Thinky Linky Thursday

Most clicked link from last week:

DIY 2 in 1 Car and Ball Ramp from CAUTION! Twins at Play!

Tutorial Tuesday: Puzzle Sight Words

Puzzle Sight Words 

Happy Tuesday! I am so excited to be joining Cachey Mama's Classroom today. I am Jillian also known as A Mom with a Lesson Plan. One of my favorite lessons to plan is sight words. Making sight word practice fun and easy is one of the ways I keep my kids excited about learning new words.

How to Prepare

Do you have any old puzzles with missing pieces? Don't worry if all your puzzles are full sets, you can find a cheap puzzle at a garage sale, thrift store, or dollar store.

 I used a puzzle with big pieces but any size pieces would work.
  
Put the puzzle pieces together. Make sure you have enough pieces connected to match the letters in the word you are making. Then flip the puzzle over so the back of the puzzle is up.
 Write one letter of the word on each puzzle piece. That's all the prep you need. Easy right?

3 Ways to Play

I love this idea for a couple of reasons. Puzzle sight words is perfect for a quiet classroom activity or for at home practice. I also love that it can be varied to work with kids of different levels. 1. Lay out the sight word card right next to the letters needed to make the word. Mix the letters up a bit and then have your little one put the "puzzle" together to match the card.

2. Lay out the sight word cards. Mix up all the letters and have your little one create the words by finding the letters in the pile.

3. Mix up all of the pieces and ask your little to make words from the pieces available. This is a good one if you've already practiced these words quite a bit.

Besides a love for her kids (and well just kids in general) Jillian has a degree in Early Childhood Education and 10 years experience as a preschool teacher. Right now her “students” call her mom. Jillian believes that life offers an abundance of learning opportunities. She loves figuring out what they are and how they can be expanded on. Join the journey at amomwithalessonplan.com.

Thinky Linky Thursday

Most clicked links from last week:

Helping Children Stand up for Themselves- Kelso's Choices from Mrs. Goff's Pre-K Tales

Australia- Dot Art Button Turtles from Glittering Muffins

Winners, please get your "featured" button from my right sidebar! Thanks for sharing.

Tutorial Tuesday: "Capture the Pigs!" Math Game

Hi this is Casey from Second Grade Math Maniac! Thank you Lori for letting me share over here today! 

Okay, so my tutorial is for a math game that you can use with kids at home or in the classroom to build fact fluency.

I am constantly reinforcing with parents how important it is for kids to add and subtract fluency without their fingers. They need to be able to focus on what problems are asking of them and not worrying about how many fingers they are going to need. :)

I made a cute game (with the audience of this blog in mind) to help kids practice adding numbers that equal sums of 10 or 100. 

For my tutorial I used the 100 sum set. 

First I cut apart all of the pigs. I used my paper cutter because I didn't have time to cut each pig out individually, I also think they will laminate better this way. 

Second, I glued the instruction page to the front of a large envelope. 

Third, I glued the barn to the back of the large envelope. After they match the sums they will put the pigs back into the envelope or "barn."

Now all I need to do is laminate and let my students practice! :)

Click on the images download these games from Google Docs! You can have the version with sums to 10 or 100.

Enjoy your week everyone! :)

Dollar Finds

Here are just a few dollar items I found this weekend. They are all from Target except the sorting tray which I got at Dollar Tree. There were so many more things I wanted to get from Target (mostly Seuss stuff), but I decided to put most of it back when I found a rug with streets on it for my son's room. I have been looking for one that he can drive his cars around on. 

Anyway, The Lorax bag is an addition to my collection of Seuss bags I bought last year. The idea is to put in the book that goes along with each bag and some other various items that also relate to the book such as stickers, word cards, etc. Then there are the Seuss number flash cards. I already have the shapes and colors cards that I divided among the other bags.

Then just some dry erase markers and dry erase cards to practice writing the alphabet.

Hope you get some ideas for your room!

