Plinko!

A little while ago I was asked to review a product for Lakeshore. I chose the Plinko Phoenemic Awareness Game which focuses on beginning and ending sounds as well as rhyming. If you're like me, you remember Plinko from afternoons of watching "The Price is Right". I remember coming home after school and my mom would have tea ready - we got a cup of tea and one of those chocolate digestive biscuits as our afternoon snack and watched a bit of TV with her before getting to homework.


So right away, this Plinko game is bringing back fond memories! When I chose to review it, I looked at it from the point of view of a mother and then a teacher - it's perfect for my youngest right now - to help combat the summer slide and reinforce ending sounds in particular. It also looked like a fun game to play in class. I figured, if I can interest my 4 children in it, it would probably work in the classroom too!

It was surprisingly simple to set up - which would be a plus in a classroom setting - you don't want to have a lot of set up time involved when there are 20 children getting into mischief while the teacher is occupied patiently waiting. From opening the box to being game-ready it took less than 5 minutes!

One of the things I really liked is that the "chips" are not plastic or paper but actually wood - seems like these will stand up to many years of use! I don't know about you, but I'm constantly telling students not to bend things like papers, books, and playing cards, so it'll be nice not to have to worry about these! That's one of the things I appreciate about Lakeshore products, they tend to be high quality and lasting!

Here are a few pictures of the game play:

 Even from the beginning, my youngest was fascinated with the game.

 His sister took a few turns too - although the skills were too low for her obviously, she did like the game play! And yes, she is wearing one glove in the picture - it's apparently a steam punk thing, not a Michael Jackson thing.

 He had a little trouble laying the chips flat against the board but once I demonstrated he was fine!

 This time it landed in the ending sounds box which pleased him! 

My little Red liked it too - long after the older two were done my youngest two kept playing. They didn't stop until they had finished the whole bag!

I think this is a great review tool for my youngest! It's so much fun that he doesn't feel like he's doing "work"! I'm also eager to try it out in class - I know my students will be just as thrilled with it! It will easily hold a student's attention, even when it's not their turn, simply because of the Plinko board - there's just something about not knowing where the chip will go that is fascinating lol. I think it would be perfect in a pre-k or K setting, or even at the beginning of 1st grade for review. I know it will help my ELL students to review their rhyming throughout the year, since that is a really tough skill for them. With both beginning and ending sounds, I can see myself using this game from 1st quarter all the way through 4th quarter, so I'll get a lot of use out of it!

Alright, I'm off to an Army Marriage Retreat for the weekend! 2 nights in a fabulous hotel, with a water park! I am bringing my laptop, but I can't promise to turn it on ; P I will try to respond to any messages or questions on Sunday when we get back! Oh, by the way, for those of you who asked for different placemat styles, I now have Bumblebee, Monkey and Monster up in my TPT store! And if you happened to miss that post, just click here to see how I use these placemats in my classroom!

Disclaimer: I was given a free Plinko game in return for my honest review - I love it!

How Do You Feel? (Freebie!)

At the beginning of the school year I do a big "All About Me" unit so that I can get to know the kids and they get to know each other. Part of the unit is also about emotions because I find that many of my students don't have a vocabulary for emotions yet. They can't "use their words" because they don't HAVE the words to use! One of the ideas that I came up with to help with building that emotional vocabulary is a fun pocket chart activity that we do during calendar time.

I've made emotion cards with simple smiley faces. Easy enough for the students' to relate to, and I've got basic emotions as well as "feelings" like hungry and sleepy because that's a great time to discuss the difference between emotional feelings and physical feelings. I put each card into a square of the pocket chart - sorry mine is all packed away or I'd show you a picture of the chart set up. Here are the feeling cards though:

 Just click a picture to grab the cards for free in my TPT Store!

The first time we do the activity we discuss each feeling and come up with examples of what might make us feel this way.This way I'm sure that everyone understands the feeling of being proud etc.

I buy the mini popsicle sticks and write a child's name on each one. I pass them out to each child - this is a great way to practice name recognition too - sometimes I hold up the stick to see if they can recognize their name or I might call out the letters. Once everyone has their stick we take turns putting it in the pocket for whichever feeling corresponds to their mood. I'll say "How are you feeling today Gertrude?" and Gertrude will go up and place her popsicle stick in the appropriate pocket and use a complete sentence to answer the question. For example "I feel sad because my daddy has been gone for a long time." or "I feel tired because I stayed up late last night."

