Cooking up a Great Year!

 We have teamed up with 24 other great teachers to bring y'all some great ideas to help you have a successful year!  We hope you enjoy them!

Our tip to having a great year is to have weekly class meetings.  We sit in a circle and pass around our  class mascot, Quality Quentin.  The student who is holding Quentin talks and everyone else listens.  We start the year singing our Quality Student song so we can discuss what a quality student is.  Then we start our meetings by saying,"My name is... and a quality student...  My kiddos usually say things from the song.  Then as the year progresses, we get into what is happening in the classroom and how we can help each other to be quality students.

You can get the song in our dollar store: Just click the picture to purchase.

I found these great books to use to teach your kiddos about fruits and vegetables.  I love Rah Rah Radishes because it has vibrant photographs of vegetables.  The kids love the fun rhymes and they are introduced to new vegetables, like bok choy and poblano.

Y'all might also want to check out her website for some more of her great books and ideas!

http://www.aprilsayre.com

After you have read these books and discussed fruits and vegetables, you could  ask parents to send in samples of the real ones for your kiddos to taste.  You could also have plastic ones for them to sort in grocery bags labeled "fruits" and "vegetables"

We have created this sample for your kiddos to use in a center.  Just click on the picture to download from our store.  There are 8 photographic cards to sort onto a fruit or vegetable bag.  You can have them place the cards on the bags or use the bags as headers and have them place the cards under the bags.  We would greatly appreciate a nice comment when y'all download it.  Thank you so much!

If you like it and want to check out the full pack of 24 cards,teacher guide,sorting bags,color sorting cards, graph,question sheet and answer key for questions, click on this picture:

We hope y'all were able to get some helpful tips for a successful year and we wish y'all all the best this school year!  

Now for the prizes!:)   Good Luck!

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Diggin' Series HUGE GIVEAWAY!Lots of Prizes!

Are you ready?

 We could hardly wait to end our Diggin’ Series with the BEST giveaway of the season!

Just in case you didn't hear these are our awesome prizes:

Come and join us, as  this is our way to THANK YOU for all your support and friendship!

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Teacher Craft Giveaway!

We are so excited to be a part of such crafty and creative teachers!  We know ya'll are going to see some awesome products!  We already have so enjoy!

For those who haven't met our classroom mascot, this is Quality Quentin.  He helps students to be quality students.  Our students get to take turns taking him home.  

They write about Quentin's time at their homes.

The students love reading about their time with Quentin!

 This is the book that we read on the first day of school.  It is about Quentin's first day, and how he is scared to go to school until Mama Penguin teaches him a song about being a quality student.


Then the students write what a quality student does.

 This was written by an ESL student who didn't know much English, but after a few weeks singing the"Quality Student Song" could tell me things from the song for his page for the book.  He is so cute!  He said that he was dancing to the song:)

Y'all can get this in our dollar store if you are interested.

This is the book that we read.  We have it 50% off during the hop.  The Quality Student song is included.

These are a free download if you want to use them.  We just print them in grayscale.  My kiddos love earning them and going to our little "store"  which is just a drawer.  They earn them for being "quality students"  This has replaced our behavior chart-no more changing signs:)  It has worked great for us and it is so easy!

Our kiddos are so proud of using their Quentin Dollars that they earned.  One of my sweet kiddos actually took out a loan for Quentin Dollars to buy her brother a birthday present:)

This is also a free download of a paper Quentin puppet and a pocket chart poem about behavior.  We would really appreciate a nice comment at our store if ya'll do download our freebies.  Thanks!  You will get store credit to use toward future purchases when you leave comments:)

Now that y'all have met Quality Quentin, we want to give this puppet away.  Our kiddos just love him so we hope yours will too!:)

A few qualifiers for the giveaway:  The winner must be a classroom or homeschool teacher.  The winner must live in the contiguous US (because of shipping).  The winner must contact me within 3 days with your mailing information.  I will also be verifying all entries.  Thanks so much for entering the giveaway!    


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And the Winner is Sarah Bush!








Follow to see what my friend Laura is giving away!

Diggin' Series Word of the Day!

Today is our last post for the Diggin Summer Series.  It was a free choice, so we wanted to share one of our favorite products with y'all and show  how much it has helped our students!

So, after a lot of hours,days and weeks, we have done what so many of ya'll wanted us to do.  We have bundled all of our Word of the Day Calendars together at a discounted price when you buy the bundle.  We have also revised some of the calendar pieces to look even better:)  We created this product to help students to incorporate vocabulary development with writing.  We also have a math pattern on the calendar pieces so the kiddos can see a pattern building, so you get that skill in as well. We included a teacher's guide for how to use the student calendars, so now there are 2 teacher's guides so you have more ideas:)

We start our mornings with our Word of the Day from these calendars.  My kiddos love coming in and seeing our classroom mascot, Quality Quentin holding the word.  We say the word, clap the syllables, and write the definition in our notebooks and then illustrate the word.  We also discuss the pattern that is building.  There is a black and white student version so if you give it to them, they will see the pattern as well as all the words.

My students love to share their notebooks!
There is a journal sheet included in the bundle if you want them to paste that sheet in a notebook or you can staple sheets together to make a book.  You can just pick a day in the month and have them do a sheet for you to check as well.  I just found using notebooks were easier since we do this everyday.

At the end of the month, I have my students to choose 5 words that go together and use them in a story.  I really saw great writing progress with doing this every month.  I also encourage them to use their calendar words during Writing Workshop.  It has given them confidence in their writing.

I put all their stories in a class book so they can read them all year.  It also helps them to remember the words.  



These are a few samples of how much they were writing by the end of the year, and I love how they wanted to use more than 5 words!  They were actually wanting to write more without me saying to:)

I have a high ESL population, and our ESL or ESOL teacher said that she loved what we did with vocabulary and how much it helped her kids.  This ESL student did an awesome job with her May story!  I love the way she wrote about "culture."!

This is our beautiful ESL teacher playing our Word of the Day Brain Bounce Game.  The students pick a card and read it and try to answer it.  We help them to read it if they have trouble.  They love this game because we play in teams.  When the game is finished, they ask,"Can we play again!"

Here are theses products that have really helped our students with vocabulary,writing and patterns. Just click on the picture to purchase or to check it out.  It is at a discounted price if you purchase the bundle.

We do sell the calendars separately if you want to just purchase September to see how well it works for your class.

Well this is the last post for our Diggin Summer Series.

We hope y'all had a great summer and that your new school year will be awesome:)

Be sure to check back for fun activities for your classroom!