5K FB FLASH FREEBIE

In celebration of making it to 5,000 likes on Facebook I'm having a FLASH FREEBIE giveaway tonight only. The freebie will end at 5:00a.m. central time tomorrow morning (yes it's a ridiculous time but that's when I get up).....

This is a great little word wall game perfect for March and perfect for motivating your little ones to read those important words!

Can I ask one favor if you find this freebie useful? Please follow my blog (use the Google Friend Connect to the right)!  It's what lets us teacher-bloggers know that we aren't alone on our blog island....:0)

I hope you like the freebie!! I'd love to know what you think!!

Click HERE to grab (limited time only!)

Non-Seuss Freebie

Are you as bummed by the whole "crack down" of Seuss freebies as I am? Man.....I love Seuss and so do the kids, but unfortunately the Seuss company is not playing nice. Many bloggers have been told to take down any items or even freebies referencing Seuss or using "like-characters". I totally understand the Seuss company not wanting others to make money off his books and characters, but not even freebies??? That is not very teacher or kid-friendly. I mean teachers and kids are what made Seuss' books popular and loved the world over. We create wonderful classroom displays, envelope our students in his words and language play, and have such fun.....but that has all came to an end. 

As a teacher, I will no longer celebrate Seuss and his books in my classroom. They are all gone! I will not celebrate his birthday or do other fun stuff in the name of Seuss. Now, at first blush that may seem ugly, but there are soooo many wonderful authors out there that WANT kids and teachers using their materials and give us at least some leeway to create free items to help other teachers and kids have fun with their books. Seuss company has decided not to do that. They have a complete right as it is copyrighted. But......then, I, as a teacher, have a complete right to banish their materials from my classroom. I will instead turn March into a celebration of other deserving authors. 

This is bad for the Seuss company. I mean....to use any of the materials that used to be available you had to have the books, right? How much money did that company make from teachers and parents that were spurred to buy books because the kids fell in love with them at school? Plus, there were so many opportunities for the company to make even more money.....they had an army of teachers working in their favor. Ok, 'nuff said....it's over. I am over it!

I have re-done some of my former "Seuss" freebies. They were originally free and are still free. I have taken any reference to Seuss out and I have made sure there are no infringements of the company's copyright -- just fun, silly activities for those of you who choose to continue to use Seuss in your classroom. Of course, the great thing is....if you are boycotting Seuss like me, you can still use them too! 

Here is one of the totally un-Seuss freebies:

It's a word wall game. I hope you like it!!

Here is another one along the same lines that you make like. It's a real word/nonsense word sort. I know many of us are working on that lately.

I do have one more that I am working on and will get that to you as soon as I am finished updating it! 

Fonts - My New Obsession (FREEBIES)

Ok, so I have found my new obsession. I've always loved fonts. I have more fonts that you could "shake a mean stick at" (don't ask what that means - you don't want to know:0) Just trust me - I have a TON! The problem is I see these great fonts, but as a kindergarten teacher, I can't always use the crazy font ....especially when we are just working on letter identification. I need crisp, clear font that's appropriate for my little ones.

 So, I gave font-making a shot! I'm so happy with how these 2 fonts turned out! I hope you like them too! They are free for personal AND commercial use. The only thing I ask is....if you use it for commercial use, please leave a link to my blog (my blog button will do) on your credit page. Nothing is required for personal use.

Click the pictures to download the fonts!

I hope you enjoy these!

Valentine Hop

With Valentine's Day coming up, my Freebielicious friends and I are trying to "fill your hearts" with lots of cool goodies. I actually have 2 goodies for you!

The first is a Valentine's-themed math center perfect for composing/decomposing numbers to 10:

Click HERE to grab. 

and this next one isn't Valentine's-themed, but I bet you can use it sometime in the next month or so :0) (Don't ask:0)

It's a sorting activity for real and nonsense words. I hope you love it!

Click HERE to grab your copy!

