So far, I am loving my time here in Minnesota! You all have been absolutely wonderful and I can’t wait for our after lunch sessions. As promised, here are the sessions from today. Everything in my TpT store will be on sale today and tomorrow!

Squeezin’ in Science and Social Studies

Again, so much content! If you are like me, science and social studies is HARD to fit in…or you have to do one or the other. It’s difficult to do both every single day. One way to embed both subjects is to weave it in through literacy and math throughout the day if you don’t have time to get to it.

There are so many wonderful books out there that you can get your hands on that cover so many science and social study standards. We talked about some different activities today.

We chatted about a tree walk that we go on and here is a freebie that you can grab and do it with your kiddos.

We talked about going on a solid walk, a sinking and floating activity for states of matter. Here is my blog post that covers a lot of it and a fun freebie.

Another standard we addressed is weather and calendar. I have found that this is the easiest way to address weather every day. We do it as part of our calendar time. The skills build on each month. It has saved me so much time and paper!

Another way I like to implement weather is through a weather week and I use this weather unit. We try to tie in as much literacy and math that we possibly can!

Here is the link to the candy experiment with the free download.

Some of the Social Study units are Community Helpers, Family, Traditions, maps and globes and famous Americans.

Here are some of the units and freebies.

This American Symbols book is so perfect to use when you are teaching about President’s Day.

We talked about ways you can implement vocabulary throughout your day because trying to squeeze in both science and social studies every day can be challenging!

Try to incorporate as much as you can throughout your day without having to take 30-45 minutes of your already shortened day to teach about President’s Day or to do a lesson on family.

Another way to cover some of these standards is to have kiddos do presentations on these topics. I have students do a presentation on their family at the beginning of the year and one of our standards is famous Tennesseans…so we do a presentation on that in February. What better way for kids to learn?!? They teach each other!

Frazzle Free Classroom Management

For the behavior and classroom management session, we talked about topics from routines to great programs. This is a “think sheet” that I send home with parents after they have had a rough day at school. It’s way for parents to talk to their child at home if they had a difficult day at school. It also helps students know that parents and teachers are on the same team. I sit down with the student and we discussed what happened and why they are having to bring home a think sheet. You can click on the picture to get your own copy.

This is a question/comment sort that you can also download for free.

I love this unit from Deedee about getting organized for the year. There are a ton of resources in here for you to use with your students.

If you are someone that wants to have a clip chart for your students, but you don’t want it for everyone to see…you should try out Rachelle’s mini-behavior charts. I love this idea!

I also use these early finisher drawers in my classroom and love them!

There were also a few other ideas that I mentioned in the sessions today.

Math Centers Based on BUILD

Here are a few places you can check out ideas for BUILD. I have an old blog post that really lays out the format for you.

I also have a YouTube video with some of the slides from my presentation.

Here are my Math BUILD units for the entire year. If you are just looking to do one month then you can click each individual month from the yearly

Part of my math routine is calendar and math journals. This can be part of your math block or you can put it in a math tub!

We also chatted about one of the games that I usually put in one of the “B” tubs and only explain it in August and from then on out…students know exactly what to do!

Tally Time is another unit that you could use for BUILD centers!

Chants and Cheers: Let’s Go Kindergarteners!

Woohoo!!!! So many ways to get kids up and moving and cheering for each other and to help them remember standards. Here are some of the cheers and chants we are covering in this session (but not all of them 🙂

These are some of my content cheers.

My amazing friend, Amy Lemons, has some great cheers as well!

Even if you can’t use the content of these cheers, it will help get your creative juices flowing to give you ideas for your own classroom chants and cheers!

These free sight word chants from Cara Caroll are fabulous!

Another way to help students remember content and have a little fun is through music.

This Tally Unit has the Tally Mark chant we talked about.

Here is our fun word wall wizard activity that we do with our word wall chant.

We do a TON of call and response. It’s so much more effective than trying to ring a bell or turn off the lights. Here are a few of my favorites!

Hope you enjoyed your sessions today!