1-2-3 Come Make A "Feelings Wheel" With Me

How are you feeling? 

Easy enough question for most people, but preschool & kindergarten kiddos might not have a good grasp of understanding and identifying how they, or others feel.

I truly believe that it’s very important to know how your students are feeling, particularly at the beginning of the year; and especially during these trying times.

We have no idea what sort of baggage these little ones are carrying to school each day. 

If they are given an opportunity to express their feelings, I think you will not only build a more caring and compassionate classroom, but help your students get into a more positive attitude conducive to learning.

With that in mind, I designed this quick and easy (print & go) “Wheeling & Dealing With Feelings” packet, which will help you do just that in a super-fun way.

The Packet Includes:

•   *  An "Everyone Everywhere Has Feelings" poster.
  After I ask, "Does anyone know what feelings are?" and we discuss the definition,  giving a variety of examples, I use this poster to introduce my lesson.
  
• It never ceases to amaze me that my young fives are surprised that adults, especially teachers, have the same feelings that they do!
  

  *  There are also 3 bear-themed feelings POSTERS to help introduce the "Feelings Wheel" craft.  Later, you can hang these up on the wall.

• *  The packet also includes a craft; a“How I Feel WHEEL” with a variety of options.
  

The BEAR pattern is my personal favorite, and the easiest one to implement, as you simply run off a class set. 

Regular copy paper works just fine, but if you're going to use them all year, you may want to print on card stock, so they are sturdier. 

The black & white bear patterns come with & without facial features. Children color, then cut on the dashed lines, snipping out the "mouth" section, so that it reveals the various "feelings". 

To make things a bit more personal, I've also included 8 BOY patterns, as well as 9 girl options.

As you can see, there is a nice variety of ethnicities represented; however, this is not really evident to youngsters, as they are just as apt to pick a pattern based on how much they like a hairdo, than anything to do with their own hair style. 

The bottom wheel has 4 pattern options:

1. Mouths that are labeled with the feeling, 2. just the mouths, 3. just the feeling labels, so that children can draw their own mouths & 4. a blank 5-piece pie circle, so that students can draw & label whatever feeliings you want them to.

Even though little ones cannot read, I recommend that you use the labeled wheel.

Because you are using it everyday, soon your kiddos will be able to “read” those “feeling words” because they are seeing them all the time.

The pictures also aid in memorization.

Feelings on the wheel: happy, sad, mad, silly & scared.

Although there are many different types of feelings, to keep things simple, I’ve limited “feeling” choices to just these 5, which children readily understand & can identify with.

I think if you give younger kiddos too many options, they feel overwhelmed and find it difficult to make a choice.

As part of your introduction, show them your sample wheel & explain each feeling.

Afterwards, make a face. Ask students to guess what emotion they think you are feeling.

Later, call out each feeling and have students show with their facial expression and “body language” how they think that feeling “looks”.

  *  I've also included a "Trace or Write" then Color, poster-worksheet, which will help students become familiar with these "feeling words".

  *   The daily graphing extension/worksheet serves multiple purposes. 

I think it’s important to track how children are feeling, so I designed this simple worksheet that children simply mark an X on each day for how they "mostly" feel. 

You can also have students draw a line through the boxes, so they can mark an X at the beginning of the day, then again at the end of the day. 

It’s certainly OK and normal to have a “terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day”, like Alexander; but if a child is continuously sad or scared, a red flag is being flown.

By filling out this simple, weekly worksheet and sending it home in our "take home" folders, which we call "Snail Mail" (Click the LINK to check them out) parents can get some insight into how their child is feeling “most of the time”, and can then talk about the reasons why. 

*  Finally, there is a "Share Bear" partner activity. “Let’s share because we care.”

Feelings expressed in this activity: happy, sad, mad, silly, scared, tired & grumpy.

I added two additional feelings for this "talk about it" time: (tired & grumpy), as children easily identify with these feelings too.

