A Few Of My Favorite Things

The holiday season is a great time to reflect on all of the wonderful things you have in your life.  Many of us are so fortunate to have a roof over our heads and food on our tables.  I feel so blessed to be able to have these things for my family.  I got together with a bunch of other bloggers to bring a huge giveaway with a ton of our favorite things. 

Before I get to the amazing giveaway, I wanted to share some things that I am so thankful for this season!  Some are silly and some are more serious, but I am thankful for all of them!!

#1- Dr. Pepper.  I am not a coffee drinker, but seriously need some caffeine in the morning.  My brain will NOT function until I have that first sip of bubbly, sweet, and almost painful burn of the carbonation.  It wakes me up in so many ways.  I love it!

#2- Every holiday season since my kids were born, we create ornaments together.  When they were little, they would get down to their diapers and get covered in tons of paint.  We've done cinnamon dough, ceramic ornaments, and foam ornaments.  It doesn't matter what type, we just love to create together.  We put on Christmas tunes and sing along, as we get messy and laugh.  It is a priceless experience that I treasure.  You can see the fun salt dough ornaments that we made here.

#3- I do love shopping, especially for teaching gems.  One of my favorite teaching idea stores is The Dollar Tree.  You cannot beat this store for wacky and wonderful teaching supplies AND the price is right!!  Here are a few of the amazing finds that I've found at the Dollar Tree: lip gloss boots (you need to check these out), fun tongs for centers, foam to create my own two sided magnets that created my subitizing freebie!  This is just a tiny fraction of the amazing deals that I find there.

#4- One of my most treasured teaching supplies is my personal laminator.  Since I started teaching, I have tried out MANY different laminators.  I have gotten really expensive types, and cheaper ones.  About 8 years ago, I decided on my favorite laminator.  It is a cheap, but wonderful power house.  I put my laminator through a lot of work and it is up to the job.  I chose to giveaway a Scotch Laminator for "A Few of Our Favorite Things Giveaway".  You can see the laminator that I will be giving away here.

I also have some of my favorite products on sale for the week of this blog hop.  They will all be 50% off!  Search my store for #myfavoritethings2014 to get all of the amazing deals. I can't wait to share these exciting surprises!!

You can scoop up:

Romp and Stompin' Letters usually $12 for ONLY $6!!

Super Hero: "Roll, Say, Keep!" Pre-Primer Dolch Sight Word Center + Extra usually $3 for ONLY $1.50!!

 

Delicious Donuts: Addition to 20, Number Lines, Missing Addends, & Printables usually $7 for ONLY $3.50!!

My ABSOLUTE favorite!! Bundle of 8 Interactive Play Dough Mat Sets!!  Full Price $32, get it for $16!!

Because we value our followers and wanted to treat you to our favorite things Oprah style, we have put together the best giveaway of the season! My bloggy friends and I welcome you to the best, biggest, most cheerful event of the season:

7 winners for 7 prize packs!

Come and enter the giveaway and check out my bloggy friends' favorite things:
a Rafflecopter giveaway

An InLinkz Link-up

 

Pumpkin Mania!

I love fall!  The crispness in the air, the pumpkin patches, and cozy scarves.  I especially love watching your children explore the wonder of pumpkins.

 

In our house, baking soda and vinegar/lemon juice reactions are a huge draw.  The kids can NEVER get enough of the fizzing and exploding.  They love watching the differences in the reactions, as well, as playing in the goop.  I decided to add the wonder of fizz to the fun of pumpkins.  Such a hit!

 

We started out by mixing baking soda, food coloring, and a little bit of water in a bowl. 

We mixed until the consistency was firm and packed like a snowball.  This one needed a little more baking soda.  Notice that it is pretty watery.

We just kept adding baking soda, until we had the perfect pumpkins.  We made a batch of orange baking soda and green baking soda to make our pumpkin patch.

The kids had a ball shaping their pumpkins.  They used so much great mathematical and scientific language, while creating the pumpkins.  We discussed liquids, solids, larger, smaller, taller, shorter, and so much more.  It provides a gold mine of language opportunities.

We created our pumpkin patch in our homemade sensory table.  This is an awesome, portable table that is easy to transport and to store when not in use.  You can see the directions here.

The kids also talked about the life cycle of pumpkins.  You can see that they created pumpkins that are still green.  We were able to talk about how the pumpkins progress, as they grow.

Next, we got out the vinegar and lemon juice.  I had some fun ketchup and mustard squirters, so we filled them up with the liquid.  Yellow was lemon juice and red was vinegar.

Here is a reaction to the lemon juice.  The kids loved describing the bubbles that were produced.  You could definitely create a Venn diagram to chart the differences and similarities in the two reactions.

Here is a reaction to the vinegar.

As the exploration went on, they poured larger amounts of the liquids on the pumpkins to see a larger reaction.

Here they are pouring vinegar through a funnel into the middle of the pumpkin.

  I provided a variety of tools and the kids came up with their own experiments.  Ones that I had not even thought of trying. 

  This made for a huge set of bubbles and the fizzing even came back up through the funnel.

 I would definitely recommend trying your own pumpkin patch fizz!  Every step of this activity was enjoyable and created so many opportunities for cross-curriculum exploration.  I have so many ideas for the next time that we try this experiment!!

