Do you participate in Secret Santa with your coworkers? I am excited to share that my Elementary Entourage friends and I not only exchanged gifts with each other, but also have some special secret santa gifts for all of you! I love that even though I am not in the classroom, or even a school for the time being, I still have the opportunity to connect with fabulous teachers all over the country.

My Secret Santa was the oh so sweet Kim from For a Love of Teaching.  She is a North Carolina Technology Facilitator, a fabulous mommy, and fantastic TpT author.  I’m so lucky to collaborate with her at the Elementary Entourage and love reading her ideas and tips for technology. So what sweet surprises did she have in store for me?

Seriously how cute is this little box? Obviously Kim knows that I just love Christmas and sent me some adorable goodies. Inside is a festive towel with a jingle bell that’s been keeping Madelynn quite entertained (PTL!) A super unique mug to leave out for Santa with all of the cookies I still have to finish baking this week…and a snowman ornament that will be perfect on our tree!  And don’t forget about the box that is totally getting recycled to wrap some present for my own family Thanks Kim, you are awesome!

Now a little treat for you! I’m not really big on giving lots of worksheets to my kiddos but of course there is a time and place for everything and sometimes you just need a quick printable to get in some quality skills practice.  For just this reason I have created my Snowy Snapshots pack of winter No Prep Printables!  Here is a sample with 4 FREE pages for you to use in your classroom!  I hope you find them helpful.

And if you love these printables, check out the complete pack and the skills included here:

The post Secret Santa Blog Hop with {The Elementary Entourage} first appeared on Mrs. Plemons' Kindergarten.

Disclosure: Some of these products were samples provided to me to try. Opinions and the choice to use  are 100% my own! This post contains product links.

Hi Friends! I am excited to share with you a fun do it yourself project I have been working on to help with story retelling in kindergarten.  If you are super lucky your classroom may already have a felt board that you use with your students, but if you are like me you may have to get creative and create your own.  But don’t worry it is SUPER easy!

First you want to gather your supplies.  You will need to purchase an artist’s canvas in the size that you would like your board to be. Make it big for whole class use, or small for a retelling center, the choice it totally yours You will also need to purchase a few yards of fabric in a variety of different colors to make your board and story pieces. I used cut by the yard Kunin Eco-fiPlus Premiumfelt which worked perfectly.

Next you will want to choose one color to cover your board with. For this board I decided to use white so that the colors would really pop, but you could really use any color you like. Cut the felt to size, leaving enough extra on all sides to fold over onto the back of the board.

Then you can start to fold the fabric up and over the canvas and staple it onto the backside of the frame.  I used my Paper Pro 30 Sheet Stapler, but you could also use a bigger staple gun if you have one handy as well.

 Continue to pull the felt back over each side, stretching the fabric tight and stapling it down.  I find it best to start in the middle of one side and work towards the outer edge to be sure it doesn’t bunch up.

That’s it! I also purchased a small easel stand to hold the board so that it can stand alone without having to be leaned against a wall. Now the fun part…creating story telling pieces!  I chose a few of my favorite kindergarten must have read alouds to create first.

 I always start retelling with Brown Bear, Brown Bear.  It is such a simple story and students just love feeling successful as they retell it.  In order to create the pieces for this story I used templates I found on Making Learning Fun. You can find TONS of printable templates there for popular stories. You simply print the template, trace the pieces onto felt, cut the pieces out and hot glue them together.  If you are short on time, you can also print the pictures on card stock, laminate and attach velcro dots to the back.  Here are a few other stories I created:

A September favorite of mine is Ten Apples Up on Top. I use this story a lot to practice counting with my class, so these apples are perfect for interactive practice.

And for October, Five Little Pumpkins. I didn’t even use a template for this one.  I just cut out long and short rectangles to make a fence, round orange pieces for pumpkins, and small brown stems for each one.

Another great option for retelling is nursery rhymes! Most kids are familiar with several of these rhymes, and I found a set of little nursery rhyme readers from Scholastic that are perfect for kindergarten.

 And who doesn’t Love Mrs. Wishy Washy?

