Tutorial: How to Make a 3D Personalized Name Pumpkin

You just have to LOVE Pinterest!  There are so many incredible ideas and some of them may get your creative juices flowing too.  I saw an adorable 3D pumpkin and thought why not make it even more interactive by turning it into a name pumpkin?  So, this tutorial will show you how to set up the page in Microsoft PowerPoint and assemble your own name pumpkin!   
Just click the picture below to see the video!

Pumpkin Patch Palooza ~ A Patch of 20 Pumpkin FREEBIES!

Fall is my favorite season! It is also my favorite Teachers Pay Teachers time of the year:) I have to try REEAAAALLLLY hard not to purchase EVERYTHING I see! The clip art is just beyond adorable and the resources and just so much fun. In an effort to help us all save a little money and to highlight some pretty fabulous resources I am doing a pumpkin-related round up! These are some of the BEST pumpkin themed FREEBIES created by some of the most creative, talented, and generous teachers out there. So, here we go into the pumpkin patch!  Click on the pumpkins to grab each freebie:)

The first FREEBIE is by Teacher Tam!  If you do not already follow Teacher Tam ~ you should ;)  With this resource students match numbers to quantities shown in a ten-frame.  Tami provides two ways to play and it is Common Core aligned!

Next up is From the Pond!  This pumpkin-themed math card game is for numbers to 100!  This is part of the Print and Play series From the Pond and I must say ~ they are all fun and fabulous!  

Young and Lively Kindergarten has some pumpkin patch fun with her Pumpkin Roll and Color/Cover!  Students can spin or roll and look for the matching number in the ten frames!  It also includes a color word practice page!

Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten is rolling in with a great mini-unit with a little bit of everything! Activities include: Inside & Outside Pumpkin Lesson & Craft, Pumpkin Investigations Activity, Pumpkin Life Cycle, Planting Pumpkins, Pumpkin Jack Experiment, Pumpkin Seed Estimation, and Pumpkin Craft.

Your carriage will never tun into a pumpkin at Curriculum Castle!  These gals created an adorable pumpkin-themed center for telling time to the hour and half-hour.  This is also Common Core aligned!

Erin from Creating and Teaching provides some good ol' fashion fun with these awesome Play-doh mats!  Nothing targets more goals than playing with Play-doh!  Students have to roll and place the correct number of pumpkins for each mat.  

K is for Kinderrific has a PUMPK-errific CVC word center!  Students use cut up pumpkin cards to create CVC words.  Then they must decide if it is a real or nonsense word.  No nonsense pumpkin learning!

Rhonda Baldacchino is growing poems in her patch with this cute pumpkin poetry craftivity!

First Grade and Flip Flops is seeing double with this fun Pumpkin Doubles Scoot!  This is a great activity for your kinesthetic learners and students who have a sensory diet:)

Teaching with a Cup of Tea has a resource that can be used for a variety of subjects.  Students create their own pumpkin patch craftivity by thinking of related words, terms, or concepts.  Some great examples/ideas are provided to get your creative juices flowing!  This one is perfect for SLPs too!

Rowdy in Room 300 is causing a riot with her Compound Words in the Pumpkin Patch!  There are twelve compound word puzzles and a recording sheet.  

Sallie Neal is Teaching with a Passion in the short vowel pumpkin patch!  This is a pocket chart sorting activity that is perfect in your word work center.  A recording sheet is included.

Danielle Kroger from Kroger's Kindergarten has another great word work resource!  Students have to stamp the parts of a pumpkin using the pumpkin word bank.

Shawna Devoe has them predicting in the patch with this predicting companion for the book The Pumpkin Patch by Margaret McNamara.  

Learning Ahoy! proves that even pirates love the pumpkin patch!  Oh Pumpkin! is a fun letter recognition game that is sure to please your little pirates!

Clip Art by Carrie Teaching First Grade is cooking up some pumpkin pie with this writing freebie!  Students write step-by-step directions for making a pumpkin pie.  Pictures clues provide the right amount of support for all learners.

