Frights and Delights Halloween Centers and Plinko-palooza!

Happy Saturday friends!  Lindsay here . . .

Well last night I had "Girls Night Out" with some of the friends in my mommy group (and by girls night out I mean dinner, Starbucks and chit-chat . . . that's about as wild as we get these days) and I am TIRED!!  Even though I probably could have hit the sack by 8 p.m. last night, it was nice to have some girl time to discuss all things important and girly: mother-in-laws, c-sections, shoes, breast feeding . . . you get the idea.  Even though I was only out until 11 p.m. I am seriously considering an afternoon siesta today . . .

But that's not what I planned to blog about and tell you today . ..

I am excited to share with you my brand new Frights and Delights Math and Literacy Centers!

These spooktacular, hands-on Halloween math and literacy centers are sure to excite and engage your little learners! Included are 42 pages of colorful, ready-to-print activities that target a variety of math and language arts standards.

Included in this unit are the following:

-Spooktacular ABC order (putting letters into ABC order)
-Knock, Knock original text reader (predictable text book practicing phonemic awareness and beginning sound substitution)
-Haunted Halloween Make-A-Word Puzzles (building Halloween words)
-123 You Can't Scare Me card game (number recognition up to 30 - can differentiate)
-Candy Corn Roll and Cover dice game mat (number recognition to 12 or practicing sums to 12)
-Trick or Treat Graph (sorting, counting, graphing, using data from a graph to answer qustions about most, least, more, less, and in all)

 So hurry on over to my TPT store and check out these treats for your kidlets!  I am sure they will love them!  (Click on the picture below to check them out on TPT)

The other thing I am excited to share with you all this morning is about a wonderful product from Lakeshore that I recently was given the opportunity to use in my classroom and review: Phonemic Awareness Plinko!

First of all, I was thrilled when I was contacted by Lakeshore because .  . . well, let's face it . . . I probably spend half of my salary there getting goodies for my kiddos.  When I saw their new Plinko game as a choice of product I could try out with my kinder kidlets the decision was a no-brainer!

Disclaimer: In order to understand how much I love this new Lakeshore product, you should also know that I used to be a bit of a Price Is Right fanatic in my day.  You know . ..  waaaaaaaaaay back in my carefree college days when I could never EVER afford a brand new car or a trip to China, you could find me on the couch in our dorm still playing along with good old Bob Barker trying to figure out the cost of items like . . . a brand new car and a trip to China. 

Okay - back to Phonemic Awareness Plinko.  This activity comes with one freestanding game board and 90 illustrated Plinko chips featuring words such as lip, queen, spot, kick, etc.  Students drop their Plinko chip from the top of the game board and watch it fall into one of three categories: beginning sound, rhyming, or ending sound.

I decided to introduce my kinder kidlets to Plinko during our Literacy Centers.  With a small group of 5 or 6 kiddos I explained to my students how to play.  Now we have been working quite a bit already this year on the beginning sound of words, and had practiced some rhyming too, so those Plinko categories were more familiar to them.  The ending sound, however, was a bit tricky for my students. This game was a perfect way for me to begin working with my kidlets on segmenting!!

The first time I used Plinko in my centers rotation, the students in my small group took turns coming up and dropping the Plinko chip and we ALL helped answer the question.  Then each student got to "keep" (meaning until they had to switch to the next center) their Plinko chip.  I would recommend doing this one with your little learners so they they can get lots of practice, particularly with the ending sound category.  The way I have my kiddos practice segmenting is by holding one arm out in front of them, and then with the other hand touching the shoulder, midarm, and then hand to segment the three sounds. Disclaimer: this student is not from my classroom - I just googled a child doing segmentation with their arm.  :)

The second time we used Plinko in our centers rotation, I told the students that they could try to answer the question without help, or if they wanted, we could "solve" it together!  Most kids wanted to go for it on their own and did well, but this assurance was helpful for my kiddos who just still aren't segmenting or rhyming independently.

