Back into the Swing of Things #Kinderfriends blog hop

By now you are probably back to school and settling in for a new academic year - at least if you are in the United States.  It's a crazy time of year, with so many things to do, so many things to get ready, and it seems like barely a moment to breathe.  You've probably put student names on 20 different sets of things: locker tags, desk tags, folders, notebooks and more. I'm willing to bet you've already set up student routines and expectations, and are figuring out what ever new system your school has in place this year - there's always something!  You've met the new staff, and you're probably really ready for a nap.  Welcome to the back to school season!

This month the #KinderFriends thought we'd help you start your year with some tips to help you get back into the swing of things, tried and true methods we can share, one teacher to another. Maybe you have an amazing trick or tip you can share too - please leave your best ideas in the comments section below, because if it works for you, it might just help me out too!

One of the things I've learned to do with my students, is to start the complex and difficult subjects as soon as possible, and as simply as possible.  When I taught first grade, learning to count mixed coins was a doozy of a feat for the kiddos, and trying to do it in the 3 week window our math curriculum allowed for it was near impossible.  My solution?  I made it part of our calendar time, and taught it all year long.  Early in the year that meant we learned to count just pennies, then just nickels, and then put them together.  Throughout the year we took more and more baby steps in learning to count money, until the kiddos were experts.  I did the same thing with other concepts that challenged my students, transforming the biggest, toughest concepts into daily 1-3 minute lessons.

I've taken that same concept - breaking difficult concepts down into bite-sized pieces - and applied it to another student challenge: sounding out.  At the beginning of the year I found my students often had difficulty writing anything, because they were learning how to form letters and which letters made which sounds, so the prospect of writing even a complete sentence was overwhelming for many.  I broke the process down, and have my kiddos work on just a few words that all have the same initial letter.  The result?  Successful kiddos! 

Graphing daily with my students is another great way to routinely practice a variety of math skills.  I have a huge selection of graphing activities available in my TeachersPayTeachers store, but this one is designed for back to school season:

I hope this tip helps you to have an amazing school year!  If you are interested in checking out my back to school resources, I'm discounting them 20% from now until Thursday - just search #KinderFriends on TeachersPayTeachers to see all the great back to school resources from #Kinderfriends! 

Thank you for stopping by!  To continue the #KinderFriends blog hop, click here and head over to 1stGradeFireworks for more tips!

Book Bash: Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp

This week I'm participating in another blog hop with #Kinderfriends - we're going to share some of our favorite books.

If you're a regular reader, you know how hard it is for me to come up with just one favorite book - or even genre of books!  (Check out some more of my favorites on this blog post.)  Since I have dinosaurs on my mind for story time this week, I decided to share my favorite dinosaur book with you: Saturday Night At the Dinosaur Stomp.  (No, I'm not being compensated for linking this.)

I'm on my second paperback copy of this fun book by Carol Diggory Shields, illustrated by Scott Nash.  The first copy fell apart due to excessive loving on by lots of children, and my current copy isn't pristine either.  The book has been around since 1997, and I have yet to meet a group of children who don't love the rhythm and rhyme, the upbeat fun and gorgeous pictures.  I read Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp to my first graders, to my own children when they were little, and to 16 years of preschool and kindergarten kiddos.

This page was my oldest son's favorite!

There are so many fun ways to extend the dinosaur themed learning- like sorting them by color or shape.  I made this simple sorting mat by cutting colored copy paper into quarters, and gluing one rectangle of each color onto a piece of 9" x 12" construction paper.

Want to have your students work on numbers 1 - 20?  I made this freebie just for this book bash!

If you are looking for even more dinosaur learning activities, I hope you'll check out my Dinosaur resources on TeachersPayTeachers, and check out my Dinosaur Board on Pinterest.

Here are some more of my favorite dinosaur stories:

To see more favorite books from #KinderFriends, continue our blog hop by going to