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Monday, September 24, 2012

Funny Things Kids Say

Hi Fabulous Blogging friends!! This is Page! Kids really do say the funniest things! I have to share some of my favorite stories!! Here goes nothing!!

Before I begin telling stories, you will be able to see a progression through the years, simply based on the names that my little friends called me. Don't worry, they didn't call me any bad names (out loud anyway :).  When I first started teaching kindergarten, I went by Ms. Page. This was an effort to recover from being called Mademoiselle BoomBoom during my time as a kindergarten and 2nd grade French Teacher in the Model Foreign Language of Georgia! Yep, my little friends could not say Mademoiselle Broomberg (my maiden name), so they improvised!! I guess BoomBoom was an approximation :). Anyway my grown up friends got a big kick out of that name because they joked that the kids used that name because of well, my being, um... I hate even putting this in a blog, but here goes... being top heavy. You know what I mean :).

Actually one time, our assistant principal sent out an email that said, "If you can look down, right now, and see your cleavage, you might need to choose a different shirt!" While I thought that was a very humorous way to put, "cover your girls", I did tell my assistant principal that night, while running in the neighborhood, that next time she wants to tell me something, to just tell me and not address the entire staff :). She promised it wasn't just me :).
Anyway sorry for getting sidetracked! Back to my stories....

A Friend in her sweetest kindergarten voice:"Ms. Page!! My mommy fell down the stairs and now she has to walk on CRUNCHES!!!

Me to a friend at lunch: "Little friend, What's wrong? You look like you are about to toss your cookies!!"
Friend: "Toss my cookies? I don't even have cookies on my tray today!!!"

Principal: "One of your friends said the "F" word!!! Talk to him and find out what he said!"
Me to my Friend: "Friend, the principal said you used an ugly word at school!! We don't use ugly words!! What did you say??
Friend: "I'm sorry, but that other friend did FART!!"
Me: "Ok, let's not talk about that at school!!"
Friend: Would poot have been a nicer word?"
Me: "Well that is a little better."

Sweet Innocent Friend: "Mrs. Tarleton!! A friend said 2 "S" words!!"
Me: "Oh no!!! What did your friend say? Just whisper them in my ear!!"
Sweet Innocent Friend: "Shut up! Stupid!!"
Me: "Yikes! Those words are not nice are they?"


Ok! Here is the story that might be a little too risque for a blog, but it really did happen and it was very recently!!  So, I want to preface this story by saying that before this, I was pretty confident that I was effective in teaching multi-sensory phonics! I am rethinking my abilities and maybe thinking a Tier 2 intervention may be in order :). Here goes...

Cutie Pie Friend: "Dr. Tarleton!!!A friend said the "SH" word!!
Me: Oh no!!! What did the friend say?
Cutie Pie Friend: "He said. 'F**K"
Me: "Really? You are right! That is a very bad word! Go get your friend, please."
Me: "Friend!! You know that is not a kindergarten word? Right?
Friend: "Yes mam, but I meant to say Holy Moly!!

I have to tell you that I will be working on teaching the difference between the /sh/ sound and the /f/ sound. :)
I was really so shocked that the "F" word came out of that friend's mouth because I was definitely expecting "Shut up" this time! See what happens when I don't automatically think the worst!!!

I know you have some great moments to share!! Even if they are risque, just share!! Hope you got a little chuckle!!! Tell us your stories!!!


Saturday, September 22, 2012

Stay Calm...and WIN!

Who loves a GIVEAWAY???  
http://livtoteach.blogspot.com/
We do! We do!  Espcially when it's one of our favorite bloggy friends, Olivia, over at Liv To Teach!  (Way cute blog name, yeah?)  She is such a supportive friend who always shares her creative secrets with others. 
So to help her celebrate over 500 followers at her TPT store, we are contributing our HOT SELLING $10.00 Common Core Math Pack for Kindergarten to her giveaway! 


Not to mention the other 41 AWESOME goodies up for grabs in this SUPER HUGE giveaway! 
So head on over for some fresh ideas and a chance to hit the motherload of goodies!  The giveaway runs from TODAY until Sunday the 30th! Good luck!  We're crossing our fingers for YOU!


1

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Freebie Word Chants!

Hey bloggy buddies!

Just a quickie post to send you a FREEBIE!  Our school switched from Dolch to Fry words this year, and we are busy making the adjustment!  We've been working on creating resources for the Fry lists we'll mainly be using in kindergarten (the 1st 300 words.)  We already made Fry word packs for the 1st 100 and 200 word lists, and  we are working on the final 300.

