Helpful Hint {A Quiet Classroom}

I'm linking up with Blog Hoppin' today to share one of my

most helpful hints {I believe} for teachers.

It can be difficult to get a classroom full of 6 year olds to work

quietly. I've tried lots of different things to get my students to work

without talking for 10-15 min. at a time, but nothing has worked as good as...

 

 

 

I discovered this lovely concept a few years ago from a 

good friend who also teaches 1st grade.

She had seen the idea on pinterest so I searched to see if I could find the original

source. I found a post from Teaching Chick that gave me a little info and a lot

 of inspiration! Check out her post here.

If you search for quiet critters on pinterest, you will find lots of ideas!

So, what are Quiet Critters?!

Cute, friendly, little pom pom friends!

They come out and sit on students' desks when they are working

quietly. I usually make up some sort of silly song as I'm setting them on my

students' desks. The find it very entertaining!

 

 

 

If a student is talking, their Quiet Critter gets "scared" and goes

back to its home {a jar where I keep the Quiet Critters}.

A Quiet Critter also gets scared and taken back to their home if they

are touched!

You would not believe how much the kids eat this up and how tranquil

your classroom can be when you need it to be QUIET!!!!!

My students love them!

I started out with one set of QCs, but then found more of these little pom

pom friends at craft stores during different seasons.

Now I have a whole collection of QCs and I change them out

by the season/month.

 

 

 

This year, I told my students that the QCs are magical and they turn into

a new version on the first day of each month. They totally bought it, ha!!!

Like I said, I've found several of these in craft stores. They come in a package

with all the pieces that you need to assemble them. I've had parent volunteers

put these together for me.

 

This year, I found several of these from the Oriental Trading website and they

came already assembled in the package, which was a pleasant surprise!

You can find some of the ones I have from them here.

I made a little printable for one of the versions of my Quiet Critters song.

I figured I probably should put it in print so I don't have to make it up

each time! Feel free to download by clicking the pic below. :)

 

 

If you have come across some of these pom pom friends, leave a comment

sharing where you found them!

STICKY NOTE FREEBIE {HALLOWEEN STYLE}

Just popping in today to give you a quick little freebie that I used

this past week.

Y'all know how much I love using sticky notes in the classroom!

So, I just jazzed up my prediction page with some Halloween clipart

and the kids loved it. Of course, use your favorite Halloween book

to practice making predictions with this fun little page.

We are currently studying bats, so we read the book Stellaluna,

and made some predictions in the middle of the story.

First, I pass out the sticky notes and the students write their prediction.

Then, I give them the Making Predictions page where they

place their sticky note and write down the title and author of the story.

Of course, they love coloring a picture to go with their prediciton!

I can't tell you how much they love getting to use sticky notes!

It's the little things that really excite them I guess. :)

But it works, and I don't mind doing whatever it takes to get them

to practice and use reading strategies!
Which reminds me I need to go stock up on more sticky notes...

Click the pic below to download the making predictions Halloween FREEBIE!

If you do, leave me a comment and let me know what your favorite Halloween

book is because I'd love to get a few more for this upcoming week!

You can also check out my products Sticky Note Reading Strategies and

Sticky Note Reading Skills and of course the BUNDLE all in my TpT shop.
They are all 10% off today and tomorrow!

 

I hope you get to do something relaxing today!

FIVE SENSES WITH POPCORN {FREEBIE}

So way back in September we studied all about our five senses

and I made a little recording sheet for an anchor chart activity I saw

on pinterest from Spotlight on Kindergarten.

I made a similar anchor chart and then gave my students some

popcorn and we brainstormed ideas while we ate.

{any excuse for food in the classroom is ok with me!}

Here is our chart we came up with......

Then, I had my students fill out the sheet below choosing one

word for each of the five senses from our chart.

It's a freebie for you so click on any of the pics to download

the recording sheet, as well as colorful graphics for an anchor chart

or whatever else you might need.

My students then picked one word to write on the

popcorn shapes and then we displayed them out in the hallway.

This bulletin board was thrown up in a hurry...don't judge. ;)

Happy Monday!

MONTHLY READING LOGS

Remember these???

 

I was all over getting my star stickers for my BOOK IT! pin

and my free personal pan pizzas back in the day.