First Week Back

Well, I have officially started back to work this week, so I can actually say TGIF! So far, we have had 2.5 days of training, so I have only been in the classroom 1.5 days. But I just wanted to share a couple of things I have made and done. I am also at a different center this year, so there will be plenty to organize and prepare!

This is one that I thought would be easy for the beginning of school because most kids already know this rhyme. The pictures are held on by velcro (or they WILL be as soon as I can get the thing laminated, resource room laminator died). I will probably choose one person to help find the right picture and place it in the correct place.

Helper chart. Although I really love this one, I can't take credit for it. The teachers that were there last year made it, but I wanted to share as it is SOO cute! (Close-ups below)

And.... my favorite area so far. Writing center. I love the little square things on the left, red and green. They are kind of like eye spy bottles with letters hidden amongst the beads!

One last thing I wanted to share is a CD that I have reserved from the library. I want to use song 9 which I heard used over the summer at the library's toddler storytime. It is an action song where the kids put on their glasses and get ready to read the book, but oh no! Is there something scary in there? Quick, shut the book! It's very cute and I think it will be a good transition into storytime.

Thinky Linky Thursday

Yay, we had a few first time linkers last week! Thanks to all for linking up. The most clicked link was:

Light Tables 101 by Caution: Twins at Play

Tutorial Tuesday: Fall Centerpieces using Bag Painting

This week's guest blogger is Tina from Mamas Like Me.  Her blog is packed full of all kinds of activities that she does with her children including crafts, letter and writing activities, math, science, recipes, and much more. Please stop by and get some wonderful ideas!

I saw the idea for finger-painting in a bag over at Open Hands and figured I'd give it a try with this activity. The bags made it easier (and less messy) for us to paint both sides of these Fall leaves - and I love how the colors blended. 

 For this activity, we used:

 Red, Orange, and Yellow paint 

Leaf shapes cut out of card stock 

(I highly recommend the card stock rather than regular construction paper) 

Ziplock bags 

Glitter Glue 

Ribbon 

A branch from outside 

1. To prep for this, I cut leaf shapes out of card stock for each child.

2. Then, I put one leaf into each bag, along with a squirt of red, orange, and yellow paint, and a few drops of water to help it mix. Make sure there is some paint on both sides of the leaf. Try to get as much air out of the bag as possible when sealing it.

3. Next the kids had fun squishing the paint around and covered their leaves.

4. (Now, for the messy part!) I took the leaves out of each bag and replaced them with another leaf so each child got to do more than one.

5. When the kids were done covering their leaves, I offered them the option of just finger-painting with the paint in the bag. Some of them wanted to continue squishing with the paint and some were finished :)

6. Once the leaves dried, we used glitter pens to write each child's first initial on their leaves. (I love getting letters into an activity).

7. After the glitter dried, we hole-punched each leaf and tied it with ribbon.

8. Then, we went outside and found a branch to hang our leaves on and make our own Fall tree inside.

Doesn't it make an adorable centerpiece? You could also use these for garland or hang them in a window.

Tina is a former Elementary School teacher turned SAHM to three active boys (with one more on the way)! She blogs at Mamas Like Me where she shares kids activities, recipes, tips on frugal living, and reflections on life as ‘Mommy’.

Have you been to The Underpants Zoo?

Just wanted to share this cute book I found at the library this week. It's by Brian Sendelbach. It is about all the different kinds of underpants the animals at this wacky zoo wear. For example, the hippo wears ones with hearts and the octopus wears 4 pair! 

Along with being hilarious, this book has rhyming and wonderful illustrations. Kids will enjoy guessing what animals are going to be next and what type of underwear they will be wearing. Also, this book provides a great opportunity for discussion about why each animal chose the underwear they chose. For example, the kangaroo wears boxers with basketballs on them because he needs plenty of bounce. 

This is definitely one you need to read with your preschooler(s) soon!

Thinky Linky Thursday

Conservatory Fun

Linking up at: Living at the Whitehead's Zoo and