Running Records {Free}

Hello Friends,

I have been so busy with moving, changing schools, etc. this summer I have hardly had a moment to blog.  I feel bad, so to make amends I am offering a FREEBIE.

These are my Running Record Sheets, I love them!  Feel free to snag your own copies! Just click on the image below to head over to my TpT shop!
(You can choose a single sided or double sided version.)

Okay, now that I feel better I am off to finish packing!  It is moving day tomorrow and I have LOTS to do before that big truck arrives!

Happy Summer!

Belated President's Day...

...because LATE is better than NEVER!  I have been so busy finishing up report card assessments and getting all my  crap  important documentation together to re-license, which is costing an arm and a leg now, ughh!  I just NEVER got around to posting my President's Day FREEBIES I made for all of you! WHAT?!?!  Yep, you heard me right, FREEBIES!  As you all know I have a crush on our friend Harry, I use his songs ALL THE TIME!  So of course we watched this:

Then I created cut and paste activities for the kiddos to test what they learned from the video.
(Click on the image below to get your own copy from Google Docs)

We also discussed the various pets some of our past presidents have had... then the kidlets got to choose what pet they would have if they were President.

Here I am as President Sumens with my pet zebra on the white house lawn.

Do you want your own copy?

Click below:

We also talked about the parts of the flag, made a national symbols book, and learned You're a Grand Old Flag for our end of the year program.  Whew.  It has been a busy week.  With all of that and our report card testing, Treasures Unit, and fitting in MATH (I always teach money this week, it ties in NICELY with our study of presidents and symbols).

We watched this: (I know you are SHOCKED it is a Harry K video)

After the video we solved some riddles about coins and then played Kagan style with a quiz, quiz trade all about MONEY!  The kids had a BLAST learning about money today and hopefully we have those coins down because my daughter and I cannot seem to get this song out of our heads.... haha.

Oh and by the way, did you notice that I am almost to 100 followers?!  It seems like it has been a looooong time coming!  So I really want to plan a big giveaway... if you are interested in joining in leave me a comment below or send me an e-mail: mindysumens@gmail.com

We are Writers!

Remember back to the beginning of the year... remember all those kiddos who couldn't write their name?  Didn't know any letters? Couldn't make a straight line?!?!  Remember thinking, "Man I am starting all over... all over!"  And little by little day by day we work and learn and then the day comes when you look at their writing and think, "holy cow, we have come so far!"  And then they line up for library without pushing shoving or talking (okay that still doesn't happen every time).  Even still, we are there... it is the time of year that I LOVE.  Now is when I feel all of that hard work is coming together, they are sounding out words, making correct sentences (most of the time), and in some cases writing multiple sentences (that always makes my heart happy!) I love to see them excited about writing, love it!  Here are a few samples from this week!

"I like to go to the farm.  Because I like the farm."

" I like Smelling flowers!  I love flowers!  We love flowers!  Flowers are pretty!"

"I like to go to the cat (store)."

"I like to go to Beaver.  I like Beaver!  Cuz Beaver is fun cuz I get to see my friends."

"I am just me but soon I am going to be a dentist!"

"I like the park.  I like the park so much.  Even just to sit on the sidewalk."

"I like to go to school!  I like school.  School is fun!  I like working!"

"I like to go to the jungle."

"I like to go to the store."

"I like to (go) to my dentist and my dad is my dentist!"

"We like going to the ice cream shop!  I like pink (ice cream)!"

I have added a link to the writing paper that I use in my student's journals.  Click HERE to get your own copy!

Animal Homes

We are finishing up our animal unit next week.  For my Science and Social Studies Center we will be making these:

I have a super sweet little old lady who comes an volunteers in my classroom once a week.  She loves to collect pine cones and has been bringing me little bags filled with pine cones for the past couple of years.  I keep them and store them away.  Well I now have lots and lots and lots of pine cones.  More than I can store... see the problem.  One of my incredible team members came up with the solution!  She is beyond brilliant and  mentioned the above idea to help me use all those pinecones!  Although with one variation... due to peanut allergies we will be making ours with crisco instead of peanut butter... otherwise the same idea.

To go along with this center (and keep them busy for just a little bit longer) I created a quick matching worksheet for the kiddos to complete.  That's your Friday Freebie, enjoy!

Have a great weekend!  It's FRIDAY!  

Assessment Time....

Report cards and SEP's are just around the corner, eek!  Report card testing is NOT my favorite part of teaching.  I hate filling out report cards and testing, testing, testing.  Despite my lack of excitement I will be spending time the next two weeks making sure my kidlets are where they need to be. To make this task a little more bearable I made a quick and easy assessment sheet to keep myself organized and make all that record keeping a bit easier. Here is a copy of the assessment form that I made for our team to use.  Feel free to snag a copy for yourself.  Just click on the image below.

