Who Has An Opinion?

Opinions......Opinions.....Opinions.....

I think we are all full of them.

However, there is no one more full of opinions than a Kindergartener.  That's a fact!

The hardest part about teaching facts and opinions is that kids always think that their opinion is a fact.

Child:  Broccoli is yucky.  That's a fact.
Teacher:  No, honey, that's your opinion.
Child:  No, it's true that I don't like broccoli.

Actually, I don't know why anyone would argue with that!

Now - if I tell you that dogs are the best creatures on this planet - well that would certainly be a fact!  Ha!

I can understand why this is a hard concept for kids.

I made a product to help make writing opinion pieces a little easier.  They are simple sentence starters about a variety of fall topics. You can even make a class book out of it!  Just click on the link below.

Opinion Writing Class Books

Enjoy!

I Love Kindergarten

Well, well, well, my imaginary friends (soon to be hopefully real friends who read this) - I just completed my third week of Kindergarten and I'm in love!  I taught kindergarten a long time ago (I'll refrain from saying "In a galaxy far, far away") and then I taught first grade for a few years.  But I'm back and loving every minute of it!

I teach two sessions each day.  It's busy and crazy AND... did I say BUSY? 

Between recess, snack and specials I get to teach a little over two hours each session.  My goal this year is to share what I'm doing with my kids, show you my classroom and find a few followers.  However, if anyone wants to follow the Yellow Brick Road - I must warn you that we're NOT in Kansas anymore.  

Nope!

We are in Kindergarten!

Here is my day:

Enter/Take Home folder in chair pocket/clip in for milk choice
Morning Meeting (or afternoon) - calendar/phonological awareness/Zoo Phonics    
                                                     practice/story (with story elements)
Reading Group and Centers
Writing (choice and prompts based on theme)
Recess
Special
Snack
Math
Go Home (What?  We just got here)

So, social studies and science themes must be incorporated into my reading, writing and math in order to fit it all in.  It has not been perfect but we're just getting to the meat of instruction NOW.  So I guess that means that perfection is coming!  Ha!  Ha!   

I might live in dinosaur land because I don't see many teacher blogs out there who teach 1/2 day kindergarten.  Tell me it isn't so...........I actually like half day because it forces me to be intentional with what I do and I really don't hear ("When do we go HOME?").  However, I'm worried about fitting in all of Common Core!   

So come join me on my adventure.  I can't wait to see your adventure too!

Welcome to my first Free Product - Handwriting

Welcome to my first free product on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Click the link below and it will take you to it.

Handwriting Practice A to Z


There are actually four parts to this free product but the link will take you to the first.

I made this Handwriting book in hopes of using it to teach my students how to form their letters in the lines properly and I hope it will be a blessing to you and your class as well.  If you homeschool I hope you find this useful as well.

However, if you don't do either -- well -- maybe you can just smile at the cute animal pictures.

Have a wonderful day!

A Tech Tip

I know.....I know.....shhhh.....it's a secret:

YES

A DESK SECRET!!!!!

Let's get right to the STORY.

Once upon a summer a curious teacher dreamed of making a BIG impact in the world of education.  Perhaps, just like you.

So she began a blog for teachers and decided to share her newbie experience of sharing educational material on teachers pay teachers hoping that other teachers would share their knowledge as well.

The end...
or maybe the just the beginning.

I think I ought to go back and and better explain my story - or maybe the Desk Secret's story.

My husband's an author and his newest book, hopefully soon to be illustrated, is titled:  Desk Secrets--an imaginative story that promotes creative writing.

Thus my blog's name.

Has anyone ever thought to themselves:  "Self, I think I'll whip up some products for my classroom then sell them on TPT and sail off into the sunset with my new found fortune???"

Anyone?

Anyone?

Well - I don't want to burst any bubbles out there in bloggy world BUT it just doesn't work that way.  All week (and I mean from morning to night everyday) I have been working on products.  It started out small and innocent but boy, oh boy it's work (although I enjoy it).

It took hours to find, buy and organize my clipart/fonts/borders/backgrounds.  Then came making the products, flattening the files (how dare those cliparts and fonts try to walk off my page), and figuring out how to properly give credit to the people who made the clipart, etc.

Finally, I figured it all out and have at last uploaded four free files and one for purchase for $1. Whew!  I mean how hard can the rest of it be.  [Insert crazy laugh] I just have one word to say:

Thanks!

Thanks for my hubby who came to my tech rescue more times than I could count.  Thanks to those reading this post.  Also, thanks this particular and invaluable blog post in guiding me through this process:
 Teaching With Hope   -  follow HER instructions if you ever need to flatten a file -- it was FLAT out awesome.
That's my big tech tip of the day and my first blog post.

My next adventure is to create another product!

If you have any questions please comment!