Back to School Sale at TPT and My New Portfolio

I am participating in the Back to School Sale at Teachers Pay Teachers today and tomorrow.  Be sure to stop by my shop for 20 percent off of everything during these two days!

I have just added a new file of Portfolio printables and it is included in the two day sale!  Click on any of the pictures to take you to my shop.

There are covers for Pre-K, preschool, and kindergarten.  The pages cover handprints, self-portraits, family pictures, letter recognition, sight words, and more!  Just print the pages you wish to use.

  

I like to use bingo daubers with these pages.  You could also have students color the circles of the letters they know.

 Most of the pages have both color and black and white versions, you can choose which to use depending on your ink and printing situation.

There are lists for Pre-primer and Primer sight words.

You can choose to do pages once or several different times during the year to track progress. I like to place the pages in a binder, so I can also add other student treasures.

I love to read your comments.

Eilis

More Loot from Target Dollar Spot

In my previous post I shared my excitement about recent back to school finds at Target's Dollar Spot.  I mentioned that I was still looking for some word puzzles that Fran from Kindergarten Crayons had found there.
Well.... I am so happy I persisted.  I have lived in the Dallas area since August.  I have no sense of direction and am terrible at finding my way around unfamiliar places.  Thank goodness there is an app on my phone called Waze.  It is my new best friend.  Yesterday, after using it to find an appointment, I used it to find another Super Target close to the appointment . . . . jackpot!

These puzzles are three dollars each.  I didn't expect too much because the boxes are the usual flimsy cardboard.  I was pleasantly surprised by the sturdy puzzles inside though.  The pictures and colors are fun. Each puzzle is also reversible.  Each picture above shows one side of same set.

The two photos above are from the letters and numbers set. Cute and educational - my favorite combination!

No picture of the reverse side of the four letter puzzles, but I think you get the idea....

I also picked up a few more of the one dollar puzzles.  They are small, but as I mentioned previously, they will fit in tubs.  The pieces are nice and sturdy.  Thank you Crayola!

Two minutes and a Sharpie turn this ocean animal puzzle into an ABC center activity.

And a few more fun dollar items... How cute are the alphabet sticky notes and matching note pad?

One more fun thing to share...

I found this near the check out lane.  No they didn't have Eilis... but they did have Kate.  My college freshman daughter loved it!

I love to read your comments :)

Eilis

A Little Science

I have always wanted to have a science center located near a window AND with room for a fish. Drum Roll Please.... Here it is...

The kids had already grown beans (and studied plants) in the fall with the previous teacher.  I was a little bummed.  My blog is named Growing in PreK and K because I LOVE to do all the plant stuff... so I figured it wouldn't hurt to try a rooting a sweet potato in the science center.  No real roots yet.  I'll keep you posted.  Beta (original huh?) is doing just fine. He actually swims around a lot more than I expected from a beta fish.  He likes to hide under his bridge sometimes (wonder why?...)

The rest of the items are my go to PreK items:  discovery bottles, winter science books, items to look through, and some found nature items.  I look forward to adding more as my students learn how to handle these materials.

Our science lesson last week covered three types of clouds.  I wanted to make it more hands-on, so I had the children "make" the cloud types out of cotton balls, write "clouds," and add labels.

Hope you're having a good week!

Eilis

A Peek into my New Classroom (and a FREEBIE)

I've been in my new classroom for two weeks now.  At the end of last week, our math program jumped into the numbers twenty to thirty.  Many of my students speak English as a second language and were not grasping the idea of ten unit cubes being equal to one ten rod, etc.  I LOVE math games, but couldn't find one to help us through this.  So, I came up with this one:  Race to 30.

The kids loved trading in ten unit cubes for one ten rod.  The goal of the dice game is to be the first player to  accumulate three ten rods.  It is free to print at both my Teachers Notebook and TeachersPayTeachers shops.  I'd love to hear if you find it useful.

I am working on lots of fun math songs and activities.  I hope to have them available at both shops soon.

I have also been very busy nesting in my new classroom.  It looked pretty sad when the last teacher moved out and the Christmas bulletin board was down...

There were boxes of wonderful manipulatives, but.... they had all been dumped in together!

After some organizing...

It is coming together :)

The Math Center

The ABC/Word Work Center

The New Word Wall

Colorful Storage in the Cubbies (This is the area above the part the students use)

Many of the printables are from Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten.  I was inspired to add the cloth boxes from Target after drooling over Kinder-Craze.  I have lots more to share, but that's it for now.

Hugs,
Eilis

A Little News

Here are a few more wonderful Gingerbread Exchange 2013 photos.  Thank you Angela and Drea for emailing these to me!

Love, love, love this idea shared by Sarah from North Carolina:

A little background on how we share:

We get our gingerbread mailbox and sing: "We just got a gingerbread, we just got a gingerbread, we just got a gingerbread, let's see where it's from!"  (like the song from BLUES CLUES - "we just got a letter").

Then we open our gingerbread mail, pass around the gingerbread boy/girl, and then find the place where the gingerbread came from on the fabric/cloth map. Later, Ms. Nik places a gingerbread sticker (as a marker) on the laminated poster map and a matching gingerbread sticker on the gingerbread received to be displayed.

Leah and Sue and Debi also emailed me some great photos:

I also have some news.  I will be teaching kindergarten in my new city starting in January!  So... I look forward to participating in the 2014 Valentine Exchange with my new class.  I will put the information here in mid January.

It seems appropriate for me to change the name of this blog slightly.  It will now be called GrowinginPreK and K. The link to it will still be GrowinginPreK.blogspot.com.

Blessings,

Eilis