Freebielicious: July 2015

Meet & Greet Forms

Hi friends! It's Hadar from Miss Kindergarten.
Over the summer, we invite our incoming kinders and parents to our classrooms for a Meet & Greet. During the Meet & Greet, we meet and assess our new students, meet the parents, and pass out some important information! Each form is copied on colored paper for two reasons. One, it helps to make sure that the parents know they have grabbed each sheet. It's easier to see if you have one of each color than if all the forms were in white. And secondly, because they look really cute ;) Take a peek at how we set up for our Meet & Greet!

First, parents sign in so we know who did not get a chance to pick up the important forms. I copied the sign in sheet on white paper so that the names are easy to see when written in pencil. Even Astrobright's white paper is stinkin' adorable!

{you can grab this sign in sheet here}

Next, they grab the very first newsletter for the year. Each month, we send home a newsletter that explains what we are learning for the month, as well as important upcoming events. The newsletters are copied on colored paper so that they don't get lost in the shuffle and they also look great without spending tons on colored ink ;) These beyond adorable newsletter templates are from my friend Laral at Little Miss Kindergarten. Not only are they editable, but she also provides samples which are perfect as a starting off point!

The next page explains our daily schedule for both our early and late birds. I got the idea to add pictures to the schedule after seeing Lindsay's picture on Instagram. Such a cute idea!

Finally, they grab a student information sheet so we can get to know our new kiddos a little better.

I copied them back to back to save paper, but you can definitely staple the 2 pages together if you want more room for writing.

I hope this helps you as your prepare for a start of another year! Thanks for stopping by!

Did You Win?!

Hey Ya’ll Mrs. Hoffer here!! I hope that you have had a BLAST with us Freebielicious girls this week! I know that I have loved finding new ideas, fun activities, having a little throwback action, shopping must haves and learning all about you!!!

Have you ever been in Michaels or Hobby Lobby, and your husband is trying to drag you out of the store?! That is how I am feeling!! I have so loved this week, and I don’t want it to end!

So I guess you are here because there is a BIG announcement today right? For something like a $10 TpT giftcard. Isn’t that right?

No?

Dang, I was hoping to sneak off with those TWO BIG $100 gift cards!!

Are you ready??

Did you win?

Drumroll please…….

And the winners are…..

Congrats Callie and Cheryl!! You Lucky Ducks you!!!!

So for the rest of us who didn’t win a $100 gift card to TpT, the girls and I have decided that we would do the NEXT BEST THING!!!

Did someone ask for a SALE?!!

Don’t let the Back to School blues get to you!! Head on over to our stores, clear out your wishlists and get to shopping!!!

I know my wishlist is overflowing and I have stuff I NEED printed and laminated before school starts!!

These are the girls that are throwing a sale today and tomorrow!!

An InLinkz Link-up

Thanks for stopping by!!!

MEGA BTS $200 TpT Giveaway!

Freebielicious would like to thank you for joining us for a week of linkies! We had so much fun and appreciate you taking a few moments to pop in and see what we had to say! We also have a bit of a surprise to share with you! How about a chance to win some money to spend at TeachersPayTeachers? It won't take away any or all of your back to school blues, but it is sure to sweeten it! Below we will share with you how to be one of our TWO $100 TpT gift card winners! But you will have to be quick! You'll want to be sure to head back early tomorrow to see if you are one of the lucky winners!

Thanks so much for entering the giveaway and we wish you the best of luck! Be sure to check back HERE on Sunday, July 26th at 9:00 AM CST to see if you were one of the lucky $100 TpT gift card winners! We will also have another surprise for you...because why? Because we LOVE you and appreciate what you do day-in-day-out for your students! While you wait to see if you're winner you can also check out our blogs below to see what we've been up to in our classrooms!

An InLinkz Link-up

FUN Friday!!!

Thanks for stopping by our last day of linky parties. Today is Fun Friday and we will be talking about all the FUN things we do in our classroom. If you missed any of the previous posts, you can check them out here:

>>>Must Have Monday

>>>Tell Us About You Tuesday

>>>Wonderful Wednesday

>>>Throwback Thursday

Well, I'm Hadar from Miss Kindergarten and I'm excited to share with you some ideas about how we make our days entertaining and FUN! I might be one of the only schools left in the world who does half-day kindergarten, so we definitely have to find ways to squeeeeeze it all in!

I like to integrate fun throughout our day using games and songs. Here's a fun game we play at the end of our shape unit. The kiddos love singing and playing this game, plus we're reviewing our shapes at the same time!

