Soooo THIS is happening!! 😍 The first set of kindergarten #mentorsentences is close to being done. If you are a kindergarten or ELL teacher-blogger that would like to try these out, email me ideasbyjivey@gmail.com or leave your email in a comment below. ☺️👏🏻

A photo posted by jivey (@ideasbyjivey) on Aug 20, 2015 at 2:50pm PDT

 A few weeks ago Jessica, from Ideas by Jivey, posted about her Mentor Sentences for Kindergarten on Instagram.  She was looking for kindergarten and ELL teacher bloggers to try her Mentor Sentences pack out.  I saw Jessica present in Vegas and right away I was very excited to see more about this so I emailed her!  She was so kind to send us her Mentor Sentences for Kindergarten pack and I was super excited to take a look at it!

 Within this pack there are mentor sentence lessons for 10 different books.  The lessons can be done whole group or small group and are extremely kid friendly and perfect for emergent readers.  Jessica clearly lays out what to do each day of the lesson and provides the materials you will need for the lesson.  This makes everything so nice for teachers!     I decided to use the mentor sentence lessons for the book Today I Feel Silly.  I did the lessons with a small group of students.  Here is how I used the mentor sentences with my students each day:  

 Day 1 - I read the book and showed my students the mentor sentence.  We read it and then shared all about the sentence.  We counted the number of words, found uppercase letters, found the period, etc.  We do a message everyday and this was really similar to that!

 Day 2 - For this part of the lesson, students put the mentor sentence back in the correct order.  My students were really successful with this and I found that they could read the sentence back to me when I asked them to read it. 

 Day 3 - Within the Mentor Sentence Pack, there are 12 different feeling/mood vocabulary cards.  For this part of the lesson we looked at the cards and talked about the word and picture on the card and when we might feel that way.  Then the students finished the sentence, "Today I am ______."  I wrote what they picked on the chart paper.  My students were in a happy and excited mood!  For the last sentence I wrote how I was feeling.  I told them I was feeling proud because they were doing such a nice job and I was proud of my students!  I love this part of the lesson because I think it is so important for my students to see me modeling writing for them.  We talked about using an uppercase letter, spaces, and a period to end their sentence.  The more writing they see, the more confident they become as writers!

 Day 4 - On Day 4 of the lesson, my students picked how they were feeling and made their own "Today I am ______." sentence.  I really love the vocabulary cards that Jessica includes in this pack because my students were able to use those as a resource to help them spell the word.  It was so cute because some of them said they were happy because they were at school!  One of my students said, "Now I can spell happy at home and I don't have to ask my dad!"

I had my students draw a little picture to go with their sentence and glue it on their sentence strip.  They were so excited to take this home!

Do you want to try Mentor Sentences with your students??  Jessica has been so kind to give a copy to TWO lucky winners!!!  Just enter the Rafflecopter below for your chance to WIN! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

   Be sure to check out Jessica's post on her blog about Mentor Sentences!  She even has a video in the post where she models for you how to use them in the classroom!  Click her blog button to check it out!

Thanks so much for stopping by!!

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Recipe for Teaching

At the beginning of the year in kindergarten we are definitely working on counting and writing our numbers!  I love using hands on materials to help my students with their counting.  And we definitely love using food to help us with our counting!!

 

For this lesson, we began by counting with goldfish crackers.  My students worked in partners.  They took turns rolling the dot cube and then they each counted out the number of fish to match the number of dots.  They told their partner how many were in their tank.  We did this lesson for a few days and we definitely enjoyed a goldfish snack after - yum!

*You can easily differentiate this lesson by giving students two dot cubes to roll or a dot cube with numbers on it instead of dots.

 After counting with goldfish snacks, I wanted a fun assessment piece that my students could do independently.  This was also our first time using scissors and glue, so I wanted to quickly assess that.

  

 I gave my students the following materials: blue construction paper, a goldfish tank, 10 goldfish, and a recording sheet.  I let them choose how many fish they wanted to put in their tank and then they recorded the matching number on the recording sheet. 

They turned out so cute!  And they make our hallways look so nice!  It's a "School of Fish!"

If you want to do this activity with your students, I have it as a FREEBIE for your in my TpT store!  Just click the image below to download!

Hope you are having a great start to the school year!!

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Recipe for Teaching

So I have previously blogged about Math Chats, but I just think they are so amazing so I am going to blog about them again!

