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 ...

Stickers and notepads! A teacher’s favorite things! These cute fall resources from Carson Dellosa are perfect for so many things! Not just the obvious. We know we can put stickers on papers as we grade them. We know we can write notes home about how great our students are on the notepads. We can also use them in other ways. We can use the stickers in a rebus sentence or story for our beginner writers. We can use them as counters in ten frames to make a matching center. We can use them to make patterns. They are a great quick way to get a picture in a center activity. The notepads can be used the same way. Each student could get one and write a sentence for a class book. The paper is already done for you. You could use the notepad to make matching pieces for an alphabet game, beginning sounds game, matching numbers to sets, matching numbers to ten frames. The list goes on as far as you need it. These are great quality products from Carson Dellosa. So cute for this time of the year! As ...

Thinking Mats -Math Thinking Mats!  Oh Carson-Dellosa you have read my mind again! As many of us move to Guided Math, this is a great resource! It is divided into the five topics of math – Counting and Cardinality, Operations and Algebraic Thinking, Number Operations in Base 10, Measurement and Data and Geometry. 20 activities in all! It is already laminated! Hands up people! Once less thing to do on the list! Cut and go! The ONLY thing other than this book you will need is a write on/off marker! Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy! There is even a check off in the back for you to check off which student has done which activity. There is one for students also. The mats are color coded so you know which piece goes with which mat – not that they EVER lose a piece, but just in case! The directions are not hard for them to follow either. If you use it in a guided math group first, then move to independent practice – they will be set! Looking forward to using this tomorrow – and it won’...

Well, here we are already at Chapter 6! This book packs such a punch and is such an easy read all at the same time! Here are my thoughts on Chapter 6 Lesson Design. This is an important chapter. I love the gradual release model. I love the Lesson Design Tool (Figure 6.1). I love the plan on page 81: "Teacher Modeling Guided Practice Within the Lesson Guided Practice Beyond the Lesson Independent Practice Application" I love how she relates it to her lessons on page 83.  "She explains She shows kids how Give significant time to practice time for students to reflect, share and teach assess I reflect and consider next steps" I love Figure 6.2 also. I love the chart and the time breakdown. I agree with all she has to say. I know we need to do this! I beleive this is a great way to plan. I just don't know if there are enough hours in the day! I know I don't have to do this with every lesson - well, I couldn't do this with every lesson. I ...

Infographics! How cool is that? Carson Dellosa has a cool new tool for us to use! This book fits great into the new in-depth reading that Common Core is looking for. This covers many different content areas. I think I found one for almost all the content areas that I need to cover- including math! The pages are perforated of heavy card stock!  I’ll be taking the book apart and putting each card in with the materials for the units so I don’t forget to use one. The pictures are colorful but not over stimulating. Well labeled too! That is another bonus – use it as a modeling tool!  The topics range from insects to dinosaurs to video games – with tons in between! And the questions are on the back of the pictures! This will be a great resource to start a topic or to end a topic. It will be integrating reading and content knowledge. Did I mention hitting the standards? What about: ·          With prompting and support, retel...

Phonics- The simple definition from Merriam Webster is “ a method of teaching people to read and pronounce words by learning the sounds of letters, letter groups, and syllables ”. Kindergarten teachers do this all day long. We sing, we dance, we match, we play. Sometimes it feels like we stand on our heads to do this! Once students start making the connection – it is WONDERFUL! There are those students who just don’t seem to “get it”. They are the students who need the small group/one-on-one time. They are the students who we work it into EVERYTHING for. They are the ones who need some practice at home. We can help them get the practice they need at home by recommending Spectrum Phonics K from Carson Dellosa. You can go right now and see the page – but don’t forget to come back and finish reading! http://www.carsondellosa.com/brands/spectrum This is a well-organized workbook. It practices what we do in school. It has a few pages for tracing lines, left to right practi...