{click here to download the shape game}

We also love to sing all the live long day! Here's a fun song we sing during calendar time after we check the weather.

{click here to download the seasons song}

We make learning letter sounds fun with this fun chant! We recite the chant together, the one student gets to come up to the front of the room and choose an apple from the basket. They hold up the apple and we all say its sound.

{click here to download Alphabet Sounds freebie}

We also love to have fun when learning to read and write! Here we are using letter beads and pipe cleaners to build sentences. The center was intended to simply practice spelling sight words, but when my students asked to build a sentence, who was I to say no?! #happyteacher

Using HUGE foam dice really makes reading word families fun! Roll the dice, find the number, and read the words on the row! My kids ask me to play the "dice game" EVERY time we do reading groups. They feel so successful reading these words and that makes reading fun!

{click here to download Fluency Families freebie}

We love using stamps to make learning fun! In this center we're using stamps to practice spelling our sight words.

{click here to read more about our stamping centers}

We also love using playdoh in our classroom! Play while you learn!

{click here to download a playdoh freebie}

And finally, who wouldn't want to use toy cars while learning!? We use the cars to help practice path of motion as we are learning our letters.

Hi everyone! This is Donna from Kinderglynn.

Today I wanted to share with you some fun things we do in our classroom. One of my favorite things we do is Go Noodle.

What is Go Noodle? Well, Go Noodle helps take all that energy that the little ones have and channel it into something fun. There are many ways you can do Go Noodle in your classroom. When I started using it I had the all the letters to spell "Go Noodle" out and every time I caught the class being good we would add a letter to the board until we spelled it out and then we would perform the activity. But...... as you can imagine, sometimes that takes a little longer than expected and the kids need something fun to do everyday to get their wiggles out so we started doing it in the afternoon every day. It was something that they looked forward to and I saw a huge improvement in their afternoon performance. (we had a really long afternoon!) The kids love it because they get to

choose a character and watch the character grow. If you have never heard of Go Noodle, you definitely need to check it out.

Another way I incorporate positive behavior is by using Class Dojo. You can set Class Dojo up to suit your needs. You choose what you want your students to get points for during the day and then you can have them go up and give themselves points or you can do it right from your small group using an app on your phone. In my school, all of the classes connected together so if we saw another class being really good or we saw a child doing something kind or showing fabulous behavior, we could give the class or a child in another class points too. It is a fabulous teaching tool. You can even set up parent accounts so that the parents can see how their child is doing.

Now for a few freebies from my store that the kids love to do. If your students have a hard time learning their right from their left this is a perfect game for them. The children will all start with three counters and depending on what they roll, they will either keep their counter, pass it to the right, pass it to the left or place one in the center. The kids love it and I love it because everyone always stays in the game until the final counter is placed. It really keeps the kids on their toes and they learn their right from their left really quick. Just click on the picture to grab this freebie.

Another thing the kids love to do is practice their numbers especially their teen numbers. We all want them to be able to say them quickly without thinking so this fun Speedy Race game featuring Pete the Cat will certainly help them. The students roll a dice and whatever number they roll, they go to that line and say the numbers as fast as they can. I also have this for lower numbers, letters, sight words, sentences. They never get tired of playing this.

We hope these ideas helped you think of some FUN ways to help your kiddos learn! Don't forget to link up and share your fun ideas with us below!

An InLinkz Link-up

It's Throwback Thursday

Thanks so much for stopping by for Throwback Thursday! Hopefully you will grab a new idea on this Throwback Thursday or at least get a little 'refresher' before school starts again! Up first is...Caitlin Clabby from Kindergarten Smiles!

Hi all! It's Caitlin Clabby from Kindergarten Smiles and today I am 'throwing back' my most popular post from my blog--the First Two Days of School in Kindergarten. The post I am going to share was actually written two years ago, but you can find this past school years version HERE.

The first week of kindergarten is complete! I am always glad to have the first couple of days under my belt because they are by far the most exhausting! I tried to document everything we did the first two days of school in kindergarten. You may have to excuse some of the pictures... I took most of them in a rush! Of course I planned to do way more than I actually did! But, I tried!

Day 1:

I had coloring sheets out on the tables. We let parents walk their children into school the first 2 days so I knew I would be distracted.

All of the children were busy coloring while I talked to parents and asked them to say their goodbyes :)

As they finished coloring, I walked around and put a sticker on each paper. Then, I asked them to try to find their name on the mailboxes and put their coloring sheet inside. They did wonderfully at this! (hold high expectations and they will meet them!)

