Junk Drawer Learning

If there is one thing I love doing the most, it's making art from items that would normally be thrown away, something else I love to do, is to make learning manipulatives! A few simple ingredients that we had around the house and 1 hour of Criminal Minds and I had a Color Spelling Game!

This game is perfect for a literacy center for kids to work on quietly alone or in a group. All you need are:

1. Used File Folder
2. Water Bottle Caps
3. Circle Labels (But you can use a sharpie right on the labels if you want!)
4. Dark Marker
5. Crayons

Once you have gathered all your items, just make up the alphabet on labels or righto on the caps and then add in the extra letters you will need for colors that double letters in their spelling. My game is for color spelling, but once you have the caps made, you can just make multiple file folder games using the same caps! Use your folder as your game mat and add on whatever you need to do and then draw circles or lines, so they know how many letters are in each word!

The caps can be used with the game or alone as an alphabet game or even for use with some spelling list words, to spell names and numbers as well!

Use cardstock or cut down an old file folder to make self checking cards with the correct spelling and the same picture that you used on the game mat. These cards can be used alone or with the game mat.

Pop everything loose into a baggie and staple it to the back of the file folder, now it all stores neatly and together.

Enjoy every minute my friends!

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Monday Morning Musings...

The weather in northern IL is chilly, it calls for a fire to be burning constantly, because I like to keep the thermostat at 65*. Yikes! I know, I know that's chilly but it saves us money and we all get to snuggle under warm blankets whenever we sit down! What do you keep your temp at if you are in a cold zone?

Remember earlier in the month I mentioned my goal of drinking 1 gallon of water a day. Whoa, this has been such a wake up call for me. I am LOVING the water, but not loving the bathroom trips. It's still too early for me to notice much, except that I am not snacking as much nor am I craving too much in between meals. 

Are your bookshelves exploding? Mine are! One thing that I am doing to solve this is to get a group of people together in my home to swap and sell our books! I am setting up tables throughout my home and we will be set up to swap books for other friends or sell them if we cannot find a trade. I am very excited about this and will keep you posted on how it turns out! 

Teach the alphabet & letter sounds in no time!

A great way to teach letter sounds and/or the alphabet is with coloring pages, get yours HERE!!
1. Day One: As each letter is colored, have them sound out and say each letter. 

2. Day Two: print out a second copy and do the same. 

3. Day Three: Laminate the colored pages and cut out each letter combo evenly from 1 of the pages. (Saying each letter and letter sound as you cut it out to make flashcards)

4. Day Four: Repeat Day Three!

5. Day Five: You now have a set of Memory Game cards. Play with a few letters at a time and build up to playing with the entire alphabet. As each card is turned over say the letter and the sound.

Enjoy!

Are you a thrifter? Flashcard collector? I am using a mug tree to hold flashcard collections. This makes them easy to find and also keeps them out and on display. I change them out monthly and I notice that they are always being thumbed through! 

Enjoy every minute my friends!

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Classroom Coordination

I should be sleeping but instead I am still awake blogging. I seriously need to get on a better schedule but all I do is say that and never work towards it. Must work towards it! I have a tour of my classroom coming up this week for you all but for now I wanted to share the way I display my posters in the classroom. If I have multiples that are similar, I hang them back to back on cup hooks. This allows me to change them out regularly and it also gives me the added bonus of adding on coordinating flashcards for the kids to use as they interact with the poster.

My Solar System border sits at the top of the wall but right below it on a cup hook are planet flashcards. They have the exact same photos as the ones in the border, which make it super easy for kids to see the planets in their correct location and learn even more about them. Also in the photo, you can see a cup hook holding a Presidents Card, this hook holds many government Flash Charts all in one spot. I don't have to keep them hidden away in a binder, which makes them do double duty! They are a decoration but ALSO they can and often times are just grabbed and read!

This corkboard USA has a ring of matching state cards directly below it but the best part of this piece is that we have started marking the states we have visited. It's so much fun to begin learning with the places we have been. Little by little as we travel the USA, the kids are getting HANDS ON learning but even better is that they sit by this map with the cards and look at where they want to go next.

This MASSIVE world map takes up a large chunk of wall space, it is so detailed and perfect that the kids and I often just attack it with Dry Erase markers making notes of where we have been and where we want to go. To the left of the it, is the hook that holds the Countries and Capitols cards. As we discuss where we would LOVE to go, we read all about it. 

Our Government section. The Flash Charts that I mentioned earlier along with the cup hooks holding multiple posters that can be changed out. These are all laminated as well because they are really PLACEMATS!! It allows the kids to take them down and write on them. Using the coordinating flashcards, this is an easy CENTER in the room for use during Quiet Time.

I also have an ever changing display in a small nook of the room. This has a topic of the month that will change out periodically along with coordinating books. On the clothesline above it will be changing topics, art work or anything at all that we can think of! 

The Multiplication Table chart is one of the reasons I came up with the cupholders, I like it out for the kids to work with along with flashcards but when it was time for a test, I wanted to have it covered without making an extra mess or having to do too many steps. 

The Numbers chart is another sign on the cup hooks with the Multiplication Chart that I switch out with when needed. It's so easy to do that the kids often help me out.

Enjoy the weekend my friends!

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Fun with Games!

Today, I want to share some fun that we came up with recently! My kids love stringing beads on anything and everything they can get their hands on, so I put them to work making bead counters with pipe cleaners. 10 beads per pipe cleaner and we had counting rods. This became perfect to pair with a set of flashcards I made up from a 1-100 pack. I pulled out just the 10s and put them together on a tray with the counters. Perfect for my younger 2 to work on!

Counting to 100! We have an awesome 100s chart that I LOVE and is well used. I had it laminated and we use it with a dry erase marker too. Sometimes you have to get creative and think of new games, to keep the learning fresh and fun. I picked up these colorful card stock circles and made a ring of 0-100 flashcards. Here, they just pull a car and say it aloud (without showing it to the other person) and the other person has to put a circle on the number called out. It can also be played alone as a matching game, which is how my youngest plays!

Alphabet house search is my favorite game and theirs too, I'm sure! I put in little pink letters into different slots of these boxes and the kids head out in search of items that are the correct size. This game is perfect as it allows them some creative learning fun and gives me time to clean house! Yay!

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