Sensory Table Fun!

Four years ago I was headed back to the classroom after 8 years as a strategist. While I was eager to begin the newest chapter in my life, I was nervous!!!! I put on a brave face and told anyone who asked how excited I was to be going back to the land of Glitter, Paint, and Play-Doh! I was going old school! I was going to have house keeping, dramatic play, art, and most of all I had big plans for the sand and water table I found in my room. 

OK, you can stop laughing! Yes, I had NO idea what Kindergarten was like. It had been 8 years since I had taught Kindergarten. Things had changed A LOT! Fast forward 4 years. I still want a room full of glitter, paint, Play-Doh, and my sensory table. I do pretty well integrating art into my lessons. I mean my students didn't refer to me as The Queen of Glitter for nothing! But, how to integrate the sensory table. When I shared my vision with a couple of colleagues, the only thing they had to tell me was, "We can't do things like that anymore, we don't have time!" So, no help on there. Where to turn, Pinterest of course! I have to say, I found a TON of ideas. So taking those ideas, I came up with some ideas of my own. For water day, rather than just have water games. I wanted to do a science with water station. I went with water beads with glow sticks and Squishy Baff. What is Squishy Baff?

OMG!!!!! Fun, slimy, gooey, amazing stuff! It is designed to go in the bathtub but works great in a sensory tub. It was easy to make and clean up. We did lots of experiments with viscosity, sink and float, and just had fun!

The Squishy Baff is the picture on the top. You may notice that the bottom picture is NOT your typical sand/water table. All of our other sand/water tables were being used so I used an inflatable salad bar I bought for family get togethers. It worked great. 

These two activities were just the beginning of what I have planned for my sensory table. I have another great activity with water beads. I will be using it at the beginning of the year. I can't wait to share the pictures and details with y'all. 

Finally, don't forget to enter my giveaway! 

Enter the using the Rafflecopter on Wednesday post. 

July 2014, Currently

 I  am totally enjoying learning how to link up and join the amazing parties going on all over the place. I have always loved the first of the month when I can read all of the "Currently" blog posts. Because of that, I decided I'd give it a try. Welcome to my completely ordinary life with my extraordinary children! 

Listening: my boys are grounded from all technology. The best thing I ever did was buy them iPhones for Christmas. I finally have a "currency" that means a lot to my boys. In order to get them back, they have to "earn" 500 points. The points are earned by doing chores. I have a list of chores with points attached. They decide what they want to do. No stress for me. All up to them!!!!

Loving: my family is everything to me. My niece is THE MOST AMAZING mom I have ever seen. She has 5 children and is on top of everything. She recently started making a summer bucket list of things to do with her family. So of course, I am going to do that too. Because when I grow up, I want to be the type of mom she is!

Thinking: I Teach K is only a week away. I know, I live in Vegas! No big deal, right? WRONG! I have begged, prayed,  wanted to go to this conference since going back into the classroom. Finally, my principal agreed to pay! Yipee! I can't wait to go, sit, watch, and learn from all of my Kindergarten idols (BTW: I'm super shy, so I will most likely just sit and soak in their greatness from a far)!

Wanting:to get out of the heat!  People is is suppose to get up to 115 degrees today. If you are coming for I Teach K, prepare for the furnace. Although it should be a little cooler next week. 

Needing: doesn't matter how many times I clean my pantry and fridge, it is a mess in a couple of days. So, I am going to reorganize and label EVERYTHING! Just need a few more baskets and mason jars.

4th of July: one of my favorite days of the year. Can't wait to enjoy with friends and family! 

Happy July!

Click here to join the fun!

Made It Monday!

I had so much fun linking with 4th Grade Frolics last Monday. I decided I wanted to do it again. This week I am being a copycat with a twist. A couple of weeks ago one of my favorite bloggers wrote a post on 3-D Ten Frames! My first reaction, OMG I need to make those. They are just what I have been looking for! If you want to read Smedley's Smorgasboard's (#smittenwithsmorgie) original post, here is a link .

3-D Ten Frames

I loved them so much, I wanted to make sure I would have enough for every student in my class to use during whole group instruction. Well, that raised a problem. I would need at least 30 (yep, I plan for 30 each year, last year I started with 22 the year before, 36). Storing that many would be a BIG problem. What to do? What to do? Easy - don't put on the bottom foam board piece. My biggest concern, they wouldn't be stable enough. BUT, they were. Here is how I made them.

Super easy and yet so useful. Happy crafting! 

