Who doesn't like getting Warm Fuzzys?!

Hey ladies just some quick and very awesome information to share with all of you!  We have a Valentine's Day gift for all of our blog followers!  We are are going to share our $3.00 on TPT "Warm Fuzzys" Valentine's Day Centers with you.  We have a dual language version with the language arts games in Spanish and a regular program version with the language arts games in English.  The math games are the same on both.  Enjoy! 

Dual Language Version  and English/Regular Program Version

Please have your friends to follow us too!  Our goal is to post more freebies on our blog and "share the love" with others.  Thanks and we hope you have a wonderful Valentine's Day.

-Cindy :)

Penguin Invasion!

Hello friends!  I just wanted to take the time to share one of our very favorite units...Penguins!  There's so awkward and cute and sooo interesting.  Like in most of our thematic units we start off with some kind of graphic organizer.  We made a KWL chart in the shape of a penguin!  Here is the one Sandra made.  I love it!

Our writing focus for the week is beginning poetry.  The students had to describe an object so we decided to describe a penguin.  First, we made a bubble map to organize our thoughts and write down our descriptive words.

Next, we used the words from the circle maps to write a diamante poem.  It has a noun, 2 adjectives, 3 verbs, 2 adjectives, and the noun again.  I used Microsoft Word and a cute penguin coloring page to make the paper they used for their poem. I was planning to attach it, but unfortunately I left my flash drive at work.  Here is what it looked like.



 Click here to download

The kids did a really awesome job on it.  My more advanced writers had fun and were able to come up with different words.  My struggling writers had the bubble map for support and were all very proud of the end product.  Another penguin activity we did was an easy sequencing foldable book.  I got this activity from The Mailbox Magazine, I just translated the labels that went with the pictures and scanned the sheet so that I could save it.  It has a simple explanation of the life cycle of the penguin.

 Click here to download

Sandra and I both love to do cut paper activities.  I had a penguin cut paper activity that I found online, but I have no idea where I left it or where to find it lol.  So I made my own smaller version of this activity.  I'll post the sizes of paper and instructions when I add the penguin freebies.  Here's an example of my little penguin.  I used trail and error to find the sizes.



 The last activity that we make during our penguin unit is an all about penguins book.  I really like the way Sandra's came out.  She had a diagram in it and each page had a topic.  It seemed to help the students really focus what they learned.  Her kids did really good and their books look great!

 

 Click to download-Spanish   or   Click to download-English

I will try to upload the penguin freebies tomorrow.  We hope you enjoy these fun ideas and find them useful.  We really love everything about penguins and hope you do too!
-Cindy

  



Making Better Writers!

Hello friends,
We hope you all a restful break!  One of my favorite things about coming back from winter break is how some of my struggling students are finally ready.  One of those proud moments in the lives of teachers. :) We're going to share a few of our "how to write a sentence" anchor charts.  We meshed some charts that we've used in past years along with some ideas from Pinterest.  The first one is about punctuation and how to use it.  I made a three column chart where I wrote a what each punctuation symbol is used for and a sentence using each one.  We refer to it during writing so that they students can become familiar with how to use it.

 

 The next chart I made it my how to write a sentence  it focuses on what a sentence needs: begins with a capital letter, spaces and punctuation.

Sandra's chart focuses on writing a proper sentence with a subject and a predicate along with the punctuation as well.  I might have to redo mine like hers it came out really nice!

 Sandra did a directed draw activity with her students using this book.  This book breaks down the picture into steps showing them and easy way to make very creative drawings.  This is the book and sample that is in it.

Here is the teacher example along with a sentence starter for the students to tie the directed draw into the writing mini lesson which was using the criteria chart to make a proper sentence.

Here are some of the student examples.  Each student wrote a complete sentence or more and then had to read it aloud to the class.  They gave themselves constructive criticism.  I think they look really good!

 

We have lots of fun and exciting themes coming up can't wait to share our fun ideas.

-Cindy :)

Math Centers

Hey friends,

Things are getting pretty hectic around here so our blog has been suffering and we apologize...once again. Cindy and I are both on the PTA board at our school and the fundraising season has begun. I just finished taking Santa pictures and next is our Holiday game of chance (raffle) and then the chocolate sale is after that. There is SOOOOO much going on but we are trying to be more consistent bloggers.

I just wanted to share some of the math centers we are doing in our classrooms in the next few weeks. Since we are dual language teachers we teach math in English, so all the centers will be centers that could be used in either a dual language classroom or a regular program classroom. All of our students work with a partner and they are paired up according to language needs during math. We almost always pair a limited English speaker with someone that is English dominant.

