to paint our trees in fall colors using our fingers. We are going to use the same tree pattern as our apple trees, but use red, yellow, and orange to make fall leaves. Here is what our apple trees looked like. They are still hanging in my room so I will take them down when our fall trees are finished.

So we will collect, sort and graph leaves this week and we will talk about symmetry. I think leaves are a good example of symmetry. We have talked about symmetry before so this will be a little review. I am working on a symmetry sorting activity for them to do during math stations. I hope I have it done by Wednesday. Yep, the kids are off Monday and Tuesday, but the teachers have to go for staff development and parent-teacher conferences. I wish I was a kid. No, not really. I'm still the big kid in the class though. Lol!

Well, if you haven't heard, TPT is having a flash sale. Everything is 10% off through midnight Hawaii time tonight. I am throwing a sale to give you an additional discount. Everything in my TPT store is 20% off. Click here to head on over and check it out.

TPT Flash Sale!

noreply@blogger.com (Lesson Plans and Lollipops) — Sat, 12 Oct 2013 20:31:00 +0000

Teachers Pay Teachers received 100,000 likes on their Facebook page and you can get 10% off all items using code FB100K. To celebrate, I have discounted all items in my store 20% off! Hurry to stock up on items at the discounted rate!

New Blog Look, My Guided Reading Tub, and a Freebie

noreply@blogger.com (Lesson Plans and Lollipops) — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 00:03:00 +0000

I love my new blog look! To celebrate the new look, I have a little Halloween Ten Frame Freebie for all my followers. I also want to share what's inside my guided reading tub.

Here is what my tub looks like. I have it stuffed full of things for this week.

I bought the smaller whiteboards in the Target dollar spot, but I have also seen them at the Dollar Tree. These fit inside the container nicely and I no longer have to get up and get my larger whiteboards.

I have my sight words to review at the beginning of my guided reading lesson. I review sight words with my students at least 3 times a day. I have multiple copies of the sight words so I don't have to search for them. I have a set everywhere that I am sitting/standing to review.

This week, I have smaller copies of my sight words and a few CVC words in baggies for the students to build sentences.

I have my pointer fingers and the books that I will use with my groups. The students love using the fingers to point to the words. I do take them away at one point in the year because brain research shows that students need to be able to track with their eyes because we actually look at more than one word when we are reading.

These are my whiteboard erasers. I bought microfiber washcloths at the Dollar Tree and cut them into four pieces. The work wonderfully and they are cheap so I can't go wrong there. The bonus is that I can wash them too.

Now to get my Halloween Ten Frame Freebie click the picture below.

I almost forgot. I'm linking up with Table Talk with C and C for a Fall/Halloween Giveaway!

This is a huge giveaway! There are over 25 products! One of my products are included in the giveaway as well. Click the linky pic to check it out.

The Winner is....

noreply@blogger.com (Lesson Plans and Lollipops) — Mon, 07 Oct 2013 00:01:00 +0000

The winner of my rafflecopter giveaway is Mariann B.! Congratulations Mariann! I sent you an email with your prize.

Today is Sunday and I am busy working on plans for next week. I hope it doesn't rain because tomorrow I plan on taking my class on the school's nature trail on a little nature scavenger hunt. We are going to gather ~~leaves~~ some signs of fall. I have some activities in mind for the leaves but you will have to find out later this week what that is. I'm experimenting with a few ideas and I want to see how they turn out before I share. It could be a total disaster.

This week we will be learning about the letter N and we will make a letter N hat from my Phonics Alphabet Hats pack. You can get them here or here. We will continue to use some of my math and literacy centers from my Firefighter Math and Literacy Pack.

We didn't get to use all of the literacy centers last week so we will be using all of them this week. Students will practice beginning sounds, rhymes, and ABC order while practicing their letter formation.

In math, I will put the Clip It! Ten Frames back out along with the Trace, Build, Write. I will show students how to do the Count and Graph and my aide will help students with patterns. I plan to add the Build It! Ten Frames to the Clip It! Ten Frames center. Click on one of the pictures above to see where you can get this pack.

