Old Valentine Activity - Newly Updated!!!

Hey!  I have a lot of people request access to one of my Valentine activities and I'm not sure why Google Drive is not letting people download it, sooooooooooo..... I updated it and uploaded it to TpT!  Hopefully this will make it easier to get access to it!  Enjoy!

Click HERE to get your copy!

Math Night

Last Thursday our school hosted a Math Night for our parents.  They were invited to come and learn about simple games they could play with their kids and then we gave them the opportunity to have a "Make it Take it" time so they could actually take home some of the games that were discussed.

We decided to share how easy it is to use dice as a learning tool so we shared the simple game of Roll Say, Keep, only we changed it to Roll, Count, Keep.  We included a dice and everything they would need to play this game at home.  We received a very positive response from the parents that took advantage of this opportunity.  I have included the document that we provided in hopes that you may be able to use it the same way or in your classroom.  We also shared that they could use the cards to play memory also!! :)  My wonderful colleague who I have posted about before - Ms. Jayme - was the creator of this gem.  Enjoy!!

Roll, Count, Keep

We have been very busy down in the Polka Dot Patch this last week!!! I hope you can follow this post - it is gonna be a little of this and a little of that... so here we go!!
INSECTS
Our insect unit is up and running and we are learning so much about our insect friends!  There was a delay in the arrival of our ladybugs but much to my surprise they were waiting for me when we got back from recess on Friday afternoon!!  I didn't tell the kids, so they will be very surprised to see this when they come into class on Monday!!

The ladybug larvae are in there...I promise!! :)

One of the activities we did this week allowed the kids to see how insects see using their compound eyes.

My dear friend across the hall found these glasses at a store and was nice enough to let us borrow them.  They each got a chance to look at a friend.  :)

They then had to draw what they saw when they looked through the glasses.  Deanna Jump has a great response sheet for this in her Insect Unit.  With all the fun, I forgot to snap a picture of one of them.  We also did some fun Ladybug addition!  I was inspired by Julie over at Mrs. Lee's Kindergarten and created an activity similar to the types of  activities she uses with her babies!!  Thanks Julie!  I love the way that these keep the kids accountable for their own work and it requires them to DO their OWN work and not copy what their neighbor is doing!


For this activity they had to find the matching colored ladybugs, color the ladybug on their paper to match, count the dots on each, write the number sentence and solve.  I ran the ladybug off on different colors of construction paper, added dots and that's it.  It was so easy to prepare I will definitely be doing more of these! If you haven't already, go check out Mrs. Lee's Kindergarten - you will not regret it!!  Get your copy of the Ladybug addition HERE.
EGG HUNT
I have a confession to make...Easter SNUCK up on me!  So much so that I really didn't do much with the whole egg/bunny thing - I can't believe it!!  My co-teacher is a book fanatic and I think she has a book for every holiday there is so she was my saving grace this week for at least talking with my children about eggs/bunnies etc... :)  She brought some bunny puppets with her on Friday and the kids were so cute with them.
I forget how much they enjoy puppets - they got so quiet when the bunnies "talked" to her - especially when they were talking about the kids - how nice they were sitting etc...  My team did manage to put together our annual Egg Hunt and the kids had BIG fun collecting, and the sorting their eggs!!

Waiting patiently for our para to get back from hiding the eggs!!

And they're off!!

See - I told you it was gonna be a little random - but they are so cute it was worth the read!!  Right?? :)  I hope you all have a wonderful Easter!  Monday will be here all to quickly!! :)

St. Patrick's Day Fun!

I just didn't have the energy last night to post about all of our fun we had yesterday but it is Friday night.... I have my beverage of choice.... Coffee people!! :) and I can actually think about what actually did happen on Thursday!!

Here are the kids as they came into the room and found the foot prints. :)

We decided to write the leprechaun a letter to tell him how we felt about his actions throughout the week!

This is what we found when we came back from our bathroom break. :)

So of course we had to take him up on his offer!! :)

That sneaky leprechaun did end up coming back to our room to try and leave the school how he came in! Of course it was while we were away at specials and I walked in just as he was trying to sneak out the window!! We tussled just long enough for me to be covered in glitter!!

In all the fun I forgot to snap a picture of the mess he made. He did leave us all the green stuff he took during the week and some gold coins. :).

To end the day we completed an activity to add to our adorable Leprechaun Glyphs we made. Thanks Deanna Jump!! :) i recreated the share your gold activity to make it work for us. :)

The kids each rolled to see how many coins they would have to share. They then collected that many coins and got busy making them into coins and sharing them. Once they were finished my wonderful para added sone glitter! Everything is better with glitter!! :)

Phew... This is one of my favorite days with my Kinder's but also one that wears me out!! It is sooo worth being tired to hear and see their excitement for days after. :)

Here is the Share your Coins activity.  :)

Money

This week we started our study of money.  We began with an activity that allowed the children to investigate and observe the 4 different coins.  We then had fun making some rubbings of the different coins!!  

The sheets that I used I got from our State's Dept. of Ed web site that is password protected so I figured that sharing wouldn't be ok - so I made one for you! :)

You can find them HERE!

Grab and Count

I was in need of another small group activity to help review teen numbers for this week so I reworked this neat activity and made it valentine themed.  The original idea came from Green Gable Kindergarten but I made it work for our needs!!  I hope you will be able to use it too!!

You can grab it HERE :)

Happy Counting!!

100th Day Files

I'm so sorry this has taken so long, but today was the first day since I posted about my 100th day activities that I have been back in my classroom.  I took yesterday off to spend it with my daughter.  She was competing in a Speech Competition in our County.  I was a very proud mama and of course I have to share!! :)

Here is the 100 coloring page and I also scanned the glasses for you too!  :)  They are one of my favorite 100th day activity!!

You can find the glasses HERE.

You can find the 100 sheet HERE.

Enjoy!!

First attempt...

Well, tonight I posted my first products to Teachers Pay Teachers.  It is a group of Valentine Math Games!!  In honor of this I have decided to post one of the games here for my fellow bloggers, readers, teachers and parents!  Enjoy!

You can find my full listing HERE!!

I will be posting some literacy games soon!!!

Testing...

...out some new games!!  I found some really neat ones over the break and yesterday we gave a couple of them a test drive.  The first one was the Valentine Number/Number Word game I made.  We did it whole group and they had a great time matching the correct hearts together. 

We also tried out a Hot Chocolate/Marshmallows themed missing number game focused on the teen numbers.  A fellow blogger, Kathleen Pedersen made it.  You can find it HERE on Teachers Pay Teachers.  Check out her blog Growing Kinders too!! She has some GREAT ideas - for parents and teachers!! 

Yesterday I introduced the game on my Smart Board.  They love getting up there and using the pen. Sometimes I think they know more about using that thing than I do!!

Today I let them play the game with a partner and I think they were pretty successful!!  I had one little boy come up to me today and said "Can I do this tomorrow?  This is fun!!"  That's what makes it all worth it!!  :)

:)