Happy Testing.

H-A-LL-O-W-EE-N {freebie}

I am a huge fan of our friend Mr. Harry!  I don't know how I ever taught without his fun songs to enrich my curriculum.  This is a fun little Halloween tune that would be super fun to sing with your kiddos. 

We had a few extra minutes with my PM class today and I whipped this out to sing while we waited to line up for the bus, they loved it!

I am feeling all Halloween-ish since we had our first two Halloween parties of the season last weekend (an amazing faculty party, and an outrageous house party which I left with all sorts of goodies, coupons, and freebies!  It was my first house party and I am HOOKED) I love all the fun of Halloween (not the spooky part though, that blood, gore, and scare is not for me... I am NOT a haunted house kind of girl) pumpkin patches, hayrides, corn mazes, and kiddos in cute costumes sign me up!

But let's be honest my kiddos really make the season exciting!  They are planning out their costumes, bringing home cute projects from school, and giggling about smelling feet and getting treats!  I love being a mom!  The kidlets and I finally put up a few decorations last weekend as well.  It feels nice to come home and see signs of Halloween in the house... lots more to do though, we are far from finished.  My favorite way to decorate for any holiday is to stick my kiddos crafts and artwork in frames... I am sentimental.  I know.  I keep their holiday artwork for ages... and get all weepy when I pull it out!  Even weepier when it is too old and faded to keep up anymore!  haha.

So my dearies, in honor of the season... I hope you are stirring up some Halloween fun wherever you may be... here is your freebie!  I am all about the think, draw, write for my little kinder kidlets these days so here is a little diddy I whipped up just tonight for my team to use with our kinder kidlets, thought I would share!  Just click on the image to head on over to my google docs and snag your own copy!

Happy Halloween!

We Love to Sort!

Math centers this week focused on sorting.  The kiddos LOVED it!  We had 4 sorting centers this week:

M&M (sort and graph)

Parking Lot (sorting vehicles by type/color)

Ice Cube Tray Color Sort

Farm Animal Sort

Since we had such a great time sorting I thought that I would share the love!

My Friday Freebie is a copy of our Farm Animal Sort recording sheet. 

 (click on the link to go to my google docs to get your own copy)

We also had our 20th day of school this week!  It is hard to believe we are already 20 days in!!!

I love how hard these kiddos are working on their Zero the Hero books!   This unit is by far one of my favorite units all year.  I love counting our way through the year!

On a personal note this is what we were up to this weekend...

 Little Man brought home Happy the Hippo from pre-school for the weekend and it was our job to take him out and show him a good time.  My little guy decided that he needed to go out to breakfast and on a four wheeler ride with Grandma and Grandpa!  I think that Happy had a good visit and I adore my little guy, isn't he too adorable in those glasses!  

Run, run , run as fast as you can....

Since I have already taken you on the tour of my classroom I thought for my open house today I would give you a little peak at our day.

Today was our Gingerbread Hunt, it is one of my favorite days of the year!  We are able to go around the school meeting important people and places such as the cafeteria, the lunch ladies, the office and the amazing secretaries, the library and our infamous Mrs. Lefler, the first/second grade hall, the custodians, and the third/fourth/fifth grade hall.  We chase that silly Gingerbread Man all over the school only to have that sneaky little guy end up back in our classroom ready to eat!  (He was delish BTW)

This unit covers it all peeps!  On top of getting to know important places and staff members.  The story is a read aloud (no pictures just listening on the kiddos part) so we can talk about creating pictures in our minds, we also get to make predictions and the kids can join in on the repetitive text (interactive).  After the story we then make our own GIANT Gingerbread Man (making a connection to the story) where we introduce our 5 senses.  We smell the gingerbread, listen to the sounds while making the gingerbread, see the gingerbread, feel the gingerbread, and finally taste the gingerbread (this is getting us ready for our upcoming science units where we will need to use those senses).  Finally, this is on BROWN day (during our first 3 weeks of color review) so we add in a little color song and simple take home book to teach concepts of print, great integration.  Whew!

Then to make the day even more exciting it just happened to be our TENTH day of school today and our good friend Mr. Zero the Hero came for a visit.  We counted to 100 with the talented Dr. Jean, completed the first page in our Zero the Hero book, and even heard a little tale about what makes our good friend Zero such an impressive and heroic guy!

Throw in a little library and computers and that was our day!  We had a lot of fun!  I sent them home ate lunch and did it all again.  Tomorrow is Black and White Day, Thursday is Favorite Color Day, and Friday is all about Brown Bear, Brown Bear!  Then our review days are done and we are getting down to business, speaking of business click HERE for a little freebie.  I am introducing my listening center this week and thought I would post my response sheet I use.  Enjoy.

