Valentines Day Mini Eraser Activities You'll Fall For!

Have you see the adorable mini erasers at Target right now? I love the unicorns and pizzas! I've been hard at work making some activities to match, which was a struggle since we just moved to Okinawa, Japan!

This is the view from the seawall in Okinawa - gorgeous!

My husband is in the Army, so we will be in Okinawa for the next three years! Don't worry though, I'll still be teaching - no idea where yet, but I know myself well enough to know I'll have to have my own classroom somehow! In the meantime, I'll be using my 4 year old Sullivan as my guinea pig for all my ideas lol!

Some of you have been asking about more kindness activities, so today I'm sharing my February Random Acts of Kindness Calendar! Lots of ideas for helping to teach kindness in this month of love! Download it for free by clicking the picture!

And here are the mini eraser activities - they're perfect for February, but really the unicorn and pizza could be used year round! I had so much fun with these - I think the part-part-whole activities and the CVC word builders are my favorites!

 Just click here to see the mini eraser activities!

Valentine's Fun!

We had a ton of Valentine's Day themed fun this week:

The kids loved our Valentine Shapes emergent reader - I passed out the picture cards and then as we read each sentence the child with that shape Valentine would come up and add it to our pocket chart. Most of my kiddos have the 2d shapes down pat, but I have a few new ones for whom it's good practice. The 3d shapes are proving a bit trickier, so we'll continue to practice those as well.

I try to only do one paper a day with my kiddos, because I know its not the optimal way for them to learn. On the other hand, the cutting and coloring is good for developing those fine motor muscles and I know once they get to Kinder they're going to need to be familiar with sitting and completing worksheets (sigh!). The kids enjoyed this Valentines' Day beginning sound practice sheet though :)

This Valentine number puzzle was a hit as well - my kiddos clamor for number puzzles and I have noticed that it is really helping those who are a bit shaky with their number recognition!

We had a lot of fun making sets with this simple game. I wrote the numbers 1-10 on heart shaped boxes and then added a bucketful of heart shaped scatter crystals (Dollar Tree and Hobby Lobby purchases). I added this to our Math Center activities and it was a hit! The best part was that the kids worked independently for several minutes filling the hearts before I had to come and check their work, so it took very little time on my part - which was good because it is assessment season!

My favorite thing this week was our Sensory Table. I bought foam heart stickers and wrote every student's name on them, along with alphabet letters and numbers. Then I added Valentine's bubbles, bouncy balls, rings, necklaces and bracelets. I spread the goodies out in 3 bowls and froze them in layers.

The kids used sponges, bottles, basters, scrub brushes and ice cream scoops to try to melt the ice to get out the goodies. Our rule was that each child only kept one thing each time they went to the center. I also popped the ice back in the freezer between center times to make sure it didn't melt in between times.

The kids had a blast working their goodies out of the ice, but also giving them to others! I had said each child could only keep one item, but I never mentioned anything about giving away items. So sure enough, when they managed to pull out more than one thing within their allotted center time, they would rush over to a friend to give them the goody! Such love was in our classroom! I watched carefully and saw that everyone was being included in this gift giving! If someone really wanted an item but couldn't get it out during their center time, when that item popped out of the ice during the next center time it was immediately taken to the child that wanted it so badly. I spent less than $10 on the goodies, and they provided so many RAKs that it was totally worth it!

Oh! and the best part about the foam stickers was that they still stuck! When they were pulled from the ice, the kids read the name and the sticker was rushed to the appropriate child who then proudly peeled the paper off and wore it the rest of the day! I had thought for sure the stickiness would dissolve in the ice, so this was a pleasant surprise! One note though - frozen bouncy balls crack rather than bounce. We learned this the hard way! Once they thawed they were fine, but the first few ended up in the trash :(

During our parties, I always like to make a special treat. This keeps the kids focused and in their seats which makes the party more manageable for me! We've been watching the Sesame Street Alphabet Podcasts, and the kids LOVE it when Cookie Monster eats the letter of the day in the videos. So when I saw this pin, I knew I had to incorporate this treat into our party! For math we created this Cookie Monster emergent reader, so the treat was doubly appropriate!

 How adorable is that?!

Each child got a spoonful of blue frosting, a rice krispie treat, 1 mini cookie, 1/2 a flattened tootsie roll, and candy eyes.

Oh and our Castle Blocks are still going strong, check out this little lady! She was so excited that she made the castle from the back of the box all by herself. She's got some seriously strong spatial sense - I see an engineering career in her future!

I'm off to get started on sub plans. I'm attending the EdExpo 2015 in Atlanta this weekend so I'll be gone Friday and Monday - gotta make sure I have enough planned to keep my kiddos busy for the sub!

Conversation Heart Freebie!

