Fans On Teachers Pay Teachers

Hello Everyone! I'm loving Teachers Pay Teachers, and I'm trying to set some goals for myself. The first is to have 20 products in my store by the end of my first quarter. The second goal is to have 50 fans! The end of the quarter is September 30th so that will be my deadline! PLEASE become a fan and see all the amazing new materials I'll be creating this school year. I have some very active little kids joining my class, so I'll be making lots of materials to keep them busy! Click on the apple below to see my store and become a fan!

Student Information Sheet

I have a whole new batch of kiddos this school year and I don't have all their information memorized yet, so I made a new information sheet for each kid. It's amazing how much there is to remember for kids in special education! They all have little quirks and goals to reach. I had some of my old students for 2 years and had it all in my head, but that's no longer the case with my new little guys! The form can be found on my TPT site and includes both a color and black & white version for only 50 cents.

Teachers Notebook

I've had great success using Teachers Pay Teachers since I started my "store" 3 weeks ago. Thank you all for your support!! I really hope you enjoy my products. I discovered it has been well worth my time to share the materials I made for my class.

I found a similar program called Teachers Notebook. There are no commissions, but there is a one-time setup fee and you get charged a PayPal transaction fee. From what I can tell, the overall profits for low cost products should be about the same as TPT with a Premium Membership. I plan to post my materials in both places, so feel free to take your pick. I'll update you soon to let you know how it goes, and which website is more successful. In the mean time, check out my Teachers Notebook Shop!

Summer School: Science Camp, Day 5

Today was the last day of science camp. My little guys were a bit overwhelmed after 2 weeks of summer school at a new school, so I took it easy on them today. We did a few little activities that didn't quite fit into our theme days.

Today's activities:
-fingerprints. The ink pads and magnifiers were a success. I found a suggestion online to dust for prints with cornstarch and soft paintbrushes, but that was a total failure. It just made a big mess and caused my little guys to giggle at me for make it dust go everywhere and not even find the fingerprints I intentionally made on the table.
-examined our celery and carnations that were changing color
-used socks on our hands to see what it would be like if we didn't have thumbs
-watched a bit of the Magic School Bus on the topics we learned about this week
-made geometric shapes out of toothpicks and marshmallows
-learned how heat and air can pop popcorn in an air popper

Sight Words for Word Walls and Flashcards

Check out the new sight word cards I made for word walls and flashcards. I love the bright and happy color and I hope you do too! My classroom is very blue, so I thought this would work nicely, but I think I may create more colors for my TPT store.
First 100 Sight Words
Second 100 Sight Words

Summer School: Science Camp, Day 4

Today's theme was earth science! We focused our learning on nature today. We took several trips around our school garden, each time with a new purpose.

Today's activities:
-use food coloring to change the color of carnations and celery. It was starting to work by the end of the day, but I'm sure there will be a more dramatic change by tomorrow morning.
-crayon rubbing of several different leaf shapes. We collected them from the ground and a few plants in the garden, then used unwrapped crayons to see the shape and "vein" patterns.
-nature colors. We collected various flowers and colored leaves from our garden, crushed them in our hands and then rubbed them on white construction paper to see what nature colors we could make.
-fossils! We used a simple recipe using coffee grounds, flour, salt, and cold coffee to make fossils out of sea shells. First we made the dough, then each student smushed a couple seashells into it and removed them. The kids were very excited and took them home before they were dry. I learned it usually dries overnight, sometimes 2 nights.

Summer School: Science Camp, Day 3

Today was water science day! Today the kids explored the different concepts of water including, freezing, melting, and evaporation.

Today's activities:
-Predict how long it takes ice to freeze and melt, then test our predictions
-Learn about evaporation with cups out in the sun (2 with plastic wrap, 2 uncovered)
-See what happens when cold ice melts in warm water. This was a greats activity! We put blue ice cubes in warm red water (food coloring in both) and watched the cold blue water sink to the bottom as the red warm water stayed on top. Then we saw the diffusion as the colors mixed to form purple. We repeated it with red ice and yellow water to create orange.
-made "lava lamps" using colored water and veggie oil

Sorry, I don't have many good pictures of today's activities, I was trying to keep my camera and phone far away from big tubs of water! I love my little guys, but I know the odds of the wrong thing getting soaked!

