Secret Santa Blog Hop {with the Elementary Entourage}

It's a fun secret santa exchange with my favorite blogging friends!  I received an amazing gift from Amber over at Peppy Zesty Teacherista.  She gave me TOMS!  Yes, I said TOMS.  I LOVE them!  They are my favorite teaching shoes.  They are the only ones I can wear all day and not have achy feet after school.  She even got me an adorable design!  Thank you so much!

Now that I have shared my extra special gift, I've placed one of my Christmas items for free until Christmas day!  You can check it out by clicking on the picture below.

This is a fun unit that teaches Christmas traditions in different countries, as well as reading comprehension and non-fiction reading strategies to your students.  My kids loved it, and were so excited each day during reading.

Here are some photos of activities from the unit.  This was when we were learning about Christmas traditions in Sweden.  Students learned about St. Lucia's day and how it all began.  They also created the candle wreath to wear around their head just like they do in Sweden.  All of these activities and crafts are included in the unit!  Be sure to grab my Christmas gift to you while it is free. :]

Merry Christmas everyone!  Be sure to check out the other posts below.  You won't want to miss all the awesome gifts for you!

An InLinkz Link-up

Tricks & Treats Blog Hop with The Elementary Entourage

Happy fall and welcome to the Elementary Entourage blog hop!! I just love this group of blogging friends.

  I don't know about you, but I am so excited for fall.  I think it is so beautiful outside and I love wearing scarves and boots!  Another reason why I love fall is the fact that you get to participate in our tricks and treats blog hop!  What teacher doesn't love a new trick to try in their classroom or a fun treat to have!

Here is my TRICK for you!

I have a problem with my students not wanting to transition from one subject or activity to the next.  It is like pulling teeth to get them to move!  I have tried counting, taking points away, bribing, EVERYTHING!  They could care less.  They continued to work on their assignment or just take their time walking across the classroom as if it were a stroll in the park.  It was driving me crazy! I felt like it looked like this:

Then, I decided to use music as a transition tool. 

and.. 

WOW!  My kids magically started moving and getting to the next activity in a matter of seconds.  After a couple weeks of using music as a transition, they started getting there BEFORE the song was over!!  It has been simply amazing.

I have picked songs that are current or old.  I just try to choose songs that are upbeat and fun.  I have a mac, so I use Garageband to edit the songs.  If you are not able to edit the songs, you could always start a song and stop it when you want them on the rug.

I also use this to help my students understand time.  Some of the songs I use are 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, etc.  I have different time frames depending on how much time they need to transition. Then, my students have learned that certain songs are short, as well as others are long.  My students are also understanding how long 10 seconds is compared to 1 minute.  I love this!  I hope this can be useful for you in your classroom. 

Here is your TREAT!

I am placing my fun fall themed products for FREE during our hop.  I hope you enjoy. :]

Also, check out my fall reading and writing workshop unit.  I will have it on sale during the hop!

Thanks for stopping by.  Be sure to check out the other posts!  Happy hopping! 

An InLinkzLink-up

Happy Fall Y'all {Primary Grade Blog Hop}

Fall is my favorite season! I love when the leaves change colors and when there is pumpkin everything!  It makes me so excited!

So, I'm going to start out by sharing some of my favorite fall books that I like to read with my kids.

I LOVE the Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything   It is a fun repetitive book that the kids can catch on and read with you!

I also enjoy the Little Scarecrow Boy.  It is a good story to read and discuss the character within the story and how the scarecrow changes in the book.

Then, of course everyone loves Spookley and Fall Leaves Fall is a good one for focusing on the change of the season.  One of my favorite places to buy books is off Amazon.  It delivers right to your door, and you can find good prices for the books!

These are some of my favorite crafts that I do with my kids.  These are all crafts/activities I have done in my room.  When we read Little Scarecrow Boy, we made scarecrows and wrote about the character in the story.  We also made the crow, and under the crow is a book that retells the story.