As a Kindergarten teacher, I know that I am really setting the foundation for the years to come regarding math instruction.  It is so important to build a strong knowledge of number sense with our youngest learners.   One way I do just that is by using Math Chats in my classroom.  I learned about them in a Math Professional Development that I attended and they are similar to Number Talks.   We just recently did our very first Math Chat and the kids LOVED it.  I like to use Math Chats as warm-ups to my math lessons.  Math Chats are great because you can use them all week and continue extending upon them throughout the week.  As the year goes on, you are really able to have more in depth discussions with your students about what they see.  Here is the schedule that I followed for my most recent Math Chat in my classroom: 

Day 1: I displayed the Math Chat to my students and had them think about what they noticed.  We used our inflatable microphones to share our ideas with a friend.  After they shared their ideas with a friend, I recorded their ideas.*Vickie from Primary Press had shared how she uses inflatable microphones in a blog post and I knew I just had to have some inflatable microphones too! 

Day 2: We reviewed the Math Chat (do this each day).  Then I had my students close their eyes and listen to me drop counters into a bucket.  They had to count the drops they heard.  After they opened their eyes, we found which picture on the Math Chat was the same as the number of drops they heard.  For example, when they heard two counters drop, it was the same as the two crayons.  They loved this!

 

Day 3: We used ten frames to represent the number of each picture on the Math Chat.  For example, they showed me four counters on the ten frame when I asked them to show me the number of buses.  We used "Gator Tweezers" for this and they are awesome!  *Tara over at Little Minds at Work shared about Gator Tweezers in one of her blog posts!!

 

Day 4: I introduced Rekenreks to my students.  I did the same activity as Thursday, only the Rekenrek is a different tool for them to use.  It is definitely important to expose your students to a variety of math tools so they are able to eventually choose appropriate tools to help them with their math, which goes perfectly with Math Practice 5.

 

Day 5: I had my students use their Notebook of Learning to record something from the Math Chat.  If they were able to write the number along with their picture, I definitely encouraged them to do so.  This friend noticed that he could use the Math Chat to help him write his idea!! 

If you want to try a sample of my Math Chats Pack, just click the picture to download the Back to School Math Chat I shared in this post!  I'd love to hear back from you if you use this with your students!

If you would like to try Math Chats in your classroom, my Math Chats Pack has Math Chats that you could use with your class throughout the school year.  Click the image to check it out!

 

 

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Recipe for Teaching

Hi everyone!!  I am beyond EXCITED to be hosting my first big GIVEAWAY on my blog!!!  I am celebrating 2000 followers on Instagram and 1000 followers on Facebook!!   

When I first started my blog last summer I wondered if anyone would read it, like it, follow it, etc.  I'm pretty sure anyone who has a blog has had those thoughts.  In this past year of blogging, I have found this community to be so incredibly supportive of one another!  I love learning and feeling inspired from other teachers and constantly catch myself saying, "I saw this idea on a blog..."  Going to the TpT Conference (The theme was "Come Together, Go Further" and they added the "Give Back" piece in during the conference!) in July was such an amazing experience and I was even able to meet some of the wonderful people helping with my giveaway in real life!! 

I could not have put this together without all of the AMAZING donations from this group!  They have each donated some fabulous products to this giveaway!  Many of them have blogs, so please be sure to check out their blogs!

 Since I have soooo many donations to this giveaway, I have decided to break it down into:*$25 TpT Gift Certificate Giveaway*Primary Product Giveaway*Intermediate Product Giveaway *Educlips Store $30 Gift Certificate Giveaway One lucky winner will win a $25 TpT Gift Certificate!  Enter below for your chance to win! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway
 One lucky winner will win ALL of these Primary Products!  This pack is valued at $61.25!!!!!!!!!!!!!  WOW!!!  You can check out all of the FANTASTIC products below and then enter the Rafflecopter for your chance to win!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
 One lucky winner will win ALL of these Intermediate Products!  This pack is valued at more than $28!!!!!!!!!!!!!  WOW!!!  You can check out all of the FANTASTIC products below and then enter the Rafflecopter for your chance to win!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

One lucky winner will win a $30 Gift Certificate to the Educlips Store!  I LOVE Educlips Clipart and Sarah was so kind to donate $30 to her website!!!  Enter below for your chance to win! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway  Thank you so much for your support and good luck with the giveaways!  The winners will be announced next week!!!  

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Recipe for Teaching