My students soon discover that if they are tired, they will often feel sad or grumpy too, which makes for a great discussion.

My kiddos absolutely LOVE this activity, and I think it's time well-spent as it's so important for children to express their feelings.
They might not want to tell the entire class how they are feeling, but I find that they are pretty excited to share their emotions with another person.

You can make this part of your morning routine, which will give you 5-10 minutes to take attendance, fill out a lunch count, check notes from home etc.

You can also walk around and listen to what children are saying. Sadly, I've heard my students say things like, "My grampa died.", "My parents got in a fight." "My cat ran away."   If not for this activity I'd have no clue.

Knowing how your students feel can truly help you understand their behavior, and perhaps why they are listless or "acting out". 

How it works:  When children come in, they pick a partner & grab a laminated "feelings" card. Sitting “criss-cross applesauce” they point to a bear that expresses how they feel, and explain why.

Often children are a combination of feelings, so explain that they can pick more than one feeling, or simply the one that they "mostly" feel like.

I truly believe talking this out helps children “unload”. Confiding, if you will, quite possibly can help a child feel better, as well as help create a caring classroom community. I find that children are generally very empathetic.

This is also a great way to end the day too. Children pick that same partner & share how they feel.  Have things improved? Did something happen to make the change in feelings, etc.

There are two Featured FREEBIES today. The first one is the "Everyone Everywhere Has Feelings" poster, which is part of the packet. Click on the LINK to grab a copy.

The second one will be a fun way to review feelings in October. 

It's called the Jack-O-Lantern's Smile. This is a simple "slider" craft, where children pull on the paper strip (slider) to change the mouth on the pumpkin to show how he's feeling.

Well that's it for today. Thanks for stopping by.

May your "bad hair days" be minimal, while your "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" days be in abundance.

For more Back To School activities, click on the link.

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Don’t forget that all of my new products are 40% off for 48 hours.

Click this LINK to follow my shop & you'll be notified of these huge savings.

"The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity." -Ellen Parr

1-2-3 Come Do Some Chrysanthemum Activities With Me

One of my students’ all-time favorite back to school books is “Chrysanthemum” by Kevin Henkes. 

It provides the perfect introduction to name activities, as well as reinforces the importance of speaking kind words.

With that in mind, I designed this jumbo Chrysanthemum literacy packet, which is chock full of a huge assortment of activities for you to choose from.

The packet includes:
* A variety of Worksheets
* An assortment of super-fun writing prompts

* Lots of posters

* Non-fiction: Interesting facts about chrysanthemum flowers, with follow up research challenge & poster to record their personal “fact finding”.
* “Bio Blip” for Kevin Henkes, an author activity

* “Let’s Text!” Making Connections activities: (text to self, text to text, text to world).

* Word work booklet with vocabulary-building activities, plus 30 word cards from the story.

* Cause & Effect activities
* Comparison - Contrast activities with Venn diagrams plus a personal favorite of mine the . . .

* Chrysanthemum “Promise Pledge” Bulletin board display and writing prompt activity with . . .
* 30 “I Promise” photo name cards. 

If you enjoy crafts, then I think you'll really like the . . .

* Simple paper chrysanthemum flower craft, which you can do at the beginning of the year for back to school, or save for Mother’s Day.

I've included a pattern with a leaf that says: "A mum for my mom" as well as "A mum for my mum."   

As you can see by the photographs, the results are truly awesome.

Even if you don't do them as a whole-group craftivity, make some up to add extra 3D pop & pizzazz to your bulletin board display of students' Chrysanthemum work.  There's also a . . .

* “Color Me" Flower Petal Power name poster plus . . .

* Mazes, Word Finds, “How Many Words Can You Make?” and “I spy my name!” game sheets, as well as . . .

* An alphabetical list of 300 words in Chrysanthemum's name!

* Bookmarks
* Name writing-coloring pages
* “Sticks & stones may break my bones…” posters, discussion & writing prompt activities and finally . . .