Apples and Johnny Appleseed are two of my favorite things about fall!  We read a biography about Johnny Appleseed and wrote about him.  So, of course we had to make him!  

I love writing descriptive words for apples and having apple tasting time.  Then, we make a fun apple and write a descriptive sentence about apples.  You can see more about my apple day fun by going here!

Spiders are fun to learn about during the fall time.  We made this fun spider to go along with our spider fact book. :]

Now, here are some pictures to show you what you get in your freebie today!!  I created a fall reading and writing workshop unit that can be used during the month of October.  The unit covers spiders, bats, and pumpkins!  This was one of my favorites to teach.  It focuses on sounds and learning how to read whole words, conventions, and parts of a story.  I am sharing a portion of this unit with you for free.  There is a fun bat craft that you could use in your room, also!

You can also find the whole unit by clicking on the picture below. 

I have had so much fun sharing my favorite things about fall with you!  Be sure to stop by Mrs. Plemons' Kindergarten to see what she has in store for you!  Just click on the picture below. :]

If you want to start at the beginning, click on the picture below where you can find the amazing Mrs. D that coordinated this fun hop for us!

Apple Day in Kindergarten

Fall is upon us!  This is my favorite time of year!  I also love it because it starts to cool down outside.  My room has no A/C, so I dream of a day of no sweating while teaching!  :]

This year, I am having themed Fridays to celebrate our hard work all week.  Although our Fridays are full of fun activities, we will also be spending the day doing some serious learning. The fun thing is that the kids don't even realize how much they are learning!

So, our first fun Friday was APPLE DAY!  The kids were talking about it all day and even when I dropped them off to their parents.  That is what I call a successful day.

First on our apple agenda was reading the book Apple Trouble.  Then, we went on an apple trail walk where we had to practice retelling the story.  We followed the apples on the floor, and then each time we came to a white sheet of paper, we had to complete that retelling portion of our book.  My kids LOVED going on the trail and finding where the next stop was.

The white sheet of paper said characters, setting, beginning, middle, end, problem, solution, and moral.  Then, we had a page dedicated to each white sheet in our retelling book.

After reading, we did some apple tasting.  I love focusing on the 5 senses to help my kids come up with adjectives.  This helps them learn descriptive words, which then helps them be better writers.  We tried red, green, and yellow apples.  One of my students said, "This is my first time ever having a yellow apple. This is the best day ever!"  

They sure loved eating those apples!  Don't worry, I did make them work for it.  First, they had to look at the apples and give me descriptive words.  Then, they had to listen to the apple, smell the apple, and touch the apple.  Finally, I let them eat the apple!  I also asked them to remember which apple was their favorite for our graphing activity we did later.

Check out all of our adjectives/descriptive words!

After we came up with descriptive words, my kiddos were asked to draw a picture about apples and write about them. Here is a range of pictures and writing I have within my classroom.

Each week we have 3 vocabulary words.  One of my students used our vocabulary word in a sentence.  I was SO excited when he did this.  The vocabulary word was artist.  He wrote, "I am an artist of apples."  This was definitely a proud teacher moment. (Also, a stupid one because I forgot to take a picture of it!)

During math, we graphed which apple was our favorite.  The kids loved seeing which apple won!  It was also a great graphing activity because there was a variety of opinions.  We discussed the most, least, and how many more liked green than red.  

We practiced two of our sight words by using apple jacks.  This was a fun hands-on activity.  Also, they got to eat some apple jacks when they were done. :]

We ended our apple day by making fun apples and writing a sentence using one of the descriptive words we learned during the day!

This is a great fine motor activity.  They rip the paper into small pieces and cover the small paper plate until you can't see the plate anymore.

Some of these activities I have included in a packet here.  Check it out if you are interested in completing any of these. :]

Thanks for stopping by!!  We definitely had a fun apple day.  What is your favorite thing to do with apples?