Keen on Target

Have any recent Target finds? Head on over to my new favorite blog, Target Treasures, to share them in the Fab Finds Friday linky party. Help enable other Target addicts!

Number Learning Fun

I have spent way  too much money on my classroom this summer-I can hardly walk through a store without spotting something I think my classroom needs! So, my new project is finding ways to use all of my new stuff. Did anyone else buy those packs of magnetic numbers in the dollar spot at Target? If so, toss them into one of those cute little bins from the dollar spot and have your students play this game!

This math partner game works on number recognition and counting skills. Students take turns using the spinner to spin numbers. Then they tell their partner what number they spun, find the matching magnetic number, and place it on the corresponding picture on their game board. Students can play until they've covered their whole game board or until they get 3 in a row (like tic-tac-toe). If you don't have magnetic numbers you can always have students use counters or some other manipulative to cover their game boards.

Click here to download your own copy of the Number Match game. I think this will definitely be one of my first math work stations when school starts in August (which is coming way too soon!).

Dear Target

Dear Target,
Enough already! Can you please stop stocking your dollar spot for a few weeks? I need to be able to run in and buy essentials like paper towels and laundry detergent (ok, fine...diet coke and cheez-its) without getting sidetracked and spending my entire paycheck in the dollar spot.
Yours truly,
Meredith

I don't know about you guys, but the stuff in my Target's dollar spot just keeps getting better and better. I can't resist it! I scored 3 tabletop pocket charts-they are double sided and one side even has a little dry erase board at the top! I also picked up some number and letter puzzles, flashcards, and stickers (at this price who cares if the kids destroy them after a few months). One of my favorite finds are the cute little erasers-crayons, popsicles, and ice cream cones! Those have math manipulatives written all over them. Add a matching math mat and you have an instant math work station where kids can use the erasers to practice counting, adding, or subtracting. If you bought enough the kids could even make patterns with them (and yes I totally bought several packs!).

I just had to have these little baskets too-at 4 for a dollar they were the perfect price. They're actually a great size to hold all sorts of little things. I plan on keeping a set of them on my guided reading table so that each child will have a basket already stocked with whatever they need for that day's lesson (dry erase marker, eraser, magnetic letters, etc.). That should be a real time saver and help keep my reading table organized! I also thought these little baskets would be the perfect size for holding the cute letter and number stamps I got last time I was at Target. They'd probably even fit a little mini stamp pad in there with the stamps (although this kinder teacher much prefers stamping in play-doh instead of ink!).

My last Target find of the day was actually not even in the dollar spot. My students have destroyed several cheap little rolling pins in our play-doh center so when I saw this sturdy looking alligator rolling pin in the kitchen section (for $4) I knew I had to have it. Hopefully this darling rolling pin can handle some serious play-doh action this year!
 

To see some of my other posts about Target and some games I've created using my Target finds, click here, here, or here! Perhaps I need to change the name of this blog to Keen on Target!

Happy shopping!

Measurement Work Stations

I think my goal for next year will be trying to integrate the teaching of measurement all year long instead of just during the measurement chapter in our math book. In the past one way I have tried to sneak in measuring throughout the year is by connecting it to seasonal themes. For example, during October we always take a field trip to the pumpkin patch. We then learn how to estimate and measure how tall our pumpkins are with unifix cubes and a ruler, measure the circumference of the pumpkin with a piece of string, and even weigh the pumpkins on the nurse's scale! The kids love our pumpkin math! I also have used candy hearts on Valentine's Day and jellybeans in the spring to let the kids do some measuring with nonstandard units.

I have found that kindergarteners love learning measurement through lots of open exploration. One of the activities that my students always enjoy doing is using all sorts of measuring cups and tools to scoop and measure things in our discovery table (sand, water, beans, etc.). Comparing weights using a balance is also usually a very popular activity--kids love to get their hands on that balance! I also always let the kids have fun measuring anything they want to in our room with just about any measuring tool they want (unifix cubes, links, rulers, etc.). Just add a recording sheet to any of these activities and they would make a great measurement work station.

There are also lots of great children's books you can use to teach about measurement. One good book to introduce measuring length in standard and nonstandard units is Measuring Penny by Loreen Leedy; it's about a little girl and her dog who go around measuring lots of things in their world. Another good book to introduce measuring is How Big Is a Foot? by Rolf Myller. A great book to teach about telling time to the hour is The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle.

At my school, kindergarteners are expected to learn how to tell time to the hour. Here is a game I made for my students to play after reading The Grouchy Ladybug. Students take turns spinning a time on the spinner and then covering up the corresponding clock on their game board with a ladybug counter. Click here to download What Time Is It?