Anywho...we try to make our Fry word work REALLY fun, energetic, and memorable!  One of our favorite things (and BY FAR the FAVORITE thing of the kiddos) is WORD CHANTS!  We have sets that we have found over the years, but we were kinda getting a little tired of the same ones over and over...we can't all love to repeat things with the gusto of a 5 year old ;) !  So...we are trying our hand at coming up with some new ones to spice things up.  Now...these may not all be BRAND NEW, but we've never seen them before..so maybe they'll be new to you TOO!  Hope you enjoy them.  It's only 6 so far, but we have a TON more ideas.  We'll post those as soon as we get them "prettied" up!  Hope your enjoy!

Click the picture to grab your WORD CHANTS freebie!

If you've never used word chants before...you have GOT to try it out!  We print the cards out, mount on colored card stock, laminate, and use for years!  When we introduce a new word (today it was 'like"), we write the word on the board, let students guess the word, tell them the word, and then we tap it out.  That means we say each letter while we tap our shoulder/elbow/wrist and then sweep down our arm from shoulder to wrist while we say "spells...like".  THEN it's time for WORD CHANTS!!!

Let a kiddo pick a card.  Then you follow the directions to chant the new word.  Today we chose KARATE CHOP!  Who doesn't love yelling, hitting, and kicking in class.....AND NOT GET in TROUBLE!!!!!  We chop as we say each letter, and then we chop as we say "spells...like".  And then...the kicker (hee! hee!  pun intended!), we all kick our leg out and yell "HE-YAH!"  We do each chant 3 times!  They love it and it's super effective for your auditory and kinesthetic learners!

Then we move on to all of our handwriting, sentence structure, writing sentences...work that we do with our Fry pack sheets.  The WORD CHANTS are great starters to build momentum leading into the REAL work!



Let us know how these worked with your kiddos!


Sunday, September 16, 2012

Nuts...and we don't mean your class! FREEBIE!

Hey friends!

Hope you had an AWE-SOME weekend!  It was nice and relaxing around here.  (First one in weeks, I tell you!)

I tell you what, is it just us, or are nut allergies showing up in TONS of kiddos?  Every year we seem to be having more kids with all kinds of food allergies, but it seems that NUTS are the real nemesis!!! Darn nuts!  We downloaded a really cute nut allergy sign for our class, but the wording said "Peanut Allergies" and our babies are allergic to ANY and EVERYTHING that walks like a nut, talks like a nut, was once friends with a nut (you get the picture...really SEVERE!).

So we decided to make a new NUT ALLERGY sign to post outside our class room door.  Well, what the heck...we were feeling a little wild and made 4!!!!  We thought changing the signs out monthly...and making them a bit humorous :) ...might make them stand out a bit more and actually be noticed!

So...we thought you just might be in the same predicament as us and these may come in handy for you too!  We made seasonal signs for Sept. through Dec.  Please let us know if you like them and want more!  If you do, we'll get busy and make signs for the rest of the year!

Click the picture to get your FREEBIES!


PS - If you DO in-fact have some "nuts" in your room, please know that the "This is a NUT FREE room!" disclaimer DOES NOT apply to those particular cuties! ;)

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Freebie Linky!!!

Hey Bloggy Buddies!

Hope this lovely Sunday afternoon finds you well!  I don't know about you guys, but we have been spending some serious cash/moola/dinero on back to school things for our classrooms.  Paychecks won't be rolling in until the end of the month, and we no likey having to WAIT to buy more goodies!  Soooo....let's don't...wait, that is!  Let's go get some FREE stuff!

We are linking up with Cynthia over at 2nd Grade Pad to share our favorite freebies with each other!!!

So...here's our favorite freebie! 
It's our -ck literacy station word work pack!  


It's our favorite because it's our VERY FIRST packet that we worked on to share with all of you guys.  It has over 9 activities to use with your kiddos to help them learn and independently practice digraph -ck.  We always try to include student practice sheets as well as games and FUN activities to help you reach ALL of your learners!

The Story Behind the Pack
 We have been creating packs for our own classrooms for a little over a year.  We have had a TON of success using them with our own kiddos, and we're so excited to share with others.  We worked to "spruce up" the things we were using with our own kiddos to make them ready for their big debut!

How We Use This Pack
We use the activities for our Word Work Daily 5 rotation.  The kiddos can choose whichever activity they prefer which means excellent class behavior because everybody gets to work on things they REALLY want to work on!  Our weekly requirement is that they must complete a minimum of 5 stations by Friday.  They also get a "smiley face" stamp as they complete each activity.  This helps to keep them accountable on a daily basis so that their Friday requirement doesn't sneak up on them!

So we hope you love the pack as much as we do...and we hope you find lots of other great FREEBIES too!


Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Singin, Dancin, and Tiaras.. Oh ,my???

Hi Blogging Friends!! This is Page, the singin/dancin/tiara wearin half of Kindergarten Squared.