We gathered at the carpet and read Officer Buckle and Gloria. The kids loved this book!! It is a perfect introduction to discussing rules.

I wasn't quite planning on introducing the behavior chart just yet, but I had a little one who definitely needed to see this already. So we gathered at the clip chart and went over each 'color'.

Then, it was time for a school tour! Before we left we went over hallway rules and we practiced lining up in number order. While we were in the hallway we worked on keeping our feet close to side of the hallway.

Then, we read 'The Day A Monster Came To School' and again, talked about the rules of our classroom. When we were finished I introduced the 4 centers that they would be working on.

1. Monster Spin and Graph

2. The first page in their Rules Book

3. Exploring Unifix Cubes

4. Exploring links

I sat at the 'Spin and Graph' center for a couple of minutes, but then I was able to leave them to complete the center independently while I walked around. I had the bell set for 15 minutes (if I saw the kids getting restless then I would ring the bell a tad early!)

When the bell rang, we played a quick game of 'Simon Says'. For instance, 'Simon says stand up.' 'Simon says push your chair in.' 'Simon says point to your next center.' I always ended with that so I could make sure they all knew where they were going when I said 'switch'.

We ended up only finishing 2 centers before it was time for the park. (Don't forget to stay flexible this first week. You most likely won't get to everything that you have planned!)

We are lucky enough to go to the playground everyday for 30 minutes. Then we go straight to lunch for 30 minutes.

After lunch we have an awkward 15 minutes in the classroom before specials. Usually during this time I am going to try to squeeze in calendar math, but today we continued our centers.

They were loving the Spin and Graph!!

Then it was time for their first special. They have one special everyday for 30 minutes. Today it was music!

When we returned to class we gathered at the carpet and read Manners at School

Then we worked on the cover of our Rules Book whole group.

If students finished super fast, I directed them to the back table where they could play with the math manipulatives that they used at their centers earlier.

While they were doing this, I called over students one at a time to take their first day of school photos!

Then, we gathered on the carpet to play a little 'getting to know you' game! This activity is in Alisha's Kickin' It in Kinder Unit.

Students wold roll the dice and answer the questions that they rolled. It was adorable! I was expecting some of the kids to be too shy to answer...but they all couldn't wait for their turn!!

Then, believe it or not, it was time to go home! I turned the TV on while I passed out folders and tagged all the kids with their dismissal clips.

Day 2:

The second day was very similar to the first day, but not as hectic! I actually finished everything I planned! haha

Again, we started the day with a coloring sheet. This totally helps get the day started! I had parents handing me school supplies and wanting to know how their child was doing, etc. So I was handling different tasks while the children were busy coloring.

Today as they finished I showed them where the 'hand in box' is. I showed them how to highlight their name with a highlighter before handing in their paper. This helps catch all of the 'no name' papers!

If you would like to grab the little 'stop' sign, you can grab it for free HERE

Then, we gathered at the carpet and read Splat the Cat. Such a cute book!

Now it was time for morning centers

1. Word Work

2. The second page of our rules books

3. Write the Room (this was my center for the day)

4. Introduced one of their free play activities (we usually have free play the last 30 minutes of the day)

After centers were complete we headed to the park and then to lunch. When we returned we did calendar math.

Then we headed to specials. After specials I will normally do math, writing, then free play. BUT we aren't starting our math or writing until next week. Instead we played 'I Have, Who Has' whole group.

The first round I really had to help them to remember to say I have ___, Who has ___? They were kind of just shouting out I HAVE IT!! But, the second go round they did beautifully!

Then we did our first page of our memory book, had snack, packed up, and headed home!!

All of the Monster activities can be found HERE

Some other centers we did throughout the week:

a monster ABC game

Word Work: magnetic letters

Practiced our cutting skills

and played a monster roll and dot game!

Have a wonderful first week of school!!

Next up is...Mandy Myers from A Special Kind of Class!

Hi everyone! It's Mandy Myers from A Special Kind of Class. I hope you are enjoying the hop this week. I know I am. Today I am 'throwing back' one of posts from last summer -- bubbles. This was one of my "bright ideas" blog posts and I choose this one because it's a great summer activity that you can easily do at home with ingredients you probably have in the home. Kids of all ages love bubbles and this recipe makes huge ones.

Who doesn't like bubbles? Especially on a summer day. For my recipe you will need:
1. Dawn soap (I don't know why, but apparently it works best)
2. Water
3. Jell-o powder (or a no name brand, any flavour)
4. A container and measuring cups
5. String and a straw (if you want to make your own wand)