Elizabeth Rogers has her sights on SIGHT WORDS with this awesome Pumpkin Sight Word BINGO freebie!

The lovely Lavinia Pop doesn't want any pumpkins to feel odd:)  She has a fabulous odd and even pumpkin number sort.  Another great option for your math center!

This next marvelous freebie is from Annie Moffat of The Moffatt Girls.  It is not ALL pumpkins, but has some great pumpkin resources that I HAD to include in the list:)  

Last, but not least is a freebie from ME!  This is simple, but targets so many goals: fine motor, visual-motor, visual perception, one-to-one correspondence, and beginning graphing skills.  I hope you enjoy it:)

Kids Say the Darndest Things!

My fabulous bloggy-friend Jeannie over at Kindergarten Lifestyle is having another Linky Party!  This one is for us to share based on the phrase "Kids Say the Darndest Things..."


So, here is mine.  I don't even remember what we were all talking about when this came up, but I think one student shared where his/her parents met.  Then a few more chimed in.  I asked this boy (second grade) if he knew where or how his parents met.  Well, he told me "No, but..."

Gotta love these kids and the funny things they say!  Out of the mouths of babes, right?  Join in the fun!  Right-click the blank template and make your own.  Then head over to Kindergarten Lifestyle's blog and link up!

Alphabet Eggs!

I am really excited to share this project with you!  It is simple to create and can be used for the alphabet or numbers.  I created a SlideShare to show you all the pictures and ways that I created my eggs.  Basically, the idea is to put a letter on the top half of a plastic egg (like letter A) and a letter on the bottom half of the egg (for this example, letter C) and have the child tell you what comes in between those two letters: B.  When he or she opens the egg, there is a little chick with the letter B!  What other concepts can be practiced in this manner?

Alpha eggs

View more presentations from Dawn De Lorenzo.

Franklin Anybook Reader Review

I just purchased the Franklin Anybook Reader after it was recommended by our Assistive Technology consultant.  It is a very affordable, user-friendly devise that would fall into the mid-tech level for Asssitive Technology.  It is currently priced at $33.50 on Amazon.com. 

With the emphasis on differentiation in today's classrooms this is a very versatile tool that can allow you to have more flexible grouping practices while students are working on independent work.  Small round stickers are activated by the "pen" and then you record.  Once the student presses the pen to the sticker it plays back what was recorded.  Imagine the ability to have a student reading a book that is being read by you on the Anybook Reader and having YOU think-aloud to model what good readers do!  Imagine placing stickers are predesignated spots in text for students to stop and answer a prompt you strategically inserted.  Think about how this can be used for word work: Students are prompted to find the words with a particular sound, or words that belong in a certain category.  The possibilities are endless!

The only con that I have found is that I wish you were able to pause it.  If it were able to pause, you could use it to read to students in smaller chunks and then they could stop it to answer questions or fill in responses.  The other down-side to this one partiular model is that it does not hook up to headphones.  I believe that the 60 hour version has a jack for headphones.  I am not positive though.  The 60-hour version is priced at $50.96:

Here is a brief video from the Franklin company highlighting the product and how it can help students with challenges:Overall, I think it is a great investment! My students love it (I am a special education teacher) and I also shared it with our school Speech Pathologist and she was very impressed.  What ideas do you have for utilizing this in the classroom?  I would love to hear how you could put this to use in your class! Thanks :)

You Know You are a Teacher When...

Jeannie over at Kindergarten Lifestyle is having a LINKY PARTY using the pic above!  Come on over and join us!

If You'll Be My Valentine by Cynthia Rylant

It's really hard not to love anything written by Cynthia Rylant and this little gem is no exception!  This is a sweet book for grades PreK-2 about a little boy who makes valentines for his family, his dog, and his teddy too!  It is simple and sweet and the perfect springboard into creating valentines in class.  Here is a little freebie I made up to go with the story!  Just click on the picture below to get your valentine :) 

A quick shout out about the graphics: they are from Graphics From the Pond and they are FREE too!  Mel has some awesome clip art and gives some amazing freebies so check her out!