 And last but certainly not least…Chicka Chicka Boom Boom! This one was a bit more time consuming to make because I created all of the upper and lowercase letters, but I love that kids can use them to not only retell the story, but also to build their names, sight words and more!

I really hope you enjoyed checking out my latest project, and I would love to know how you use the felt board in your classroom. But wait that’s not all! Enter below to win a stash of creative supplies to get creating for your own classroom!

An InLinkz Link-up

You can now find an expanded color line of Kunin Eco-fi Classicfelt; Eco-fiPlus Premiumfelt and ShaggiChic  non-wovens fabrics in cut by the yard at your local Walmart please inquire as to what is available in your area.

The post DIY Felt Board for Story Retelling first appeared on Mrs. Plemons' Kindergarten.

I’m super excited to be linking up some of my blogging friends to bring you a great “Fall Into Savings” sale.  EVERYTHING in my store is 20% off including already discounted bundles. A few of us are also sharing our favorite products on our blogs that we think you might love.

I wanted to share why I just LOVE my Common Core Exit Ticket ELA Bundles.  I’ve shared my math sets before and so many of you wonderful friends have asked me to create ELA versions as well.  Even if you’ve never used exit tickets, I promise these are quick and easy to use! And if you thought exit tickets were just for the older grades, don’t worry these were made specifically for the primary grades so they only have a few questions on each one.

Here are a few pictures of the kindergarten set of ELA exit tickets:

 

The whole Kindergarten Bundle includes:
• 181 different exit tickets (with 4 of the same on each page for easy copying)

You can check out the bundle here, or check out any of the sets individually using the links in the description on TPT.

The First Grade Bundle includes:
• 204 different exit tickets (with 4 of the same on each page for easy copying)

• Black and white print only to save on ink
• Common Core Standards listed on each ticket for quick reference/organization

• Exit tickets for 51 First Grade ELA Standards (Reading: Literature, Reading: Informational Text, Foundational Skills, and Language)

• Answer keys included for foundational skills and language exit tickets

You can check out the bundle here, or check out any of the sets individually using the links in the description on TPT.

And the Second Grade Bundle, which is currently being completed, will include:

• Over 200 different exit tickets (with 4 of the same on each page for easy copying)

• Black and white print only to save on ink
• Common Core Standards listed on each ticket for quick reference/organization

• Exit tickets for 42 Second Grade Math Standards (Reading: Literature, Reading: Informational Text, Foundational Skills, and Language)

• Answer keys included for foundational skills and language exit tickets

You can check out the GROWING bundle here, or check out any of the sets individually using the links in the description on TPT. This bundle will be completed by the end of next week, but you can grab it now for an extra discounted price!

Want to win a bundle? Enter below and I will giveaway one ELA exit ticket bundle for the grade level the winner chooses!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Alrighty now head on over to these other great stores/blogs to check out all of the great items on sale this weekend!

The post Fall Into Great Savings! first appeared on Mrs. Plemons' Kindergarten.

 An emergent reader book is a little book that beginning readers use as they are just beginning to learn the conventions of print. They can be printable paper books, or published paperback books.

 No matter where you find emergent reader books for your students you will want them to have the following characteristics:

• Strong picture support
• repetition
• controlled vocabulary
• natural spoken language
• simple sentence structures (“Lions are at the zoo.” Instead of “At the zoo, you may see lions.”)
• large text
• 1-2 sentences
• 1-2 lines of text
• familiar experiences as subject matter (think “At my School” or “Going to the Park” not “Backpacking in Europe”)

 There are TONS of printable emergent readers both free and paid online as well as books that you can order for your students. Here are some of my favorite resources:

• Reading A-Z – This website has thousands of printable readers and e-books for students to practice with.  I usually print the black and white versions (color versions are also available) and use these mostly as homework books.  I love that I can print them and if they aren’t returned I can just print more!

• Wilbooks – One of my favorite sites for finding real published books for emergent readers, they are cheap and available on tons of topics.

• Danny Books – If your students LOVE dogs they will fall in love with Danny.  These books have real photographs of Danny the dog participating in all kinds of adventures.

• Making Learning Fun – This website has tons of printable emergent readers for lots of different themes, some are better than others so definitely take a look before printing.