Another game I made for my students to learn about telling time to the hour is: Pick a Time. I used a package of foam shapes I got from the dollar spot at Target to make the game pieces (but you could also use small pieces of paper or other manipulatives). I wrote different times on the foam shapes, and students take turns pulling a shape out of the bag and reading the time on it. Students can then cover up the corresponding clock on their game board with the game piece. Click here to download a copy of this game.

I hope you got some fun new ideas for measurement activities you can add to your math work stations. For some more great ideas, head over to Lory's page since she is hosting this chapter of the math work stations linky party.

Back to School Postcards

Ever since I started teaching 6 years ago I have been sending postcards to my new students in August welcoming them to our class. I have actually been hand writing each postcard-which wasn't so bad back when I taught 1st and 2nd grade and just had one class of 20 students. However, now that I have been teaching half-day kindergarten and have 2 classes, I am finding that it is just too much hand writing 40 postcards!

So...that is where the fabulous Vistaprint comes in. This year I got smart and used the coupon they have for 100 free postcards to make my own personalized "Welcome to Kindergarten" postcards complete with a message from me on the back (you still have to pay for shipping which is a few dollars). They just arrived in the mail today and I am beyond excited-they are just too cute! Now I just have to print some address labels, stick a stamp on them, and they are ready to go!

I think the best part might be that since 100 postcards come in the pack, I'll have enough to use for at least 2 years. One less thing I'll need to think about next year!

Geometry Work Stations

Our kindergarten math book only has one short chapter on geometry, so I probably don't spend as much time on it as I should. However, I think learning about shapes is something kindergarteners really enjoy. Some of my favorite geometry materials are geoboards, 3D wooden blocks, pattern blocks, attribute blocks, and attrilinks.

If you've never used attrilinks (or linking shapes as my kinders call them) you might want to consider getting a set. They are sort of like attribute blocks since they have shapes of different sizes and colors, but they're links instead of blocks. My students love sorting them-so that will definitely be one of my geometry work station activities.

I also plan to use my geoboards as one of my geometry work station activities. I let my students do some free exploration with the geoboards, but also have some task cards available for them to practice making different shapes. Click here to download a copy of my geoboard task cards.

One of the games I made to help my students learn 2D shapes is called Spin a Shape. Click here to download a copy of the game. For this game, students use the spinner to spin a shape, tell their partner the name of the shape, and then cover up the shape with a bingo chip. Students try to cover up all of the shapes on their game board. This game is just for practicing 2D shapes, but I'm going to try to make a version with 3D shapes as well this week. I got the idea for this game from a similar game that Lakeshore sells-wish I had the money to buy all of their neat games!

Another idea I had was letting my students make pictures out of shapes (either foam shapes or di-cut shapes) and then having them count up the different shapes they used to make their picture. Click here for a copy of the page I made to go with this activity. I'd probably model for them how I could make a little house out of a square with a triangle on top or something simple like that (I imagine my students will probably be making much more creative pictures-like aliens and robots out of their shapes!). A similar activity for 3D shapes might be letting the students build something out of blocks and then tally up how many of each 3D shape they used in whatever they built (I'd just have to make sure the block corner had a variety of 3D shapes!).

I hope you've gotten a few ideas for geometry work station activities that you can use with your students. Mrs. Patton is hosting this week's chapter, so head on over to Patton's Patch for some more great work station ideas!

Organizing My Math Supplies

I have been having the best time this summer reading everyone's blog posts on Debbie Diller's Math Work Stations. This book has really motivated me to better organize all of my math supplies. For the last few years I have kept most of my supplies in my closet in a disorganized mess and then put just the most frequently used items (cubes, bears, pattern blocks) on a shelf that holds my regular supplies (markers, glue, etc.).

I haven't been able to get into my classroom yet this summer (my room is a bit of a nightmare as they are installing new windows) but once I am able to start setting up my classroom I think it is time for a change. My new plan to is to put all of my math supplies together on one shelf and keep it nice and tidy so the kids and I can find whatever we need for work stations! I even made some math labels for my math bins that have both pictures and words so they will be easy for my kinders to read.

Click here if you'd like your own copy of these math labels. Good luck to everyone who's working on classroom organization this summer-leave a comment if you have any good tips for me!

Fun New Books

I love finding new books to add to my collection! I just bought 2 new books last week and tried them out on my summer school class-they were a hit!

 Kindergators is a new series by one of my favorite authors, Rosemary Wells. My students have always loved her Max & Ruby books so I knew I had to give the Kindergators a try. The first book in this new series is called Hands Off, Harry! and it's about a little alligator named Harry who has a hard time keeping his hands to himself. Luckily his classmates have some class meetings to help Harry learn about respecting personal space. This is a great book for introducing classroom rules and talking about behavior. I will definitely be putting this book on my list for the first week of school! It was a bit of a long read aloud, but it has darling pictures and my summer school kiddos were completely engaged! They kept shouting out helpful suggestions for Harry about how he should behave :) Now if I could only find a cute alligator puppet, then I'd have a little mascot to remind my kinders about good behavior all year long!