In this center students put the cards in order from 1-10 and add the corresponding number of items on top. This center is super easy to make. I usually just buy notepads and add the numbers and laminate. One of my co-workers made the stockings for me.  Thank you Ms. Cuevas!

We are also working on making groups. For this center you need a 10 frame, dice and some counters. Have the students roll 1 die and place that many cookies (counters) on the cookie sheet (10 frame). Then roll the die again and place a different kind of cookie on the cookie sheet. How many cookies all together? 

For this center select a number you would like the kiddos to work on and place that number of counters in a bowl or container with a lid. Students will shake the container count how many red counters and how many yellow counters and draw it. The second center is from Deanna Jump's Gingerbread Math and Literacy centers unit. My students select a number problem card, build it with cookie counters and find the sum card.

Cindy made this holiday BINGO game a couple of years ago and our kids still enjoy playing it. All of the kids feel successful with this game because they are simply reading the number card and matching it on their game board. We use pompoms for counters.

We have a few patterning activities also. The first one is from our Jumping Gingy unit on TPT and the other is from my teacher idol Deanna Jump's gingerbread unit (the link is above).

We also have a Roll a Snowman (it should be a Gingerbread man but I took the wrong picture) and a roll and graph game.

This game is called the Green Bean Game. We painted 10 lima beans green on one side and put them in a small container. The students shake the container and count only the "green beans" and trace it on the recording sheet. Whichever number reaches the top first is the winner.

Since my students are Spanish dominant they really struggle with positional words in English so we keep a few positional word activities just as a review. 

 I will post more about our new Gingerbread man unit on TPT.  Go check it out! It's pretty awesome :-)

Happy Teaching!

Sandra

Gobble 'Til You Wobble

Hi everyone!  I know this may be late, but we ran into some time constraints when making our Thanksgiving Unit for Teacher's Pay Teachers.  It's called "Gobble 'Til You Wobble," Sandra came up with the name, I thought it was really cute.  Go check it out, if you don't use it this year you can keep it and use it next year.  Here is a copy of a turkey hand print poem that has been around for years.  We translated it and added it to our unit in both languages, just click on the link for a free copy.  I usually add a picture of each student and glue it by their name.

Turkey Hand Print Poem in English and Spanish

 

I also just wanted to post a picture of a couple of Thanksgiving charts that I made for the morning message.  I had a sub on Friday and she did a very good job on my Thanksgiving KWL chart.  The other one is a thinking map, they tend to get a little boring so I decided to make a Turkey out of my circle map.  Check them out!

   

Hope you still have time to use some of these ideas.  Don't forget about our "Gobble 'Til You Wobble" unit on TPT!  We hope you enjoy your break and have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

-<3 Cindy

Election Day!

Hello everyone!  Election day at our school was really exciting and a lot of fun.  To kick it off we made a KWL chart to see what they knew about election day.  Most of the kids didn't really know much about it, but after a really good book, we think they got the basics down.  It's in the shape of an eagle just to make it more interesting, sorry if he's just a tad bit on the "thick" side.

We had a waiver day on Monday so the students came back to school on Tuesday.  Elections were held at our school which really added to the excitement for them.  Sandra found some really cute election day Pinterest ideas, We love Pinterest!  The first one is this really cute voter registration card.

Some of the signatures were hilarious.  They were walking around acting very grown up and official when they finished and definately ready for Election Day!  These are the two books we focused on and where we got our candidates.

   

On election day, I googled CNN and showed them pictures of people waiting in long lines to vote.  We also peeked through the gym doors so that they could see what a real election precinct looked like.  Finally the candidates, Duck and Teacher, were presented to them.

I had my students make two lines with their voter registration cards in hand and wait their turn to cast their vote.  Other teachers had them go a few at a time throughout the day.  They had two pictures on the ballot and they circled their choice. 

After a very close race these were the results.  I used stars to make a graph and Sandra had each student write their name in.  Teacher was the winner in my classroom and Duck won in Sandra's.  I told her it was because my kids love me more, lol.

 

The day after election day the students came to school very excited to let me know who won the real election.  There were some really interesting conversations going on that morning.  I was excited to see how much they picked up and how interested they were, one of those moments that makes me love my job. <3  I showed them a section of President Obama's  speech after he won.  We discussed what makes a great president.  For our writing activity, I had the prompt that said, "If I were president..." and Sandra asked them, "How would you be if you were president...".  Some how I managed to delete the picture of mine and I'll have to add it when I get back to school, but here is Sandra's, an awesome activity found on Pinterest.

We had a great time with our election day activities now, time for Thanksgiving! 

<3 Cindy