STEM! I love doing hands on activities with the students! Always have. Just ask the husband who has made, carried, or bought tons over the years. He’s a keeper! Anyway – I was a little nervous at first when Carson Dellosa sent me their new Stem Challenge cards. The box said Grades 2-5. L I teach kindergarten.   But guess what??? They will be fine for us! They will not be independent cards, but we can still use them! The CCS have upped the rigor for science, so my teaching BFF’s and I have been working through what we need to add and change. These will be great! There are two different versions – STEM Challenges and STEM Challenges Seasonal. So I opened up the seasonal first. Three tabs in the box – Spring/Summer, Winter, Autumn. I was thrown off when there was nothing behind the Autumn tab. Then I realized that the cards are in FRONT of the tabs. (I may have been sitting outside in the sun too long! LOL) The Challenge box is set up the same with Earth & Space, ...

Storage. Organization. Important! Let’s make it pretty too!   These two pieces from carson Dellosa are all of that!   I love having a schedule chart for the students to see. I have kindergarteners. They like to know when recess, lunch and snack are. OK so do I! LOL The pocket chart does not take up much room. I can put the cards in the pockets, adding a pop of color. I can write on the cards or I can write on the pockets. How clever is that! We know that schedules change, especially as the year progresses with the students. So wipe and redo. Simple! You could use it for other things though too. It has 12 pockets. You could use it for center chart. You could use it to keep track of where everyone is – nurse, bathroom, speech, etc. You could use it for words/vocabulary. You could use it for a pocket chart center – put the poem in order. This one goes pretty much with all decors.   This will also help keep us on that schedule – correct? haha The file f...

Well, I wasn’t going to make a new door d é cor but then Carson Dellosa sent me some treats! There are so many cute cutouts! I have a polka dot theme in my classroom, so the confetti and the fans are perfect for that! I have seen all the cute door ideas on Instagram and decided to use my cricut maker and the cutouts! I went with the saying “You’ll always have a SPOT in my heart!” Then I’m going to add the names of my kinders to the spots and decorate the door. I like both the confetti ones and the fans – might do a combination of both. The left over ones I think I will use to label spots in the room for centers. Now, my biggest issue will be putting the background paper on the door. Anyone have any easy solutions for that? Or is it just cause I'm so clumsy and awkward? I was thinking of trying a plastic tablecloth. Not sure. Can't take stuff of of that without ripping it. I'll keep you posted!               There are so man...

OMG! What fun is this book – InvestigatingKindergarten ! So, there is a story to read to the child with a problem to figure out at the end. Then there are skill pages that review CCS and “ clues ” to help solve the mystery! There are top secret files. There are clues on pages. There are questions to answer. There is also an answer key – for those adults who like to look ahead and read the last page of the novel before finishing the book! Oh, wait- that ’s me! LOL Any one else?? Back to this book… each top secret file has learning goals. It tells where the evidence can be found and gives clues. The activities are grouped in the secret files by topics – Langauge Arts: Letters and Sounds; Math: Numbers, Counting, Adding,& Subtracting; LA: Grammar, Sight Words & Vocab; Math: Greater/Less, Measurement & Shapes. There is a Detective Notebook to keep track of all the DATA. The kids will love making sure they are filling in all the clues!   This would be such a fun, ...

The Interactive Notebook Language Arts K from Carson Dellosa is so much fun! The more hands on, the better! This is a great resource to keep those little ones busy and learning. They won’t even know they are learning – best part! There are great tips about setting up interactive notebooks, record keeping and organization. We have seen many different ideas on the web. Do what feels right for you! You don’t have to do a notebook. You can just use the resources. You can go big or you can go small. Start where you feel comfortable and move from there. This book covers the basics in kindergarten. Starts with the alphabet, goes to vowels, word families and sight words. It has parts of speech and sentence writing. It has literature and Informational text features. One of the best parts, to me, is it has reproducibles included. That means if I can’t find exactly what I want, I can make it. I can make it without starting from scratch! The template is there and I add what I ...

Treats from Carspn Dellosa I must say- I LOVE getting a package in the mail. Especially when it’s from Carson Dellosa. The latest package I received from CD had some really great items in it! Reward Tags, Cut Outs and a File Folder Storage ! Oh, my! Click on the links to see them!  I am loving using the tags in my classroom. We call them “Brag Tags” but “Reward Tags” works too! How nice that they are done already! No prepping needed! I like to have the students keep them on a necklace. So, technically, I would need to punch a hole. Easy Peasy! They are colorful, sturdy and cute! The sayings on them a great for growth mindset, rewarding behavior and encouragement.   49 is a good quantity too. That will last a little bit of time with a classroom. The cut outs are sooooo cute!!! We learn about reptiles and amphibians. These will be great. So many ideas to do with them. There are enough to make them an alphabet line or numbers to order. You could do rhyming w...