• Teachers Pay Teachers – You can find SOOO many great emergent readers both free and paid on TPT.  Just search emergent readers and you will find lots of great options!

 Here are just a few of the behaviors students may exhibit that let you know they are ready to begin formal instruction with emergent reader books:

• interest in read aloud stories
• pays attention to an entire book
• participates in discussion of read alouds and stays on topic
• “reads” the pictures in books and tells a complete story
• understands how to handle books
• makes predictions that make sense
• knows letters
• knows some letter sounds
• differentiates between words and letters
• has a sense of story (beginning/middle/end)
• points to words while reading
• recognizes some words in context but not all the time (STOP on a stop sign, but not in a book)

• Introduce the story and embed important vocabulary in students minds. If the book is about a trip to the farm, have students think about and name animals they may see in the book.  
• Remind students to point to words as the read. This will help them as well as you to see where students are having difficulty.
• While students are reading prompt them as needed: Use the picture. Does the first letter match what you read? Did that sound right? Did that make sense? Did that look right? etc.
• After students have read their book be sure to point out examples of great book handling, strategy use, thinking, etc. (ex.”I love that at first you said bunny, but looked at the first letter sound to correct your reading and say rabbit.”)
• Find a teachable moment. You may have students revisit a particularly difficult page and try it again.  I like to tell students to try it again before making corrections, if students recognize their mistake and read it correctly without you having to point it out, even better!
• Give students time to reread the entire story again.
• You may even find interactive books that allow students to cut and paste parts into the book.  These create even more opportunities for learning letters, sight words and more! Here is a peek at one of my interactive alphabet readers. You can check them out here: 

I could definitely go on for days about this topic, but I hope that this was a helpful reminder for what to look for when selecting and using emergent reader texts with students!

I’m participating in the You Oughta Know blog hop again this month, so if you are looking for more great ideas, check these out!

The post Ultimate Guide to Using Emergent Reader Books first appeared on Mrs. Plemons' Kindergarten.

I’m so excited to announce that the ladies of Elementary Entourage and I have teamed up to bring you a great big sack full of Secret Santa gifts. I know you are probably doing the best you can to keep it together this week with the holiday madness, so thanks for taking a minute to stop by and check out what I have in store for you today! I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Here are a few clues for you to see what is inside your Secret Santa Gift:

If you follow me on Instagram (@mrsplemonskindergarten) I posted a preview of what I was working on yesterday morning.

It is quick and easy to use and won’t require 14 trips to the store to stock up on colored ink.

It can be used for morning work, homework, as a review or in a center.

Do you have any guesses?

Okay I’m  terrible at waiting and keeping a secret especially when it comes to Christmas.  Seriously, the Mr. and I open gifts on Christmas Eve because I can never wait.  I think we even opened them earlier than that a few times.

So here it is! I wanted to share something that would make your January planning a little easier so I put together a sampler from my Snowy Snapshots {Quick and Easy NO PREP Practice for Math and Literacy} Pack.

Click on the pictures above to download these pages for FREE!
And if you love it and want more, Check out the full pack here! Here is a sneak peak at what is included!

You definitely don’t want to miss out on all of the fantastic Secret Santa Freebies my Elementary Entourage buddies have in store for you so check them all out over at our blog here.

And don’t forget to follow us too so you can check out all of the awesome ideas, freebies and giveaways we share over there.  Speaking of giveaways…we are planning something BIG for January that you won’t want to miss.  (Again…terrible at waiting, haha, don’t share too many secrets with me!)

The post Secret Santa Blog Hop first appeared on Mrs. Plemons' Kindergarten.

Do you use task cards in your classroom? Are you curious how to make the most of these awesome learning tools? Great! I’d like to share some of my favorite ways to use Task Cards to meet the needs of my students.

First, when you have a skill that everyone in the class could use some work or review on, try out these whole group ideas.

  Next, if you just have a few students that could use reinforcement or review, try these small group ideas.

  Or if you are looking for productive and targeted practice for individual students take a look at these individual practice ideas.

  And here are just a few more thoughts on how you can make the most of the task cards you have in your classroom.

