Teacher Shopping Finds w/Tickled Pink in Primary

This monthly blog post theme is right up may alley because I LOVE TO SHOP! I love scouring The Dollar Tree or the Target dollar spot for deals! Sometimes while I’m walking up and down the aisles, I see something that sparks my creativity and gives me ideas to take back to the classroom. I’ll provide direct affiliate  links to these products when possible to make your shopping a breeze!

The Target dollar spot is the BEST! Look at these drink stirrers that I found this week. These would be perfect for reading pointers!

I also came across these wipe off board games in the Target dollar spot. They have a number sense version so you can work on addition and subtraction. The other versions are for building 3-4 letter words. They come with little square tiles and a wipe off marker! I’m pretty sure I’ve seen something similar to this on Lakeshore, but for way more money!

Ikea is another great place to find good deals. We have decorated a lot of our house from there, but they have great teacher finds as well!  They are actually building an Ikea about 2 miles from my house….this is going to be bad news! I recently found this giant dice at Ikea. How fun would this be to throw in a center or use for a whole group game? If you don't have an Ikea near you, you can buy it online here. 

I found this Leaping Letters game at Kohls over Christmas and knew I had to get it for my nephew. I have seen this at Target and Amazon as well. If you love Amazon like I do, you can find the game here. This game reminds me of Perfection because you only have a certain amount of time to put all of the letters in place before they POP off. It also comes with a list of words so students can build words with these letters as well. We had fun playing this over Christmas!

This next shopping find is actually something I made while student teaching because my mentor teacher had one. All you really need is a glove, some stuffing or cotton balls, and a dowel rod. You can then make a big reading pointer! I decorated mine a bit further with a ring and a watch. J Simply, stuff the glove with cotton, put the dowel rod in the pointer finger, and then hot glue it all shut. I use this for when I read big books and it makes it easier to touch read and reach all of the words. So while you’re out and about, make sure to pick up a pair of cheap gloves.

If you’re like me, I go to school looking all cute, but then halfway through the day, I’m ready to tie my hair up. I ALWAYS have a hair tie on my wrist. I’m so used to wearing one, I forgot to take it off in my wedding! You can see it in my wedding photos. 🙈 Anyway, I have seen these hair tie bracelets on Pinterest and thought they were a great idea. I actually found them a few days ago at Charming Charlie. I LOVE that store! It has a ton of cheap accessories and better yet,  it’s all colored  coded. This is much trendier to wear than just a boring old hair tie. 😉

Finally, one of my favorite things I’ve bought is my personal laminator. I keep this at home to do small projects like this blends/digraphs chart or last minute things I make. I know many people have the Scotch laminator and I’m sure it’s amazing too, but I of course wanted to get a cute, pink one. I found this Swingline laminator and these laminating sheets on Amazon. It also comes in blue, gray, and red. 
Swingline laminator - $21.00
Swingline thermal laminating sheets (100) -$16

If you don’t have Amazon Prime yet, you may consider getting it.  I’m not much of an online shopper, but have really used Amazon Prime alot! It’s only $99 and you get FREE 2 day shipping, so this laminator came speedy quick! They have really good deals too. I’ve gotten to the point where if we are at a store, I check Amazon to see if we can get it cheaper or if the store doesn’t have our size in something. I still prefer to shop in stores, but Amazon is a great alternative. 

Whew, this was a long post! Can you tell that I love to shop? J Hopefully you’ve found some useful ideas.

The Magic of Word Study & a FREEBIE {Tickled Pink in Primary}

At the beginning of the year, when we are working on letter sounds, we use these building word cards. Students fill in missing beginning, middle, or ending sounds and record the answer on the worksheet. You can find this activity here. 

Another way to work on filling in missing sounds is at our stamping center. Students LOVE using stamps! I use this center all year and just simply switch out the worksheets for the alphabet, letter sounds, CVC words, etc. You can grab a few of these stamping worksheets FREE in my TPT store here. 

I made these sound spinners so students can easily see that by substituting just 1 sound, they can make new words! I created spinner for beginning, middle, and ending sounds.  Students simply spin the wheel to show a new sound, read the word, then lift the flap to see if the picture matches the word they read. Then students will spin a new sound to make a new word! Each set of sound spinners comes with a worksheet for students to provide their answers. You can grab these sound spinners in my TPT store here. 

These CVC word cards are an easy way to help students practice building simple words. You can use magnetic letters, playdoh, dry-erase markers, etc. for added fun! You can find them in my TPT store here.

 During my small group, we use these mini cups to work on word families. I gave students a cup with a red word family on it. They then had a stack of blue letters, and put one letter in front of the word family to make a new word. Next, they could stack another blue letter on top of the other cup to make a new word. The word family cup (red) doesn't move until they've built 5 words. They can then get a new word family and start making new words. Eventually, I'll add harder word families and blend/digraphs instead of just 1 letter on the cups. 

