DIY Relaxation Station & Freebies

Hey guys! It's Julie from Big Ideas For Little Hands! The beginning of the school year is always crazy and hectic but I wouldn't trade it for the world! We have been very busy reviewing, practicing, and modeling those rules and procedures every day in our classroom. You can never practice them enough in Kindergarten. Even after you model and review those rules to death, you still sometimes have those one or two little sweeties that need just a little more than the others. Sometimes those behavior charts, clip charts, or any other system that you have in place is just not enough.

I wanted to tell you about a little area in my room that I started this year, the Relaxation Station! I have a few little sweeties this year that just need some alone time to regroup and calm down before they are able to work again. Come on, who doesn't need a few minute break occasionally. I know that I do!

I set up this small little area in the corner of my room out of the way of the chaos to allow students to go and sit and calm down and regroup before beginning their work again. This allows the students time to relax and think about their choices before going back and working with the other students. 

I start with these Calm Down Cards. I wear a set on my lanyard and my para does also for those moments when we are not in the classroom and a kiddo needs a little reminder. These have become my new best friend this year! My principal even wears a set :) I also hang up a visual poster in the room so the kiddos can use the cards independently.

First, the student will stop whatever they are doing. They will then smell the flower (take a deep breath in) and blow out the candle (blow the breath out). Next, they will slowly count to 10. If they are ready to rejoin the class at this point then they may go right ahead. If not, they have the choice of taking a break in the relaxation station, reading a book, or hugging a stuffed animal. Let me tell you guys, these cards are a miracle! They have stopped many many tantrums in my room this year. Click below to download a set of these cards.

While they are in the relaxation station, there is a variety of options they can do to help calm down. One option is a calm down bottle. They will shake the bottle and watch the glitter swirl around and settle to the bottom. When the glitter has settled, they rejoin the class. These are so simple to make! All you need is a water bottle and glitter glue.

First make sure the water bottle is about 3/4 filled with water. 

Then add about 2/3 of the bottle of glitter glue. You may also add beads or other small objects to the bottle if you wish. 

I figured out that it went much faster if you took the top off when putting the glitter glue into the bottle.

Hot glue the top on and then go to town shaking and mixing everything together.

The kids love these!

Another option is for the students to draw how they feel. I have a chart hanging that show students different emotions. The students can pick with emotion best fits them and they may draw them with that emotion. You can click below to download a copy of the emotion chart and the face for the students to draw.

Graphics from Educlips & Font from Hello Literacy

The last few options is the students may pick a book from the box to read or pick a stuffed animal to hold and cuddle with while they calm down.

Hopefully these few tips will help you throughout your school year! Have a great week and hope you are enjoying this beautiful fall weather!

~*~Julie~*~

Cute DIY Pumpkin Cupcake Recipe

Happy October friends! I love making holiday cupcakes for my class parties, and I think these pumpkin cupcakes are so cute. The great news is they are easier than they look. 

You can make them ahead of time, or even make them in class with your students. The recipe works great at an adult supervised center, or can be made with the whole class during a fall or Halloween party. All you need to do is bake the cupcakes ahead of time and bring the rest of the ingredients and let students have fun decorating them. As you can imagine, they love frosting them and adding the sprinkles and stem. 

Whether you decide to make these ahead of time or together with your class, everyone will love eating them. Here's the recipe.

Ingredients

• a box of cupcake batter
• cupcake wrappers
• white frosting
• yellow and red food coloring
• orange sprinkles
• green licorice or candy (optional)

Directions

1. Make the cupcakes according to the instructions on the box.
2. Color the frosting orange using a few drops of red and yellow food coloring.
3. Frost the cupcakes with the orange frosting.
4. Squirt four lines for pumpkin "ribs" on the cupcake using the frosting.
5. Cover the frosting in orange sprinkles.
6. Press a short piece of green licorice (or any green candy) in the center for the stem.
7. Enjoy these cute cupcakes with your students!

As always, happy teaching!

DIY Crayon-Style Pencil Holder

Hello colleagues! We hope your school year is off to a great start. Here in Yucatan, our kids just went back to school on the last day of August. If you started earlier, don't be jealous though, because we'll pay for it later when we get out of school in mid July! 

