Spring into Stress!

I feel like my time has really gotten away from me lately and haven't done such a good job keeping up with my blog.  Spring is always that time of year when I totally start to stress out and I am so counting down the days to Spring Break.  I love teaching with all my heart but my teacher hat is only one that I am wearing right now.  I always wondered growing up how my mother did it all and now I am learning you just have to pull up your big girl panties and go.  I have a lot of things outside of school that also involve a lot of my time but they are all things I love so I am still working on finding a balance.  Today I thought I would spend a few minutes just sharing some things that I have tried this year and found to be really helpful in the classroom.  The first one is the picture above.  I made a huge clock out of masking tape on the floor one morning before the kids arrived.  It took like 15 minutes.  The kids used their arms as the hour hand and their legs as minute hands and they had to show me times I called out on the floor.  The kids loved getting up and moving during math time. 

While working on greater than, less than, and equal to the children got to make their own creatures to eat the greater number.  I made mine to mimic Mrs. Pac Man since I am a child of the 80's.  The kids loved the flashback since this character has been brought back through other gaming systems.  I even made the actually wanka, wanka, wanka, noise when she ate the greater number.  The kids thought it was hilarious.  Some of the children made sharks, alligators, and monsters. 

Here is one of my students showing the other students which way the sign should face. 

Okay this is one of my favorite finds ever.  I found these finger lights at Rose's.  A three pack was $1.50.  We use these during our familiar read in our literacy groups.  The students were told if they were not reading and I caught them playing with the lights they would not be allowed to use them anymore.  Knock on wood, I have had no problems.  The kids LOVE it. 

One of the things that my favorite colleague made was a buddy checklist.  After the students read they are paired up and have to do a checklist using their dry eraser markers and the worksheet (put into a clear plastic sleeve so the students can use it over and over). 

One of the spelling centers I used previously was easy and cheap to make and I will definitely be using it again soon.  I called it Magazine Spelling because Ransom Note just sounds scary.lol  I had a friend help me cut out some of my old People magazines.  We only cut up the larger letters that we found.  I wrote the spelling list from the week on the counter top with a dry eraser marker (which wipes up easily with a Clorox wipe)  Then the students had to rummage through the letters and spell them out using the cut up letters from the magazine.