Happy Back to School Season!  I wanted to share a quick post with you about something that my students always love!  It's called a Marshmallow Clap!

I honestly cannot remember where I learned this fun little activity from, but the kids always have a blast with it!   To do a Marshmallow Clap your students just pretend there is a marshmallow in between their hands.  When they clap, their hands don't touch.  We use it as a way to count and it is amazing!  You could also use it as a cheer in your classroom if you wanted!   Doing a Marshmallow Clap with an imaginary marshmallow is fun, but doing a Marshmallow Clap with a REAL marshmallow is even MORE fun!  We, of course, just HAD to use a real marshmallow to do this clap and then we definitely got to eat our marshmallows - YUM!!

    We have been using my Back to School Number and Ten Frame Match to count and clap and it works great.  It's perfect for back to school!

Want to win a copy of this for yourself?!?!  Just enter the Rafflecopter below for your chance to win!  Good luck! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway  

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Recipe for Teaching

Happy Friday Friends!  Recently I had posted a picture on Instagram of my "Giving Tree" for Back to School Night.  I received a lot of positive feedback about it on Instagram, so I thought I would share about it on my blog!   In case you are wondering, I got the tree from the Hallmark Store after Christmas.  I'm a sucker for Hallmark movies and for the Hallmark Store!  I can't remember the exact price of it, but it was after the holidays so it was definitely clearance priced.      Here is the full picture of the "Giving Tree."

  There are always extra items that we need in our classroom that might not necessarily be on our school supply list.  For example, I try to give my students a small "Brain Snack" in the afternoon, so some of the items on the tree were pretzels, Froot Loops, and crackers.  Usually when they are writing I will drop off a handful of a snack at their spot.  This is just enough to help keep their brains energized for the rest of the day.  We also have breakfast in the classroom so baby wipes are a must for helping students wipe their spots clean after breakfast.   Here is a close-up picture of the tree:

  I made the sign to go with the tree and just found pictures on the internet of the different items we could use for our room.      I didn't make the sign specific to any certain time in the year because my thought is to bring it back out during conferences so parents can pick off of the tree to donate to our room.   I am including the sign as a freebie for you if you are interested in using it in your classroom.  Just click the picture to download!

  Do you have a creative way of asking for donations at Back to School Night, Conferences, or any other time in the school year?  I'd love to hear about it!       

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Recipe for Teaching

Aarrgghh You Ready for Back to School?!?!

I am super excited to be teaming up with some AMAZING teachers for this Back to School Blog Hop!  This is actually the first blog hop I am participating in!
Many of you have already started back to school or soon will be starting back and 15 of us have teamed up to host giveaways on our blogs!  If you start at my blog, be sure to hop through all of the blogs until you get back to mine so that you enter the Rafflecopters on each blog.  You don't want to miss your chance for some awesome prizes!   I am giving away my 2D Shape Pack AND $10 to my TpT store!  That means if you are the lucky winner that you will get my 2D Shape Pack PLUS your choice of items in my store that total $10!!  It's like a shopping spree!!!      I am so excited about this 2D Shape Pack!  It is one of my most recent products!

   I have been busy hanging posters from the pack in my classroom!  I have 3D Shape Posters in my TpT Store that match these and I am planning to hang them up too.  I just need to print them first!
There are also several exit tickets that are included in this pack!   *Side note: I was taking this picture and could not find ONE SINGLE pack of crayons in our house!!!  I must have taken them all to school!

This pack includes shape posters, shape words, shape hunts, shape books, exit tickets, shape cards, a math talk to compare shapes, and a Venn Diagram to compare shapes!

For your chance to win, just enter the Rafflecopter below!  Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Now hop on over to Janice from PreK Partner to check out her giveaway!

 

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Recipe for Teaching

So I'm pretty sure all of us teachers have had that, "Oops I forgot deodorant this morning" or "Does anyone have any Tylenol" moment at least once in your teaching career!