I hope you enjoy both of these! And, when you are finished here - hop on over to Mrs. Miner's Monkey Business to see what she has in store for you! :0) 

100th Day and Freebie certificates!!

Welcome to the 100th day of school! My kids arrived to our door all decked out to begin our special "celebration" day! You could literally see their faces light up. I just LOVE the 100th day of school!

Look at this next doorway!! I'd love to claim that it was my idea....but a couple of my teammates' doors meet together and they put this adorable doorway together. The top banner is from a rock start theme our school did a couple years ago. The kids walked through like they were Super Stars! It really stood out!

 And another teammate's door (I love her 100 sign:0)

And as they entered the classroom, this is what they saw. You should have seen their faces.... My favorite 100th day activity is the 100 balloon pop - it's a great activity because:
*It's fun
*It's also a great way for kids to see exactly how many 100 is.

And the party ensued! :0)

After the balloon pop, we did our calendar and "discovered" that we were at the 100th day of school! (Of course the kids knew, but they wanted to make sure I knew :0) Zero the Hero left a note that told us we had a surprise waiting for us in 100 steps from our classroom door so.....of course we had to go check it out! We all took turns in laying down the paper feet so we could measure exactly 100 feet.

Wow! And this isn' t the whole 100 feet....Pretty amazing!

I got so excited I forgot to take a picture of our surprise. It was Zero the Hero and Zerona in a basket with our 100th day certificates, bookmarks, and stickers! Dog-gone my forgetful brain! I wished I had a picture to share :0( The certificates are the same ones as the FREEBIE at the bottom of this post!

 What's the 100th day without a 100th day crown?! I got these last year at Target in the dollar section...super easy and the kids thought they were in heaven using markers to color them (we aren't allowed to do that often :0) To me it was TONS easier than doing the "silly groups of 10 hats" we've done in the past. Plus, we did lots of other "groups of 10 counting".

 Next came the fruit loop necklaces - another 100th day staple! Kids string groups of 10 fruit loops to make a necklace that has 100 fruit loops. Counting groups of 10 is WAY easier to keep up with than trying to remember what number you are on. They did super well! Some made their necklaces with color patterns - and some did it willy nilly :0) Note to self: DO NOT use yarn....ugghhh!! !Why do I always forget that? It frays and never winds up working well. Luckily I had some fishing line that worked perfectly!

The finished product! The kids were so cute....They went to writer's workshop as soon as they were finished with their necklaces. I'd look over at kids writing all over the place with their necklaces hanging out of their mouths munching. :0) So sweet!.....Ok kind of icky, but totally cute!

Here is the trail mix that we made. We had 10 different snacks to make our trail mix:

*Cherrios

*Fruit Loops (yep more fruit loops :0)

*Coco Puffs

*M&M's

*mini Hershey's

*marshmallows

*Goldfish crackers

*gummy bears

*animal crackers

*pretzel sticks

*Skittles

Kids got to count out 10 of each snack - for a total of 100! They had such a ball you would never have guessed they were doing math work! :0)

Oh, and we also made the 100th day flags from my Hooray for 100 Days pack. If you are looking for a 100th day pack - I'd love for you to take a look at mine! It is packed with ideas, templates, certificates, badges, and letters....so much!

Grab this 100th Day pack HERE!

Oh and here's a little freebie for ya! It's my 100th day certificates:

Click HERE to grab this freebie!

Guest Post - Linda from Kinder Doodles

Hi!  This is Linda from Kinder Doodles, and I'm so happy to have the opportunity to share my Skill Tubs with you here on Kindergarten Lifestyle!  Several years ago I realized that I had so many great resources - centers and activities from The Mailbox, Scholastic, Teachers Pay Teachers, and other wonderful companies, plus things that I'd made, that just never saw the light of day.  I wanted a way to get these learning tools into my Kinders' hands, and needed a way to do so.  But, I wanted them to be used in a "controlled" way so that I'd continue to have them.  After lots of thought on how to present them, I came up with the idea of Skill Tubs.

