YouTube Video Linky Party!!

What a FaBuLoUs idea!!! Miss Nelson is having a YouTube Linky Party!  Click here to join!

My students love to create videos and it has increased their fluency and excitement in reading by recording many reader's theatre!  Some YouTube videos I use to teach and reinforce digraphs are in the prezi below.

Digraphs on Prezi

A fun video we made was a claymation of our pond habitats.   It gave the students a chance to share their pond habitats they created during our habitats and adapations unit.

I wanted ideas for more educational videos to use, which is why I linked up and you should too!

I have a confession...Linky Party

Living a Wonderful Life is having a linky party.  I felt I need to confess some of my obsessions, so I decided to join.

1.  My Keurig Coffee Maker~ Why did they have to come out with a more enhanced model? {I want it}

2.  My Cricut~  My Get It Done List includes making many creations on my Cricut this summer!

3.  Blogging~  Why does the clock move faster when one is blogging?????

4.  ThE DoLlAr StOrE~  If you have ever screamed in the dollar store because you have found the most incredible teaching tool or classroom item that you know your students will love, then you may also be obsessed with the dollar store.

Fingasaurs made me shout in the
middle of the dollar store!!

Water Blaster to play Blast the Vowels during our ABC Carnival!



Finding many items for our Star Word Beach Party!  All the beach
decorations added the extra fun to our party!  The inflatable limbo stick
 was a perfect for playing sight word limbo!

The glasses are by far my favorite {recent} find at the dollar store,
along with the beach ball ocean creatures!

5.  Pinterest~ It has changed my life!!

Why didn't I think of that sooner??
Egg cartons to hold playing cards
for those little hands!!

6.  Elephant & Piggie~  I♥Mo Willems!!  Everytime I go into Barnes and Noble {which is too often} I need to read Elephant and Piggie Books!  They are hilarious and make me laugh out loud!!

 

7.  Criminal Minds~ 

I am going to pretend I do not have anymore obsessions!!!  Time for you to share yours!  The first step is admitting to the problem...right?

Grade Level Linky Party!!

Want to find ideas for you specific grade level or are you switching grade levels next year?  Check out the grade level linky party at The Teacher's Lane.  It is wonderfully organized by grade, so LINK UP!!!

 

The Teacher's Lane

Favorite Read Aloud Linky Party!!!

Story time may be my favorite part of the day with my kindergartners!  They make the greatest and and craziest connections to stories that we read in class.  My all time favorite story to read is Wait! No Paint! by Bruce Whatley.   It is a different take on the story of the three little pigs, only the illustrator starts to run out of paint.  It is a playful retelling of the story and it gets the class giggling!  It would also aid in teaching about writing a story from the illustrators perspective.

Join in on the fun!!!  Courtney from Swimming into Second is having a favorite read aloud linky party!

Math Centers Linky Party

Check out some awesome math centers at my most loved site for early childhood educators!  Chalk Talk is having a Math Center Linky Party! 

I wanted to share a math center that my students love and it engages them in predicting and measuring.  In this center, the students create a nonstandard measurement booklet.  I create four-page booklets and place them in my Math Zone with Inch Worms (3 mini green pom-poms glued together with some small google eyes), and crayons.  The students write their name on the cover page and then make drawings of objects they will measure on the remaining pages.  On the top of the page they estimate how many inch worms that object will be.  Then they measure the object and below the picture, they write the actual amount of words.  The students love this activity along with being able to use a clipboard to record their measurements if they would like.  This activity could also be used with various tools for measuring like Unifix cubes, paper clips, etc.

Go check out the other math center ideas at Chalk Talk!

Post-It Linky Party!

You can never have enough post-its!!!  I use post-its to track my story stretcher ideas.  Inside many of my picture books you will find post-its with ideas and projects that I come up with for various stories.  My students also give me inspiration on activities to incorporate with books.  This is a quick and easy way to keep track of these ideas.

I have also realized that some dry erase markers do not want to wipe off and it drives me crazy!  I have a poster board story map that is laminated and instead of filling it in with a dry erase marker, I now use post-its.  After reading a story, the students can write the parts of a story on a post-it and add it to our story map.  For instance, each character in the story would get its own post-it and when writing the problem of the story each word in the sentence would get a different post-it.  This also helps with sentence structure!  My students enjoy writing on the post-its and adding them to the story map.  It also tunes them in to comprehending the story!!  The students also enjoy making a pattern on our story map using various colors!

Post-It Linky Party, come and join the fun at http://mrsrojasteaches.blogspot.com/

First Day of School Activities- Linky Party

Thinking about the first day already gives me the first day excitement/jitters!!!  When the students come in on the first day of school they have a small Ziploc bag with a ball of uncolored playdough.  Inside the ball of playdough is a few drops of food coloring.  They squish the playdough while it is in the bag.  If the playdough magically turns colors that means we are going to have a fantastic year making new friends and learning!  After it starts to change colors, the students take it out of the bag to blend the color and create the letters of their name.  I love hearing the excitement when it starts to change colors!! 

This summer I taught an Eric Carle class and I thought I might try to do this project on the first day or week of school, because who doesn't like to get messy during the first week of school.  Our ending project for the summer school class was to paint paper using many colors and textures and create it into a name banner.  We started out painting a background color.  Then we chose another color and a tool to add texture (q-tip, cotton ball, stamps, sponge, etc.)  Then the students chose a third color to add with bubble wrap.  When the painted paper was full of their favorite colors and dry, we used stencils to trace and cut out the letters of their name.  The letters were then glued on and decorated to create a wonderful name banner.