Dr. Seuss Inspired Snacks!

Read Across America Day is one of my favorite days of the school year.  I don't know what teacher would not love a day all about reading!

In my classroom, we turn the week into Dr. Seuss week!  We do an author study and look at a variety of Dr. Seuss books.  We have activities, worksheets, writing craftivities, and math stations that center around the book.  The kids favorite part is our Dr. Seuss Snack that matches the book!

Here are 5 [fairly simple] Dr. Seuss Inspired Snacks!

The Cat in the Hat inspired Snack! This one is the trickiest, but it is definitely doable!  Marshmallows dipped in white chocolate with a cookie or half an oreo as the base (I have heard banana works instead of marshmallows).  Put red fruit snacks around it.  Dip the base in blue sprinkles!  The kids will love this Cat in the Hat snack!

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish!  This one is simple!  Just make blue jello and put into individual cups!  Place swedish fish in the cups.  Make sure you wait until you are about to serve it or else the fish get slimy and the color wears off (we ended up with fish that looked dead one year...)  The kids loving solving these addition problems on our One Fish, Two Fish day!

Hop on Pop!  Anyone can make this!  It is just popcorn!  We put them in individual bags for the kids!

The Lorax! This is my favorite Dr. Seuss book & the snack is pretty good too!  Just take a nutter butter cookie.  Add the candy eyes and a yellow frosting mustache!  I like to do this long vowel and short vowel word sort during our Lorax day! We also sort real words and silly words on Lorax day (and throughout the rest of the week)!

Green Eggs and Ham! I used to do the green yogurt & vanilla wafer for the kids.  That always got quite the reaction.  Now I do pretzel sticks with melted white chocolate hershey kiss and a green m&m on top!

Looking for some Seuss-Inspired educational activities to go along with this?
Here is a long and short vowel word sort!
Here is a silly word and real word CVC sort!
Here are interactive addition problems!

Flexible Seating in Kindergarten - Floor Pillows!

I recently completed a project on Donors Choose and received funding for 4 giant floor pillows.  I had our amazing custodian remove the legs off of one of my tables & the table quickly turned in to a cute and short table for the little busy bodies in my classroom.

The giant floor pillows arrived, and let me emphasize the word GIANT, and they have been placed at the low table.  The kids are in LOVE, as am I!  They kids pick where they sit.  They have a handful of options (carpet squares, wobble chairs, scoop rockers, regular chairs, floor pillows, clipboards, etc.).  The floor pillows have constantly been occupied (sometimes even by the teacher!).

The kids love working on the floor.  At least 75% off my class is on the floor during writing time, it is where a lot of them do their best work.

But why pillows?  Think about it.  Where do you work best?  For most of us, it is not sitting on a cold metal chair.  It is likely somewhere that we consider comfortable - our bed, the couch, Starbucks, etc.  Kids are the same way!

Here is a quick peek at how I use Lakeshore's Giant Comfy Pillows as an alternative seat in my kindergarten classroom!

I know Lakeshore's Pillows are quite pricey, but in my opinion, well worth the price.  I have had them for 2 years and they are still super fluffy.  Other pillows, that tend to be cheaper, don't last as long, but are great to try out and see if it is something would work in your classroom! Here are some other options that are not as expensive! (affiliate links).

Bean Bag Type Chair Pillow

Square Pillow

Lounger Round Pillow

Body Pillow - I used these for 2 years in my classroom!  I had to buy covers for them.  They didn't stay as fluffy as I would have liked, but it didn't bother the kiddos.  It is time to replace them now though!

SeeSaw for Kindergarten - Positional Words

Have you tried using the new app - SeeSaw learning journal for your students?  I was just introduced to it this year and I have to say, I am in love!  It is great!  The kids are so techy now-a-days that they learned it quicker than I did!  It is SUPER kid friendly that my kinders are independent when using it!

I have been exploring this app with my Kinders throughout the year and trying to find ways to incorporate it into our routine.

One thing that you kinder teachers know is our curriculum is so language based!  The kids need to verbalize so much and many of our assessments are done one-on-one.

I have used seesaw to help me!

(By the way, you can get a free month of Seesaw plus right here!  It has some really awesome features to help you communicate with parents, prepare for conferences, and track student progress!)

Here is how I used SeeSaw for Positional Words!

• Give your students an animal.  
• Tell them to place the animal somewhere in the room & take a picture.
• Students then record their voice & say a sentence using positional words to describe where the animal is!  

Check it out here!
How have you used SeeSaw in your classroom? Share your ideas below!

100th Day of School Snack!

Looking for a quick and easy snack for the 100th day of school?  You've come to the right place.  This one is EASY and the kids love it!

The 100th day of school is all about celebrating 100 and counting to 100 as many times as possible.  We spend a tremendous amount of time counting by 1's and counting by 10's.  We make a simple snack and count out 10 groups of 10! I am telling you, this is EASY!

Simply ask parents to donate 10 different snack items (I get two boxes/bags of each to make sure I have enough).  Then place them all out and students count of 10 of each and put them in a bag.  They then have a 100th day trail mix!  

Below is a list of ideas for you to pick from!

• M&M's
• Skittles
• Chex
• Cheerios
• Fruit Loops
• Pop Corn
• Peanuts
• Chocolate Chips
• White Chocolate Chips
• Goldfish
• Marshmallows
• Raisins
• Pretzel Sticks
• Cheeze Itz
• Teddy Grahams
• Animal Crackers 
• Mini Oreos

What would you add to the list? What is your favorite snack mix item?


Looking for more 100th day ideas?  Check out my Pinterest Board: 100th Day of School
 

 

Flexible Seating in Kindergarten!

I didn't graduate too long ago and I already feel like I am behind the times.  I am constantly amazed at how fast the education world is changing.  It is constant - but that is what I love about it!

I had been reading and pinning and swooning over flexible seating for a while and this year I decided to take the plunge (more like dip my toes in the water....the plunge is coming soon!).

I started off by deciding what type of seating I wanted to try out the most.  Would it be bean bags? Wobble Chairs? Standing Desk? Yoga Balls?

For my kiddos, I thought wobble chairs would be the best!  I set up a project on Donor's Choose & wahlah! It was funded.

Four wobble chairs entered my kindergarten classroom...
(that kind of sounds like the start of a bad joke...)

I kept reminding myself, I am just dipping my toes, dipping, dipping, dipping.  I put the wobble chairs at one of my extra tables.  Tip 1: Start with just one option.  All the kids still had their assigned seats but they were allowed to work on wobble chairs during Daily 5 or other independent work time if they felt they needed to sit somewhere different than their regular chair.  

No surprise, the chairs were always getting used.

Test run = success.

I am ready for the plunge!  I created a new Donors Choose project & it was funded.  I have new seating coming in this week (along with some seating I ordered on my own) and flexible seating is about to take off in our kindergarten classroom (fingers crossed)!

Looking for flexible seating ideas for your own classroom?  Follow my pinterest board - Flexible Seating is Grrreat!

More to come as I work through this new process!