December Monthly Collection Life is all about being digital now. So why not Carson Dellosa books? Remember having all those open ended and seasonal worksheet books? Well, now Carson-Dellosa has those as printable downloads! It ’ s a small blast from the past! The December one covers lots of skills. I know we are all trying to get away from worksheets, but sometimes you just need one! They are great as a quick review, as a five minute filler (who really ever has five free minutes???), as a quick homework page, or as a guick assessment.  These are awesome because they come in color and black and white. So it doesn ’ t matter what your printing options are, they have you covered. I like this December one because it is not all Christmasy. It has more of a winter theme that can last a little longer. Maybe in January it will be helpful as we are all trying to get back into morning school mode! Haha Cutting and pasting are still skills we need to teach and they need to learn...

Holiday Fun December – like it or not- it’s here! I love this month despite the craziness. I even wish (sometimes) it could be a little longer because there is so much to do in it! So many cute ideas all over! What a great way to learn and have fun! Plus, I really think this is when we finally start gelling as a class. We finally start figuring everything out. I am glad when it’s over though too because that means time with my adult children! I love when they come home – most days! LOL I’m loving this little set Holiday Fun from Carson Dellosa for a bulletin board or more. They call it mini – but it’s 55 pieces!  So many cute things included. I love all the Gingerbread Man stuff in it. That’s my favorite stuff we do. He runs away! Can you believe that? Then he sends us packages from around the world telling us about different holidays. This set is perfect for that! We can use the signs to label the countries that he has visited as we show off the project...

Interactive Notebooks Click the title to go to the website.  These interactive notebooks are HOT! They make so much sense too! Carson Dellosa is helpful with this! Their Interactive Notebook series is great! They are well organized, give tons of useful tips, have ways to get started, keeping them organized, planning them out and even grading them. The Interactive Notebook Science for kindergarten is fun! It covers Life Science, Physical Science and Earth and Space Science. It works with my curriculum. It works with my standards. They won’t be doing the same type page over and over. They mix it up! There are pockets, folds, flaps, petals and accordion folds. The book even has some templates for you to make your own if you need. Carson Dellosa has this interactive notebook thing covered! I participate in the Brand Ambassador Program from Carson-Dellosa and have received this product for free.

Keeping Track of All the Data Teachers are held accountable to the students, the parents and the school districts. We need to make sure that we are showing growth in our students. We need to be able to show this. We also need to plan what our students need to know. We need to make sure we know what we have done and where we are going. The students need to be able to see what growth they are making. They need to be able to see what they need and where they are going. Tracking data helps us. Tracking data helps the students. Tracking data proves what we are doing and where we are going. Tracking data gives us support and the students support. Data Binders or Data Notebooks whatever you call them- will help with all of this. They can be work to set them up in the beginning, but once you think it through about how you want it set up, what you will include in it, and how they will be used and stored – it will be worth it. Just like everything – planning is key to implementati...

WOW! This book has a lot in it's 96 pages! All those big reading comprehension standards are covered. This will be so useful to help assess and form groups by skills. There are skill assessment and practice pages - story elements, summarizing, compare and contrast, cause and effect, and inferring are all covered. I think the best part is the skill assessment analysis. Use that DATA! It shows the skill, the standard, the assessment item and the practice pages. It's organized and done for us! THANK YOU Carson Dellosa! This is NOT for the beginning of the year. You may need to use this whole group or individually as a teacher. We need to use our teacher judgement. We may look at it and have it spark an idea for a class lesson that is more hands on. This is the age we live in. These are the standards we are responsible for. We need to make the best of it and show our students how they can succeed. This will be a great tool for that, I believe.  I participate in the Brand Ambassad...

 What a great, helpful bulletin board set! There are very helpful anchor charts for learning all those tricky rules to figure out words. It is a very cute theme - pandas "attacking" the words. Great way to hook the students into their learning. These posters are great reminders for all those rules I've forgotten over the years. LOL  They have an anchor chart for silent letters, syllable codes (never knew these till I taught second grade), vowel teams, r-controlled, silent e and ways to figure out a word. These will be a little hard for the kinders to use but from first grade up- they will be great! I will be using these as a resource for me as I'm teaching.   Lots of product here too for the money - 4 large posters, 2 small posters, 4 pandas and 4 stars. Oh, and the resource guide. The guide has some great bulletin board ideas and a great bookmark to give the students. Way to go @Carson-Dellosa! I participate in the Brand Ambassador Program from Ca...

