A Late Thanksgiving Idea and a Freebie

Happy Friday After Thanksgiving!

So what did you do today?  Eat leftovers, go shopping, put up Christmas decorations?  It is very cold and blustery here in southern Michigan.  And even though I don't want to admit it, I think I see some snow flurries outside.  Brrrrrr.....

I wanted to share something I did during my small group time with my students last week.  I didn't have my pictures downloaded until now to be able to share.

Who knew that students would love feathers so much?  I found the book, "When You Meet a Turkey" on Mrs. Meacham's Classroom Snapshot page.  The book talks about tickling a turkey and on the last page the turkey runs away.  I made a book for each student (or more accurately, my wonderful teacher's aide did).

Then when it came time for me to meet with my small groups, I called one group over at a time. I allowed each student to pick out a feather from a large box of  feathers (I have no idea how the box got into my classroom).  Then I took a piece of yarn and taped one side to the feather and the other side to the inside of the book.  Next, the students and I read the book together and the students used their feathers to point to the words in the book and to "tickle" their turkey.  They loved using the feathers to track print.  Now, some of my students were able to read the book, others could read a few of the words and still others were able to read it because of the repetitive text.  But it was exciting to see all of my students enjoying reading the book.  (Many of my students said, "Mrs. Lattea, can I really take the feather home?"  I love it when I can tell my students, "Yes, you can." and make them smile.)

Here is a picture of one of my students using his feather:

I have also decided to link up with Teaching Blog Addict for their freebie Friday:

My Freebie is a game that my students love to play.  We call it our hidden picture game.  The students play it during center time.  They put 8 to 10 pictures up on the magnetic board or felt board.  Then one student takes down a picture while the other students hide their eyes.  The other students take turns guessing what picture is gone.  The students who guesses correctly gets to hide a picture the next time.
Here is a link to my freebie:

Click here to visit my TPT store and download this game for free.

Enjoy your weekend!

I'm Thankful for My Followers

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I hope all of you are going to find time to spend with your family and friends this 4 day weekend.  I am so thankful for all of my followers.  So I decided to post a freebie for you.

Next week, I am going to have gingerbread theme for my centers.  One of the centers will include a hidden picture game.  My students love to play this game.  It is one of those centers where you just have to teach them what to do one time and they know exactly what to do when you have them play it.

Here is a picture of my students playing the game with Thanksgiving pictures:

One of the student is hiding a picture and the other one is guessing what picture it is.

This freebie has the game with a gingerbread theme.  I hope you are able to use it in the next few weeks.

Click here to download the freebie from my TPT store.

Thank you for visiting today.

My First Presentation

Happy Sunday Eve!

Are you already for Monday?  I hope so.  Where does the weekend go?  I'm so sorry that I haven't posted recently.  My laptop decided to only turn on for 5 seconds and then shut off, no matter what I did or how nicely I talked to it.  It is still being looked at by my brother-in-law.  He says that it isn't looking very good.  He is still hoping to get my important things off of my hard drive.  (I also received a speech from my 18 year old about how I was supposed to "back up everything".  Seriously, who has that kind of time.)  

All of this happened as I was making a PowerPoint to use when another teacher friend and I presenedt at the MAPSA Conference in Detroit, Michigan.  Luckily, I had backed up the PowerPoint on my Dropbox.  So, we didn't lose anything.  Yay!  I have stolen  borrowed my son's laptop to work on now.

Anyways, we presented last Monday.  Can I just tell you how wonderful it was?  This was our first time presenting.  We shared about how we each do centers in our classrooms (I teach kindergarten, as you know, and she teaches 1st/2nd across the hall from me.)  The teachers who attended our presentation seemed to like what we shared with them.  I discovered that I love presenting.  I don't usually like talking in front of so many people.  But the other teachers were friendly and attentive and asked questions.  It was the BEST day ever!  (A PowerPoint, a projector and (this is the best) a wireless microphone makes you feel powerful.)

This is a picture of the board that had our session listed on it.

This is the room we presented in.  We checked it out in the morning before the presentation.
  I was a little overwhelmed by how huge the room was.

Many of the teachers who attended our presentation wanted a copy of the PowerPoint.  So, I thought other teachers might be interested in it also.  If you click here you can download it from Google Drive.  It is a very large file because there are over 80 slides in the PowerPoint.

We are also presenting at the Illinois ASCD Conference for Pre Kindergarten and Kindergarten teachers.  It is being held on March 7th and 8th in Schaumberg, Illinois.  I can't wait.  We get to present on both Thursday and Friday.  

Hopefully, I can continue "borrowing" my son's laptop and post more regularly.  

Thanks for stopping by,