* 4 real photograph posters of delphiniums, plus 30 picture posters of chrysanthemum flowers. 

Use them to introduce the story, for descriptive writing prompts, or adjective practice, and for your bulletin board or hallway display. 

Whew! that's a whole-lotta literacy--in all, over 100 fun-filled pages!

Today's FREEBIE also features this sweet little mouse as well as a raccoon named Chester. 

The worksheets are based on 2 of my favorite back to school books: "The Kissing Hand" by Audry Penn and "Chrysanthemum" by Kevin Henkes.

Since the first week of school, especially that 1st day, can be exhausting, I designed these 2 "color me" worksheets, as a fun, quiet and independent little something children can do at the end of the day.

They're a real sanity saver, as kiddos are happily engaged coloring and writing their names, while you have a few peaceful minutes to get things ready for dismissal.  I hope you find them useful.

Well that's it for today. Not really complaining about summer weather, but these 90+ degree days have me seeking air conditioning, so I'm missing being active in my garden. 

That being said, I am getting a lot of designing done. Wishing you a fun-filled day.

"When the weather is hot keep a cool mind; when the weather is cold keep a warm heart." -Ajahn Brahm

1-2-3 Come Do Some More Mitten Activities With Me 

Brrrrrr! It continues to be mitten weather here in Michigan. A chilly 3 degrees this morning! So I'm certainly in the mood to blog about some super-fun mitten-themed activities.

First up is Mm is for Mitten.  My "Dollar Deal" Alphabet Wheels, are a quick, easy & fun way to practice letters, and build the vocabulary needed to give an example of a word, with that beginning sound.

They feature 6 nouns that begin with that letter, and come in black and white, for individual word work, as well as color, so that you can use them as an independent center activity.

I've also included a worksheet where students trace & write the words in alphabetical order. 

Next up are some Mitten Number Puzzles to go along with Jan Brett's story The Mitten.  It's one of my all-time favorite winter stories.

These 42, mitten-themed number puzzles, are a super-fun way for your kiddos to practice sequencing numbers from 1-10, counting backwards from 10 to 1, and skip counting by 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s.

Some of the puzzles are mitten shaped, others are rectangular (horizontal as well as vertical).  Many feature the characters from The Mitten story, so you can combine math and literacy!
 
Since Jan Brett’s story, The Mitten, is a Ukrainian folktale, I’ve also included a map of the Ukraine puzzle. Take a teachable moment to toss in a bit of geography, by having students find the country on a world map or globe.

There are colorful puzzles to be used in a center, as well as black & white puzzles, so that your students can make their own.

I did not number the character puzzles, so that students can number each strip according to your directions.
This way you can work on those toughie teen numbers, or counting beyond 100.

Children color the animal and word, cut their puzzle apart, then put it back together.
You can also make these into a mosaic picture as well, gluing the strips on construction paper, leaving a small gap in-between each piece. For an awesome, wintry bulletin board, scatter them on a  blue background, with a few paper snowflakes. 

Whenever I can, I like to incorporate math with literacy, to get more bang for my time.

The mitten-themed emergent reader, is a quick, easy and fun way to have students practice writing skills and end punctuation, along with a variety of math standards.

However, the packet is simple enough, that you can just do the craft portion with PK kiddos, or some of the other activities as a whole group.

I've also included a few worksheets that practice tally marks, addition, skip counting by 5s, subtraction and graphing, as well as data collection and analysis.

You can do them as an independent worksheet, or break students into small groups and have them figure out the answers together.

Another sweet mitten-shaped booklet is "Let's Count Snowflakes", which includes a 10-frame emergent reader featuring 30 Dolch sight words.

Students read the sentences, add end punctuation, trace & write the number and number word, circle it in the sequence, tally the amount, then show the set in the 10 frame. 

Run off the mitten pattern on a variety of colors of construction paper. Students cut & collate the pages of their worksheets, then staple them to the "cuff" of the mitten.