 

4th Grade Frolics

Teacher Tip

After 21 years of teaching, I have come up with a few little tricks. One of my favorite is how to get my carpet from this:

to this in less than 2 minutes:

Simple! Magic piece of paper. All I do is choose a piece of paper, tell the kids go, and whoever picks it up gets a Magic Bean (a jelly belly). Simple and works EVERY time. On a management note, at first the kids will run up to you and ask if they have the magic piece. I won't tell them yes or no. I never tell what the piece of paper is until ALL the paper/garbage is picked up. Works great every time. 

Celebrations

My administration is insistent that our Kinders learn 100 sight words by the end of Kindergarten. Let me be clear, THIS IS NOT what I would normally expect in my class. However, my admin is very, "If you expect it, inspect it!" So since they expect 100 sight words, they are constantly inspecting to see that you are teaching those 100 words. I would also like to say, next year they are going to be even more involved with inspecting our data! That led me to building celebrations into reaching academic milestones. I had three major celebrations this year attached to learning. First was Top Bananas. Every student who knew ALL of their letter names and sounds by our 100th day would earn the Top Bananas party, a banana split party. EVERY one of my students attended this party. Second was our Sight Word, Race to the Castle, incentive. For every 50 sight words learned, students would earn lunch with the teacher. I provided the lunch. 

These boys were the first two to earn lunch with teacher. "J", told me this was the best day ever!  These two boys earned lunch with me 5 times! If you do the math, that's over 250 words a piece. 

My finally celebration of the year was our Math Wizard party. Again my administration had something to do with the goal, count to 100 by 1's and 10's by November. Well, my Cubs did not meet that goal. But, they did by the end of the year. This party was the best one because of the magic potion. It was also the cheapest. Basically, a cupcake with special topper and magic potion to drink. 

What is magic potion? You may notice that of the three drinks shown, all are different colored. WHAT? All students were given a cup of ice and a small can of lemon-lime soda. Students opened cans and poured their soda into their cup. The soda went into the cup clear, all of a sudden it turned green, red, blue, yellow, or purple. HOW? So simple the day before, I put several drops of food coloring on the bottom of the cups and let it dry overnight. When I placed the ice in the cup, it covered up the food coloring. So, when the soda hit the bottom of the cup, colored soda. That my friends is Wizard's Magic Potion! 

Final note, I spent way too much this year. Most of my kids earned at least one Happy Meal. So, next year I will not be doing the Happy Meal thing. Think I'm going to sick with simple like the Wizard Party. 

What's Happening Wednesday

I tried my first linky party on Monday. I had so much fun, I thought I'd do it again. I HAD to link up with Smorgie. I am a BIG BIG fan of Smedley's Smorgasborad!!!!!!

Click here for his post

I only have 1 day left of Summer School! While I have really enjoyed working with these soon to be kinders, I am READY for a break! 

Today I am blog stalking and making things for my classroom. I am changing things in my room again and need to refresh some of my decor. At first I was going with a space theme, but just couldn't get into it. So, I went with Neon Colors and Chalkboard!  First up, my new weather chart. I found one on TPT that I loved, but it wasn't in my colors so I modified it to go with my room.

Here's a link to the one I modified (It's free on TPT)

I also just finished my clip chart.

I use different categories for mine. All students start on star and work their way up to Mega Star and down to Rock Star (because what happens to a star that has fallen to earth, it becomes a rock). 

Finally I made my Welcome to Kindergarten sign!

And of course I'm waiting for 

Guilty! I love Big Brother and I am so happy it starts tonight :)

Fast and Easy Ocean Craft

Summer school is quickly coming to a close. Only two more days. It has been a great experience. I think all of us have had a great time! This week we have been doing all things oceans.  I am pretty fortunate, my grandmother was a well known shell collector. She and her husband traveled all over the world collecting shells and other things they found while diving.  While they left the majority of their collection to a museum, we were fortunate to get some shells and coral. After showing my Cubs the real thing, reading books, and a couple of video clips, we made our own coral reefs. 

Step 1

While I have always used salt dough to make my coral reefs, this year I was fortunate to have all of my crafting supplies provided by a grant. So, I chose to use Crayola Model Magic. Great colors and makes this craft a one day craft vs two day.

I have provided a salt dough recipe in case you want to use that instead.

Make Salt Dough 

(Salt Dough Recipe - this is for a single recipe. Double, Triple as needed)

1/2 c salt

1/2 c water

1 c Flour

Add the 1/2 cup of salt and 1 cup of flour to a bowl. Stir in the water adding it slowly- you may not need all of the water. You want the dough to be somewhat dry.

Step 2

Go on a stick hunt. We have some great trees on our school grounds. We are always sure to find the perfect stick. You need one that has a lot of small branches.

Step 3

Cover the stick with Model Magic. If using salt dough you have to let it dry over night and paint it after dried.

(not a big stick but it does have several little branches)

Step 4 

Use ocean themed foam stickers to decorate. 

There you have it, a quick and easy coral reef.