~TpT BTS13~

In 29 minutes I will have finished my first ever sale on TeachersPayTeachers. Back to School 2013! Woo hoo! Not that I did much (any) work for it, but I did sell one product today. =) And I reached an exciting personal milestone: I have earned enough money from TpT and had it in my PayPal account to pay for Gingerbread Man centers I really wanted to buy for this fall! I still haven't earned enough to buy even a good lunch, but who needs to eat when you have cute centers?

If you missed out on the sale (and you read this), check out my still-low-priced (I think?) alphabet charts and number lines in English, Spanish, and both! More products to come this fall!

Butterfly Math and MY NEW STORE!

Each year I tend to focus on growing as a professional and improving one area of my kindergarten curriculum. This year it's reading. Last year, math and writing. The year before, ELD. The trouble is, with only 3 hours a day with my kiddos (not to mention only 24 hours for myself) I've struggled this year to keep up with the improvements from previous years as I focus on reading this year.

Long story short, we're behind in math. Like a lot. So now it's April and I'm just now introducing addition (although if Monday's lesson was any indication, most of my students already have a pretty good idea of what they're doing without me!). We've been adding butterflies on the SMART board and using toys, so I created a cut-and-paste word problem activity for my substitute to do with my students today. It's not anything particularly unique or original (or even very challenging...) but it was faster for me to create my own than find the right one online, and it was a good introductory assessment to get started with. We'll see how they did when I get back on Monday! 

In addition to being a convenient sub activity, this worksheet was the perfect thing for my very first TeachersPayTeachers freebie! I got home early tonight and set up my TpT seller account and posted my first product! Hopefully this is the first of many. As a bilingual teacher I often feel like an island, working on my own and having to come up with almost everything we do from scratch (or at least taking everything my English kinder team has found or purchased and reproducing it in Spanish). I want to be a part of the growing community of bilingual teachers who are sharing quality, engaging, relevant materials online for other kinder teachers! 

So here it is--my very first freebie! Butterfly Addition Cut-and-Paste Word Problem in English AND Spanish! Click the image to go to my (new!) TpT store. If you download my product, please leave feedback so that I can build my rating. Thanks so much for your support!

To Clip or not to Clip?

So, I don't have a consistent behavior management that I love. I have a few systems in place that I use on and off, and in all reality it depends on my mood. Last year I was either sick or recovering most days, so I really didn't have the energy to be proactive, which ended up wasting a lot more energy!

(SQUIRREL! I just overheard my husband use the word "vacay" with a construction foreman! LOL! Really working hard not to laugh in front of them...)

By the end of the year, my management system was based on smiles, raised eyebrows, and exasperated looks. SUPER effective. *she says sarcastically*

A solution? Maybe? Everyone is blogging and TpT-ing about their Clip Chart systems: rainbow-colored banners where kids' clips can start in the middle on green (Ready to Learn) and move up and/or down through a variety of levels, with the goal of ending up on purple (Outstanding) or red (Call Home). Lots of people have shared their takes on it, but the original work is from Rick Morris at http://www.newmanagement.com/ebooks/clip_chart.html.

I'm wondering if I can adjust this to the bucket-fillers concept? We now have the book in Spanish, and my new roommate will be focusing on that again this year. I can use the bucket and pom poms for the whole class, and the chart for individuals. We could use markers or colored pencils to indicate kids' behaviors on a calendar or daily record sheet if necessary.

Free Fonts from Mrs. Law

From my email-it-to-myself-so-I-can-find-it-later archives:


Free teachery handwriting fonts from Mrs. Law to download on my various machines!


http://firstgradealacarte.blogspot.com/2012/06/my-very-own-font.html?m=1