Book Talk Tuesday: Andrew's Loose Tooth

     I am linking up with Mrs. Jump's Class for Book Talk Tuesday! We are still finishing up our fabulous community helpers unit and today we read one of my favorite fiction books for this unit: Andrew's Loose Tooth by Robert Munsch!

     This story is about a little boy who has a painfully loose tooth that refuses to come out! His parents, a dentist, the tooth fairy, and his friend all go to crazy lengths, until finally the problem is solved. My kids thought this book was hysterical. This was a great story for holding their attention and it was easy for my students to retell! If you don't have this book and want to check it out... I just found that you can listen to Robert Munsch read it on his website, http://robertmunsch.com/books.

We also did a little writing activity with this book. I know this is my second FREEBIE to post for today... but I guess I'm just feeling extra loved and wanting to pay it back :) So here ya go! This one is available in my TPT shop. Just click the pic!

Also, if you are curious, I did FINALLY finish adding to my community helpers unit. Here is a peek at some of the new centers being used in class today! 

September Freebie!

I met my teachers pay teachers goal for September and I wanted to say thank you to all those who made this possible! Here is a freebie to celebrate - Hope you enjoy! Just click on the picture to download the FREEBIE!

Tips and Tricks : Desk Tags

     Y'all, I seriously could not wait to share this with you! For the past three years I have struggled with keeping my students' names attached to their spot on our tables. I used clear contact paper and my kiddos would play with the tags and eventually pull the contact paper up. It took some students only half a week before I needed to replace their name tags! Using contact paper was COSTLY and TIME CONSUMING. It also was NOT conducive for frequently changing student seats during the year. The solution is so simple: Velcro. I have no idea why it took me until now to come up with this?!?!?! 

      I piloted this with one student's name tag and eventually progressed to the whole class. We have been using the same name tags for a few weeks now and it has been no problem! My students don't even play with the tags or the velcro. The only thing I haven't tried yet is removing the velcro from the tables. Hopefully the velcro strips will come off if the need arises! 

Community Helpers Unit

Its been a while since I've posted, but I'm making up for it with a super long post!  This week we started our community helpers/ jobs unit. My students have been so excited for this - partly because of our adorable KWL chart. My kids ALWAYS have A LOT to say, as you can see here!

Know

Want to Know

     The fact that some of my students thought you had to be white to be rich absolutely broke my heart. We talked about that before we even finished our chart! I am thankful to see my kiddos so curious, but seriously, I don't think we are going to be able to cover all of this! "How do the people on the driver's side drive the plane? Can we learn how to do that?" Great questions, Smiley Jack.  I'm not sure if thats something we will be able to cover in Kindergarten. 

     To go along with our unit, I created some adorable common core aligned math and literacy centers for my little ones! So far, they have been a blast and I am so THANKFUL that I made these centers in BOTH color and black and white! I'm normally a fan of cute, color graphics, but this week I ran out of ink, so I was thankful I could print some in black and white with clipart stamps! Here is the work we did in centers this week..

Math Centers

Bakery Center - Counting chocolate chips and matching numerals and quantities 

 I try to keep "Can Do" activities in my centers for early finishers. In this center, students could play this fun Scholastic game that I snagged for CHEAP at Walmart just before school started.

  

Military Center - Count, graph and record (1-10) 

Firefighter Center - Roll the dice and find the sum! This simple center turned out to be the favorite of the week! Who knew? One of my K5ers has begged me to make one with baby animals. How cute is that? Maybe I'll add a veterinarian center? 

Mail Carrier Center - Deliver the mail to the correct address! Matching numerals to number words and ten frames!

"Can Do's" for early finishers ...

Math at the Teacher Table

      

Literacy Centers

Brown Table Area: Listening and Pocket Chart Center

Yellow Table Area: Word Work and Writing 

Red Table Area: Read Together and Handwriting

Carpet Area: Puzzles and Games 

 "Can Do" for Early Finishers

     If you want to implement any of these activities in your own classroom, you can purchase them from my TPT shop. I am still adding additional items to my Community Helpers Math and Literacy Centers so they are on sale until Monday! Just click the pic! 

   

       Also, my version of Down by the Station, which was my listening center this week, is very old. Its not on CD... its on cassette. Every year this is one of my kids favorite listening center books for the entire year - because it is such a FUN song! Lucky for you, I just found another version that comes with a CD for just $5 on amazon! I am so excited, because there are apparently tons of similar sing along books by this company for just $5 on Amazon... I'm off to shop :)  

Five for Friday

I started this week off right with THE AVETT BROTHERS! They were awesome and I definitely want to see them again! 

I have been making myself busy, busy, busy working to update my Fall centers and to create some new ones. These are my Spider mats from last year and I am still trying to decide if I want to remake them differently. Any thoughts? Click the pic to see them in my tpt shop. 

We are working on our Community Helpers Unit. Check out our ADORABLE, FUN, CCSS ALIGNED math and literacy centers!!!

My kiddos have been LOVING writer's workshop and so have I! I am so glad I finally made this a priority in my classroom. Just check out this adorable book cover one of my K5ers created this week!

Found a recipe for Buffalo Chicken Enchiladas on Pinterest. Y'all, SOOOOO good! I'm going to be making these again when I visit my brothers and cousin in Auburn in a few weeks!