Kindergarten is CHARMING!!!! (are you looking for a fun way to help with academic and behavior goals?)

I am lucky to work at a school where my team is supportive and we work great together! To kick off the 3rd nine weeks of school we decided to make a KINDERGARTEN CHARM BRACELET. Just like PANDORA from grown ups each bead would represent a different skill! :) 

Close up of one Bracelet!

I keep track of who gets WHAT bead with this simple check list with the bead across the top and the students names down the side!

WOW this sounds like a LOT of work...Well it is NOT! We decided as a team to do 1 or 2 assessments each week.  We tried to make them part of our SOL's that we were already teaching. We only wear the bracelets on Friday and in my class we do NOT wear them out of the room. (so really only until lunch time)

We also thought about the students that may NOT be able to master some of the academic skills so our beads represent behavior, academic and life skills. 

Here is a list of a few of our beads:

Coin ID: Shiny Silver Bead

Beary Best Work: Bear bead

Shoe Tying: Bow bead

Kindness: Heat shaped bead

All 52 letters ID: Alphabet bead

Count by 5's: shiny green bead

Compliment from a teacher: Pearl bead

We got all of our beads from Oriental Trading Company and they have some great ones. The bracelets are Pony bead bracelets and will fit about 23 beads! 

 We will continue to do our weekly assessments for our Kindergarten Pandora ALL year. If a student misses the first assessment they will always get another chance! So far our students looooooove them. Hallway behavior has not been better (You can only get a PEARL compliment BEAD from ANOTHER teacher :) and students are always trying to be the quietest, straightest and most polite! 

I really do believe Kindergarten is a Charming Place! :) 

Who Am I? Free Printable and Literacy Idea!!!!!

SOOO I have been gone...ALOOOONG time! I have been so busy but I am going to try to make it up to you guys!!!! I found this cute pack of  bugs at Target today and I loved how they were all different! I made a new game to go with them! SO run don't walk to Target and make this game too! 


This game is easy to make!! It has 4 simple steps.
1. Buy the bugs at Target for 1 dollar!!!
2. Print the WHO AM I cards.
3. Glue the completed WHO AM I cards to the back of the blank ones!
4. Have your students read and determine which bugs go with which clues! 

Then the students pick a card. They read the clues and pick the bug they think matches all of the clues! Next they can see if they are correct by turning the card over and checking the completed side of the WHO AM I CARD!!!! YOU can grab this free printable here! 

New and AMAZING lid Idea!

I love stamps during my literacy center but they quickly get messy or get lost! SOOO I made FREE stamps for each center! They are simple to make and my students prefer them the Lakeshore ones that I already had!

Step 1: Collect lids! I prefer med size Gatorade or these lids like below

Step 2: Label the top side of the lid. I used my cricut and vinyl to die cut the letters but I could have done the same thing with a sharpie.

Step 3: precut foam letters. (I know you already have some in your classroom) Make sure you glue it on backwards so that when it is stamped it will be correct.

This is the same thing made out of Gatorade lids!

Then I got this cheap tool box at Target for 7 dollars to organize my stamps. The students can pull out the letters they need to stamp their sight words and they know where to put them back. I also die cut the letters for the front of the drawer with my cricut and vinyl!

Run Run as Fast as you can.... I LOOOVEE the Gingerbread Man

The gameboards are from the Dollar Tree! We just took the little pieces and wrote the sight word on the back and then wrote the same sight word on the board. They pull a piece, read the word and place the item in the hole! 

This is the tree version of this game!

Everyone loves this fun science experiment. I started with this Little Debbie Cookie. 

Each Student drew what he looked like before he was in the water and what he looked like after we placed him the water. We predicted what we would thought would happen. 

Candy Graph

I love using free items in my lessons! Each of the student brought in 10 candy wrappers and we sorted by  color too! This is the Tree Map that we created for the hallway!