Another way to work on word families is with these word families mats I got years ago from Lakeshore. I love that they are dry-erase and give the students a picture clue for the word family. My students really enjoy using these mats, and they seem to catch on to the idea of word families quickly. My students love to show me when they use a blend or digraph to make a bigger word. Word families are an easy way to help build student confidence in reading!

One of my students FAVORITE activities is Fluency & Fitness! I have created over 50 different sets so we can work on these for any and every skills possible. I love doing these because students can work on academics, get in some exercise for a brain break, and I don't lose any instructional time. You can find all of my Fluency & Fitness bundles here. 

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Teaching Then & Now w/Tickled Pink in Primary

THEN: When I first started teaching, we did a lot of worksheets that came with our reading and math programs. They were VERY boring! Students weren't near as engaged as when I let them do actual hands-on centers, but unfortunately these worksheets or boring whole group lessons were a major part of our day. 

NOW: Thankfully things have changed, so we now do alot more small group work and students get more center time. We have now learned that it's important to have more engaging activities for students and let students learn from each other by working in groups. I created my Physical Phonics Word Work activities to give students a chance to work on phonics skills in a fun active way. This student is stomping out the number of sounds he hears in a word.

One of my favorite activities that I've made are my Fluency & Fitness sets. These are a fun way to work on literacy and math skills, yet students are able to get out of their seats while learning. It's also a way to incorporate technology which we know if very important now. Teachers love using these for learning time, transitions, brain breaks, and even indoor recess. 

Here's a sneak peek of Fluency & Fitness.

THEN: Speaking of using technology, look at how my old listening center used to be. Those headphones were HUGE and uncomfortable. I'm glad technology has come a long way so students can use iPods and iPads to listen to books now. 

NOW: Most schools are incorporating technology now and providing laptops or iPads for students to help them learn better.

THEN: As I was going through old files for this post, I found this old Kindergarten assessment. These were the skills we used to test students on for the year. That was back when we let kids be kids more and not put SO much pressure on them! 

NOW: Now Kindergarten students don't just have to be reading, but reading at a level D by the end of the year at our school.  I know many students are able to meet these high expectations we set for them, but I do wish we incorporated play more and were able to do more developmentally appropriate activities. 

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Assessment w/Tickled Pink in Primary

Do you dread report card time? It can be very time consuming to pull each student back and give assessments. I have an assessment system that I use that I find helpful in organizing student work and checking their progress. 

A few years ago, our district implemented data dashboards. We have to have a bulletin board graphing the progress of the class as a whole on certain skills. I decided to also create individualized folders for students to track their own data as well.

Instead of pulling students back all at once in October for report cards, I work with students individually periodically to see how they are progressing. Sometimes I work with them at center time so they don't even know I'm assessing them! One thing I love, is having all of a child’s assessment data in 1 spot! This makes it very easy if a parent or administrator has a question about how a kid is doing. I can also have my aide or parent volunteer take the folder to see what skills that particular students needs to work on.

For the cover of the folders, I use full sheet labels that I got a Office Depot. I also found them on Amazon below. Of course, you can just glue them on too. I have a variety of covers, so you can customize a folder to your student’s skin color and hair color. :)

I have tracking sheets included in the folder for things such as letters, beginning sounds, sight words, and numbers. My Kindergarten Assessment & Data Folders set includes some flashcards as well to use with these tracking sheets.

I use different colors of pens and crayons to graph the results and show how students are progressing.

I think it is very important to let the students color in the graph. This helps them take ownership and pride in their work and progress.

The folder contains very basic Kindergarten skills and doesn’t include every single thing I need for report card time, but these are the basic skills I felt that I needed to test verbally. I can use other worksheets to test number sense, math facts, etc. therefore I didn’t include that in the folder.

The Dolch Primer sight words are the list I used for this file since it is a common list. However, since we all don’t teach the same sight words, I created an editable file so you can edit the sight word tracking sheet and the sight word flashcards.

I’m sure you have your own set of assessment sheets for report card time, but hopefully giving you the idea of creating individualized folders will help save you time by having everything for each kid all in 1 place. If you're interested in my Data Dashboard folders, you can find them here. Do you have any tips/tricks for assessment time?

Cramming It All In & a FREEBIE {w/Tickled Pink in Primary}

Trying to squeeze as much learning into your day as possible and keep your students engaged can be hard. I think that we are putting so much pressure on students and increasing the expectations, that sometimes we forget that they are kids. 

I try to balance my schedule throughout the day, so we have some whole group learning, then small group or independent work, then back to whole group, and small group. This breaks up the learning a bit and gives students some time to interact with their friends. My schedule is the same every day so students know what to expect. They know when they'll get a chance to talk/share with their friends, and when it's time to listen to me.  I see my students checking out a picture schedule often to see what is coming next or how many things we have to get through until recess. LOL! Having a set schedule every day is easier for me to lesson plan because I can just quickly change out a skill, book title, etc. but overall I have a plan of what our day will always look like. You can grab these schedule card for FREE here. 

