Party Like It's Your Birthday

Birthdays are the best!  Who doesn't love celebrating with your family and friends with cake?!?!?  Although we don't get to have cake at school anymore (saddest day of my life), we still have a really fun time celebrating birthdays in Kindergarten!  We celebrate with each kiddo on their birthday or half birthday and waiting at their seat when they arrive at school are lots of birthday goodies. Take a little picture stroll through our Kindergarten birthday extravaganza and if you make it to the end there just may be a lil' birthday treat for you:)

First up is the birthday crown.  I found these bad boys in the Target Dollar Spot last year and literally bought every single pack from about 8 different Targets. I may have enough birthday crowns to last until 2025. 

Following the birthday crown is the birthday sticker and birthday certificate, both found in the Target Dollar Spot (I purchased about 2,000 of these as well).

The birthday boy or girl has an adorable little birthday chair cover (made by my sweet friend's mom) hanging on their seat along with the class Birthday Bag.  Inside the birthday bag is Our Class Birthday Book, a birthday read aloud, a birthday balloon and a direction sheet.  The student gets to take the bag home that night and complete the activities inside with their families.  

Birthday Bag Family Direction Sheet

Our Class Birthday Book is a little book that I put together at the beginning of each school year.  The students take the book home and can draw and write about their birthday inside.  The next school day, the student brings the Birthday Bag back and gets to share their book page with the class.  The birthday student is so excited to share how they celebrate at home with the class and everyone can't wait to hear about it!  I ask lots of questions so we get the whole effect and its great for practicing speaking and listening skills:)  Below are pictures of our book from last year and this year's new book.

Birthday Book page completed by a student

Michael's sweet page says "Transformers cartoons from my Uncle Josh!  I got a truck from Matthew and Caleb."  We encourage parents to help the students write.

This year's Birthday Book

Inside Pages

I put also put a read aloud inside the bag for students to share at home with their families.  Last year I used Happy Birthday, Hamster by Cynthia Lorde and it was a big hit!  In the past, I have used If You Give a Cat a Cupcake by Laura Numeroff and A Birthday for Frances by Russel Hoban.

Click the picture to grab yourself a copy:)

The highly anticipated birthday balloon is also peeking out of the bag.  It's a ginormous Pixie Stick or Laffy Taffy rope with a balloon topper attached.  I read about the birthday balloon idea here.  Love, love, love!  The kiddos have to take the balloon home to eat, which is clearly devastating the first time they all hear this. I prep all of the birthday balloons before school starts and keep them in a little vase on a shelf with my birthday bucket that holds all of my birthday supplies.

Here is a cutout birthday balloon.  I run a class set on bright card stock and cut them out.   Then I tape the candy sticks to the back.

Are you still with me?  Last thing I promise!  During writing that day, we dedicate our time to making a birthday book to honor the student.  At the beginning of the year most of the kiddos are only drawing and then we progress to writing.  We brainstorm a list of things we can draw and write to make the person's birthday really special. They never cease to amaze me with all of the sweet things they think up!    I also prep all of these book covers before school starts and fill them with copies so that they are ready to go when each big day arrives.  After everyone is done with their page, I bind them into a little book and we present it to the student after singing Happy Birthday. The student gets to take it home as a keepsake.  

Take Home Birthday Book

We have 2 choices of writing pages.  A drawing only page for the beginning of the year and a draw and write page as students progress into writers:)

I promised if you made it to the end of this post, I would have a birthday treat for you!  Click on the picture below to download your own copies of all the Birthday Bag printables.  I hope you can use them in your classroom!  Leave us a comment and let us know how you celebrate in your classroom:)

We know you've heard this a million times, but we promise for real to be back soon with the portfolio tutorial!  Enjoy the weekend!

Star Student FREEBIE!

One of our students' favorite things is being star student!  Each child gets to be the star student for a whole week.  Each day we do something special to celebrate that child!  We would love to share these ideas with you, so you can help your own students shine!  The kiddos C.A.N.N.O.T wait for their turn.

Below is the note we send home to the parents to explain the events for the week.  Read this to see what the kiddos get to do each day.  Click the image to download for FREE!