Reward Chart

It may be summer school, but I'm already trying to work on social skills interventions for my new little guys. I have a few that really need to start off on a good note now, so they can have a successful beginning of the year. One of my kids loves green, so I made a behavior chart with green and yellow happy faces. I plan on giving an abundance of stickers now and build up confidence and motivation to do better. Then I'll slowly taper off and make the expectations higher.

Summer School: Science Camp Day 2

Today's theme was Explosions and Eruptions! It's amazing the number of things you can do with baking soda, vinegar and food coloring!

Today's adventures:
-baking soda trays and using droppers to drip colored vinegar and make colorful fizzy fun
-paper mâché volcanoes
-filled a balloon with air by using baking soda and vinegar in a bottle with a balloon on top
-Ooblek

Kindergarten Common Core Math Assessment

I created my assessment records before I made an official assessment. I realize that seems a little backwards, but I needed to see what standards should be covered before creating an assessment to measure them. It's a cheap $1.00 download on my TPT site with 6 pages of quick and easy assessments (plus a cover sheet). I know some of you have bought the common core standards record, but you may want a ready-to-use copy of some colored assessments to go with it. All you need to do is print one copy and laminate it or put it in sheet protectors, then use it over and over for each student you are assessing. It can be saved for next quarter/year so you don't need to keep printing them.

Summer School: Science Camp, Day 1

Today's theme: Magnets and Motion!
Today the kids did a variety of experiments and exploration using magnets in many forms. As a warm up activity we made pictures, patterns, and words using different magnets.

To get the main theme started, the class made predictions about items that were/weren't magnetic, then tested them to confirm if their predictions were correct.

For the next activity, the kids made magnetic puppet theaters out of cereal boxes, paint, Popsicle sticks, magnets, and foam stickers. They also learned how to make construction paper butterflies fly using a paper clip and the magnet on a craft stick.

We completed a magnetic "fishing" puzzle. Then we made toy cars move by taping a magnet to them and using repelling poles to move them without touching. Lastly, we were knocking over dominos with the repelling magnets. Today was a fun day of magnetic science!

Magnetic snakes and bugs warm up activity

Repelling magnetic poles knock over dominoes!

Who needs to pick up one magnet when you can grab the whole pile?!

Experimenting with the toy trains, yep! it sticks!

Moving toy cars with magnets taped to the roof without ever touching the car. We had races with them too!

Magnetic Puppet Theater!

This is what moves the puppets! Magnet hot glued onto a craft stick!

Flying butterflies! The theater magnetic craft sticks came in handy for this activity.

Summer School, Kids Camp: Day 5

The theme for the last day of camp was Choose Your Own Adventure! Each of the kids had their favorite activities of the week that they were begging to do again. I let the kids pick their favorites and they loved it. I worked with each of them on their social and speech skills while participating in the activities. I loved having this week to get to know my students without the academic pressures of the regular school year. This will really help when I'm setting up my goals for each student, and arranging learning groups. This next week will be Science Camp! We will do all sorts of science experiments we don't have the time to do during the school year. The kids are really looking forward to it!

Doodle Dice Game

Great for visual perception, turn taking, and social skills practice

Magnetic Letter Spelling

They found my Speak and Spell from when I was a kid, and LOVED it!

Dinosaur block puzzle, nice for fine motor practice

Summer School, Kids Camp: Day 4

Today was dinosaur day! It's amazing the number of dinosaur projects I've acquired over the last few years. The kids loved it!

Today we:
-did dinosaur puzzles
-made a blockasaurus with pattern blocks
-played with dinosaur figurines
-read dinosaur books
-made fossil crayon rubbings
-completed dinosaur mazes
-watched a read along movie about dinosaur facts