Simply put, my Skill Tubs are dish tubs (Walmart) filled with an assortment of learning activities that are housed on a wire shelving unit (Target).

My corporation caps kindergarten at eighteen students so my nine Skill Tubs are perfect for partner work.  Classrooms with more students can have three to four students work out of a tub. 

I label each tub with a number and where to work - both spelled out and a photo of the work area.  I have tried to spread the work areas around the room so the Kinders can work with their partners and not disturb others.  They really do a great job staying on task!

Some samples of what might be in a tub, clockwise from upper left: an activity from an issue of The mailbox, decodable readers from our reading series, seasonal shaped cards with sight words (laminate & write words with Sharpie - rubbing alcohol removes it so you can reuse the shapes again & again!), word family activity from a Mailbox thematic unit, a Carson Delosa file folder activity.  I often include activities that students have done in our Learning Stations small groups for extra practice.  The pictures below show some of the activities in use. 

I use this pocket chart to move students through a rotation of all nine tubs.  The names on the left side move down, and those on the right move up, so that the Kinders have a different partner every day.  I can keep students who don't work together well in one column so that they never get each other as a partner.  I do, however, occasionally swap out some students from left to right to keep the pairs fresh & friendly.  (The photos on the far right are pictures of Skill Spots - other work areas around the room.)

I have created a Cupcake CVC Word Game Freebie for you to put in your own Literacy Skill Tub.  Visit my blog to for a Cupcake Ten Frame freebie for your Math Skill Tub.  While you are there, feel free to look around - I have lots of other freebies!  Thanks for reading!

Linda

Love Bird Freebie!

Hey friends!

Need a cute Valentine-y "Write the Room" activity? Well, I've got just the thing for ya! I FELL IN LOVE with these love birds and couldn't resist whipping up a little something... I'm excited to share this with my little munchkins at school and I hope you can use it too! It's a great way to have kids practice writing cvc words and having fun during center time. You can grab it here!

Click HERE to grab!

Also  - don't forget about the B-I-G TpT sale tomorrow (February 3rd)! My sale will actually carry over to Monday too! 

(Be sure to use the promo code: SUPER when you checkout!)

If you purchase Sunday you will get a 28% discount and Monday a 20% discount (because TpT only offers their discount for one day).

To sweeten the deal even more......if you spend $15 in my store I will give you any 1 item of your choosing for FREE - no matter the price of the item! Simply email me at jeanniemleigh@yahoo.com with your TpT username and the name of the free item you want! I will email it directly to you!

Happy Shopping!!

Dolch Word Celebration and Sale Time!

Announcing MAJOR SALE this weekend!! 

(Be sure to use the promo code: SUPER when you checkout!)

To sweeten the deal even more......if you spend $15 in my store I will give you any 1 item of your choosing for FREE! Simply email me at jeanniemleigh@yahoo.com with your TpT username and the name of the free item you want! I will email it directly to you!

A few items you may want to take a peek at:

In case you haven't had your 100th day yet.....Mine is next week! :0) 

 

TpT Store

TpT Store

TpT Store

TpT Store

My kids are LOVING our new Dolch word celebrations! Here are some pictures below. Every Monday we make the hats together (kids color the word -- vowels are red and consonants are blue). The hat doesn't explain how to color it so it's something that can be colored in any way. I just like my kids' focus to be on vowels and consonants for all those words. It's about drawing attention to how the word is made. It helps them remember those words - the visual gets stuck in their heads!

The trace & paste sheet is a great item to put in either writing center or word study center. We find little pockets of time to do other parts of the celebration kit throughout the week. Again, each time the kids color the dolch word(s), they use red and blue. 

The kids really enjoy making the hats, necklaces, bracelets, and pencil flags- plus they wear these as parents pick them up in the afternoon - so parents can quickly see what our word wall word is for the week and understand how important that word is!