Kindergarten Skills We all know they need them.   We all know there are tons of skills needed. We all know the kids need to practice. Making a recommendations to a parent to help them practice can be hard.   Carson Dellosa has some help with that. They have a book – 100   Kindergarten Skills. You guessed it- it covers 100 skills. It is divided into math and language arts. Yup – 50 of each. It has a nice progression of skills also. Math goes from counting   and writing 1,2 and 2 all the way through 30. There is adding, subtracting and shapes. The Language Arts starts with identifying the alphabet and moves to nouns, verbs, sentences, letter sounds – beginning and ending sounds, short vowels, rhyming and color words. There is an answer key included also. I think this would be great for parents to work with their child over the summer. I see this going in two different ways. I see parents using this before kindergarten to help prepare them. I also see thi...

March Printables So March is here! Can you believe it? I always feel like we will never get here when we start school and then POOF! It’s here! I love that spring is coming soon. It’s the time in between that I’m not thrilled with. It’s a struggle getting dressed in the morning – cold in the morning, warm by the afternoon. Boots or sandals? The struggle is real. Tell me I’m not alone! So – one thing that is an easy decision is the March Printables from Carson Dellosa! This is a great value for all that is included. There are color copies and black and white copies. So much is included. There are calendars with ideas or blank ones to fill in with what you want. There are infographics to do some serious learning. There are fun holiday pages to practice skills but in a fun way! Language Art skills, Math skills, Writing and STEM are included. A little bit of everything! There are 100 pages of good stuff in this packet. So make sure you are one of the lucky ones in March by snaggi...

Math 4 Today Everything old is new again! LOL We know a good thing when we use it! Carson Dellosa has upped the daily review pages for math. All common core aligned now. 😊 This book is a great resource that is cyclical and covers tons. There is a section for each day of the week- Monday to Thursday. Friday is an assessment day. The assessments are not exactly the same but not that different. They will have to think. There is also a fluency part for every day. So many ways to use these pages too! Of course, you can print them off for each week. The students could keep them in a math notebook or folder. It could be part of their routine before math stations with guided math. You could put them in the page protectors and use them as a station for guided math or in a work binder. If they have a binder that has other “tools” in it –100 chart, number bond page, ten frames page, etc, - this could go in a page protector to use as a warm up lesson, an assignment, a station. Up to ...

February – why are you so short and so full of things to do! LOL President’s Day, Dental Health month, Groundhog Day, African American History month! OMG how much can we put in a month- it’s all so important to cover! Thank goodness Carson Dellosa has some printables for us to get through the month. These printables start with a great calendar – everything in the month is filled out. What a great resource to see all the fun things we can learn about throughout the month. There is a blank calendar also – you could fill it in with the information you will be using and send it home with the students. There are all sorts of worksheets to use in different ways. They would be great to use for morning work, indoor recess (rolling my eyes here), center work, games or a lesson. There are infographics to use and response sheets. Math and ELA are covered. STEM is covered. You get it all. It comes in color and black and white so you can pick which one you want to print. You can always pick co...

Spring Cleaning Wrote this for Carson Dellosa and almost forgot to post it here! Good thing it isn't quite SPRING yet! lol We had a two-hour delay today because of ice. So the thought of SPRING, even if it’s spring cleaning makes me smile. Did your mother spring clean? My mother cleaned EVERY day! She would dust the whole house before I got up for school. The house was spotless. My theory is that is why I don’t worry so much about it. I clean don’t get me wrong – there is no filth in the house, but I don’t dust every day like my mom. I, personally, like to organize more than clean. I love taking things apart and putting them back neater. My mother is 90 – moved her two years ago to a full care facility. We “cleaned out” her house. OMG the woman saved EVERYTHING for 70 years! My husband and I have vowed not to have our children have to do that. So, we have been doing “spring cleaning” all year. We have thrown out tons! Literally! I feel like the house is skinnier! Now I want ...

Math Workshop 2,4,6,8 Who do we appreciate? Carson Dellosa! Have you been thinking about math workshop? Are you already doing it? Do you need some ideas and some support? Ready to take the plunge? Carson Dellosa has your back! The new Math Workshop book from Carson Dellosa can help – no matter what stage you are in. They covered lots of information in a concise way and an easy to use way. I’m somewhere in the middle of Math Workshop. I try to do it as often as possible, but some days just don’t go as planned. Some days we can’t handle the centers, some days a whole group lesson goes longer than I thought, some days a fire drill throws everything off. It happens. It’s real life. CD has set up the book in a very user-friendly way. There is an explanation of what Math Workshop is – my thinking has always been to run it like Reading Workshop. Just different material being worked on.  Just like Literacy – warm-up, mini-lesson, rotations/groups and closure. I personally se...