Kindergarten Alphabet Soup

New Blog LAYOUT!

How cute is my new blog design!!! I want to tell you all about Diana at Custom Blog Designs, because she is awesome to work with, and was able to get my design done SO quickly! :)

Her blog as all the steps written out for you, super easy to understand! If you are thinking of having your blog redone, or maybe thinking about sprucing up your Facebook cover photo or twitter background, I would totally recommend her! Her prices are very comparable as well, you get a lot!

SO take a look around, check out all the new things (social media buttons and navigation links on my ADORABLE new blog header) and let me know what you think! Please check out Diana's blog to see all of her designs, too!

Back to School post to come this weekend (YAY Labor Day! YAY 3 DAY WEEKEND) so keep your eyes out for that.

Keep smiling!

xoxo

Redecorated Room Reveal!

Alright Pals, its that time...Back to school!! I cannot believe that summer is actually over, but having a newly decorated room is making it a little easier to get back into the swing of things!

I want to start off by sending out a big thanks to my new friend Karen at The Classroom Creative for some adorable decorations, and a new teacher friendship! Look for more of her and her business partner's items to come! Check them out on TpT and on their blog!

Ok, let's get started! I started off the redecoration by choosing my color scheme. I decided to go with Primary Colors! They are perfect for Kinders!! Once I decided on the color scheme, I began searching for different supplies to coordinate. My pride and joy of this redecoration process were my crate seats (see the previous post!!) which fit in PERFECTLY and really tie everything together!

Crate seats!!!

Reading corner! Books all labeled using Kinder-Craze's
Library labels!

Meet the Teachers bulletin board is a quick and easy
board for Back to School! :)

Big Book bin from the Container Store! It is a large Elfa drawer!

Any questions please leave a comment! Feel free to share on Pinterest and take pictures and show me if you use any of this as inspiration for your classroom redecoration!!! Talk to you all soon! Happy Back to School!!

xoxo,

Little Miss ABC

Milk Crate Storage Seats

DIY Day - Milk Crate Storage Seats!

By popular demand, I am making a post all about my new Milk Crate storage seats, which I made this weekend! I want to stress that this project is very simple and very quick to complete, but you will need to use some power tools so BE SAFE! First of all, I did not reinvent the wheel with this little project, I did find a tutorial on Pinterest. There are MANY out there, so check them all out and find which one reflects the crate you prefer! This tutorial is for milk crates that I bought at Target in the summer of 2014.

I made 6 seats using the following amount of supplies!

Materials:

Milk Crates!
I found mine at Target for about $4 each.
They came in a few colors (red, teal, pink, white, and black)
I chose red for my crates because my classroom is a Primary Color theme.
You would buy the same number of crates as seats you would like to make.

2 yards of Fabric!
I love everything about chevron, so of course,
I had to go with chevron fabric for the seats!
I chose the navy and white chevron to match with the primary color theme.
I bought my fabric at Hobby Lobby, where it was $6.99 a yd PLUS 30% off!
I ended up getting each yard for about $4.50.

1 spool of ribbon (1.5" x 3yd)
Of course, the primary theme needs a little pop of yellow!
Polka dots are a cute complimentary pattern to the chevron.
Make sure you choose a ribbon that does not have wire inside,
as well as choose a ribbon that is thick (1.5" wide is perfect!)
This will be used for the handle to lift the lid out of the crate.
I bought my ribbon at Hobby Lobby as well, and each spool is $1.99 and 30% off!

Foam squares (1" thick is perfect! Make sure it is also 15" by 17")
The foam pads are a little expensive. But they are so worth it.
I had seen tutorials which instructed you to buy a roll of foam and then cut to size.
I found it cheaper to buy the pre-cut squares, and then cut those down to size.
I bought these at Hobby Lobby, and each was $3.

You will also need some plywood - I do not have a photograph of my plywood, but I can give you the measurements. The wood I used was about 1" thick (that's from my rough "girly" estimate. I don't usually work with plywood when I am DIY-ing ;) The wood will need to be cut into 14.5" by 12.5" rectangles. My suggestion is to measure the inner lip of the crates you purchase, just to be sure it will fit. This is the hardest step! We had to trim down our first cuts because they did not quite fit inside the lip of the top of the crate. I did not purchase my wood (thanks to some left over shelves that I took from my newly renovated closet) but from what I read you can purchase wood at Home Depot, and they will make cuts for you (and possibly for FREE!) If you are cutting yourself, make sure you have someone near who knows what they're doing with a circular saw, and measures correctly. My wonderful Dad cut my wood for me, so if you have any specific questions regarding this step, leave it in the comment section and I will get back to you!

You will also need my favorite power tool; a Staple gun!

