Mouse Shapes

The book "Mouse Shapes" by Ellen Stoll Walsh

I went to a Math Solutions workshop last year, and they mentioned the book Mouse Shapes.  Of course, I had read Mouse Paint and Mouse Count before, but Mouse Shapes was new to me.  The story is about some mice trying to hide from a cat, and they  hide in a box of - yes, you guessed it - shapes!  The mice make different pictures by holding up the shapes.  So I thought, "Why not teach my children how to do that?"  I cut out large pieces of poster board.  The children would look at the book, look at a giant pile of poster board shapes on the floor, and then arrange themselves and their chosen shapes into the correct design.  I also followed up this activity by cutting out tiny shapes, having them make a design at their table, and asking them how many of each shape they used.

Students holding shapes to make a house and a moon

Students holding shapes to make a fish

Students holding shapes to make a wagon

Here is another really cool shape place mat that I've used before.  I had students match and identify foods and other items by gluing pieces to the mat.  I assessed my students by asking them to point out what shapes they had on their mats.  It's really not that bad if you walk around with a chart while the children are gluing and placing their shapes.

Students gluing shapes onto their place mats.

These two songs  are excellent for teaching shapes:  "We Know Our Shapes" by Mar Harmon and "Spy a Shape" by Dr. Jean.  What I really like about Mar Harmon's song is that she makes a sound effect for each shape.  For example, for a triangle she'll say "Ting!  Ting!  Ting!"  This is so fab because the children can draw it, see it, and hear it.  Dr. Jean's song is also fantastic because the children are singing, drawing, and then finding the shape around the room.

Let me know what you think!

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.

Kindergarten Lifestyle Giveaway

Jeannie at Kindergarten Lifestyle is having a contest to giveaway a $25 Target gift card!  I'm thinking I can use to buy Valentine candy for my sweet kiddos.  :-)  Jeannie is so incredible.  She's a teacher and a mother of 6!  I only have 1 21-year-old and I'm constantly moving - I don't know how she does it!

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!

And The Winners Are...

Drumroll please!

And the winners of 100th Day packet giveaway are...

Kim from Growing Up Teaching
Kelly B from Busy In Kindergarten
Jennifer from Keys4Education

I have email addresses for Kelly B and Jennifer.  Kim, could you let me know your email address so that I can send out your packet?  Thank you everyone for entering the contest.  I will be putting up my TPT Valentine packet next week as another giveaway contest.  Please stop by!  I'm always happy to hear from you.

The Button Box

The cover of the book "The Button Box" by Margarette Reid

The Button Box by Margarette Reid is a great book to use if you're working on sorting by attributes.  I always use it with real buttons, because I think it really allows the children to experience the wonder of classifying by shape, texture, size, color, sparkles, button holes, etc.  I think sometimes we fall into the rut of only sorting by color.  When I still had my sight, color sorting was the first thing I thought of to do with the kids.  The problem was that if I asked the kids what sorting was, they would reply "That's when you put the yellow ones with the yellow ones."  Although that answer is correct, I think it's really important for them to realize that you can sort or classify by many different factors, not just color.

This year, my students really got into the activity.  They were so happy to find buttons that were the same that they put them in my hands and said "Feel my buttons!  I have stars!", "I have smooth buttons", or "I have wood buttons!"  I was so proud of them, especially because their language has improved so much since August - almost 90% of my students did not speak English when they entered my class.

Here is a book that I used in kindergarten for guided reading.  The students can shadow-write the sentence for most of the book, and then at the end they write their own sentence and draw their own pictures of buttons.  I hope your kids enjoy this.
I See Buttons Writing