How I use beach balls for letters, sight words, syllables and number recognition practice!

Hi everyone,
I am going to jump right in! It's been way to long!

I wanted to share what I've been working on! I might be slightly obsessed with the Dollar Tree and their beach balls! I started last year and made a ball full of our sight words.

Since it's the beginning of the year, I thought why not do it with letters and syllables (since we are a full day Spanish program.)

Here's a pic of the lowercase letter ball and uppercase letter ball I made. I like to leave a little bit of air out of the ball so it's easier for the kids to catch. Whatever letter their thumb lands on when they catch the ball is the letter or syllable or sight word etc. they need to read.

Transitions:
I love using this as students come in from recess. I can pass the ball to someone who came in quietly and sat down professionally on the carpet or walked to the carpet after getting some water.

Enjoy!

Summer to-do list!

Sorry for the missing in action. It was a bit stressful and very busy Spring. I'm hoping to get into blogging with more frequency!

Life: Does anyone else get overwhelmed during the Summer with all of the things they want to accomplish and get done? I have been trying to keep up with all of the reading I wanted to get done but it's been challenging with teaching at an awesome Summer Science camp! I am seriously learning more than the kids and they teach me soo much everyday. The most interesting learning for me has been that my Summer students are from a higher economical status from the students I have been working with the past two years. I have read books on working with students in poverty but I really had never experienced teaching students who were more affluent and did not know how different this Summer would be for me. My eyes have been opened!

On to the to-do list:
1. Finish reading and planning for Literacy workstations (Debbie Diller)
2. Finish reading and planning for Math stations
3. Re-read (read it last Summer) Daily 5 and Cafe and figure out how I am going to combine or plan to incorporate Literacy Stations and Daily 5.
4. Read: Children's Mathematics: Cognitively Guided Instruction <CGI> (a teacher friend read it and told me about it. There are some videos on youtube for more information if you're interested.)
5. Figure out how to incorporate Math Stations with Guided Math with CGI
6. Go through brain breaks on pinterest and create my own popsicle sticks.

7. Go through my Transition Magician book and create popsicle sticks for quick transition ideas.


8. Get into my new classroom at a new school and start setting everything up! And also get the 30+ boxes we have in our house out of here and into my new room!

To help with my dilemma on how to incorporate both Literacy Stations and Daily 5 I found this awesome Linky Party:
http://seusstastic.blogspot.com/2011/11/daily-5-stationliteracy-station.html

I found this awesome linky party on Math work stations:
http://time4kindergarten.blogspot.com/2012/06/math-work-stations-again.html

There is also a Kindergarten Daily 5 study going on this Summer:
http://livelovelaughkindergarten.blogspot.com/2012/06/kindergarten-daily-5-book-study.html

And there is also a Guided Math book study going on this Summer:
http://primaryinspired.blogspot.com/p/guided-math-book-study.html

Hope you enjoy all the blog stalking as much as I am!