Wow, what a looong week! I swear that was more like 6 or 7 days rather than just 5. Of course we did have inside recess 4 out of 5 days, so that may have had something to do with it! Here are a few pictures from this week:

We made cards for our Valentine exchange with a class in Florida - my kids are sooo excited about this! Of course, being able to use glitter, stickers and special scissors really impressed them too!

We love reading in our reading center - I need to make some more crate seats to accommodate everyone who wants to be here at the same time! In the background is our Science center, we are hoping to get some more hermit crabs soon - we only have 2 left because our biggest one escaped the aquarium! I searched the whole room but could not find him, I imagine he'll turn up at the end of the year as I'm cleaning out my room :(  His escape did lead me to revamp the whole habitat so no more escapes are possible!

Kindergarten went on a "safar" as my son put it! Here he is with his binoculars and bandanna on, posing with the assistant and the sound book they played as they tiptoed through the halls, looking for animals!

In other news, Valentine's Day is sneaking up on us quickly! I can't believe we only have 2 days left! I bought some conversation hearts with the intention of making up an activity with them, and today I realized it's now or never! I bought Brach's "Tart & Sassy" conversation hearts at my local Hobby Lobby. I love that they come in individual boxes so I don't have to fuss with dividing them up. My only complaint is that the writing is hard to read on some of the hearts. The 1oz boxes have about 20 hearts each, which is a perfect amount for sorting, graphing, counting and addition activities!

Here's a fun freebie for them!

Just as I was about to put this little blog to bed for the night, my husband yelled for me to come quickly so I ran downstairs and this is what I saw:

 The first snow of the season! My children are crossing their fingers that it keeps up and we get a snow day - they are dying to try out their new sleds! Our little city is not very good at cleaning up snow, so even just a few inches would result in a snow day!

I'd love it if you'd rustle up a response below, today's question is: When is your Valentine's Day party and do you play games at it?

Successful Observation Plus a Freebie!

Whew! We survived the dreaded observation! Thanks so much for all the encouragement! We were remarkably well behaved, considering that our principal was over 10 minutes late, so we were waiting in limbo - during that time we did some exercising including lots of crossover moves to activate both hemispheres of the brain, we also got some of our chatter and wiggles out with a quick bear hunt:

Then I calmed them down again with our favorite sign language song:

We were on the 2nd verse when our principal walked in so she got to see us perform the last little bit, which she enjoyed, for some reason people are always impressed when you throw in a little sign language!

I then proceeded to teach my big lesson on comparative endings - which I'm trying to develop an activity for by the way, since I found zilch already made online. I did have a very nice powerpoint and a smartboard activity, complete with a 10 question closure after which I sent my kiddos back to their seat with a worksheet. I know, I know, but our principal is old school and likes to see all the kids doing the same thing at the same time.

There were no major disruptions, I had let my kiddos know in advance that we were going to have visitors (there was a curriculum walk through by some district bigwigs today too!) and that their behavior was going to determine whether they stayed in 1st or went on to 2nd grade next year lol. I also promised them a goodie if they all behaved, so maybe that helped too! I did have one child fall asleep in the middle of the Smartboard lesson, but I noticed before the principal did and managed to wake her up while playing it off to look like she was just daydreaming. The poor kid had just told me about how she doesn't have a proper bed at home right now and can't sleep at night and asked if she could take a nap in our classroom rather than have recess, so I totally understood why she fell asleep, I'm just glad no one caught her but me!

Once the observation went over we let out all our tension with some construction paper and glitter! We made our Valentines for our friends in Florida from the Be My Valentine Exchange coordinated by Caitlin and Sarah! It is amazing how well they matched us up! We both teach 1st grade and have 20 students - ten boys and ten girls in each class! My students are so excited and they used a ton of glitter on their cards! Tomorrow we finish up the letters we are writing and then I will pop it all in the mail after school! 

In thanks for all your support, here is a freebie that goes along with one of my favorite Valentine's Day books (and I got such a kick today when a student asked me where the "m" was when I wrote Happy Valentine's Day on the board - she was pronouncing it "Valentime's Day!") Love, Splat and Splat the Cat: Funny Valentine are fun read alouds,

Splat the cat is one of our favorite friends - and I am dying to order the little plush Splat and Kitten to go with the book!

Aren't the adorable?? So, with the help of my super-talented daughter (luckily she got the artsy gene from her daddy!) I made this little "craftivity. I plan to have my kiddos write a poem in the heart - but feel free to improvise with whatever writing you feel is appropriate for your kiddos!

You can download the template to make him for FREE in my TPT store! Just click here!

Tagged Again, Giveaways, Plus a Freebie!