Here are some pictures from our first experience with Plinko:

Closing our eyes and pulling out a Plinko chip from the bag . . . oh the suspense! 

Dropping the chip in at the top - so exciting!! (My kids simultaneously love and hate the unpredictability of that darn Plinko chip!  There's just no telling where its headed!)

Collecting Plinko chips as they answer correctly = a proud kindergartener!

Room 17 looooooves Plinko!!



The BEST moment of all came when one of my little guys answered one of his hard questions correctly and then said (in the teensiest of kinder voices) "I wish this moment would last forever..."  

Swoon!!!  I almost melted in the cuteness. 

Bottom line: Phonemic Awareness Plinko is super easy to set up and use with your kiddos.  You could introduce it whole group and then begin to use it in centers, or just grab yourself a set and use it next week with a small group.  Its amazing how quickly your kiddos will start to improve their phonemic awareness as they continue to play, help their classmates, and get those competitive juices flowing!!  And to make it even easier to pick up your very own classroom Phonemic Awareness Plinko, our friends at Lakeshore have offered a 25% savings code for you all!!!  Score!  Visit lakeshorelearning.com/savenow . . . Happy shopping!

One last thing . . .

It's time to announce the winners of our Education Insights Product Giveaway (drumroll please!!) . ..

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Congrats to our winners! We will be contacting you soon with all the details!!  Yahoo!!

Well, that's it for now!  Hope you all have a fabulous fall-ish weekend!

Lindsay

Magic Spoons

Why hello there my fellow blogger buddies!

Were you wondering if I fell off the face of the Earth?  If I did not, in fact, survive the madness of the holiday season?  If a pack of rabid kindergarteners ate me alive??!!  DON'T FRET!!  I'm back. :)

Not only am I back, but I have a great little somethin' to share!  Now, let me first just say that this is in no way my idea. Nope. Negative.  All the credit for this idea goes to one of my fellow kinder teachers, who got it from another kinder teacher, who . . .well, you get the idea.  Not original, but just one that I thought ought to be shared.

So this little phonemic awareness activity is called Magic Spoons.  Basically, in order to help children with sounding out words, even those pesky nonsense words, you take a pack of spoons and on each spoon write a consonant. (For the letter Q you write a "qu" combo - because those two are always together.)  These will be used as the initial consonants of the words the students will be reading. Then, students practice with one spoon at a time adding the first letter to various different word family endings.  As the Magic Spoon moves from word ending to word ending . . . POOF!  A new word appears!  Magic.

When my teacher friends were sharing this idea with me, I immediately envisioned shiny, glittering, golden spoons that were oh-so-magical.  So, when it came time to make my OWN Magic Spoons, I had to track down . . . you guessed it . . . golden spoons.  (The power is in the golden-ness, right?)

Anywho, I found these packs of golden spoons at Party City for cheap (AND was able to walk out of there with ONLY the spoons - yay for self control!).

Next, I wrote on my spoons.  (Best kindergarten printing!!)

Finally, I created three sheets to use with my magic spoons.   On the left is a sheet of two letter word family endings, the middle sheet is three letter word family endings, and the final sheet is ONLY consonant letters.  My plan with that sheet is to then create a second set of magic spoons where the word family ending is on the spoon.  Are you following all of this?

For a PDF file of these three sheets, click on the image below. (I plan to copy each sheet on a different color of cardstock and laminate for durability . . . and for protection from all the magic-ness!)

But wait, there's more!  If you would like to use this idea in a whole group setting, fear not!  I plan to (in all of my spare time . . . whenever that may be) get large wooden spoons to use to get the whole class involved at once!  Gold spray paint . . .here I come! 

Anyway, I would love to hear about if and how you use Magic Spoons in YOUR classroom! Or maybe you yourself are the inventor of this great idea . . .in which case, thanks!

Happy teaching this week! 

Lindsay