I’ve also included a set of pocket chart cards counting up to twenty, with 2 cover options to make a 1-10 or 1-20 “Itty Bitty” flip booklet as well.

For more fun, there are 3 pages of mini snowflake tiles to use as manipulatives to make groups with, as well as a set of lovely snowflake puzzle cards from zero to ten, plus a blank set to program with higher numbers.

Simply print, laminate and trim, to use as an independent math center, or for a variety of games including “Kaboom”.   That game, plus a 3-page tip list of what else you can do with the number cards, is also included in the packet.

Today's featured FREEBIE is a quick, easy and fun, Mitten-Snowman craftivity that reinforces letters, plus a bit of math. 

By the way, today is a great day to zip on over to TpT, as they are having a site-wide winter sale. (January 20th through January 21st.)

Everything's  20% off, with an additional 10% off with the coupon code: START16

Well that's it for now.  I hope you found something useful here and can make time to check out the TpT sale. Thanks for visiting.

Wishing you a warm and cozy, snuggly kind of day.

 "When there's snow on the ground, I like to pretend I'm walking on clouds." -Ikkaku

1-2-3 Come Do Some Miss Nelson is Missing Activities With Me

I am so excited to share my latest creation!  I hope you have as much fun with it, as I did designing the Miss Nelson is Missing Literacy & Math packet. 

Do you have a sub folder, binder or sub tub?  If you don’t, I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to take the time to make one.

You will be thanking yourself a zillion times later, when an emergency arises or you or your own children are sick.  This easy prep is a huge time saver!

Whether you’re “eaten by sharks” or “carried off by aliens”, you’ll have the peace of mind that “Viola Swamp” or whoever else subs for you, has a lesson plan.

This packet is HUGE, a whopping 203-pages, so there's enough for you to use part of the packet to teach a variety of standards, with plenty left over to add to a sub folder, binder or sub tub. 

It’s loaded with all sorts of reading, writing & math activities that your students will really enjoy doing.

There are also some awesome classroom management goodies like a Viola Swamp (Stop & Freeze!) tool, a Sweet Miss Nelson Punch Card, along with "Swamp's Stamp of Approval" posters & bookmarks that promote positive behavior. 

I've included a few little extras for making a sub tub, binder or folder, such as a "welcome note", cute "submarine" covers, & a "while you were out" form for them to fill out, so you know how things went.

There's a ton of writing prompts with 5 craftivities like the "What bugged Miss Nelson?  How did Miss Swamp bug the children?" ladybug, as well as the "Flipping over Characters" booklet.

As always, I include photographs & my completed sample masters, to share with your kiddos if you don't have the time to whip one up. 

Completed projects make wonderful bulletin boards to showcase your students' work.

Everything’s centered around the story, but also works independently as well. Simply pick & choose what’s appropriate for your kiddos.  

Run things off, organizing them however best suits your schedule, then fill out your lesson plan for what you’ve done, include the book & you’re good to go!  

Woo hoo! No worries, no stress, no trying to think, when your brain is elsewhere or your body is ill. I did the work, so you don’t have to.  

Using the materials I’ve provided & perhaps adding a few of your own ideas, you’ll have a sub tub, binder or folder that you can reuse every year!  One more thing checked off your “too-long” to do list.

The packet includes: posters, pocket chart cards, word cards, games, puzzles, a variety of worksheets, graphic organizers, Venn diagrams, lots of vocabulary-building word work, 2 class-made books, & an emergent reader.

There's also inference & prediction activities, text to text, self & world activities, so you can cover even more Common Core. 

The math activities review: numbers, skip counting by 2s, 3s, 5s & 10s, counting backwards, 2D shapes, addition & subtraction story problems, plus measurement.

Your kiddos will especially love the "Where's Miss Nelson, Miss Swamp & Detective McSmogg" shape games. 

The photo shows the Miss Nelson set.  There's a matching set for the other 2 characters as well. 

