Share The Love Hop

Valentine's Day is a day of showing you care and love for those special people in your life. This is actually something I try to do every day. However, I do get busy and sometimes forget to be grateful for what I have and show those certain people in my life how much they mean to me.  I am joining a few friends of mine this week in an effort to share how we "Share The Love" to some of our favorite charities, organizations, and families in need.  

We are ALL going to donate 10% of our earnings from February 10th - February 14th to the charities and families that are close to our hearts.  It is our wish that you may Hop through and feel it in your heart to donate something to one or even all of these charities and families.

My choice for the "Share The Love Hop" is a sweet little girl named Miaya. 

Miaya is a beautiful three year old little girl. In late January 2016 she came down with an upper respiratory infection that would not seem to go away with the antibiotics prescribed by her doctor. She was on her second course of antibiotics when she spiked a fever and started complaining about leg pain. She was taken to All Children's Emergency Center on February 21st and she was admitted for further testing. She was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia on February 25, 2016.The diagnosis came as a complete shock to everyone as Miaya had been an extremely healthy child up until this point.

The day after her diagnosis Miaya was taken into surgery, to have a port put in, and they started chemotherapy later in the day. She will continue chemotherapytreatment until May of 2018. As you can imagine the medical bills the family are faced with are immeasurable. Miaya is the grandaughter of a fellow teacher and very dear friend to me. She had to take a leave of absence from her teaching position to give Miaya the care she needs. I am hoping through all of our love and support we will be able to help ease the impact of what is to come. I am asking all of you reading this, if you can spare even $1, every penny helps. You can donate with me to Miaya on her GoFund Me page: Miraculous Miaya.

In order to say thank you for Sharing The Love and donating with us, you can get a freebie at each stop.  My FREEBIE is a writing activity that encourages spreading love around the classroom and school while working on letter writing skills. It is a 10 page writing activity.

You can get it at my TpT store or by clicking Love Letters

In addition to this freebie, I will choose 2 people who answer the question below on this "share the love" blog post to pick an item from my store for free. I will randomly pick 2 winners on February 15th.  Here's the question:

How do you encourage your students to "Share The Love" with the world around them?

**Don't forget to leave your email address along with your comment below so I can contact you if you win!

Continue Sharing The Love (with one of my teaching Besties) Cristina of  McCrone Love at The Primary Besties!

Stories For Their/Your Soul

This week I am joining my Kinder Friends to share about stories that we think are good for your soul.

I love reading. It is my favorite subject. I had a very hard time deciding on just one book that I love, so I am sharing 2.

1. A book for your teacher soul:

I have to tell you about this book that I read, researched, and continue to go back to while I am planning for differentiation in my classroom. It is UHHH-Mazing. It is called The Common Core Companion. This book goes through EVERY K-2 Informational and Literature Reading, Writing, and Listening/Speaking standard. It will take one standard then show you the K level of it, the first grade level of it, and the second grade level of the standard. Then it will give you examples of what the student could be doing, questions to ask, and examples of how to expand or remediate EACH standard. The Common Core Companion is a wonderful tool that can ease your soul when planning for whole group, small group, or individual lessons. I highly recommend you get it and use it! You can get it on Amazon for about $28.00

2. A story for the Classroom Soul:

One of my ALL time favorite stories to read is called A Frog Thing by Eric Drachman.  This story is about a little frog named Frank. Frank is determined to fly. But flying is NOT a frog thing!  Frank sets his mind to it even though others laugh at him and tell him he can’t.  This story is so much fun to read with the students in your class.  It teaches so many great lessons and will really warm the kiddo’s souls. The students learn (above everything else) that if you just be you and try, anything is possible. If you don’t have the book but would love to try it, you can get it on Amazon here OR watch and listen to it on You Tube here.

After using this text with your class you can always connect it to Science by learning all about frogs and their life cycle.  I use this Frogs Can Grow Too life cycle reader and activity set to work with my kiddos.  

This product will be for sale in my store until January 22, 2017. You can get it by clicking the link above or by searching #kinderfriendswinter on TPT.

Your next stop is my good pal Elaine over at Kitty Kitty Kindergarten.

She has a fabulous and uplifting story about empowering a class to share with you!

Spring Into Learning Blog Hop

Spring is almost here and I can't wait!! I love this time of year. The little minds are lighting up faster and huge gains are always being made. There is just something so special about seeing those little light bulbs go on! For every holiday my kiddos and I love to spread holiday kindness everywhere. One of the ways we do that is by opening a plastic egg everyday and performing whatever act of kindness is inside. Another way we do this is by "egging" other classrooms and the front office.

First we get busy making our easter bunny hats. (Because you can't deliver Easter Eggs if your not an Easter bunny right??) These hats are SUPER easy to make:

1. Get a manilla folder. and create the template (using the photos below). I created 5 templates so that I could have one for each team.
2. Get the large 9x12 construction paper. (White if you want to let them color, or any color that they think the Easter Bunny is....)
2. Lay the large paper flat on the table and allow the kiddos to trace the pattern onto the paper.
3. Cut on the lines.
4. Fold the center portion back and glue it to the left and right sides of the "left over" construction paper.
5. Wear them! They are soooooo STINKIN cute!

