Back-To-School With Common Core, a FREEBIE & a 1-day Sale!

It's August 4!  And it's my 40th wedding anniversary!  How can that be?  I must have been only 2 when I got married!

Anyway, it's also my day to post on this wonderful blog, share some ideas, and a FREEBIE & a one-day sale just for you!  I'm sure you are all thinking about school and the Common Core, so I thought I would share some fun ideas to keep the learning real and hands-on since that's what Common Core is all about.

First, I want to share my spaghetti and meatballs sight words center:

You can clip the rubber bands or just leave them whole.

I saw this idea on Pinterest.  They had flat construction paper meatballs with sight words in a colander with strings.  I love to get inspired by an idea on Pinterest and change it up a bit!

Children can practice matching the sight words alone.

I made the meatballs out of large wooden beads.  I covered them with small, torn pieces of brown tissue paper and Mod Podge (or white glue with a little water mixed in) and I added a sight word to each one before adding one more coat of Mod Podge.  I made 2 matching meatballs for each sight word.  Throw them into a colander with some rubber bands and add a pair of tongs from The Dollar Store to make this a fine-motor/sight word center.

Here, two students are reading the sight words to each other.

Students pick a meatball and then they have to find the matching meatball.  Throw in a red checkered table cloth and some chef hats and it will delight your kids while they practice their sight words.  Or change it to match capital and lower case letters or numbers and sets, etc.  You can get more info about my Spaghetti & Meatballs Center by clicking here.

Here is another Common Core hands-on activity for addition and subtraction practice to promote fluency to 5 or composing and decomposing to 10:

I found these cute divided plates at The Dollar Store in the baby section.  You get 2 for $1.

I'll put little silk flowers in the cups.

They also had packages of 2 covered cups that matched!  There were ladybugs, frogs, bees, & bears, oh my!  :)

I'll put bear counters in the bear cups.

I will place 5 bear counters in the bears and let the kids spill them over the plate to see how many pieces land in the top section and how many land in the bottom section.  Then, they can use our Circle Math templates to color the circles:  brown for the counters that landed in the top section and yellow for the counters that landed in the bottom section.  Last, they write their number sentence.  You can find out more about how to practice addition with these plates & cups and lots of other small containers 

 RIGHT HERE.

And here is where you can find our Circle Math templates.

There is a page
for each number
from 3-10.

You can also use the frog plates to teach subtraction along with our 5 Little Frogs Subtraction book.

I have little frog counters for these cups.

Students will spill 5 little frog counters (or beads, counters, etc) into the bottom section and then they will remove a certain number (0-4) and place them into the top section to demonstrate subtraction.  Last, they write their number sentence in the book.  The book has a page for each number 1-5.

Here is where you can get the 5 Little Frogs book.      

I LoVe to share our ideas about how to make learning FUN.  My colleague, Sarah, and I will be presenting our Common Core Math ideas at a one-day conference in Orange County, California on Saturday, October 5, 2013.

Click on the image for more information.

We are so excited to share the day with Heidi Butkus, from Heidi's songs.  She will be presenting her amazing ideas and original songs on English Language Arts in the morning and Sarah and I will be sharing our Common Core Math ideas at a "Make and Take" during the afternoon.  This is going to be a GREAT day!   Click <HERE> to see Heidi's blog.

You can find more info here about the one-day conference.     

You can register here for this fun-filled fall conference.

Last, I want to share a very useful FREEBIE with you:

The Giving Tree

I call it my "Giving Tree" because it lets parents know what they can give to your class.

~I write the items I need for my class on the apples (items like divided plates from The Dollar Store, wooden beads from Michael's, or anything at all) and the date I need them by.
~I cover each apple with a Post-it (any Post-it will do, but they do make apple Post-its) and I write the item and the date I need it by again on the Post-its.
~Parents "pick" a Post-it apple off of the tree and donate the item.

 If you print the FREE Giving Tree on cardstock and laminate it, you can write on the apples with a black crayon or a grease pencil.  Then, you can re-use it over and over again.

And, one more thing...
                                                                Be sure to check out:

Kfundamentals on Facebook where you can "like" us so you never miss a cool idea.

 Palma Lindsay on Pinterest where I have a board for every grade level called "$5 and under".
Click here for the "Kindergarten- $5 and under" board.

KFUNdamental's blog where I am posting a new Classroom Set-up Idea every day this month!

There, you can follow us via Bloglovin' and you can add our button to your blog!

and

KFUNdamental's TPT store 

We are featuring our Beginning of School Bundle which will be on sale for today only!

It's a $19 value, regularly $15, but I'm running a 1-day sale for my 40th anniversary  

only on August 4 for $10!  

That's 40 years divided by 4 (for Aug. 4th)!

Bye until September 4!

Remember to keep the FUN in the FUNdamentals!