Today we're blogging to share a fun and easy DIY project with you all. Eliceo and I love making crafty teacher stuff and this is one of our latest creations. It's super simple to make and only requires a few supplies. All you'll need are some cans, crayons, and craft glue (hot glue will melt the crayons). Then all you do is glue the crayons around the can. You can arrange them like a rainbow, or make a fun pattern with the colors. You could also tie a ribbon around them for added cuteness. Then we put it on our desks to hold all our writing tools. These would make a great gift for your colleagues, or even your secretary. If you're planning to make a bunch of them, make sure to stock up on crayons in the fall during the back to school deals. We hope you enjoy it. As always, happy teaching! 

Grandparent's Day Handprint Gift - Easy and Memorable!

Hello Friends!
This is Cindy from Kinderkay Love Those Kinders and I thought I would share with you an EASY and inexpensive Grandparent's gift that you can do with your kiddos.

SUPPLIES:

1 sturdy white paper plate
Watercolor paints
Tempera paint
Glue
Ribbon
Foam shapes - Optional

Step 1:
Children write their name on the handwriting line on the poem page. Cut out and glue to the back of the white paper plate. Click the image below or HERE to download a copy of the poems.*

*I do not take credit for the writing of these poems! They have been in a file I have had for a really long time.... If you know of the author, please leave a comment and I will give credit!

Step 2:
Use Tempera paint to paint each child's hand. Their handprint is in the center of the paper plate. Let dry.

Step 3:
When hand print is dry, children use watercolor paints to decorate the outside edge of the plate. Let dry.

Step 4:
Optional: Children glue small foam shapes around the outside edge of the plate.

Step 5:
Punch a hole in the top of the plate. Thread a ribbon through the hole. Add child's name and the year with a marker.

That's it! A sweet gift for Grandparent's Day!

Until next time!

DIY Word Building Mats

Hi everyone! Welcome to Make It Monday here on the iTeach Kinder Blog. It's Julie from Make, Take & Teach with a super fun project for helping your little learners use those letters and sounds to build words. Word building activities are a great way to support both phonemic awareness and phonics skills. You can purchase word building mats, but they can be so expensive. So, why not make your own?

All you'll need is poster board, decorative tape and a stapler. In an earlier attempt at this project I used Washi tape and it turned out okay. I much prefer using duck tape as it is a little sturdier.

Simply cut your poster board into a 5" x 9" rectangle. Measure one inch from the bottom and fold as shown below. 

Measure and fold your tape along the edges of the top portion of the board.

Now fold the one inch portion up and staple. Using an accent piece of tape (or even the same color), tape along the upper edge of the fold.

There you have it! Your very own word building mat. If you'd like to download the letter cards, just click the link.

Word Building Letter Cards

Thanks so much visiting us on the iTeach Kinder blog. 

DIY Alphabet Sound Tubs

Hi everyone, it’s Laura from Over the 1stGrade Rainbow.  Today I’d like to share with you some ideas with you on how to make your own alphabet sound tubs!  

When I taught kindergarten, I had the alphabet sound tubs from Lakeshore Learning provided to me by my school.  I loved using them!  They were great for small groups and phonics activities.  When I moved from that school I couldn’t take them with me.  Then I was really sad when I saw how much they would cost me to buy a set of my own.  As much as I would have loved to buy those tubs, it was a lot cheaper to go the DIY route. So I decided to make some this summer!  

Instead of using tubs, I decided to buy this Akro-Mils 10124 24 Drawer Plastic Parts Storage Hardware and Craft Cabinet.  (When I had the loose tubs, they would often get misplaced.  I also had the metal organizer for them but it took up too much space for me.)  The drawers on this cabinet are just the right size.  

I added these alphabet labels from Preschool Homeschool.  It was a small price to pay to not have to make my own, although you could always do that too!  

After I had the cabinet set up with the labels, I started filling up the drawers.  Here is a list of places where I’ve found items to fill the drawers:

1.  Target Dollar Spot – I can never go to Target without at least doing a quick sweep of this section. My favorite things to get from the dollar spot are little plastic toys or seasonal table scatter that I can use for math manipulatives.  I borrowed from these sets to add to my new ABC drawers.

