DIY Light Table

I have wanted, dreamed of, asked for a light table for years now. I just think they are so awesome of a play choice for young children. I also love the direct and indirect academic learning that can come from there use.

So when a parent donated a new table for housekeeping, I knew what our old IKEA table could become. A quick Pinterest search found a number of ideas I was pretty sure I could adapt.

First step was frosted plexiglass. This was actually super hard to find because I still haven’t been able to grow money on trees yet. Instead, I settled for clear glass but I left the plastic on the underside (inside the table)which kept it frosted. I did take the side with the label off as I knew it would tear quickly once the children started manipulating on it.

The best part was the IKEA table was 18 by 24 and my Lowe’s sold it in pieces 18 by 24 for about $14. Next, I took apart the old IKEA table and discovered the table top had a tiny square cut out of each corner. I asked the wonderful hubby if he had a tool that could help. So a quick cut with the saw and I had a piece that was the exact mirror of the original table top but don’t get rid of that table top.

I had ordered 5m of led lights from amazon they change color but mostly I wanted a remote for turning them on and a power supply. They actually were much thinner than the traditional rope lights I was expecting and well the 16 color choices had my daughters an I in awe over the teals. The lights had a sticky on the back so they could be stuck down. My first thought was to stick them around the outside and along the wooden supports that my husband suggest I left because as he said “when do 5 year olds not lean on things.” This was great but didn’t quiet give the right affect. So hubby to the rescue again suggested putting them on the original table top on the bottom. 

Here the table is on the plexiglass side
you can see the light stuck to the white side of
of the original top and then placed down on the side bars.

So I carefully unstuck and restuck them to the original table top then I put the original table top on the bottom of the table. I went up and down on the base. I placed them on the white side. The white top then lays on the sides and there is space between the plexiglass and the lights.

Then I used (or rather my daughter) the staple gun to secure the old table top to the bottom of the table.  you can see how the old top makes a new bottom for the table. I left the cord handing and we were ready to turn it on. 

TA-DA it worked like a dream and the kids have been loving it!

I LOVE teaching sight words

As a mom and a teacher I know sight words are often difficult to teach, flash cards often don't work for most children. Educators know children need to see things many times to be able to remember it and need go see it even more to use it. Early childhood educators know play is a wonderful way to learn therefore my sight word routine

I started to rework my boring sight word routine when I read Mr. Greg from Kindergarten Smorgasbord's Sight Word 60 routine. The highlight is getting the children 60 exposures to the word each week. In a school day already packed, I was determined to find 15 mins a day for sight word practice. Therefore, 9am sight word time was born.

Monday: I introduce 2-3 new words. I typically choose one or two words the children are seeing often. In the beginning of the year, it's words typically seen in emergent readers. My second word is often a decodable one such as "can," "got," and "had."

I use the app BIG to display the word. We read the word, each child reads the word, we use our loud voices, soft voices, high voices, fast voices. Then we repeat sentences using the word. Finally children generate sentences using the wor.

Next, we use white boards or tiles to practice writing/making these words. Children also review tricky former sight words.

Tuesday: Typlically, we play a sight word game. My students love any excuse to slap a sight word, or  challenge each other on their sight word knowledge. This teacher loves games that get the kids moving and allows a variety of children to be winners. Our current favorites are Feed the Dragons part of my Dragons Love Tacos Unit and Valentine's Slap It. We also enjoy many variations of Kaboom and Around the World.

Wednesday: Typically I choose whiteboards, as I like to include sentence writing on Wednesdays, but if I choose tiles, I use a shared writing technique on my whiteboard after the children make the sight words. I start with this weeks sight words and then make/write old favorites (or rather ones we find difficult). I always have the sight words displayed in the classroom, but I ask the children to try first then check their work.

Thursday: Sight word stations. I set up various games and activities we have done whole group. I give the children a choice about which station they would like to participate in. This gives me time to sit down with children I know are struggling with certain sight words. I can also assess during this time.

Friday: we play beat the teacher. It is probably every classes favorite sight word game. If you do t know the rules it goes like this: both teacher and each child writes the sight word in the middle of their whiteboard. When the teacher says go, everyone writes the word once in each of the 4 corners. First one done wins points for their team, by April I'll have to really compete with the kiddos to win.

Well that's our week of sight words! How do you teach them?

Bring the Rainforest Home

Hello!

Well the season's have begun to change and at least for this week we are having warm spring weather in Virginia. Next week could be totally different but for now we are loving spending time on our outside porch.

Last year, I shared one of my favorite units to teach about: the rainforest. You can read my original blog here. This year we added an additional technology piece to our unit.

This years lessons were foiled slightly with a baby at home who kept getting sick. In just 6 weeks we had an ear infection and pink eye, stomach bug, and the flu- oh and a molar emerging. Just what all mommy's want right?