Wow, I've been tagged again! Thanks to Really Roper and Kindergarten Cowgirl for thinking of me! I'll spare you all 12 more things about myself and instead I'll just answer the questions that they posted:

From Really Roper:

1. What is your favorite color? I always say blue because you're supposed to have a favorite color but honestly I can't pick except that I don't like orange at all and yellow sometimes irks me too!
2. Where is your dream vacation? Disneyland/World! We went to Florida last spring break for the first time with our kids and had a blast! This year we're heading to California in April for my husband's sister's wedding so we'll get to hit the other park too! I can never remember which one is Disney World and which is Disneyland even though my husband has told me about 1000 times. Oh, and a shout-out to Disney which offers a military discount which is much appreciated!
3. Coke or Pepsi? I love Coke memorabilia, especially the polar bears and Santa commercials, but I have to admit that I drink Pepsi Max because it tastes better!
4. What is your favorite holiday! Hands down Christmas - I make the kids take turns opening presents to make it last as long as possible, all the goodies to eat and the time with family are fantastic!
5. What time do you leave for school? Shhh! Don't tell, but lately I've not been able to roll out of here before about 8:20 and I'm supposed to be at work at 8:30 - it's a 15 minute drive and I have to drop off my daughter along the way, so you do the math! We moved right before Christmas and it's taking us a while to figure out how to get ready in the morning and factoring in a longer drive time!
6. What is your favorite thing to do after school? If I don't have anything to do at work (seldom!) then I like to head home early to walk the dogs. The kids and I walk them for about 40 minutes, then the dogs are so tuckered out that they will sleep in their kennels without barking their heads off and I can scoot the kids off to the park. Then, I have the whole house to myself - absolute quiet and peace. So nice!
7. Where did you go to college? Started at El Paso Community College, did some online courses while we were in Germany and finally finished up at Cameron Univerity here in Lawton, OK!
8. Favorite animal? Rottweilers. Seriously, forget all you've heard about them. We bought one from a breeder in Germany where they've kept their bloodlines pure, not breeding for size or aggression like some people here in the States. She was the best dog - gentle, loving, would let you take the food right out of her mouth. We can't have another one right now because we live on post and the breed is banned, but as soon as we can I'll be getting a new rottweiler.
9. What bugs you the most at school? Negative people. Seriously, we have the best job in the world, why do poeple need to complain about every little thing. Oh, and we're all adults, let's stop with the middle school attitudes please! I try to stay out of it by just staying in my room or with the teachers in our "Happy Hall" as we call it, but sometimes you can't escape it!
10. If you could do any other job what would it be and why? I wouldn't want another job, except that I would like to be back in kindergarten next year!
11. Do you like chocolate? Love it! Even on my low-carb diet I have to satisfy my chocolate cravings with sugar-free chocolates - not quite the same thing, but close!
12. What is your best classroom story? Too long to type it out now, but suffice it to say, it involves me panicking as I chased down an errant non-English speaking 3rd grade special needs student who had been stuck in my classroom as a stop-gap measure until her paperwork came through for transportation to a self-contained classroom.

 From Kindergarten Cowgirl:

1) Milk chocolate or dark? Both, but see #11 above!
2) What do you drive? 2006 Dodge Caravan but we're trading it in this spring - probably for another mini-van, with 4 kids I can't imagine having anything else!
3) Pets? 2 dogs, a cat and a bunny! The dogs are recently additions and are slowly destroying our home, but they're so darn cute I can forgive them even this:

It helps that the stuffed animal wasn't one of mine!

4) Do you like your principal? Why/why not? So far, yes. She's new to our school this year, but isn't trying to change everything at once. She's a bit stricter than our last principal - she actually expects us to turn in our lesson plans, but she's fair.
5) What is your favorite clothing brand? If it fits, looks good and fits the budget I wear it, I don't get caught up in brands :)
6) How do you de - stress? Vent to my husband, blog and read lots of books!
7) What is your favorite go - to easy dinner? Tacos - there's not a drop of Hispanic blood on either sides of our family, yet we eat tacos at least twice a week (and I seriously am not trying to offend anyone!)
8) What is the first thing you do when you get home from school? Walk the puppies if my husband hasn't gotten home and done it yet, then get on my blog/email and see what's up!
9) On average, how many hours per week do you put in at school during non - school hours? This year? Usually about 10-20 hours. While my husband was in Korea for a year? Probably about 20-30! We ate a lot of fast food while he was gone because I stayed at work until 7pm most nights!
10) What's the biggest challenge for you in the classroom? Dealing with all of the crap my kiddos have to go through. Our school is in a very poor area and many of my students deal with power/water being shut off, not enough food/clothing, parents in jail or walking out on them etc. A lot of them are in and out of shelters and foster homes too. The emotional stuff is so hard to deal with - I have to walk a fine edge between being supportive but not letting them become too dependent on me, plus I still have to make sure the academics are being taught!
11) If you weren't a teacher, what profession would you choose? Haha, see #10 above!
12) What's your favorite part about teaching? The kids of course! I walk in most mornings and just have to smile seeing them! I always miss them over the long breaks and can't wait to try out my new ideas on them - it makes me feel good to see them enjoying school!