Be ready for shockers like "I feel angry because the police took my brother to jail." or "I feel hurt because my dad hit me with his belt." This is usually the time that divorce, jail, new babies on the way, electricity turned off etc comes out and we need to remember to acknowledge the child's feelings and support them so that they feel safe in revealing these things. It's helpful to have a calm response ready, because the child who said it is looking to you to see if you're going to judge them and the other kids are looking to you to see what their response should be. A simple "I understand why that would make you feel hurt. I think I would feel hurt too." will suffice at the moment and then you can always pull the child aside later or set him up with the counselor etc.

This is also a time when some mediation might be required if Johnny says "I'm angry because Billy Bob stole my pencil!" It's a wonderful opportunity to have each side tell each other how they feel and resolve issues! We also brainstorm ways to help people who are feeling sad or bored or shy, which is great for building bonds between the students.

Here are some of the chants we say during this time too:

“I Feel Happy” Sung to the tune of “Are You Sleeping?”

I feel happy, I feel happy—
See me smile, see me smile.
Happy, happy, happy,
_______ makes me happy.
See me smile, see me smile.

I feel angry, I feel angry—
See me frown, see me frown.
Angry, angry, angry—
_______ makes me angry.
See me frown, see me frown.

Other verses:

grumpy (see me pout)
silly (see me wiggle)
proud (see me strut)
sad (see me cry)
scared (see me shiver)

Feelings
by Karen Folk
Sometimes on my face you’ll see (Point to face)
How I feel inside of me. (Point to chest)
A smile means happy, a frown means sad, (Smile, then frown)
And when I grit my teeth, I’m mad. (Grit teeth and frown)
When I’m shy, my head hangs low, (Bow head)
But when I’m proud I beam and glow. (Smile)

This Mr. Rogers video is great for talking about mad feelings - it gives a lot of examples of things to do when you're feeling mad that don't hurt anyone.

Please Rustle Up a Response below if you grab this freebie - I always feel happy when I read your  comments!

Placemats!

It's Monday! Which means absolutely nothing in the summer, yay! Seriously, I'm only up this early because the phone rang - don't people know I'm on vacation and not to call until noon?!  My children are all night owls like myself, so during the summer we stay up late and wake up late - they still get their 8-10 hours a night though - my youngest is still sleeping like a rock - the phone didn't even phase him lol! (Edit: it's not early any more, this post took a few hours to finish, mostly because of things like eating breakfast, playing games and reading to a very persistent 5 year old!)

I'm moving on from organizing - it didn't get completely finished, but good enough for now! I am waiting for some of the Back to School sales to get get 100% finished. Well, not the sales actually, I don't think prices will go down, but I am hoping for more availability! Right now there are no crates or pencil boxes and very few color options for desk organizers! Hopefully all of that will change next month and I can finish the last little bit!

Since I'm headed back to kindergarten (yahoo!), I am thinking about beginning of the year things! One of my absolute favorites is my folders. Each child will get a basic manilla folder, laminated for durability. We keep them at our tables under the caddy and any unfinished work gets stored there. The front of their folder is also their placemat, with handy dandy information and a space for them to practice their names.

I go with the placemat format because I don't do desk strips or nameplates. Too easy to pick at and peel up, plus I like to have the option to move students around at a moment's notice. I know I've seen teachers attach the name strips with velcro, but I haven't seen it work really well - still too much picking going on!

I've also found that cliques are less likely to form when I have the children change tables regularly. Usually I have everyone move tables at the beginning of the month, sometimes I let it go a little longer, depending on the class. With the placemats I can quickly move any children who are distracting others or not getting along too (most of the time we try to work out those personality clashes, but there are times when you just cannot sit Billy Bob next to Johnny or when Getrude and Minerva just can't stop talking to each other.) We just gather up the folder and change chairs, without having to worry about nameplates or desk strips.

Anyways, I revamped my placemats to go along with my "Where the Wild Things Are" theme and added a few things too:

Then I made a cat one too:

You can grab either of them in my TPT store by clicking on the picture. I have a monster and bumblebee placemat in my store as well now. Please let me know if you need a different theme, I'd be glad to make it!

I still have my placemat from last year for free if you'd prefer a forest theme!
Classroom Placemat Freebie

If you have any ideas for other themes, please let me know! And, as always, comments make my day :)