Even better is all the sensory fun!

We also tried played with my Pumpkins Interactive Play Dough Mats.  Great for differentiating needs in math!  Get your copy here.

We used the play dough mats in a variety of ways.  They used play dough to form the numeral and create pumpkins to match the same number on the mat.

 Here, we used pumpkin manipulatives and dry erase markers to do the same thing.  The student drew ten circles on the mat and then covered each with a pumpkin manipulative.  It allowed her to use one-to-one correspondence to match the numeral 10.

 There are cards included in the pack that have numerals, addition sentences, and ten frames.  Here, the student drew a card and represented the addition sentence with two colored sets of pumpkins.  Then, they used a dry erase marker to record the answer on the mat.  I use this as a partner game.  One partner draws a card and represents the equation or number of objects.  The other partner double checks their work.  Then, they switch.

 Here are a few of the fun printables that are included in this pack.  Students will read the numeral and draw the appropriate number of pumpkins on the hay stack.

 There are a bunch of differentiated worksheets that allow students to trace and fill in the numbers 1-10, depending on their ability.

 In "Hit The Hay", students count the pumpkins on the hay bales and write the matching numeral in the box.

 Look for more pumpkin activities in the next few days!!  I have some amazing games from Crayons, Cuties & Kindergarten that I can't wait to share!!

Markdown Monday!

I'm linking up with Kelly and Kim's Kindergarten Kreations for Markdown Monday!

 I have one of my Interactive Play Dough Mat packs for sale.  "Spiders" will be on sale for 50% off from 10/20 until 10/24! 

Check out Kelly and Kim's blog for more Monday Markdown deals!!

Talk Like A Pirate Day + Freebie!

Some of my favorite activities are centered around the pirate theme.  Kids seem to love the mystery of buried treasure, maps, and intrigue on the high sea!  What better time to play like a pirate, than "Talk Like a Pirate Day".  You can check out the official site for "Talk Like a Pirate Day" here.

I have some fun pirate activities that we are playing with all week!  Did I mention that I love pirates???  We started out by making "Pirate Gold Play Dough".  We used a recipe from Kids Activity Blog.  To make the play dough more like treasure, we added glitter to the dough.  The kids got to pour it in and knead it into the dough.  Great fine motor practice and FUN!

 We used the "Treasure Dough" with my Pirates: Interactive Play Dough Mats Pack.   The kids used the play doh to create the numerals.  Some kids made snakes to create the numerals, others smashed the play dough down on the numeral.

I always have them trace the letter, after building it with play dough.  It lets kids really experience the letter formation in a very tactile way.  It's also a great way for kids to take ownership of the numbers.  They build the number and trace it themselves.

Below, the students used the play dough to create the numeral and to make the matching number of "pirates".

 Another way to use the pirate manipulatives is to press them on top of each play dough ball.  This will really help students to focus on one-to-one correspondence.

I include treasure chest mats and cards to make these mats more interactive.  There are three types of cards: numerals, ten frames, and addition cards.

Here the student chose a ten frame card and created the same number of play dough treasure in the chest.

 Here is an example of a numeral card.

Here is the addition card.  I have students use two different colors to represent the addition sentence.

 Then, students will use their fingers to physically touch and count each piece of "gold".  This student smooshed each piece, as he counted.  It really gives them the kinesthetic experience of counting each piece of play dough.

We also got out the "Missing Pirates" Missing Addends pack.  Students will use counters to identify the missing number in the addition sentence.  You can get a free sample of this pack here.

 Students will record the addition sentence on the recording sheet.

 Here is an example of how I set up the center.  I include the missing addends mats, the pirate counters, and the recording sheet.  Check out this post to get the little story that goes along with the mats and more suggestions!

 We also experimented with pirate treasure!  We used a recipe for dinosaur eggs from Projects for Preschoolers.  See it here.  We used the same recipe.  My son wrote it down for us to follow.  On the last part, he was experimenting with cursive.

The kids were able to use measure each ingredient.

 They mixed it all together.

Added the water and started to hide our treasure!

 We used all kinds of "treasure".  Pirate coins, beads, costume jewelry, even real coins.

They had a great time hiding the treasure in the "rocks".

Costume jewelry peeking out.

When they were done, we put them on an old cookie sheet and let them dry overnight.  We put them in a window, so the sun helped dry them.

While we waited for the treasure to dry, we created treasure chests.

I cut an egg carton in two pieces.

The kids painted them and decorated with stickers.

The next day, I hid all of the pirate treasure.  They were able to go on a treasure hunt (with maps) to find all the pirate treasure.  They wore their pirate hats and the eye patches (for about one minute) to complete the pirate look.

After collecting all their treasure, they got to break open the "rocks".  It was really like hunting for buried treasure.

They wanted to use pirate tools, but you could just break them open with your hands.

They got to use old toothbrushes to clean their treasure.

Then, they added the treasure to their treasure box!

 It was such a fun experience!

I hope you have a fabulous "Talk Like a Pirate Day" tomorrow!  If you would like to use any of my pirate resources, you can click on the pictures below to purchase them.  Ahoy, matey!!

I linked up with Manic Monday at Classroom Freebies!