This is the student page.  We encourage each student to write the star student a sentence, and illustrate them a picture.  These pages are then complied and stapled together with a (construction paper) cover to make a book for the star student to take home on Friday!  If you click the image below, you can download them for FREE.  There are 3 variations of the student pages to fit the needs for your classroom.  

These are the posters the kiddos make at school on Monday!  You can get 30 for 8.25 at Oriental Trading.  Click the image below to take you to their site!  After their week is done, the kids LOVE that they get to take these home.

Each child also gets a pencil, sticker, and certificate (pictured below)!

This is our show and tell bag.  Students take it home at the beginning of the week and bring it back on show and tell day.  They can only bring items that fit into this bag.  The orange bag and star decal are from Michael's.  The bag came in a group of 3 for 9.99 (we used our 40% off coupon of course!!), and the decal was only 1.99.  This bag is band new this year, but our last one lasted 5 years!  

We hope you could use some of these ideas for your classroom!  Please share any good ideas you have for star student!

Student Information Freebie!

Is it really time to start going through our back to school files?! YESSSS!  We cannot believe how fast this summer is going.  Here is a file we came across that we will be using this year to gain some extra information about our kiddos at the beginning of the year.  We have our "Meet the Teacher" night before school starts, so we will give it to our parents then, and they will generally send it back in on the first day of school!  Click on the picture below if you could use a FREE copy of this too!  Enjoy your last few weeks of summer!

Free Apps

All summer we have been looking for FREE apps for our I pads.  We were lucky enough to get some for our classrooms this year!  We cannot wait to have our students using them to enhance their learning.  Below is a list of FREE apps for both language arts and math.  They are geared for kiddos K-2.  Click on the photo below to download the list.  If anyone has additional apps that have worked for them in their classroom, please leave a comment below.  We would love to hear from you and add to our list! 

If you would like free tablet click art ... click the image below.  Workaholic NBCT has some cute clip art and she offers a lot for free!

Five For Friday Linky Party

We are a little late but didn't want to miss linking up with everyone!

 

 Do these look like postcards?  Well they're not!!!!!!  One of us was lucky enough to go to Maui this summer for 10 days!  It was amazing and beautiful... so hard to come home!

 This summer we've been looking for fun new additions to our Daily 5 rotations and found these cute little magnifying glasses at the Dollar Tree!  The black ones were only a buck each and they are ginormous!!  The colored ones were 6 for $1!  Can't beat that! We found them hidden in the party section!  We think our kiddos will love them:)

We have been looking literally forever for 15 minute timers for our Daily 5 rotations!!!  These are great visual reminders for our kiddos as they are building stamina and learning to work independently.  Click on the picture to grab some for yourself!

We've always wanted to get Whisper Phones for our Read to Self station but didn't love the price tag!!!!  So we decided to get a  lil' crafty and were able to make 25 for less than $20!!!!!!!!  We bought all the supplies at Lowe's (pvc pipes) and they even cut them for us for FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!  It literally took less than an hour to put them all together.  We found the tutorial from Teacherific in Second Grade.  Click on the picture to check out her site!

We just reached a mini-milestone (for us!) on TPT!  We have over 100 followers and are so thankful for each and every one of them!  To say thank you, we have created 2 FREEBIES that you can only grab here!  We created some listening center response sheets for Kindergarten and First grade.  There are lots of choices and hopefully they will be helpful to you are your kiddos!  Click on the pictures to download the files!

These pages are perfect for First and Second Graders!

These pages are perfect for Pre-K and Kindergarten!

We hope you are all having an amazing summer!  

Shape Posters

Shape Posters
     Hey friends!  We are still busy getting all of our stuff ready for back to school and have been updating a lot of our classroom resources! We are posting our shape posters in our TPT store for free!  Check out the previews below for the bright polka dot and chevron themed shape posters that match our clip charts and math manipulative labels!    Hope you like!!!

Back to School Freebies!

Back to School Freebies!

Hey!  Just finished making some stuff for back to school!  We made signs for our kiddos to hold up for first day of school pictures and a fun little Pop Rocks treat topper to get them excited for back to school!  Thought you might be able to use them too:)  The signs are posted  in our TPT store for grades PK-5 and the treat toppers for grades K-5... check out the previews below and click on the covers to grab them for FREE!  Check back soon for more back to school freebies!