2.  garage sales – Parents at garage sales practically beg me to take the small bags of their children’s knick-knack toys.  Mention you are a teacher and they may cut the price or give them to you for free!

3.  home junk drawer – We all have one right?  I know mine is FULL of small miscellaneous junk.  Lots to choose from!

4.  my daughter’s toys – I’ve borrowed several things from her play food set to use with the tubs.  I borrow it for the week and then put it back when we are done with that letter sound.  

5.  my parent’s house:  the honey hole – My parents used to own a ceramic mold business.  My mom would paint the samples for the catalogs and trade shows.  She kept a bunch of these small figurine samples for the grand-kids to play with.  When I asked her if she had anything I could use for the tubs she offered up the samples.  You never know what people have, so be sure to ask your family and friends  if they’d like to help!

6.  TOOB Animals – I have several of these sets that we’ve used for sensory bins.  They also are a great size for alphabet tubs! 

*I added magnetic alphabet letters in the tubs.  I found them in the Target dollar spot, but I have also seen them at the Dollar Tree.

If you aren't interested in buying a cabinet like I did, you could recycled plastic food containers.  Before I decided to buy the cabinet I had started saving these salsa containers from a local market.  

I hope this post helps you start your own alphabet sound tubs.  I'm always happy to answer any questions!  Thanks for stopping by!

Enjoying the Outside with Kids

Hello Friends,

It's Fun Friday and I thought I would share with you some  outside/garden activities that you can do with your students. If you are a parent looking for a few outdoor activities to do with your kids, these ideas can work for you, too!

First of all, I adore sharing the outdoors with kids! There is just something about kids and the outside. When I was a kid, we LIVED outside. Coming inside the house meant food, sleep, and baths; that's it. The rest of the day consisted of dragging toys outside, building forts for plastic animals with sticks and grass, and chasing my brothers around the yard. We even brought our meals outside!  Now, of course, life has changed and kids spend more time inside than outside. Life changes, but I STILL feel that kids need to be outside and whenever I can make the outdoors my classroom, I try to do it!

An easy and no prep activity that you can do with your kids is to simply give them a plastic storage bag. Their job is to find one item for every color of the rainbow and place it in the bag. The rules are dependent upon you! If you are comfortable with letting your kids pick things off the ground, trees, or bushes, then just set boundaries and let them go. Sometimes I will give my kids a storage bag and a pair of scissors. Rather than tearing off an entire leaf or flower from a tree/plant, they simply snip a piece off with scissors. If you do this and you have a large amount of kids, you might want to set some rules about how many kids can cut from a plant or how big of a piece they are to cut. If you don't do this, you might have some pretty naked plants! :)

When they have found their items, give them a roll of scotch tape and a piece of card stock. They use the tape to affix their items to the card stock; then label.

If you are not comfortable with  asking your kiddos to touch or take items from nature, you can give them a digital camera or iPad and have them take pictures of the items they find instead.

If you use digital pictures, the items they find do not even have to be alive. They could find be non-living things, too!

Another idea is taken from this wonderful book called LOOK WHAT I DID WITH A LEAF.

Kids search the yard looking for interesting leaf shapes and colors as well as other items they find laying on the ground. They use these items to create a picture using scotch tape, crayons, markers..... Add some paper and let the creativity begin!

If you are lucky enough to have a school garden as I am, there are so many fun things you can do with it. You can search for insects, look for differences in leaves, search for parts of the plant, search for vines and stems.... Arm your kids with clipboards and pencils and have them make drawings of what they see.

Another fun activity that I do with my students is a Garden Discovery scavenger hunt. First, I pair the children up. Each pair receives a clip board and a bag filled with a pencil and a box of colored pencils. Attached to their clip board is a recording sheet. The teacher picks a task card and shows the children the number on the card.

 The children write the number in the little box on their recording sheet.

Then the teacher reads the task and children search the yard or school garden for the answers. The entire group can be working on the same task card or individual pairs of kids can be working on different tasks.

 If you would like a set of these garden task cards, you can find them for free by clicking the link below. Enjoy!