Just like last year, we researched a rainforest animal and drew it out. The children used their iPads and really focused on the details. This year the children spent so long drawing and painting their animals that we did not have time to do two animals.

Once we had finished our pictures, the children wrote facts that they had found interesting about the rainforest. Many of the children chose to write about the different layers of the rainforest. This is a huge part of our unit.

The last part and probably my most favorite part was turning our writing into a Chatterpix videos. If you haven't used Chatterpix before it allows the creator to turn a photo or picture into a talking video. During one lesson, I taught the children how to use the app or rather one of our classmates showed me how to do it and answered the other students questions. Ok, it wasn't that bad, but he did know how to do more things than I did on the app.

Next, the children took a picture of their painted animal, drew on the mouth using Chatterpix, and recorded their animals reading their rainforest facts. Next, I uploaded them to our class dropbox and then used a QR creator to make a QR code for each child's video. We hung the QR codes up with the children's writing so our parents can scan the code and see the video. Check out our final display.

Penguin Reports in Kindergarten

January is becoming one of my favorite times in Kindergarten. The children can now "read, write, and discuss" as five year olds do. Last year I felt like I was in a rut with my winter unit. I took to the internet, specifically, Simply Kinder's Facebook group searching for inspiration.

I love providing my students with more open ended projects. The year before I loved teaching the rainforest and taught them how to use kidrex.org to study the animals. I loved how open ended the project was and the last thing I wanted was to stand up in front of my kindergarten class and spit facts at them.

We send home a penguin report during this unit. The child chooses a species of penguin and teaches the class about it. Each child researches where it lives, what it eats, how it nests, and a special fact about the penguin.

I realized that by teaching my students earlier how to research they would be more successful with this project and their future ones. Someone suggested making life size King penguin to compare the children's heights to the Penguins. BOOM that was it. Each child would make their penguin life size.

Last year we use kidder.org, but this year it was not loading properly. The kind of loading that goes poorly when you have 13 students anxiously staring at their iPads. upon further examination i learned Google now uses kiddle.org. 

 I had them practice finding photos of my species of penguin. I had remeasured and drawn the heights of each species on large butcher paper. Right now each student had the name of a penguin, a large bulletin board piece of paper with a line across the top and bottom showing how tall their penguin should be.

Next, they searched for a picture of their penguin. Once found they drew their penguin.  It had to  touch the bottom of the page and the top line. Amazingly most children did fabulously with this. After a day of drawing, we took out the paints. My only stipulation was it must match the colors in your picture. It was amazing how detailed they were. "Mrs. Resto I need pink because my penguin has pink on his foot."etc.

My favorite part of this lesson came when the children cut them out and lined up in order from tallest to smallest. Finally, each child created a label for their penguin and we lined them up down our hallway. It made quiet a statement to see the comparison in size up close.

In addition to these awesome penguins, we also practiced carrying an egg on our feet, made penguin hats, watched the penguin cam.

Easy Clean Eating Swaps You Can Make Today

Cleaning it is one of the best things that I ever did in my adult life. It seems big and scary, but in fact its quiet simple. These are my favorite quick simple tips that you can implement during your next shopping trip.

1) Trade in your flavored, sugar filled, fruit yogurt for plain Greek yogurt then add your favorite fruit, granola, nuts, even a few dark chocolate chips. you'll not only skip the sugar, but the chemicals too!

This is my go to snack all year long at school!

2) Substitute cauliflower rice for brown rice. Brown rice use to be all the rage but now its cauliflower rice and even cauliflower flour. You can make everything from mock mashed potatoes to tortillas using these ingredients. Bonus its vegetable not a starch! I'm always looking for ways to get more veggies aren't you!

3) Trade in your fruit juice for fruit infused water or even just  DRINK the water and eat the fruit...what a concept! I love fruit infused water strawberry basil is one of my favs! Just try it on a hot summers day or in the classroom its a great break.

4) Try almond milk. If you don't have a nut allergy try almond milk. I love the flavor you can get it vanilla flavored milk too. Get the unsweetened kind the almond is sweet enough.

5) Have you heard about coconut oil. I didn't jump on the band wagon at first, but now I'm a believer. You can use it in tons of ways. I even use it on the dogs skin rash. Its wonderful to cook with. No more Pam.

6) Switch potatoes for sweet potatoes. I love sweet potatoes. I love the sweetness and I'm not talking the kind covered with brown sugar and marshmallows. You can make baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, and potato salad with sweet potatoes! Give it a try you won't be disappointed.

7) At first this sounds odd, but it is great for clean eaters. Switch your mayo with plain Greek yogurt. Mayo is full of all sorts of wacko ingredients instead choose plain Greek yogurt or even mashed avocado. I use Greek yogurt in my chicken salad, egg salad, and even in place of sour cream.