 If you’d like to try these ideas out but don’t have any task card sets. Check out the cute and fun task cards I created for Halloween to practice both math and ELA skills!
Practice counting sets to 20 in Halloween Candy Count.

Practice counting sets of money in Monster Money.

Practice counting base ten blocks to 100 in Place Value Potion.

Practice identifying beginning sounds in Batty Beginnings.

Practice identifying the number of syllables in words in Syllable Spiders.

Practice reading CVC words in Wicked Words.

I’m linking up with some great teachers again this month to bring you teaching ideas that you oughta know about. Check out what they have to share here! 

The post You Oughta Know About Task Cards! first appeared on Mrs. Plemons' Kindergarten.

 This book is perfect for use with the whole class or a small group. All of the cut out pieces can easily be attached with Velcro so that you and the students can interact with the pieces. After using it to demonstrate, it can easily be used in a literacy center as well.

 Students practice word recognition when they match the words with the pictures on the Read It! page.

 Next,  there is a handwriting practice page for practicing the focus letter.

The Write It! page provides practice with writing the words in the book.It is also a great way to practice many letters at the same time.

 Students can hunt for the focus letter on the Find It! page.

This page may be my favorite! My students always love a chance to sing and dance.  (Or maybe they just enjoy cracking up at my lack of awesome dance moves…) I created QR codes for our favorite letter A practice videos as well as a few alphabet songs.  You can scan these and practice as a class, easy peasy! No more searching and setting up playlists to get to the right video. 

 The student version is in the exact same format.  I have included both a color and black and white version so you can choose what to print for your class.

 I always have students create a reading treasure box at the beginning of the year, so when they take these books home they have one place to keep them. One little shoebox of books is way less crazy than 26+ books floating around the house.  Hopefully, then they won’t get crumpled and thrown away by OCD moms like me:)

 Students cut and glue the pieces into their book and can practice concepts of print by pointing and reading the words.

   Then they complete each practice page independently.

 It’s super easy to spice things up by using crayons, markers, colored pencils, fun pens, etc.

 The Find It! page can also be done with highlighters, dabbers, crayons, markers, etc.

  The student version  includes the 3 letter A songs which are awesome for at home practice! Kids will love sharing these songs with their family and are a fun and easy way to practice at home.

I hope you love these books as much as I do!

Interactive Emergent Reader: All About A

Check out all of the readers bundled here:

The post Learning Letters with Interactive Emergent Readers first appeared on Mrs. Plemons' Kindergarten.

 I’ve been super busy this summer updating every one of my TPT products and I just finished updating one of my very first products.  I’m pretty excited about how it turned out.  

The post Using Poetry Notebooks to Practice ELA Skills first appeared on Mrs. Plemons' Kindergarten.

Is it really almost April?  It sure doesnt feel like spring yet, but I will just keep thinking warm thoughts!  To celebrate National Poetry Month I am participating in a blog hop hosted by Line Upon Learning.

As a kindergarten teacher, I like to use a new poem every week to introduce and review basic concepts with my kiddos.  The poem that I choose matches the season, holiday, theme, or topic that we are learning about.  Each day we work on the poem during our morning meeting either on chart paper, or this year I started to post it on the interactive whiteboard and save our work each day. My students also complete a task on the same poem in their poetry binder. We practice a variety of activities with the poems depending on the skills that we are currently working on. 

 I created a pack of 30 task cards that  cover a variety of activities I use with different poems. I’d like to share them with you for FREE for the last few days of March only as a thank you just for stopping by my blog today! You can find them here. Be sure to grab them before April 1st when I will post them in my TPT store!

You can find the poems I use in my Poetry Binders here:

And I’m offering the chance to win my poetry binder to 2 lucky winners this week as well! Just enter below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The post Poetry in Elementary Blog Hop first appeared on Mrs. Plemons' Kindergarten.

First, my favorite part of the week is our pajama day read-a-thon.  I always have the kiddos wear their jammies, bring blankets, pillows, stuffed animals and their favorite books and we devote the whole afternoon to reading! They read and write about their favorite books and share them with their friends. It’s such a relaxing day

The post Read Across America in My classroom first appeared on Mrs. Plemons' Kindergarten.