On a personal note, this little sweetie had his very first day of pre-school today.  Isn't he so handsome! (and a little bit silly)  I am dying that TWO of my THREE are now in school a pre-schooler and a kindergartner.  They will be graduating before I know it! Eeek.  His pre-school teacher is a RoCkStAr and picks him up from me at my school right before school starts.  Then I go get him at lunchtime and drive him out to Grandma's for the afternoon.  I am one lucky Momma to have a pre-school teacher like that!

Help Wanted...

Hello Bloggy Friends!  I need your help, please! I know you are beyond busy, back to school, copies, collating, binding books, lesson planning, etc. etc. etc.

However, I have been asked to present at SUECON it is a technology conference for educators held in Southern Utah.  I attended last year and it was great.  I am beyond excited to present but a little overwhelmed I don't know if I am qualified to teach teachers... scary stuff.  That is where you come in.  You are all incredible, smart, techie teachers.  I am looking for any and all advice... my presentation is called Blogging Basics and Teacher Created Products.  What would you find valuable?  What tips and tricks have you found along the way?  Spread the word, link-up, help me out!

So it's a party...  What program do you love to use to make your units/lessons?  What programs could you not live without?  Share your knowledge.... and to say "thank you" here is a freebie. (my CENTER SIGNS I have had a LOT of you asking for them... I thought I would share and link up).

Freebie, Freebie, Freebie!!!

It is late... the house is silent.  All three kiddos and the hubby are sleeping.  I tried to join them, I really did but my mind is racing... so much to do!!!  So I crept out of bed and got to work.  I needed nameplates, I need to get them printed PRONTO and laminated so I can stick them on my kidlets pencil boxes... yep that's right pencil boxes.  (I got them for $.54/each at Walmart)

You see with 2 sessions of Kinder I HATE sticking nameplates to the tables... for some kiddos it confuses them, to have so many names adhered to one table... and it gets kinda cluttered.  Plus when they move around during centers they can't see their name, which so many of them need to see so that they can write it on their papers at the beginning of the year.  Solution?  Pencil boxes.  I stick their name on their pencil box.  they take it with them everywhere.  At the end of the day they put it in their cubby and we repeat the process again in the afternoon.  I love it.

So what am I doing at midnight?  I am stressing about my nameplates because my kinder classes start Tuesday, I am testing my last 2 kiddos on Monday... I will have my final class lists as soon as I am done testing and I can FINALLY put their names on things, finally.  Just in time for them to walk in the door.

I made them in yellow and green, since that is how I divide my classes.  Yellow for AM and Green for PM.  I hope you can use them.  I am loading them to my Google Docs.  Feel free to download HERE.
Now maybe I should try and get some sleep, otherwise I may be snoring through church tomorrow... or today rather.... but my house is so quiet, it is hard to not just sit here and enjoy it.

Friday Already!!! Freebie Time!

  Seriously, Friday, already!  I have been so busy this week... between getting myself ready for back to school, my classroom ready, my kindergartner ready (this is her first year and she is over the moon with excitement), my pre-schooler ready (he is wearing his backpack all over the house), and my hubby ready (it is our LAST year of his colllege classes, I deserve an award for being a patient and supportive wife)... I am exhausted!  But I do have a freebie and so I just had to link up!  But first here is what I have been up to in my classroom:

After seeing them all over pinterest, I FINALLY went to Target and bought some tissue paper.  It has been years since I have made a tissue paper pom (I made about a million one year to decorate for a school dance when I was in High School) I forgot just how noisy they can be.  Hubby was trying to watch the Olympics while I was whipping out these babies one night, he had to send me to the other room... his exact words,  "So ummm, how many more of those are you planning to make?"  I was on the second one... I had a few to go... oops.  I retreated to our bedroom, put on a chick flick and pommed my little heart out!

When I went to the school to hang my poms I had teachers and interns stopping by my room admiring their fluffy colorful pom-i-ness... it made all that folding and fluffing worth it.  I even gave a tutorial to a couple of teachers who needed poms in their own rooms!   While I was taking care of the pom situation my littles were doing this:

They love coming over to the school, but I hate the clean up when we are finished!  By the way if walking under a ladder is bad luck what do you think about playing house under one???  Should I be concerned for my little toddler?

Anyway on to my freebie, I originally intended to post my Subtracting with Pirates lesson, however, my cute kinder team member needed a new alphabet line, and so I made her one, and then our other team member needed one too... of course.  So I made her one as well.  I thought that maybe some you getting your rooms ready may find these useful so... without further ado here are my freebies:

(CLICK ON THE WORDS BELOW TO GO TO GOOGLE DOCS)

ABC line Turquoise

ABC line Red

and this one I have posted before but for those of you who may have missed it:

ABC line Black/White Polka Dots

Happy Friday!

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Enjoy your Picture/Word Journals... Thanks for following my blog!