Where does the summer go? Feels like I just put everything away in my classroom and now it’s time to get it all out. Beach memories will make it be ok! So now it’s time to think about the data! Don’t panic! www.carsondellosa.com  is here to help! There is a wonderful resource to help with getting and keeping the math data – Math Instant Assessments for Data Tracking . Sounds like a mouth full of a title, but it’s packed a lot into the almost 100 pages. Wonderfully aligned with the CCS. It is divided into the five domains for math – counting and cardinality, operations and algebraic thinking, number operations in base ten, measurement and data, and geometry. That way you can concentrate on the area you need. The book gives you lots of information too about the assessments, types of assessments and how to use it and the different components in it. It has exit tickets, unit tests, traditional assessments and prompt cards. This will be awesome to use to help form sma...

Interactive Word Study http://www.carsondellosa.com/products/104946--Word-Study-Resource-Book-104946#/?book media type=f389e45b92884d48844baaf09d49e3c5 Carson-Dellosa sent me a GREAT back to school package! I couldn’t believe my luck when I opened it up! I was wanting to do more of this in the upcoming school year- did they read my mind? My kinders LOVED doing interactive math journals last year. I knew I needed to do more with ELA. They answered my prayers. 😊 Interactive Notebooks Word Study is the latest book from CD Publishing on my bookshelf. It covers TONS! From sight words to phonics (and not just general phonics!) to syllabication patterns to word parts. OH MY! I thought it was just going to be sight words, but happily so much more! Then when I saw that, I thought – oh, we could divide the notebook into sections. GUESS WHAT? They have tabs that you can run off and use. I’m thinking bright colored paper for that (wink, wink). That also tells you about the last s...

Are you thinking about it? Has it crept into your thoughts? Did you start dreaming about it yet? Did you start shopping?  Do I mention it? Back to school! LOL I have done a few projects. I have done some thinking. I have also realized I do MUCH better with a schedule! We are empty nesters this summer. First summer in 23 years. It is so quiet! It is so peaceful. I have totally relaxed and enjoyed the quiet.   We know that July is the Saturday of the weekend. It is early July – so it is still morning time. Here’s hoping that I can get some more things done on the to do list! Well, since we started talking about BTS, let me tell you about @carson-dellosa’s AIM HIGH collection! So perfect for working with growth mindset! The colors are beautiful. They are bright yet subtle all at once. The mini bulletin board set has TONS! It has a header, inspirational arrows, blank arrows, targets in different sizes, and student pieces. I don’t know if I would consider that mini. That i...

This is a great resource from Carson Dellosa. I'm not sure with that I will be able to start out the year using it with all of my students. Many of my students do not have school experience when they start kindergarten. The first chapter is numbers 1-100. Many of them are not ready for that. We get there, but not right away. Mind you, some of them are! I will be able to use it right away with them.  I am thinking that this will be a great resource to use with my guided math groups. It will be a great way to group students who need additional help in a particular area. There are five chapters - 1: Counting and Writing Numbers; 2- Working with Numbers; 3- Adding and Subtracting; 4- Measurement and Data; and 5- Geometry. They all sound familiar don't they?? lol I like that there are pre, post, mid and final tests. That is so useful to make sure that they are still using the skills that have been taught. There is also an answer key! I did double check myself on something...

Soar With a New Mindset This new mini bulletin board set from @CDPub is great! How cute a bulletin board is this. Well, not the picture itself. The set! The picture is BAD! I know! It's the end of the year and things are coming down, not going up. I'm planning a neat one for the fall with this set. Everyone else starts thinking about the fall at the end of the year, correct? ;-) I have a small bulletin board that this will be perfect for- not too much but very helpful!  What a great way this will be to introduce growth mindset to the new kindergartners. We can make hot air balloons (or get the Soaring To Success set from CD) for each kid and watch them SOAR to new heights as they learn new things! We will be able to discuss how, why and what to do to keep moving forward. This is going to be great!  Start planning for next year. Don't let this great value go to waste! I love that it shows both growth and fixed mindsets. We need that starting point. They need to se...

We all need the data!  Carson-Dellosa has a new resource for us! Language Arts Instant Assessments for Data Tracking! Sounds like a lot - and it is! We may not always want to assess, but it is part of the job. This resource gives us different and helpful ways to get that data. I think it might even be easy- shhhh don’t tell the administrators that! These assessments can be used in many different ways- pre/posttest, exit tickets and even during small group lessons. It includes different formats that can be used in different ways. More bang for your buck! It covers reading literature, informational texts, foundational skills, writing, conventions and vocab. The students love showing what they know – there are two of these so you don’t need to come up with a pre-and posttest. They did this for us! Exit tickets – I was really wondering about this one when I first saw it. We might be able to do some of these now at this point of the year, but not earlier. The more I looked ...