This week in math we are going to talk about symmetry, patterns, and make a number book. Well that's all I have. I better get started on finishing up my plans. My late afternoon nap put me behind. :)

Center Saturday

noreply@blogger.com (Lesson Plans and Lollipops) — Sun, 06 Oct 2013 04:02:00 +0000

I have slept a lot today. This past week has worn me out! My giveaway is ending soon so if you haven't entered you better do it quick! Just go here and enter the rafflecopter.

Here is a look back at some of our centers this week. As always, I have a listening center going during our guided reading time. Students usually have 3 book options to choose from. This week I will be adding in a response sheet for this station because I want students to work on their writing more. You can get a copy of my listening center response sheet here. Just scroll down and click the picture of the listening log.

We continue to practice and review the alphabet and it's order. Students love using magnetic letters on the cookie sheets. Next week I will switch the cards to have the middle letter missing. This allows students to practice putting the alphabet in order with a familiar activity.

The I Spy Fire Safety was a freebie from A Differentiated Kindergarten. You can check out the blog here and tell her you found her through Lesson Plans and Lollipops and thanks for the freebie! My students loved using the magnifying glasses to find the letters in the picture!

I'll just let you browse the rest of the pictures.

You can get the number puzzles below from my freebies page!

There are some changes that will be happening at my blog soon. Don't forget that my giveaway ends at midnight!

Freebie Friday!

noreply@blogger.com (Lesson Plans and Lollipops) — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 23:23:00 +0000

Happy Friday! I survived the week after being off all last week. I am exhausted! I am keeping this post short tonight. Here is the freebie I promised last night. It's a set of ten frame number puzzles in neon pink and green for numbers 0-20. Just click one of the pictures. Enjoy!

Centers

noreply@blogger.com (Lesson Plans and Lollipops) — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 02:08:00 +0000

I think the apple tress that we made with our fingerprints turned out really great and they look good on our cabinets. Sorry about the poor quality in my photos. I started taking more pics with my phone. I so need to find my digital camera. I have an older one that I usually keep at school, but I haven't been the best organized person at home lately. I wanted to show you some of the centers we are working on this week. This week is our fire safety week so my math and literacy centers fit the theme.

This is our Clip It! Tens Frames with fire trucks. Once students clip the clothespin on the answer, all they have to do is flip it over to check.

This is our Trace, Build, Write activity. Each student has a work mat. They select a letter card and place it on the mat. Next, they trace the letter on the card. Then they use pipe cleaners, links, Wikki sticks, or play dough to build the letter. Finally, they write the letter on the line. This week we are using pipe cleaners. I think it's important to switch it up from time to time.

Here is the same activity but with numbers. Students select a number card. Then build the number and finally they write the number.

This is our Clip It! Alphabet Cards. Students select a card and they clip a clothes pin on the beginning sound. Once they are finished, they flip the card over and look for the dot that I marked on the back to see if they have the correct answer.

This is Clip It! Rhyming words. The students look at the picture and clip yes or no. Then they flip the card over and look for the self-correcting dot. These cards can also be used with the whole class to play quiz-quiz trade. We love playing quiz-quiz trade!

Here is the center that didn't get cut out this week, but I plan on using it next week. This is Clip It! Beginning Sounds. The students decide if the pictures begin with the same sound and clip yes or no with a clothespin. They will flip the card over to look for the self-correcting dot on the back that I write with a Sharpie. This also can be played as a whole class quiz-quiz trade.

If you like the centers that you have seen, they can be purchased in my TPT or TN store. They are from my Firefighter Math and Literacy Center Fun pack.

It's 99 pages of fun! It has 5 literacy and 5 math centers. Just click on one of the pictures to take you to my store. The first pick with take you to Teachers Pay Teachers and the last two will take you to Teachers Notebook.

Come back tomorrow for a freebie!