Personally I LOVE the first Bunny hats, but if you are short on time........another option for hats could be a paper plate:

(I found this one on Pinterest.)

The next step is too spread some kindness in the classroom and school grounds. Depending on how Easter falls each year, I prepare anywhere between 5-30 plastics eggs for this part.  All I do is print out some random acts of kindness cards:

Then fold them, stick them inside a plastic egg, and number the eggs with a sharpie. Each day a kiddo will pick a different egg to open. Then we simply read and follow the instructions inside.

The final step of our Classroom Kindness is to go around the school and EGG other classrooms. 
1. Fill Eggs with a special wrapped treat.
2. Write sweet notes using the egg writing paper and also put them in the egg.
3. Hide them in another classroom and hang the You've been EGGed sign on their door.
This is so much fun and the kiddos really get into it. If you would like to try it, you can get it in my store for only $1.50

     

I challenge you to spread a little Easter Kindness this year! Thanks so much for hopping by!

An InLinkz Link-up

Love Letters Freebie and Link Up

Welcome to my FIRST "ITeachKinder" Linkup!
In these monthly linkups, I will be sharing timely tips, teaching strategies, resources, and some freebies with you.  If you like what you see in this blog post, be sure to follow me (or any of the participating bloggers) and check back at the beginning of the each month for a new link up. Today, I will be sharing a free and a paid teaching resource with you that I use during February to keep my kiddos engaged in learning! 
For me a classroom should be built on a community of friendship and love. My kiddos know from day one that we all treat each other we love, respect, and kindness.

 One of the ways that we continue this throughout the year is by writing "Love Letters" to each other. {This unit is perfect for Kinder or First.} 

 I begin this unit in February because it is perfect for Valentine's Day. We learn what a letter is, how to write one, how to address one, and what types of things we would put into a letter.  I begin by reading this awesome book. It is a great way for kiddos to get their "hands on" a real letter. It is called The Jolly Postman by Janet and Allan Ahlberg.

Then the kiddos use a planning sheet to "interview" a friend.

 Finally, the kiddos get to write their letter and "mail" it to their friend.  We make our own envelopes out of construction paper. We also address the envelopes and add a stamp. (All of these things are included in this FREEBIE!) The kiddos are hooked on writing letters after the first time of doing it whole group.  They want to interview and write letters to each other ALL. THE. TIME! It's fabulous! If you would like to try this FREEBIE, just click Love Letter Freebie!

When our kinders and firsties are writing anything, they need a good base of sight words to help carry their stories or letters. Sight Word Hunts are a great way to practice identifying and writing sight words that the kiddos will want to use in their letters. I use this activity every other week in my class. The first week we use it, it is done independently. Then I place the center version of the hunt in a center for the following week. There are 12 different versions of the game so it can be played many times. The particular Hunt that I use to support the above letter writing is called Valentine's Day Sight Word Hunt. The kiddos use magnifying glasses to hunt for sight words.  When they locate a word, they cross it out  on the paper and then write it on the blank provided.Super easy to make, super engaging, and super fun!

If you would like to try this word hunt out in your classroom, just click Valentine's Day Sight Word Hunt.

Gingerbread Fever FREEBIE!!

I love using the Gingerbread Man Stories at Christmas time to teach compare/contrast, sequencing, characters, settings, retelling, and really just about everything!  This year I am doing 6 different stories with my kiddos.  We use a graphic organizer to keep track of all of our thinking and then glue it into our reading journals.  Then we will practice a Reader's theater and perform it for other classmates and other classes in our school.  Here are the stories that I LOVE to use for this unit.

This is adaptation of the original version of the story.

This is another adaptation of the original version of the story.

 Meet the Gingerbread Man's sister!  The kiddos LOVE the twists and twirls in this story (especially at the end).

Meet The Gingerbread Baby! The kiddos love the surprise ending in this story.

Of course the Gingerbread baby needs some friends! This story tells about how he gets them.

Oh No! Santa is coming! How will the Gingerbread captain save his pirates and his ship? The kiddos love seeing how the day is saved in this adorable story!

These are just a few of my FAVORITE Gingerbread tales.  There are many more out there!

As a class we go through each story and chart the story elements on the following graphic organizer. I model and they copy at first, then we begin to share the pen, then they begin filling out the class chart alone, and finally by the 6th story they are able to complete the entire story row independently. If you would like to try this out, just click Gingerbread Organizer. 

(In the download, one chart has lines and one chart does not. You can choose which one you prefer to use with your class.)

And finally we put on a reader's theater.  This pack is not on my store just yet but will be soon so keep an eye out for it!  If you love the Gingerbread units as much as I do, you will want to see this Readers Theater and Retelling pack!

Here is a preview:

2 different styles of Reader's theater to save paper...........

1.

2.

Plus a retelling storyboard and characters activity!  So much fun!  Do you have any favorite Gingerbread stories? I would love to know if there are any good ones out there that I might be missing!

Have a FABULOUS Christmas break everyone!