Free Spider Math Grid Game

Grid games are popular in preschool math.  I have a student teacher right now getting ready to use one in my class as a project she is doing at the University of Cincinnati.   I thought I might create one too!  I have made many in the past, but sometimes I feel like my students are only ready to use these with a teacher helping.  Since most of the activities in my room students can do on their own, I usually do not have many grid games.  This year I am trying to create things to get ready for Teacherspayteachers.com. Here is another freebie for you to enjoy!  I have not put anything up there yet!  Still creating my store!  I have already printed it one out on card stock and it is ready to go for my students this week!  

We are in full HALLOWEEN mode and the kids are so exited about the decorations and the colors switching to orange in black in many of my centers.  I am getting it all ready to photograph and post too!  In math this week, here is what we will be doing....a grid game!  I hope you can try printing it out and enjoying it too!  I do have one tip for printing anything that you want to make: Print directly onto card stock.  Then all you have to do is laminate!  Also, card stock in 110 pound weight works best for me.  It is heaviest and strongest and will go through a regular printer. I have used it at school too and the copier in my building can handle it. If you do not have a printer at home, print it and it comes out great in black and white too!  Kids will like it better in color I would guess, but I know that is not always possible.  Colored ink can get expensive.  I have one other tip too:  Card stock is cheap at Sam's Club.  Highly recommend staying away from Expensive office stores!  I paid double at one!  Sam's club has a package for $7.89.  Pretty cheap!  

Click Here to enjoy another Freebie from me!

My First Halloween Freebie

Click here for my first FREEBIE math game!

Okay, I am working on creating my own learning games and materials to begin selling it on teacherspayteachers.com.  I am not quite there yet, but I wanted everyone to print and enjoy this math game.  I have been using this format with a few of the kids in my class and some really love this format.  We use clothes pin clips and have the child clip how many objects they see on the card.  After they are finished we talk and assess together how many card we get correct.  It is a fun and fast game for kids working on counting.  Try it and see what your kids think!  It is great for early kindergartners too!

Here is the file for you to download and try.  I would love feedback.  Just have your students count how many things are hiding in trees.

Name Recognition Activity

I just learned that any paint store will pretty much let you take as many paint stirring sticks as you want at no charge!  So of course, I ran right out to get some for my class.  We then put their names on it and put the individual letters on clothes pins. The students got all of the letters and had to clip them to the paint stick right above the letters on the stick.  Then we gave them play dough and asked them to use the clips and stand them up in order too!  This is great practice! We helped them learn the names of individual letters too!  I made new ones for my current class.  They are a little more colorful.  I used different colors of Sharpie Markers for each child.  These in the picture were from my summer school class.  I added a photo of each child on the end of the sticks for my current class as they cannot recognize their name yet.  I thought that this may help!  Trying them out this week too so we will see!

School Tools

Recently my husband created this station for his classroom and I wanted to share it.  At first glace, I loved it just for the pure colorful beauty of it.  Any kid would love coming over to it!  He put out things that he felt a preschooler would need to use in school and it would cover the standard that addresses use of school tools.    The picture on the wall is of him with students.  I think this makes it personal and since most students love pictures, one of their teacher is the perfect addition to this station in his classroom.   I think it will be very popular.  I myself plan to get organized and try this soon! 

Serious Color Activity for Pete Lovers

We are pretty settled in with our new class and already they are singing Pete's songs all around the room.  We are always working on new ideas and original ideas to do with our children.  We have a group of children right now who really are not aware of color words or color recognition, so we are trying to think of fun ways to push them a little to mastering at least 4 basic colors.  Our idea this week is simple.
We are going to hang up a picture of Pete on our door, post a fun sign we created on Power Point, and encourage them all day long to learn the colors that are in Pete's book.  We will have all of Pete's books in our morning book bax s well as in our reading nook with out small Pete stuffed animal.  Now we do have some children who know colors, so we will be encouraging them to go further and to be helpers to the other children.  We are going to use praise and positive reinforcement to encourage them along with their families.
Here's what we came up with.  We made Pete necklaces out of fun foam which now comes with sticker backing on it if you need it.  HUGE time saver!!! The necklaces only cost us a little over $5 tomake 20!!! So we made a necklace for each child.  They have to earn the necklace by coming to the color table with me (the teacher stations for learning) and demonstrate growth with knowledge of colors.
We are going to set a goal for each child so that each child is furthering their growth.  Then once they show is they have learned the 4 colors in the book and helped others if they need too, they will be awarded the Pete the Cat COLOR club award and they will get a necklace to show that they are in the club.  We will work to get every child in the club by the end of two weeks.  It should be great!  I think they will love it and I think their families will be encouraged to help as they see names going up on our door of kids who make it into the club!  We will make sure all join of course, as we do not want anyone feeling bad! This is a feel GOOD activity!  I can't wait to get to get started.

Once we get our door finished tomorrow, we will post how the kids are doing!  We made  very cute name tags too for the club door once they can demonstrate color kowledge.  I think the are going to be very excited!  I know I am!

  

Color Activity Posters

This week we are working on recognizing colors and each child is helping us make color posters by bringing in something to share on our poster.  The students have been so excited to bring in items to share.  We put large pictures of colored converse shoes on the tops of the posters to go along with our reading of Pete the Cat, I Love my White shoes.  At the end of our week we are going to talk about what things we could step in to make our shoes turn the colors on the posters.  Then we are going to generate lists of things that come in each color to add to the poster.  For yellow one child even brought in the back of a very large toy dump truck so we put that down on the floor under the poster!  We just loved the giant shoes on top of the poster and so do the kids!  If you want pictures like this, just use Google images and type in red converse high tops!  I right click it and then save and print the images!  So simple!

Magna-doodle fun for preschoolers!

We were playing in our living room this summer when my four year old came up with this great activity that combined 2 of my favorite classroom toys.  She was using her dress up doll made by Melissa and Doug.  She also had out our family Magna-doodle.  

This is the doll.  They are wooden and the outfits are magnetic on the back.  My daughter added the dresses to the Magna-doodle and then made her own paper doll in the dress.  GENIUS!  She made several of these and had a blast trying all of the outfits.  I am going to try this out in my classroom soon.  I think it is perfect for practicing drawing people.  She loved trying all of the dresses.  

Oh, and if you do not have this Melissa and Doug doll, grab one for sure.  I see them all the time at stores like T.J. Maxx,  but online I have searched them and they are only like $10!  It is a great investment.  I have a really old one and the kids in my class love it.  They have a boy version too!  There are several to choose from too.