Instructions:

1. Cut your plywood! (1" thick, 14.5"x12.5" rectangles)

2. Trace the outline of your plywood onto the foam squares and cut the excess off. I used regular paper scissors to cut the foam, and it worked really well! It was very easy to cut. MAKE SURE to keep your foam pieces and wood pieces that match together. Some of the wood/foam were just slightly different dimensions (no one is perfect!) so I tried to keep them as a matched pair as best I could. This will help keep each seat looking neat and clean.

3. Lay fabric out on a large flat surface and lay a foam/wood match pair on top. Measure out so that you have about 2" inches around each side. I was able to get all 6 fabric pieces out of my 2 yards of fabric. Measure carefully so you don't waste!

4. Get out your STAPLE GUN! Lay out the fabric on a flat sturdy surface, place the foam piece down first, then place your wood rectangle on top of the foam. Make sure that if your fabric is patterned that you put it down the same direction each time. For example, my chevron pattern runs along horizontally on all of my seats.

- pull one side of fabric up tight around the foam and wood, staple all along that side. (If you do not know how to use a staple gun, have someone who does show you how to use it first. Safety first, people!)

- Next, staple the side opposite the side you just finished! Go along the whole side again.

- To finish your seat top, fold up the remaining sides, similar to wrapping a present. Staple down the corners really well, as well as the remaining sides.

- I always flipped my seat cover over to see how it would now look from the top! Make sure it is tightly pulled around, and looks good to you.

5. Grab your ribbon and cut 6 pieces 1/2 yard long. Fold your ribbon in half to create the "loop"

6. Turn each of the finished seats over to the stapled side, and place the folded ribbon loop on one of the 12.5" sides of the seat. Make sure that enough ribbon is hanging off the side so that once it is placed into the crate it will hang out the side. You need the ribbon loop to lift the lid out of the crate. Staple the ribbon to the wood.

7. Place seat lid into the crate and ENJOY your new milk crate storage seats!!!

That's all I've got for you, pals. Please please please comment any questions you have, or let me know if any of the instructions don't make sense! I like to think I explained it well, but I also put them together first, so I may have left something out. Happy DIY-ing and make sure to share your finished products with me! Post them to the Kindergarten Alphabet Soup FACEBOOK page or follow me and tweet me your pictures @littlemissABC on Twitter or @xo_teach on Instagram!

xoxo,

Little Miss ABC

Poetry Week - DAY 2

Acrostic Poetry

Today we explored the wonders of Acrostic poems! This is a great type of poem to introduce to this age group because we are constantly working on breaking down the sounds in letters (distinguishing the beginning, middle, and ending sounds of words). We began our discussion by creating an acrostic poem about JESUS! I love learning about Jesus with my class. :)

Here's our poem!

J oy

E ternal life

S on of God

U nfailing

S avior

After we made our class acrostic, I explained to the class that they would be making acrostic poems all about them using their very own NAMES! This was a difficult, but super rewarding task for my class! It caused them to really dig deep into their creativity and think of not only some words that describe them, or their favorites, but also to match up some of those words with the letters of their names! They came up with some great poems!! To keep the privacy of my students under wraps I won't reveal any of their poems to you, but I can give you some examples of what they included:

M inions (minions are a MUST for my class this year)
H elper (I have some awesome helpers in class!)
E at cheese pizza (this little guy LOVES pizza, and was creative to use multiple words for 1 letter!)
L ove (a popular choice amongst the girls)

If you are looking to do this with your class, I definitely suggest having it as a small group activity if you are the only adult in the room. I was lucky enough to have an aide helping out, which allowed us to reach each student and help them think of words for their letters.

Check out this Mother's Day acrostic poem idea from Scholastic!!

Make sure you check back TOMORROW for a post all about the beginning stages of our descriptive creative poems!

PS: One of my kiddos brought these for a birthday treat the other day, HOW CUTE! I am so thankful there are people in the world with enough talent and patience to make cool things just like this. :)

KEEP SMILING!
xoxo,

Little Miss ABC

Happy Poetry Month!

We are celebrating Poetry Month here in Kindergarten!! I am so excited for what is going to come of this week, these kiddos are so creative! I can't wait to see what they'll produce.

We had a chalk talk at the beginning of ABC time to discuss that burning question, "What is a poem!?" Check out the cute answers! :)

I will be doing a quick post each day this week highlighting our adventure through the land of poetry, giving a glimpse into the classroom. Each day we will focus on how poems are written and the specific rules/guidelines for writing the different types of poems.

TODAY'S POEM: HAIKU

Haiku's are incredibly short, and a great start when teaching kinders about poems! We used the standard syllable rule:

The first line has five (5 syllables)

The second one has seven (7 syllables)

The third, five also (5 syllables)

(Hey! It's a haiku about haikus!)

We read a few poems from the book (click for link) Guyku (Bob Raczka and Peter H. Reynolds) to introduce the idea of what haikus can look like. Such a cute GUY poetry book, with some funny ones as well as some thoughtful poems.

After reading, I introduced the class to their SUPER AWESOME POEM BOOKS!