As a Kindergarten teacher, I think is important to let our little ones get a little bit of down time throughout the day. They still need to develop social skills and shouldn't be expected to just go, go, go all day long at the age of 5!  I have reading centers & math centers during my day so students can work on the skills I've taught, but do it by playing games/activities with their friends. Our reading centers are in the morning and our math centers are in the afternoon. Here's a picture of my reading center rotation chart. All of my supplies are right by the reading center (same for math), so students don't have to go all over the room looking for their tubs/materials. I also have 1 person in each group as the designated person to get out the tubs & clean it all up. This helps the transitions go smoother and not cause any arguing.

Inside each tub are a few activities for the students to do. I let them choose what to do, but once they've played the game once they have to switch to another activity. These low-prep Beginning Sounds activities are easy to prepare and great to throw in centers.

BINGO markers are definitely a favorite activity to do, so I created these Dot It! worksheets for reading & math centers. I love creating centers that can be used all year long, and all you have to do is simply change out the worksheets/cards. They kids already know how to play, so this makes lesson planning and explaining new centers a breeze!

Assessments are a necessary evil. It's something we all have to do, to see how our students are progressing, but it also takes time away from us teaching the rest of the class.  One way to constantly and quickly progress monitor my students on their letters is with this letter fluency sheet from my low-prep Alphabet Activities bundle. I can pull kids back and have them do this 1 minute assessment to see how many letters they know and if they know them quickly and fluently. As student's scores increase, I only have to do this with a few kids. In Kindergarten we don't do real grades or give homework that we keep grades on. I dread report card time because even if I mentally know how my students are doing and what they need help on, I still need to pull them all back 1 on 1 and give them a lot of formal assessments. This takes quite a bit of time! I don't have a classroom aide, but I try to do most of my assessing while the other students are at centers. I also like to use some of our center activities as assessments as well. I can sit with a group of kids as they are working on an alphabet game and I can take notes on which letters they are missing. This is more of an informal away to assess, but it doesn't interrupt the schedule of the day, and students are more relaxed and not feeling like they are getting quizzed by the teacher. :)

Fluency & Fitness is definitely a class favorite! These students below are working on naming their 3D shapes (shapes & real world images included), but then they have to do exercises every so often. They absolutely LOVE doing these and forget they are even learning. :) I love that I've found a way to make learning fun, help them get some energy out, yet not lose instructional time. There are over 40 bundles of Fluency & Fitness, so we can use these during math & reading, and all year depending on what skills we are learning.You can find this Shape Fluency & Fitness here.

It's tough trying to cram it all in, yet make learning fun. Sometimes we just have to trust our gut and do what we know is best for our kids.

What I Wish I Knew My First Year Teaching {Tickled Pink in Primary}

I will never forget my 1st year of teaching. It was a time of learning, growing, and building relationships with students, parents, and colleagues. I feel like every year we learn so much that makes us a better teacher, but I do wish I knew a few of these tips 10 years ago. 

When I look back on my early years as a teacher, I wish I had trusted my gut instincts more. There are times when I followed the textbook and curriculum even though I didn't think it was what was best for my students. I was too nervous to say something to my principal because I was a new teacher....do I really know what's better for my students than what these teachers have been doing for years? The answer is YES! No matter if it's your 1st year or 10th year, do what is best for kids! 

We had to do these math worksheets every day during small group or whole group. They were miserable!! The kids were so bored and I was so bored covering the material the way the textbook said.  I love to be creative and do more interactive lessons, so I would have thrown these worksheets in the trashcan! 

Ask for help, you can't do it all! Ask anyone and everyone to come in and volunteer. The students absolutely love helpers and the helpers love getting a chance to help students learn. My first few years, I didn't ask for as much help as I probably should have. Then I realized how nice it is to have volunteers work with individual students or a small group to give them some extra attention. When I taught in my hometown for a few years, my grandmothers would come in and help. They absolutely LOVED it!!!

It's so nice to get some fresh air, so take your learning outside more often. I wish I realized how much just a little break from being in the stuffy classroom could help. Students can take their books and do reading outside, use clipboard to do worksheets, or even take some games and just play them in the grass instead of on the rug.

I always had a classroom website so my parents could see what we were up to in the classroom. However, I was always the one taking the pictures. Finally about my 7th year of teaching, I started to let students use the iPad and take pictures of their work. They had to take pictures of something they were proud of, not just silly pictures. My students really enjoyed taking these photos! Then I'd give a few kids an opportunity to share the photos with the class after center time. Look how cute they are just posing next to their work while a friend takes their photo!

I'm such a neat freak, so having a messy room is really hard for me. However, when I look back at my years of teaching, some of the things I think my students liked the most, was when we did projects. I would get out all kinds of craft supplies and let students use whatever they wanted and spread out all around the room. They loved the creativity of it and having so many choices. They were very good about cleaning up after we finished, but I have to admit, it was hard for me to deal with the big mess!

Good luck with your 1st year teaching!