Those were the days....

Did you know that BOOK IT! is still around?!!

Kids everywhere are still getting their personal pan pizzas

for reading except now there are no pins and star stickers. :(

I've been using their program with my students almost every year I've been teaching

as a reward for reading at home.

Last year, I made my own monthly reading logs for students

to keep track of how many minutes they were reading.

If they were able to complete the reading log, they got their free pizza coupon from me.

These reading logs are super simple and perfect for grades K-3.

For my first graders, I require them to read for 20 min. before they color in

one picture on their reading log. There are 16 pictures on each reading log so I feel

like its reasonable to expect them to read 20 min. at a time, 

16 different times during the month.

I can also custimize more or less minutes required to really differentiate

for some of my students.

I write in the number of minutes and the due date before I make multiple copies.

If you need a simple way to motivate your students to be reading at home

that you can easily customize for your students and grade level,

check out my new monthly reading logs in my store here.

You can also sign up to participate in BOOK IT! here.

 

 

 

 

Giveaway winner!

Hey there!

Forgive my tardiness...I came home to a sick kiddo yesterday :(

Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway!

Here's the winner...

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Congrats Meredith! Please check your email! 

WANT A STYLISH PLANNER?

I had this giveaway planned for August,
when everyone was headed back to school and prepping like crazy,

but if you read my previous post you know I had to take a little

blogging hiatus.

So, as a little thank you to my readers who are still hanging around
despite the dust and cob webs around here,

I thought I'd go ahead and still do the giveaway I had planned and
give away one of my stylish teacher planners!

 Most of you teachers probably already have a planner for this

school year but......
Is it pretty to look at?

Does it excite you when you see it?!

Do you love all things color coordinated?!?

THE PASTEL PLANNER

 OR

THE ORIGINAL PLANNER

 Enter the giveaway and if you win you'll get to choose one

of my teacher planners to download for FREE and I'll

also throw in this super cute  blue binder that will

coordinate perfectly with both planner styles!

The binder is from the Martha Stewart line at Staples.

I love Martha's stuff there!
I use the discbound binder system in the same color
as the regular 3-ring binder I'm giving away.
Here's my planner and I absolutely love it!

You can enter two different ways using the rafflecopter below...

1. Follow my blog (either through Google or Bloglovin')

2. Like Mrs. Prince and Co. on Facebook

And if you already do both of those....this will be super easy for ya! :)

I'll announce the winner Wednesday, Sept. 18!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

CATCHING UP

Am I really writing an actual blog post???

Goodness, it's been a long time since I've been able to do this!

But sometimes life happens and I get a good reminder that I really don't have

control over much.

And that's really ok with me because God had proven over and over

to me that his plan is always way better than mine. :)

I'm home today for a much needed stress-free day to prop my feet

up, relax, maybe clean my dirty house a little, hopefully get ahead

on my lesson plans for next week (yes, sadly I had to take a vacation

day to have time to plan...there's something really wrong with that),

and maybe go for a walk on this cool morning.

I know everyone in the midwest has been waiting for a cool down from

the awfully hot last couple of weeks, and today we Kansans got a little break.

I also hope to get a chance to start decorating our house for fall this weekend!

 Today I'm printing some printables made by Laurie from Fresh Picked

{a.k.a my sister}!

You need to go follow her blog right now and see all of her cute printables

and home decor ideas. She got the decorating gene. I certianly did not. :)
{here are all her printables}

Check out these super cute ones for Halloween...

And one of my favorite printables she has made is one she just

put up on her blog last month.

One of my favorite verses that has been sort of my personal motto

for the last year.

Like I said before, God has a way better plan for my life than anything I could

try to plan or orchestrate.

If its supposed to happen, he'll make it happen.

 

 I think I'm going to frame this one and put it in my kitchen because

it will look great next to my new white cabinets!

I actually did finish painting them this summer even though

I had some serious doubts about my ability to finish them.

Several times during the painting process I was concerned that

I was actually going to lose my mind.

It's just a ton of work and I thought I'd have it done in a couple of days.

Joke was on me.

Then, I realized I wasn't losing my mind and actually going crazy,

just experiencing the wrath of my raging early pregnancy

hormones...