I made this super cute poem book up, and included blank pages for writing as well as space for drawing pictures. The kiddos will record all of our original poetry in these books. One of my kiddos suggested we take some of our poems and make them into a book! I love this and might just do it for their end of the year gift :)

Finally, we worked together and came up with a cute little haiku which is called Poem Haiku.

There you have it! Poetry Week Day 1!!! Check back each day this week for updates and more ideas!

Keep smiling

xoxo,

Little Miss ABC

Signs of Spring FREEBIE!!

Hey lovely followers, Facebook friends, twitter followers, and pinners! Guess what I learned how to do today?

Upload things to my very own Teachers Pay Teachers store! Please check out my new store, and grab yourself a freebie! I created this freebie for my class to use on our Signs of Spring walk tomorrow. My plan is to have them bring out our mini clipboards and a pencil, and each time we find a "sign of spring" they will be invited to write down or draw a picture of that sign.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Little-Miss-Abcs-Trinkets

I love taking seasonal walks to look for the signs of the season with my class. I love how it gives my kinders an authentic learning experience. It's one thing to read that spotting robins hopping around in the grass is a sign of spring, but when you actually SEE the robin hopping around, how cool is that?!

Thanks for visiting and ENJOY THE FREEBIE!! :)

Keep smiling!!

xoxo,

Little Miss ABC

Liebster Award Nomination!

Well, that Brittany Brune over at Nifty in First Grade is just the best friend a girl could have! She has nominated me for the Liebster Award!! Pretty fitting that the word "liebster" is a German word meaning such things as "dearest, sweetest, kindest..." because that's what my best friend is!! :)

The Liebster Award is given to a new blogger with less than 200 followers.

Per the rules of the Liebster Award, Brittany has given me some questions to answer about myself.

1. What grade do you teach? What grades have you taught? How long have you been teaching?

I teach Kindergarten, I have taught Pre-k as well as I have worked in daycare and childcare settings. I have been teaching Kindergarten for about 2 years now, but have been teaching in the Early Childhood field for about 4 years.

2. What book do you read to your class each year without fail?

If you've read my previous post you'll know the answer to this question already. Any and all of the Piggie and Elephant series by Mo Willems. My kinders love them as read-alouds, but they also love to read them themselves!

3. If you weren't a teacher, what would you be doing?

If I wasn't a teacher, I would be working in DisneyWorld somewhere. My ultimate dream would be to be a "friend" of a Disney Princess in Disney. To see the happiness of every visitor coming in each day would be so fulfilling. :)

4. What's one thing you're just dying to buy for your classroom?

New bookshelves! I have recently been very inspired by another blogger and her classroom (check out Maria Manore's blog KinderCraze). I am hoping to totally revamp my classroom this summer!!

5. What's your non-teaching guilty pleasure?

Pretty Little Liars and Once Upon a Time. I am a little bit obsessed with both of these TV shows...Besides some great TV, I just recently bought myself an iPad and I have been spending way too much time playing around with it and figuring out what it can do!

6. Favorite book that is not teaching related?

The HUNGER GAMES series. These books got me back into reading recreationally. I love that the main character is a strong heroine, a great role model for girls today! The story is also incredibly compelling, I couldn't put them down!

7. What's one thing on your bucket list?

Travel around Europe. Hands down, this is the next big trip I will be taking!

8. Favorite restaurant?

The Cheesecake Factory. They have EVERYTHING, fabulous drinks, and tasty cheesecake. I also feel really classy whenever I eat there :)

9. Who would play you in a movie about your life?

Rachel McAdams. I have been told she's my celebrity doppleganger! And I just love her.

10. What's one thing you could eat everyday?

Mozzerella cheesesticks. Is that weird? I actually eat one of these everyday!

11. What inspired you to begin blogging?

I actually began it to help me get more organized. The best part about this blog (when I actually keep up with it!!!) is that I have an organized, easy to access lesson plan log! While the main purpose now is to share my ideas with other teachers, it is great to be able to look back on what I did this week last year and have it all organized for me, pictures and all!!!

Along with answering Brittany's questions, she has also asked that I share 11 random facts about myself! Here goes nothing!!

1. I am Disney OBSESSED!!! "It all started with a mouse"

2. I am a Mac user. Apple all the way!!

3. I hate the smell of popcorn.

4. Spring is the best season, and it seems like it will be the SHORTEST season this year!!!

5. When asked what my favorite hobby is, I usually answer with "shopping"

6. I have a puppy (who lives at my parents' house) who is my favorite animal on the planet!!

7. I LOVE COUNTRY MUSIC! Especially Miss Miranda Lambert!!

8. I have to sleep with a fan.

9. I knew I was going to be a teacher since the 5th grade. Never changed my occupational aspirations after the 5th grade.

10. Tulips are my favorite flowers!

11. While you'd never guess it from my personality, I absolutely LOVE traveling to Las Vegas!