8) Make your own Marinara sauce. This is easy... here is the link to one of my favorites. You can add red wine, extra veggies, fresh tomatoes. Throw EVERYTHING in a crock pot and forget it. The BEST part is you can use it for spaghetti, tomato soup, ratatouille, even Mexican dishes. Make a big pot of it and freeze the extra.

9) While your cooking that marinara sauce throw a spaghetti sauce into the oven. Again its another chance to sneak in veggies, mom WIN! My husband loves it with chicken or meatballs.


10) Keep it simple- Look for food that has simple ingredients, ingredients you can pronounce, and ingredients that can be purchase individually at the store!

Sometimes you need some support as you begin clean eating... I'm running a FREE 5 day Clean eating group to help you make this change. The group includes a 5 day menu, shopping list, and recipes! Click here to sign up for this months group

Back to School Meal Prep Tips

I heard the other day that Walmart was no longer getting in new product for back to school because for them it is coming to an end, but for me its only beginning.

One of the biggest problems I have when we first go back is getting dinner on the table. I've spent all summer at home able to take the meat out of the freezer at the last minute or run by the store for those missing ingredients. Back to school means exhaustion, hours upon hours prepping my classroom, getting the kids back on a schedule, I do NOT want to think about dinner.  If your like me. you'll want to start implementing these simple meal prep tips.

1) Meal Plan

Grab your cookbooks, Pinterest boards, and family recipes and decide what you are going to make for the week. Some people like to plan two weeks in advance I prefer one, as produce doesn't last 2 weeks and it allows for me to use up all my leftovers before cooking new meals.  I write my full meal plan out. You can do it on paper, your phone, or a meal planner like the one linked below. Save your meal plans for future weeks- come on don't reinvent the wheel each week.

2) Shopping List

Write everything you need down. EVERYTHING. By writing it all down, I avoid those trips after school where you get stuck in the longest lines possible behind the college kid buying 42 instant meals.

3) Use LEFTOVERS

When did leftovers get such a bad rap? A good meal often gets better with time. Flavors have blended more together, sauces saturated, and they can be eaten hot or cold as my husband tells me. I typically like leftovers for lunch the next day, but sometimes we have them for dinner. Do not waste time and money cooking a new meal if you have 4 old ones sitting in your refrigerator.  If you don't want them for lunch, then plan an evening when you will eat them, maybe when the kids all have soccer, gymnastics, and piano lessons.

4) Meal Prep

Do you have snack at school? Prep it on the Sunday before school. On Sunday, I prep snacks for my husband and I for the whole week. I store each one in a baggie and then put them in baskets. Each morning it is just grab and go! What could be easier! Breakfast and children's lunch can be done the same way.

5) Make Double Batches

Just like eating leftovers, make double batches of your favorite meals. Many can be frozen cooked or prep all the ingredients split and freeze one set uncooked. These are my favorite when you get home and realize you forgot to take the chicken out of the oven or just can't be bothered to spend the next hour standing at the stove. Hey, we all have those days but this way our family still gets a great meal out of it. Chili is one of my favorites to freeze cooked and Lasagna is my favorite to store uncooked.

6) Keep IT Simple

There is no need to cook a five course meal everyday of the week, unless you want too. When planning keep to simple foods, think crock pot and family favorites. Chicken, vegetables, and a carb is easily a family favorite. Keep snacks and breakfasts simple too. Oh and don't forget to save your meal plans and reuse them in the upcoming weeks! Teachers can think of it as recycling old lesson plans.

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Rainforest creation

Teaching the rainforest is one of my favorites. I particularly like it because it's a great opportunity for my kids to independently research an animal.

I'll have to explain the research "how to" in another post, but basically up until now we have done our research whole group. As we study the 4 layers of the rainforest, we set to work creating one on our hallway wall.

We begin by creating safari people and field journals. My grade partner and I found these safari people here. The kids love creating their faces with the construction paper.

The remainder of the rainforest is up to the children to create. We discuss layers, vegetation, and animals.

My favorite activity is when they choose an animal to research, draw, and then paint. To help them with spelling for their first animal, I have them choose one of the animal cards that we have been sorting into the different layers all last week.

Using their IPads and kidrex.org now kiddle.org. We have already discussed choosing sites that use a picture icon that fits your search. After they find a site and a picture of their animal, they draw it.

We talk about using our observation skills. Think about size, shape, color etc. Due to our time constraints this project takes two days.

On the second day we paint our animals. The children again use their IPads to find the animals photo and paint what they see. I love the details they include. Many will ask for pink or light blue because they see a bit in their picture. They must choose all their colors etc. It is not my work, so it is not my job to do it for them (my motto).

On day three and four we repeat this whole process but they must choose another animal and they may choose any animal they wish not necessarily one from the sort cards. This year we mixed it up and used pastels on our second animal.

The children also painted leaves for trees and cut vines to hang. It by far is one of my favorite displays we did all year. The other classes loved walking by as it was so bright and colorful for early spring!

 What are your favorite units to teach?