All right, enough about me! I am gracefully bowing out of this game of tag - thanks to all who tagged me! Next up, some giveaways that I couldn't resist passing along!

Amy from The Resourceful Room is having a giveaway for some terrific prizes and is honoring women who are facing cancer too! Please go check it out, my mother died of cancer when I was 18, so this one hits home for me! It ends Sunday, so hurry over!

Kelly from Busy In K is celebrating 150+ followers with a giveaway with 3 super prizes! It ends Feb 7th so be sure to head over soon!

Kelley over at Buggy for Second  is having a giveaway for a personalized magnet board - so cute! I also love her blog desing - ladybugs are my faves! This one ends Sunday Feb 5th too!

Chrissy from Buzzing with Ms. B is having a 100 follower giveaway with 3 winners! They will get to choose any item in her TPT  or TN store! This ends Sunday as well!

Tanya of  Ms.Solano's Kindergarten is turning 40 on Feb 17th and is having a giveaway for two $50 gift certificates for Erin Condren! Oooh, so many neat things on that site, it'd be hard to choose! This one ends on Tanya's birthday!

Ruffianly, (haha, tried to correct a misspelling of "finally" and this is what it autocorrected to - I didn't even know "ruffianly" was a word!) if you read yesterday's post you'll remember that my kiddos loved the hidden picture 100s chart we did from Katie at Little Warriors! It was such a hit that I promised I would make them some more, so that's what I did last night with my daughter Moira. I plan to have my kiddos fill in the blank 100s chart and then I'll call out the numbers as tens and ones to make it more challenging (28= 2 tens and 8 ones for example). Here's one of the ones we came up with last night, which will be fun for Valentine's Day! I typed up the directions for a simple Kindergarten version, but also the directions for a 1st-2nd grade class which are a bit more complicated. Let me know if I need to clarify anything!
Valentine Hundred Chart Hidden Picture

New Friends (Freebie!)

I received a new student on Thursday and will be getting another one on Monday! That brings my student count to 19! So nice compared to our kindergarten classes that have 26 each this year! Neither one of the new students are from our district, which always makes assessing them a bit harder - this week I'll have to do individual Literacy 1st assessments for each of them and give our Title I math benchmark to the entire class. Since we had a water day on Friday and I went home sick on Thursday I am already a bit behind and it's only the second week of the new year!

I was going to spend this weekend filing and cutting and laminating. Instead I read several blogs that talked about all the goodies at Target right now so I took a little day trip yesterday to our nearest Target (over an hour away) only to find tons of Valentine's Day stuff but nothing for the 100th Day of School :( This morning I got up and had to head to Oklahoma City (almost 2 hours away) to pick up the newest members of our family: Lola and Max:

They are 7 month old beagle pups - brother and sister. Their previous owners were splitting up and each worked too many hours to care for them solo. I saw their ad on craigslist yesterday and coincidentally my husband has been dying for a beagle pup so he could have a hunting companion *(I feel the need to clarify that my husband hunts a lot, he just never catches anything. Ever. In fact, if we had to rely on him to hunt for our sustenance we'd starve to death within a week! Even with going out hunting for several hours each weekend, studying up on the latest methods, buying every gizmo out there etc, he still never has any luck. I'm secretly grateful because a) I love animals and b) I'm not cleaning or eating anything that didn't come from a grocery store! Thank goodness he doesn't read my blog or he might be upset lol!) Anyways they are adorable pups, already potty trained (woohoo!) fixed (another woohoo!) and they get along great with the kids! I'm sure there will be some adjustments to be made, but we are very happy to have added them to our  family!

Hmm, I was already behind before, now I've wasted practically the whole weekend on shopping and puppies. I'm going to predict that I'm going to have to get caught up next weekend ~ provided of course that real life doesn't  derail that plan!


In honor of our new pups, and to give me an excuse to put off the filing for just a bit longer, I made this Valentine Puppy Addition game . I hope you enjoy it and please leave me a message if you do - it really makes my day to read your comments!
Valentine’s Day Puppy Addition

I have to give a shout out to Kimberly at First In Maine. She's a new blogger, but I'm really enjoying her writing! She's having a giveaway that ends tonight, so make sure you go check her out - she deserves way more than the 49 followers that she has right now!

And, since I'm talking giveaways, makes sure to check out Color Me Kinder's giveaway that ends on the 10th! Who couldn't use a $10 TPT gift card?!