 The other new book I got is Pete the Cat. Thanks to Fran at Kindergarten Crayons for suggesting this one (and for making an awesome math mat to go along with it). This book is about a cat name Pete that gets a new pair of white shoes. He loves his new shoes so much he starts to sing a little song about them. As Pete walks along he steps in different things, like blueberries that turn his shoes blue, but he never cries or gets upset, he just keeps walking along singing his song (what a great message!).  Even though I've only had the book for a week it's already becoming one of my favorite children's books ever. My only regret is that I didn't purchase 2 copies of it because my students are begging to read it on their own, so my new copy is already looking well loved (the text is very predictable so I think my entire summer school class already has it memorized!). The best part of this book is the fun song that goes with it. You can download the song here. Warning-if you get this book be prepared to read it EVERY day because your students will beg for it. Also, it looks like there is a new Pete book due out at the end of July: Pete the Cat: Rocking in My School Shoes which I will surely be buying!

Do you have any fun book recommendations? I'm always on the look out for great new books to read to my class-so leave a comment if you have any suggestions!

Tonight's Project

Since summer school starts tomorrow, tonight's project will be...cutting out tons and tons of laminating! I have gone crazy printing out everyone's awesome math games and last week I snuck up to school to laminate it all. Now comes the not so fun part..cutting it all out.

I am actually starting to get really excited about teaching summer school since I can test out implementing math work stations. Hopefully I can get all of the organization and management issues worked out so that everything goes smoothly starting up math work stations with my new group of kinders in the fall. Check back later this week for an update on how the summer math stations are going!

If you'd like to download some cool (and free!) math games of your own, head over to Ocean's of First Grade Fun because she's hosting this week's chapter of the math work station's blog party.

Bargain Shopping!

With summer school starting on Monday, I figured it was about time I hit up my local Dollar Tree and Target stores to see if they had anything fun for my classroom. I found some great stuff - and you can't beat the price - just $1.



I found these great dry erase boards at Target in their dollar spot section. 4 Boards come in a pack and they have 2 handwriting lines on them (perfect for just writing a sentence or two). I think I'll give each student one to keep in their chair pocket. I can imagine pulling these out when we have a few minutes to spare and practicing sight words or even math facts on them.

I also found these neat packs of lacing beads in Target's dollar section-great for practicing fine motor skills. Heidi at Swamp Frog First Graders posted some great task cards on her blog for using these beads in math work stations to practice all sorts of skills (patterning, addition, subtraction). So be sure to check that out!

Here is a cute game called "Poison Frogs" that I made for my students out of a little box from Target and a package of frogs from Dollar Tree. This great idea also came from Heidi at Swamp Frog First Graders - head on over to her blog for the directions on how to play!

My last find of the day was this bug catcher kit from Dollar Tree. Instead of using it to catch bugs, I thought I'd make some activities for my students to do using the neat tongs in the kit (they seem great for working on fine motor skills). I'm thinking of filling my discovery table with some different colored pom poms (you can get these at Dollar Tree too) and having the kids use the tongs to sort the pom poms by color. Or, you could label cups with different numbers and have students pick up cotton balls with the tongs making sure to count out the right number to put in each cup.

I hope I've given you a few fun ideas for your classroom-I know all teachers love a good bargain! Be sure to leave me a comment to let me know about any neat bargains you've found or any fun games you're making for your students!

Organizing My Classroom Library

 I absolutely love children's books - what kindergarten teacher doesn't! As a result my classroom library is overflowing with books. A few years ago I got them all sorted into categories and put them into colorful baskets on my bookshelves. Here are some photos of what my classroom library looked like last year.

 It took so much energy to organize the books that I got lazy when it came to making labels. I just took out a sharpie and a stack of notecards and slapped a quick handwritten label onto each basket. Well, now that it's summer break, I've finally gotten around to making much nicer labels on the computer. The best part is that each label has a picture on it to help my kinders that are still learning to read. I can't wait to get into my classroom and add these labels to spruce up my classroom library.

Click here to grab my book basket labels from google docs. I'm interested in hearing what types of classroom organizing projects you're working on this summer. Please share!

First Post

Hi! I've had such fun reading all of the neat teaching blogs other teachers have created that I figured it was time to start a blog of my own. Thank you Leslie at KindergartenWorks for designing this cute blog for me! I can't wait to start sharing about what's happening in my kindergarten classroom! More posts coming soon- I'm off to read up on the basics of blogging- like how to post photos and google docs!

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