Continuing Cupcakes

Wow!  My kids really got into the book If You Give a Cat a Cupcake.  We went around and made up our own story, and my little darlings were just coming up with so many creative ideas - I'm so proud of them!  I can't believe that this is the same group of kids from the beginning of the year who couldn't speak a whole sentence of English.  Here is another freebie that I used to go with the book.  I like making and using these papers because they help me find out if my kids truly are remembering details from the story.

Graphic Organizer Cat Cupcake by Sharon A Blachowicz Dudley

Also, I've been concentrating so much on teaching reading, listening and speaking that I haven't been doing as much with creative writing as I should.  I mean, we did make Valentine's Cards for our friends and family, and that gave them an opportunity to write sentences, but I want to move away from the children copying sentences and get more into completing sentence starters.  So, today I made this sentence starter for the book that they really loved last week.

If You Give a Cat a Cupcake Writing Prompt by Sharon A Blachowicz Dudley

I'd love to hear about writing ideas that all of you have.  Please, if you can, leave me a note below!

A Perfect Fit for Valentine's Day

Cover of the book "The Biggest Kiss"

We had such a lovely time reading the book The Biggest Kiss (by Joanna Walsh and Judi Abbot) today that I felt compelled to blog about it.  I had been searching a long time for books that lead into great discussions about size, length, height, and weight.  I have Leo Lionni's Inch By Inch and Just A Little Bit by Ann Tompert, but I could not find many others for the pre-k/kindergarten level.  I was so happy when I found The Biggest Kiss because it's about kisses from a wide variety of animals.  After reading the book, we had a discussion about which animals are tall, which animals are short, and which animals they would like to kiss.  It was hysterical!  We have also been measuring different plastic animals with snap cubes.  My students are getting really great at estimating how many cubes tall the animals are.  When we first started, two weeks ago, they would tell me "Oh, you need 100 cubes to go to the top of that animal!"  Now their guesses are much more accurate.

A really great song that I found for length is "Herman The Worm" by Mr. Al.  It's a really funny song where a little worm starts off being an inch long, and eats other animals until he's two feet long.  At the very end of the song, he's an inch again, and - well, I won't spoil it for you, but you'll love the ending!

Last night, I made this new Play Doh mat for my children to help them recognize small, medium and large.
Heart Size Sorting Mat

Thank you, Dr. Jean, for suggesting Chocolate Play Doh.  My kids just loved it!  They said the room smelled so delicious.  I also gave my students rolling pins and three different size heart-shaped cookie cutters to really get into this Art Center activity.  Here are a couple of photos of my kids enjoying it:

A student proudly displaying a heart that he cut from Play Doh

Students rolling out Chocolate Play Doh

Another thing I added to my centers today, with Valentine's Day coming soon, was this alphabet board game that the children learned how to play in small group but continued to play with independently in ABC Center.  This game is available in my TPT store!

Alphabet Board Game, with letters inside hearts

Please let me know if you have any great books that you use for your measuring units.  I would be so grateful!

Triple Treasure Giveaway

I wanted to do a three-grade-level Valentine giveaway so that everyone who enters has a choice of prize depending on what they need for their students.  Here are the three prizes and the grade levels they're intended for, although of course you can use them for any grade:

Pre-K:  Heart Letter Matching Game
Kindergarten:  Valentine Sight Word Board Game - Kindergarten
1st Grade:  Valentine Sight Word Board Game - First Grade

How to enter:

1. Write a post on your own blog about this giveaway
2. Follow me on TPT
3. Follow my blog
4. Tell me a favorite song that you use in the classroom.

Each of the above steps gives you 1 entry in the giveaway.  For each entry, make sure that you write a comment on this post and include your name, your email address, and which prize you want to win.  You can look at each of the prizes on my TPT store.  The contest will end on February 1st at 7:00pm.

Good luck!

Roses Are Pink, Your Feet Really Stink

"Roses Are Pink, Your Feet Really Stink" by Diane deGroat

Years ago I saw the book Roses Are Pink, Your Feet Really Stink and had to buy it because it really helps bring up the issue of how words can affect us so deeply.  I use this book as a springboard for discussions about how to say and write positive things to one another.  I model how to do this by making every student in my class a beautiful written compliment heart.  I post them all on a bulletin board and then have the students write compliment hearts for each other.  Here is a PowerPoint file that you can change for your own students.
Valentine Compliment Hearts

I think this idea is especially useful if you have children in your classroom who are picked on by other students.  It's one of my pet peeves, but I just hate when children are thoughtlessly mean to other kids.

A friend gave me some upper- and lowercase foam fish for Christmas.  I thought my pre-k students would really enjoy playing with them, but they did not.  Since there's no way for them to check and see if they're right when they try to match them, arguments started in the center.  "That's not a lowercase p!  That's a b!"  So that night, I tried to think of an idea wherein the children could match uppercase letters to lowercase letters and have some sort of self-checking device to help them.  Therefore I made these upper- and lowercase letters that have a picture of the same object on the capital as well as the lowercase.  I'm selling them on TPT.

Self-checking alphabet matching game on hearts

I am a music fanatic!  I buy appropriate songs from iTunes and various stores, then I make different playlists for every month, to use in Calendar time.  Here are some fabulous songs for February, if you're looking for that special way to sweeten up math time for your kids:

"Valentine" by Mar Harmon:  This song is cute because it spells out I L-O-V-E Y-O-U.  I just write the words on cards and call up three students to stand and hold each word card while we sing the song.  You could also have each student hold an individual letter card to involve more children.

"Will You Be My Valentine" by Dr. Jean:  This song is totally awesome because it's sung to the familiar tune of "Do You Know The Muffin Man."

"Be My Valentine" by Jack Hartmann:  This song is more of a dance, where the kids can act out being a fish and a dog.  They copy your motions such as swimming, diving, jumping, and begging for a bone.

"The Year's Shortest Month" by Jack Hartmann:  The thing I like about this song is that it talks about February being the shortest month and it also states that on February 14 "we take time to say we care" with valentines.  This song also helps the children understand, when looking at the calendar, when Valentine's Day is going to occur.

I hope you enjoy these songs and ideas as much as I do.

Conversation Hearts

Do you ever get inspired when you walk through dollar stores?  I was walking through a Dollar Tree store thinking about using conversation hearts in February for centers, and then I found these plastic conversation hearts with the word already printed on them.  I also found this cute heart basket for a dollar.

A bucket of plastic conversation hearts from a dollar store

I'm going to have the children look at the hearts and match them to each other.  I'll fill another bucket with magnet letters and see if they can find the letters to spell out the words on a cookie sheet.  I also read on another blog that you can spray-paint cookie sheets to make them any color you want.  I'm thinking red or pink.

I made pattern strips that kids can use to lay out real conversation heart candies to duplicate color patterns.  I bought conversation hearts to check the colors, and these pattern strips use the exact same colors from the bag of candies.
Pattern Heart Strips

I usually place each child's candies in a Ziploc bag for them ahead of time so that there's no problem with students touching one another's candies.  A couple of great songs to go along with this pattern activity are "Everybody Do a Pattern" by Dr. Jean and "Make a Pattern" by Jack Hartmann.

I'm going to laminate this sorting mat and put it in Math Center for my students to sort conversation heart candies.  You could also use it with construction paper hearts if you want to cut them out. Sorting Mat Hearts

Finally, if you're doing skip counting here is a sheet where they can color each row of hearts a different color to help them group by 5's.
Heart Number Line 35 Full Page

More sweet ideas are coming soon!