The Mitten

Virginia Was Awesome!

Pulled into my driveway last night at exactly midnight after an amazing trip to the SDE Virginia Kindergarten Teacher Conference.  Dragged my suitcase in the door, said hello to Lucy (my Miss Bindergarten look alike) and Paisley (the gorgeous, yet arrogant cat), and planned on crashing right away.  Instead I was up until 3 a.m. reading and planning and organizing all the new ideas I got from the wonderful kindergarten teachers who shared their ideas with me at all my sessions, as well as the incredible-ness of Marsha McGuire from A Differentiated Kindergarten .  She was amazing and made me feel like I'm a total slacker.  :)

We found out we are almost exactly the same age, but she has little kids at home (mine are all grown up!).  We both teach kindergarten full time and present for SDE whenever we can squeeze it in.  She, however finds time to blog, and create, and does the most amazing things in her classroom!  I don't know how she finds the time.  

Yesterday, I sat in all 4 of her sessions, and just soaked it all in while I created some activities to go along with the book "The Mitten".

Have a great week!

0

ESGI

Several years ago, (I don't even know how many for sure, but at least 6!) , while looking for a better way to keep track of my assessments, I somehow ran across ESGI (Educational Software for Guiding Instruction).  I can seriously say it is THE biggest game changer in my classroom I have found...maybe ever.  Seriously.

What I was looking for to at the time, was simply an easy way to keep track of how many letters and letter sounds my kids knew.  I was buried in papers that looked something like this:

2

Swift Publisher...My FAV!

Hey friends! I'm getting ready to present at the SDE Conference for Kindergarten Teachers in Blue Springs, MO, on July 14th and 15th (wow, that's coming up fast!). I can't wait!

For those of you that have seen me present, you know that one thing I'm ALWAYS talking about is a Mac program called "Swift Publisher". I use SP every single day. Seriously. Every. Single. Day. I make newsletters with it, I make posters, and worksheets, and my new business cards. Right now I am working on my "year plan" for next year using it. I LOVE this program!

I used to use Word to make worksheets and things for my class, and I would get so frustrated putting images in. I could never get it to look the way I wanted it to...and I spent a lot of time trying.

On one of those nights, I started doing a search for "something else"...and that's when I stumbled upon Swift Publisher. I can layer images easily (like put a fun border around the page, add some photos, and some clip art). I can duplicate pages easily...so I can make a game with several game boards and just change the color, for example.

Anyway, usually a week or so before my presentations, I email the nice people at Belight Software, and beg them for a couple of Swift Publisher "codes" to give away during my presentations. I guess they are getting tired of hearing from me :) ....because they sent me my own link to give to my teacher friends to get Swift Publisher for an amazing price....get this $14.99!

Here's the link!

Swift Publisher

Ready....Set....GO!

1

Kindergarten Teachers Rock!

I just got home from an amazing couple of days in Ohio presenting to a bunch of incredible Kindergarten teachers.  Last month, I presented at the Chicago Kindergaten Conference, and next month I go to Maryland.  I’m feeling so lucky to have the opportunity to meet so many great teachers, share with them a little about what I do in my classroom every day, and getting so many, many ideas from them to take back to my own classroom.  

0

Vegas Baby!!!

I had an amazing time at ITeachK in Las Vegas!  I met so many amazing teachers and presenters (and a mostly naked version of the band KISS…but that’s another story).  

Kim Adsit’s presentations ROCKED as always, and I came back with lots of great ideas for literacy.  She is always so inspiring.  Totally making a “boa constrictor” out of a stretchy fabric for the boa constrictor song.  She had a volunteer come up and step into this big sleeve of fabric with a snake face on it, and she slowly pulled it up over the guy as we sang the song about being eaten my a boa constrictor.  My kids will LOVE it!

SDE hosted a dinner for presenters on Tuesday night, and I was a nervous wreck meeting all the presenters #wayouttamyleague.  2 amazing things happened though, and it turned into a great night!