Because Miss Nelson is Missing, it seemed only appropriate to include a variety of "What Letter or Number is Missing?" worksheets.

My personal favorite math activity is the paper airplane measurement craftivity game.

I've included a pattern students fold to make the plane, plus recording sheets to fill with a variety of data about how far the planes flew. 

This is a super-fun way to practice a variety of math skills like: measurement, graphing, comparison-contrast, guesstimation, addition & subtraction.

I'm confident that you will LOVE the versatility of this super-fun, stress-busting packet.  It’s one of my most useful & all-time favorites. 

Click on the link to pop on over to my TpT shop.  To celebrate back-to-school, the Miss Nelson is Missing Literacy & Math Packet is on sale for only $7.95. I knocked $2 off for a limited time.

It's chock full of so many goodies, I can't even mention them all.  If you're at all interested, the best thing to do is click on my preview to see lots more samples, as well as a complete list of contents. 

I have 3 FREEBIES for you today.  All of them are included in the packet. 

The Miss Nelson is Missing pocket chart cards, are not only a quick, easy & fun way to review the story, but practice end punctuation and capitalization as well.  Click on the link to grab this useful FREEBIE. 

I'm also featuring 2 anchor chart-posters.  Click on the link for the "Parts of a Story" poster. 

The "If people don't appreciate your presence, then make them appreciate your absense" poster is a wonderful writing prompt for the Miss Nelson is Missing Story.  Discuss what the poster means and how it ties in with the story.

That's it for today. Time to go "cruising" in our Cooper & watch lots of antique trucks, hot rods & vintage cars cruise down 28th street. 

Each year this "blast from the past" gets bigger & better. Wishing you a wonderful weekend filled with sweet summer moments.

"Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?" - George Carlin

1-2-3 Come Zip Your Lips With Me

My kiddos LOVE zipping their lips.  Without a word, I hold up my poster paddle. There's a zippered letter Z on one side, and a quiet, zipped-up happy face on the other.  (Glue them back-to-back on a free paint stick).

As soon as my students notice that I'm holding up "Zippy" they silently make the motion of "zipping their lips", then raise their hand.

I can see at a glance who's on board, and even the stragglers get a clue in a few seconds.  It's so quiet you can hear a pin drop!  Woo hoo!

As motivation, at the end of the month pass out the  "I'm a star lip zipper" bookmarks for children to color & collect.  

There's also a star lip zipper poster.  Each month run the star pattern off on a different color. Place these stars under the poster.

Students who are superstar zippers for that month, get to sign their name. 

Attach the smaller star with the month on it, on a corner of the star.

I’ve also included zippered-star tokens, that you can print, laminate, trim & pass out to the first 3 students who zipped their lips when you held up Zippy, of for whatever else you deem appropriate.

Teach responsibility, and have children save their tokens 'til they get X amount, and then "cash in" to receive a prize. 

So that you can use them each year, laminate the sheet of 72.

I've also included a "Quiet please. It's time to zip your lips"  poster, as well as sweet "Shhhh!" poster, that's equally effective for getting students' attention, or reminding them that a particular area in your classroom is a "Quiet Zone".   

Click on the link to pop over to my TpT shop. This easy-peasy behavior modification technique is just $2.95.  However, to celebrate back to school, I knocked a dollar off for a limited time. 

As one of my teacher-friends said: "Peace & sanity-saving quiet for $2! I'm all over that." (Thanks Lucinda).

Here’s hoping you and your kiddos love this simple, "super-duper-shutter-upper" and that Zippy is as successful for you, as it has been for me. 

I have not forgotten today's featured FREEBIE either. 

It's a "Wisdom From the Classroom" poster, which makes a great writing prompt for older kiddos.  I hope you enjoy it. Click on the link to grab your copy today. 

It’s a gorgeous summer afternoon, with much to do, but the warm breeze is calling me, so I’m off to seek some sunshine. 

Wishing you a warm and wonderful day too.

“Just living is not enough…one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.” -Hans Christian Anderson