Wishlist Wednesday: Mrs. Will's Kindergarten

I am guest blogging with Cachey Mama's Classroom!  When  she asked what was on my wishlist, I knew what I wanted! I would love to have this Mama Jamba!

This is a 12" timer.  I currently use the timer on my SMARTBoard, but it is slow to load. I think this large timer would be awesome! I love the sweeping hand that gives a visual to help students see how much time is left. What is on your wish list?

Wishlist Wednesday:Oceans of First Grade Fun

This week's guest blogger is from Oceans of First Grade Fun. Check out her blog, she has tons of great ideas and I especially love all the photos she uses to show exactly what she's talking about!

Hi! Ms. A here from Oceans of First Grade Fun.
We live in a technology savvy world and I want my students technology savvy too. As I thought about this post and my wishlist, the item that sits high atop my list is to be able to have I-Pod Touches for all of my students. As I've blog stalked I've come to covet these wonderful creations. Think of the possibilities!!

Wishlist Wednesday:The Corner on Character

Hello Friends! This week's guest blogger is Barbara from The Corner on Character. Her blog is truly inspiring and helping to make the world a better place. Please take a moment to check out her blog which always finds a way to put a positive spin on things. Just reading her posts cheers me up every time!

Peace On Earth by Barbara Gruener 

It’s Wish List Wednesday and I’m going to go all out and wish for peace.  Peace on earth.  Peace in my back yard.  Peace of mind.  I know, I know, it’s a lofty goal, but don’t worry, I have a plan.  Here’s what I’m thinking are some of the essential ingredients that we’ll need as we make PEACE a reality.  If only we could add these virtues to our Core Standards recipe somehow, we’d be cooking up a whole generation of Peace Makers!  

P – A scoop of Purpose and Patience

E – A heap of Empathy and Enthusiasm

A – A dollop of Acceptance and Apology

C – A generous helping of Compassion and Charity

E – A dash of Encouragement and Energy

Patience and Purpose:  As we teach children to navigate their way through life, we need to be intentional; to do things with purpose.  Let’s not leave anything to chance.  Help them figure out where they belong.  Then teach them to be patient and give themselves (and others!) the gift of time.

Empathy and Enthusiasm:  Help students learn to put themselves in each other’s shoes so that their empathy will grow.  Look for elevating experiences to share with them.  Foster enthusiasm in students by sharing their joy when they make good character choices.

Acceptance and Apology:  Teach students to accept – celebrate and champion even! – one another’s differences and to apologize when they stray from the path of character choices to put us that much further down the road toward peace on earth.

Compassion and Charity:  Show your students how to think with their hearts and they’ll find themselves in the service of others.  Build that capacity for caring and compassion so that inner and outer peace naturally follows.

Encouragement and Energy:  Encourage literally translates into empowering with courage.  Help students find the courage to do the right thing; it will positively energize tomorrow’s leaders as they make footsteps worth following.

You may be wondering if I have a favorite teaching tool for this intangible concept, and the answer is an unequivocal YES!  Check out the book entitled Shhh! by Jeanne Willis.  In this treasure chunk full of onomatopoeic words, a little shrew has something important to share but the hustle and bustle of the world around him drowns out his voice and keeps him from being heard.  He’s got a secret; wanna know what it is?  If you don’t already have a copy on your shelf, put it on your Wish List.  In the meantime, sing it with me:  Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me!  

Wishlist Wednesday:The Very Busy Kindergarten

This week's guest blogger is Sue! Her info is below, so check out her blog. It is a great resource and I especially love her Theme Pages. Here is a wish from her wishlist:


Thank you, Lori, for inviting me to dream on your blog and share with your readers.

My name is Sue from The Very Busy Kindergarten, I am new to blogging this year but not new to teaching.

As a teacher of many years, I have accumulated a lot of things over the years and so my classroom is not lacking any resources. The parents where I teach are extremely kind, generous, and are willing to provide the absolute best for their children.

But given the opportunity, I am not above wishing, dreaming, and wanting to improve the experience I am providing my little learners.

Right now I am looking at ways to improve my aging listening center.

My tape player is older than the hills and believe it or not the cassettes are starting to fall apart, some are over 20 years old.

So I think that I need to upgrade……… Will books on CDs be on their way out soon?

Nooks, Kindles, ITouch, IPads …..books online are the new thing…..

So I am thinking about upgrading to the IPad2.

However, I sure love the feeling you get when you open that Scholastic box with all the new books.

Thanks for dreaming with me,

Sue

Wishlist Wednesday:I Hart my Preschoolers

This week's guest blogger is fellow Head Start teacher! Alicia is so creative and I love the photos of her classroom. Her blog includes some great ideas for the classroom as well as many papercrafts and and other fun craft ideas. Check out her blog and see what you can find!

Wishlist Wednesday:For Love of Cupcakes

I would like to thank Jamie at For Love of Cupcakes for her guest post this week! Check out her blog and follow her. I guarantee you'll love it. I am totally addicted to her tweets as well, so you might wanna follow her on there too! Oh, I might have a special place in my heart for her because her baby, Cupcakes :) was born the same day as my baby boy! Enjoy!!!








HEY Cachey Mama's Readers!

I'm Jamie and I USED to be a preschool teacher. I was also a kindergarten teacher. Both at a Catholic school that had to close due to financial reasons. :( It was the best job ever though. At that school, we didn't have a whole lot of resources as it was in a very poor area. But before I worked at that school, I student-taught at a public grade school in a more affluent area, which did have a lot of resources and they had some awesome stuff!

Last week, Cachey Mama mentioned a cricuit machine to do dicuts. That would be number one on my list too! That little gadget is awesome - great for decorations, projects, fun; it's just awesome. So, the next thing on my wish list would be...

a Book Binding Machine:

It adds a spiral binding like this:

If you have this amazing tool, you can have all your students illustrate / write a page and bind them together to make class books.  Or individual students can make their own books.  The possibilities are actually endless.  Here's an example:

See, isn't that the cutest?!  These are AWESOME for parent-teacher conferences!  You set up a desk and a chair outside your classroom, put out some candy/breath mints and a few class books for your parents to scope out as they wait.

I didn't have one of these fancy machines at the Catholic school where I worked so I simply 3 hole punched all the pages and used yarn through the holes to bind the books together.  My principal loved it when I put these books out for parent-teacher conferences and so did my parents.  :o)  Win Win Win!

I hope you liked this post.  Thank you Cachey Mama for letting me do a guest post on your blog!!  :o)  If you want to follow me, I would LOVE to have you!  My blog is For Love of Cupcakes and I'm also a Twitter Fiend!  @4LoveofCupcakes.

Wishlist Wednesday

New feature! I am starting a new feature called Wishlist Wednesday in which I will be talking about something I wish for in the classroom or child/craft related. Also, because I don't want you to get tired of hearing me whine about all the things I want, I will be having guest bloggers post on Wednesdays something from their wishlist. If you would like to be a guest blogger, please leave a comment or e-mail me!

Now, down to business. This is something I have been wanting for a LONG time. This machine is not only the most convenient tool ever created, but for the record, I came up with it long before it was ever on the market. I knew I shoulda got that idea patented.

I {heart} the Cricut. Where can I win one of these??? LOL, maybe someday...