Amazing thing 1 (backstory):

The first year that I went to IteachK, I was sitting in a session about literacy with an amazing (and hilarious) presenter named Danny Brasell.  He was showing some slides that had teacher sites he loves.  So he starts talking about this site…about how he would love to meet the teacher someday…all these nice things….then he puts MY site up on the screen.  It’s ME!  He was talking about me!  

I kind of gasp and he turns and looks at me and I say “that’s me!”.  He said some more really nice things…and I promptly burst into tears (because that’s how I roll, I guess).

Anyway, fast forward to this year, I got to see him present again about vocabulary, AND I got to take my picture with him (and hear him tell people the story of me bursting into tears).

Awesome thing number 2 was meeting these 2 wonderful ladies Palma Lindsay fromKFundamentals and Jayne Gammons from smartkids  .They were both so sweet, introduced me around, gave me the inside scoop on lots of things, and shared dessert with me!  I <3 them!

I spent WAY too much money at the vendors.  Did I REALLY need 3 more kindergarten shirts?  I bought two more kits from Katie & Co.  One is to go along with the gummy bear song, and the other is the cutest watermelon/seeds game for the beginning of the year.  I LOVE Katie & Co. and always, always buy something from them!  

My two favorite things from the vendors, though are these amazing whiteboard paddles, and an awesome reknrek like I’ve never seen before!

The whiteboards are from KleenSlate, and here is what is amazing about them:  One side is just a regular whiteboard….the other side has this plastic sleeve that you can put anything in….like a 10 frame, handwriting paper, etc.  The marker (which doesn’t smell bad and will NOT lose it’s point even if you bang the tip) clip right into the handle of the board, and have an eraser cap.  The big soft cloth eraser (that’s the blue thing) is hooked to the bottom of the board with a ring.  BOOM.  Pretty much all my problems I’ve ever had with whiteboard solved!  I handed over my credit card and bought a whole class set (that arrived at my house a week later!).  Oh, did I tell you they come in rainbow colors?????!

The other is this awesome rekenrek from MathLine .  I love, love, love this!  It works so well with how we work on the concept of 10, as well as decomposing teen numbers.  I love that if I have all 10 rings, and push 5 of them away, the numeral 5 is right there, so the kids are manipulating the rings, using it as a tool for solving problems, AND learning number recognition.

I talked with the Mathline guy forever!  He has “big number” ones too.  I am thinking I want a 100 one for whole group activities, and a set of these “20” ones for each of my kids at small group.

I can’t wait for next year!!!!!

0

Florida SDE Conference

Taking it easy on my Christmas Break!  It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks.  The Saturday after Thanksgiving, I ended up going into the ER and had gallbladder surgery the next day.  I was released from the hospital on Monday, and flew out to speak at the SDE Florida Kindergarten Teacher conference on early Wednesday morning.  Thank goodness for pain pills and my amazing 15 year old Maddie (who hauled my HUGE suitcase full of kindergarten junk all over 2 airports).  

The people in Florida were seriously the nicest people I have ever met, and I even through my pain pill fog I had an amazing time.  

The room I presented in was HUGE.  I spent the first day of the conference watchingDr. Jean (my B.F.F) present in the same room.  I think I have watched her present about a dozen times, but I learn something new every from her every time!  My advice:  Never ever pass up an opportunity to go see her. :)

The sign outside my door on Thursday.  Still makes me giggle to see it.

I've heard from so many people since the conference!  The most often asked question is about the "Talk Blocks" I use with my geometry small groups.  I record step by step directions for the small group on these recordable blocks…with the numbers 1-5 on them.  

For the pizza activity I recorded the directions on 1:  "find the big brown square, cut the corners off, then trim the edges to make a circle for the crust."  

After a lot of searching, I finally found a link for the boxes on Amazon!  I think we were all looking for them under the name "talk box" instead of "talk blocks".  Here is the link:Talk Blocks

To my wonderful new Florida friends that were trying so hard to help me find a way to get Maddie to the beach…we made it!  It was an amazing trip all the way around!

Dec 27, 2013, 7:21 PM

0