I love, love, love to sing and dance with my kindergarten babies!! I promise if they can sing it, they can learn it. We sing everything from the days of the week to counting by 5s, to the 50 States and even the Presidents' song. Seriously, my kindergarten babies learn the 50 States and all the Presidents just by singing songs. I have to say though, with the recent discovery of kindergarten songs on You Tube, singing and dancing have risen to a whole new level!! The songs on You Tube are so awesome that it even got my pal, Cristy, the better half of Kindergarten Squared, singin and dancin! (Hey Cristy here- Page is not even lying. I am not a big fan of all the singing hoo-ha! But alas... I teach little people and they do like the dancing!  So for all you non-dancers/singers out there...it's ok to admit...There's hope for us yet!). Below are some of our favorite You Tube song links. If there are specific standards you want a song for, just post a comment and we will see what we can find. Cristy and I found some of the songs, but I have to admit many of the links we will be posting were suggested by my fabulous sister-in-law, Dwan who teaches kindergarten in my hometown of Valdosta, Georgia. We used to teach together at WG Nunn Elementary! For more on my tiara wearin, see the picture at the bottom of this post and I will explain :).

Many of the songs below were put together by Harry's Kindergarten! Thanks Harry! We love u!!

Hip Hop Alphabet song is a fun song when learning to sing the alphabet. I love the catchy tune and that it doesn't sing with the traditional stops. Hope this helps your kiddos not think LMNOP as one letter. :)

ABC Rap is a fun song to practice letter sounds. It shows the uppercase and lowercase letters as well as objects that begin with each sound.
 
I Can Count to 100 is an awesome counting song where we practice counting by 1s to 100. We do 10 different exercises 10 times each to add some motion to the song.

The Counting by 5s song is my favorite!! It is a great way to practice counting. It is so fun :).

2D Shapes I Know is super fun! It sings about the number of sides on different shapes as well as objects in the real world.

3D Shapes I Know helps with those hard to learn shapes like sphere and cube. It also sings about the cylinder and cone. That way your kids can Exceed the Standard in Kindergarten. This song also talks about the different shapes' attributes as well as objects in the real world.
3D Shapes I know

Days of the Week Rap Back is also fun! It has the kids sing the days as well as clap out the syllables for each of the days of the week!

The Seasons song is probably the favorite song in our class! This song sings and spells the seasons. Also, pictures that represent each season flashes on screen with super catchy rhymes. 

D Song is awesome when introducing and teaching the letter D. It covers all learning modalities! Kids see, hear and even write the letter in the air. The song is very repetitive and works on the letter name, sound as well as things that begin the the /d/ sound!! The best thing is that there is one of these songs for every letter in the alphabet. To find this song, my sister-in-law told me to type in D song. It popped right up. All the great letter songs are by Have Fun Teaching.  I have not used all the letters yet, but if they are as good as the D Song, I will be using them.


The songs above are not all the songs we use, but just some of our favorite ones! We hope you love them!!
We have not found a fabulous Months of the Year song on You Tube, so would love any suggestions! Also if you know a great song for any other standard, we would love to have it!! Thanks so much!!

Yep, this is me in all my favorite things to wear! I love knee socks!! I wear lots of crazy knee socks in the winter with skirts and Mary Jane shoes. I know I am crazy! Sometimes it is fun to dress like a 5 year-old though. Also, I love my one of a kind, made by love, trash bag and duct tape sweat shirt!! Who made it you ask? Of course the most creative, talented teacher in the classroom, Mrs. Archer, my fabulous side kick and number 1 assistant, who I could not live without!! BUT my favorite accessory is the tiara! I love tiaras! I have several! No, I didn't really earn the tiaras from being a beauty queen but I do love everything Disney and princess! I never really had tiaras until I became a teacher. Now I get to be the princess of the classroom everyday. The main purpose of my tiara in the classroom is to signal students that I am working with other friends. This also signals them to ask Mrs. Archer or another friend if they have a question or a problem. It works most of the time :). They are five and sometimes they forget! I do have enough tiaras in the classroom for hat day, so all the girls can dress like a princess!!

 Fun times as always in Kindergarten!!

Monday, September 3, 2012

Our 1st CURRENTLY...ever!

Hey bloggy buddies!

Ok---so this is going to be a quickie post from 1/2 of Kindergarten Squared...Cristy!  I have been DYING to do one of these "currently's" I have been seeing!  (OK---so I am sure this has been around awhile...but we are a little late getting to the blogging party!)  So here goes my first attempt!  Be gentle!


We are heading out to the Braves game, so I'm sorry this isn't the most useful/helpful post!  I just couldn't resist giving this a go.  Check back soon for actual USEFUL info! :)

Head over to
to link up to the CURRENTLY!