Last school year I gave this as a gift to my daughter’s teacher.  I know that she absolutely loved it.  She even plulled me aside to thank me for the gift on the first day of school the following year.

There are a lot of free offers, but here is what I do for the teacher’s gift.

Rubber Stamp: You can make one that says “Great Job” or Good Work.”  They can use the stamp on all of those papers they correct.
Postcards: I personalize these so they are more like flat note cards.  They will say, “From the Desk of…” or ” A Note From…”  To these I add 100 envelopes for $4.99.  Now you have 100 personalized note cards for the teacher.
Invatations and Announcements: I turn these into personalized notecards also.
Return Address Labels: These are made into stickers for student work they say, “Great Job!”
Sticky Notes: Who doesn’t love sticky notes?!?
T-shirt: If you are doing a gift from the class this would be nice.  YOu can personalize the from with the teacher’s name and the year and for an additional $4.99 you can put the kids’ names on the back.

Now there is a little trick to getting these offers.  First, you have to go through the above link, or these specials do not show up.  Second, after you finish putting one of the free items in your shopping cart there is no way to get back to those free specials except for hitting the back button until you get there.  Third, if you have more than one teacher or person that you want to order for, you can place seperate orders.

Another note!!  Shipping came to about $14 for me.  Not to bad considering all that you get. Now, VistaPrint often has a free shipping offer after you pay.  Do not take the offer unless you want to be enrolled in their program that charges you a monthly fee. 

It is time for the monthly felt toy giveaway contest again.  This month’s giveaway is a Mary, Mary Quite Contrary Toggle book.

This set is perfect for a child to play with in the car or to use with a few children in a classroom. It comes with the two-sided toggle felt book, coordinating felt pieces and activities.

The activities include a template for a turtle shell planter, a window flower box art project flowers to cut and color and more.

To enter this month’s contest just leave a comment below and let me know a little about the child or children that would be using this set.

I will choose a winner for this contest on Friday, May 9th at approximately 12 noon EST.

Goo Luck!

Today is Poetry Reading Day, so take some time today to share a poem or two with your child.

Poetry allows children to experiment with language.  Fun sounds and patterning make poetry fun for children.  The rhythm and rhyme of poems often make it easy for children to memorize verse after verse. 

Why is this memorization important?

• Memorization allows children to “read” before they are actually reading.  This builds confidence and a desire to read more.
• With memorization children are able to pick up on the words that they know and recognize them in other texts.
• When children recognize rhyming words they are able to expand upon that knowledge by recognizing patterns within our language.

Here is an activity that you can share with your child for poetry day:  Rhyme to Read

If Mr. and Mrs. Smith have 5 daughter and each daughter has one brother, then there are 8 people in the family.

Family members:

Mr. Smith
Mrs. Smith
Daughter 1
Daughter 2
Daughter 3
Daughter 4
Daughter 5
Son 1

The one son is the one brother that each daughter has makin 8 family members.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith have 5 daughters and each daughter has 1 brother.  How many people are in the Smith family?

Yesterday I read this blog post at Parenting Zoo.  It is all about the importance of play and how it seems that play time seems to be diminishing because of out busy lives.

If you ever watch a child play you can often “see” the learning taking place.  I remember watching my daughter as a toddler playing with nesting blocks similar to these:

She would play with them often and really enjoyed stacking, then knocking them down, then stacking, then knocking them down over and over again.

But, there was one thing that I would watch her struggle with.  These blocks can nest inside each other.  Hannah would struggle to correctly put all of the blocks together.  Even though she could not complete the task she would try over and over again.  She never seemed to be frustrated, you could just see that she was working on it.  Then, one day, she nested the blocks as if she always knew how.

Playing with this simple toy helped her make connections.  She built a greater understanding of the world around her just by playing. 

Both of my kids also loved to line objects up.  I remember all or our shoes lined up across the living room floor.  I truly believe that this activity was something they did which help make connections for counting and patterning.  You can see the concentration that they have and know that they are figuring things out.

Do you remember what you did when you were in Kindergarten?  No…Me either.  But, I am pretty sure it is nothing even close to what my son is doing.

Today is Friedrich Froebel’s birthday, the creator of the first Kindergarten in 1837. Froebel used song, play and drawing to teach young children.  This was something that had never been done before.

So, what does modern day Kindergarten consist of? Well, I can only speak from my experience with my own children. I am sure there is a lot of variation from classroom to classroom. There is a huge emphasis on reading and writing in Kindergarten. My son has a reading group that meets periodically and does writing every day. He really seems to enjoy “writer’s workshop” where he gets to create his own stories. His school also publishes some of the stories in a bound book form, so they get to take home their own work in book form.

They also do some math type work, but the focus is definitely reading and writing. He has learned some skip counting and they have done chart work and estimating.

They pack quite a bit into his half day and it seems to be a lot more structured than when I was a kid. I do have to say that his teacher does a wonderful job engaging the kids and making the learning fun. He is just light years beyond what I was doing in Kindergarten.

Happy Kindergarten Day!

Yesterday’s Thursday Thinker can be a little tricky, but once you see the answer you have one of those, “oh yeah” moments. 

Answer:
One piece of candy cost $1.05 and the other was $.05.

Sally bought two pieces of candy which, together, cost $1.10.  One piece of candy cost $1 more than the other.  What were the individual prices for the two pieces of candy?

There are many ways to help encourage your child to pick up a book and read, but this tip is my favorite.

Leave one or two books on the kitchen table.  When your child has cereal for breakfast and the box is on the table, what do they do? If they are like most kids I know they look at and read the box the entire time they are eating.  If you do not leave the box on the table, but instead have a book, then chances are they will look through that book while they eat.

 There is no need to ask them to pick up the book and look at it.  Most likely this will come naturally.