I thought that image was too funny and goes perfect with this post.  However, I do have to say that I am good about putting deodorant on every morning except that one time that I didn't and had to stop on the way to work for some...could have used a Teacher Emergency Kit that day!   I have seen a few Teacher Emergency Kit posts on Pinterest and Blog Posts.  Lori from Conversations in Literacy has a great Teacher Survival Kit post and includes a lot of great things in her kit!    Well all of these ideas got me thinking and I decided to put together Teacher Emergency Kits for my teammates as Back to School gifts!  I think the idea of an emergency kit is genius because we've all had those moments of needing something and not having it.     I started off with getting the containers.  I decided to go with the Sterlite shoebox size containers from Target.  They are less than $1 each!

  Next I headed over to the travel section because I knew there would be the perfect sized items for an emergency kit.  Originally I just picked up a few things and then the list just kept growing!   **You know your list of items has grown when your husband says to you, "I'm assuming these waters are for your Teacher Emergency Kits???"  :)   

  Here is a picture of what everything looks like inside the kit:

Each kit has: *A bottle of water *2 mini bags of pretzels *1 box of m&m candy *Altoids *lint roller *Tylenol *deodorant *nail file *lotion *hair bands *dental floss *toothpaste/toothbrush *Tide to Go stick   Here is a close-up of everything:

  I'm excited to give these to my kindergarten teamies!!  I may have also made one for myself!!  

If you are thinking this is something you would like to make for your teammates, I am including the Teacher Emergency Kit label as a FREEBIE!  Just click the picture to download!  I laminated the labels and then hot glued them on the lid of the container.

  I'd love to hear if you have a Teacher Emergency Kit in your classroom and what items you have!  Happy Back to School Season!      

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Recipe for Teaching

So if you are anything like me, you are busy preparing for a new school year!  I have been in two times to set up my room and I always get excited to start a new school year.  I was just saying the other day that I love going to set up my classroom!  Anybody else with me on that one?!?!     Here are few pictures of what I have already done in my classroom:

I was SO excited to find these baskets at the Dollar Tree!  They will make the most perfect book baskets.  I had my previous ones for about 10 years and needed an update!  I have labels that I will add to them once I have my class list.

  I posted this picture on Instagram, but if you missed it I made these with Dollar Tree picture frames.  If you haven't been to the Dollar Tree yet you need to go run there now!!  They have a fantastic basket collection and I just love the bright color of these frames.  I just used hot glue to attach the ribbon and then hung them on the command strip hooks.  I am going to put pictures that I take of my students in them and change them around every so often.  

 And this is still a work in progress because I'm planning to hang either my shape posters from my 2D Shape Pack along with my Color Posters OR my Cupcake Themed Ten Frame Posters in the space above my Month Cards.  I recently made these month cards because I seriously was in need of an update and I love them!  

I also updated my Schedule Cards!!  Can you tell that I just love Educlips clipart?!?!   So back to the title of this post which is "Back to School Gifts."  I always like to give my students a little Back to School gift at Meet the Teacher Night.  I think it helps make them more excited about coming to school!   Last year I gave my students these bubbles.  I'm pretty sure I found the idea somewhere on Pinterest! 

  And for this year, you may have seen this picture of pointers from one of my favorite stores...Target!!!!  Their Dollar Spot has been ON POINT this summer (see what I did there)!

 I knew that I was going to use them for my student Back to School gifts so I made some labels, tied some ribbon around them, and...TADA!!!

  I'm so super excited with how they turned out!!  To show you just how excited I am, I am including it as a little blog follower FREEBIE!!  Just click the picture to download!  I included for pre-k, kindergarten, 1st grade, and 2nd grade.  If you didn't buy the pointers like I did, you could always attach any pointer to them for a gift.  I sometimes find cute coffee stirrers and use those for pointers in my classroom!

  If you have already started back to school, I hope you have a wonderful school year and if you haven't started back I hope you are enjoying your last days of summer vacation!  

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Recipe for Teaching