How to create a "Grab my Button" button

This is a special shout-out THANK YOU to Sweetaprils. Her tutorial on how to create a "Grab Button" was so easy and user-friendly. I literally could not figure out an easy way for a week! I am so glad for her directions! Check out her site if you need to know how to make button for others to grab!

Thanks for reading!

AAARRGGHHH!! Pirate Day!!

September 19th was such a FUN Day!! It is National "Talk like a pirate" Day!! So our kindergarten kids got to come to school DRESSED as pirates! The loved this!! It was amazing to see how the kids and families got into it!

To prepare we had our local Long John Silver's to donate pirate hats to our class. The day before, we turned the hats over and painted them colorful colors!

On Pirate Day, we read lots of pirate stories, including:

When the pirate hats were dry we decorated them with shapes and a skull and bones! The kids were ecstatic about this part! I then stapled them to a sentence strip to fit it to their heads.

My teacher friend Sandy on my team, came up with a GREAT idea! She had a board and some paper fish. We make this the PLANK! The kids rooted their friends on as they walked the plank! This was truly one of their most favorite activities! Could you stay on???

 We went on a TREASURE HUNT! This is the map that the "pirates" left on our classroom door! It took us from the classroom to the library, then to the cafeteria, upstairs, around the top floor, downstairs, playground, bus ramp and then back to our classroom where Mr. Bear sat. The treasure was behind Mr. Bear! The treasure had an X by it and had necklaces and gold coins inside!! So fun!! I got the treasure chest from Amazon. It was the perfect little size!

 We made pirate people crafts! The kids had to follow multi-step directions and create their own pirate person! They got to choose a hook, a parrot or both! These turned out great! AARRRGGHH!!

 Thank you so much for reading!

Leaf Day!! (Feeling a little Fall)

In Central Florida we do not get much REAL Fall weather but we do like to take advantage of our 85 degree "Fallish" weather! At our school we have a beautiful Nature's garden--- so one morning about a week and 1/2 ago, we went on a LEAF HUNT! We tried to find some colorful leaves. We took magnifying glasses out and examined leaves and felt them! This was great fun as it also went with our 5 senses unit!

After we gathered our leaves in bags, we studied them back in the classroom. We compared them and measured their length in cubes!

 We then did a Leaf Rubbing!! I couldn't believe that MORE than 1/2 of my class had NEVER done a leaf rubbing before!! They LOVED this activity and were in complete awe as the leaves came through the paper!!

We painted leaves! First we painted a paper with fall colors. Then after it was dry we traced a leaf pattern on the paper and the kids cut the paper out. We then backed the newly cut paper on a background color and re-cut around it! This was so that the back was not white. We hung them from the ceiling and it looks like fall in our classroom now!!

We even made paper tear fall trees! This took my kiddos some time but they turned out beautiful!!

Part of our HW Calendar was a Family Apple Tree project! The kids took home some paper and they got to create their own tree! These turned out WONDERFUL!!! This was a great way to show different creativity from each child and for them to share about their families!

Thank you for reading!
Happy Fall!!

Pinwheels For Peace!

Pinwheels for Peace is a project that my mom started! It is celebrated on September 21st which is the International Day of Peace. Millions of people participate each year and you can too! Whether you are a church, daycare, preschool, K-12 school, workplace, boy/girl scout troop, family, nursing homes, assisted living facilities and so on can all get involved! Click on the picture below to get to the Pinwheels for Peace website! On Peace Day we think about what is peaceful, make pinwheels, and read my book I published called Finding Peace (published under my maiden name, Amy Ayers).

All you need is the pinwheel template. Click below to get to the website for the download.

 I also wrote and published a book for Pinwheels for Peace! Click the picture below to purchase if you'd like to use it as a resource in your classroom for Pinwheels for Peace Day! Enjoy!!

What is peace? What does it look like?

“Finding Peace” takes you on the delightful and colorful journey of a young girl who wants to find out what peace is. On her quest, she visits with friends and family who all share their ideas of peace. Children of all ages will love this engaging book that will get them thinking about the meaning of peace. The book includes directions and templates for creating a "Pinwheel for Peace."

 Below are a few pages sneak peek of what's inside the book! Enjoy!

I hope you participate in this wonderful project!
Thank you for reading!

Marzano, Marzano, Marzano

Isn't that is the word that everyone is hearing?? The Marzano observations and evaluations are a hot topic. I teach Kindergarten and it is very hard for my littles to really understand how to effectively self evaluate themselves so I created a simple scale to use in my classroom. I hope you find it useful! I have it as a free download in my TPT store!

Click the picture for the link to download! :)

Check out my TPT store! :)

Enjoy! Thanks for reading!

Zero the Hero!!

ZERO THE HERO comes to our kindergarten class every 10 days!!! We sing the Jack Hartmann song about Zero and watch a little Zero the Hero movie on Mighty Books Jr.com. We have already had Zero come twice.

I made Zero the Hero out of a puppet. I bought a puppet mix on Amazon and I chose my favorite one to be our hero. I cut out two zeros and glued one to his belly. Then I made a cape out of felt and glued the other zero to the back! I added some googly eyes because it made him look more "real". The kids LOVE when he comes to our class. We make him fly around the room and he does math with us!

We love Zero the Hero!!

Thanks for reading!

Teddy Bear Share Day!

National Teddy Bear day is September 9th so we celebrated bears all week! We read bear stories, both fiction and nonfiction. We wrote out facts and sang bear songs!

September 9th is a Sunday this year, so we celebrated our Teddy Bear Share Day on Friday, September 7th. First, the history of Teddy Bear Day. Click the picture below!

There are so many activities you can do for Teddy Bear Day! Get ready for lots of fun!!

First we introduced our bears! They did our morning songs with us. We played Bear Games!

We played...

• Bears on a Blanket:You stretch out the blanket and all the kids put their bears on top. All the kids grab an edge of the blanket and on the count of 3 you lift the blanket up high! The bears will fly up and HIGH! The bears that fly off are out and you keep playing until one bear is still left on the blanket! That one is the winner!!
• Just a tip: Check ALL bears for hard things (like a motor inside if it talks or hard shoes). When the bears come down, that will hurt if it lands on a child

• Bear Musical Chairs: This is just the classical Musical Chairs game WITH bears! Bears make everything more fun!

• Bear Hide and Go Seek: Each child gives their bear to another student to hide. Then they search for their own bear. This was a creative and fun one!

Corduroy by Don Freeman: We read the different stories and even made our own Corduroys! The kids got to pick buttons for their bears and we hung them by our windows!

 We made Bear Cookies! The kids loved this and they tasted great!

 
We made Bear Crowns! The kids wore them all day!!

We sorted and graphed gummy bears! This was great because we have been working on sorting! The kids loved this and did very well with following directions!

 Thank you for reading!