Games Galore!

Kids get sick of playing the same board games over and over, so I decided to make my own!  A lot of my kids were really into Thomas the Train, so it seemed like a good choice.  One of my little guys in particular would sit and play all day on the Thomas board if I'd let him! It was super fun and easy to make!

I worked at a grocery store over the summer, so I always collected good pieces of cardboard on truck days.  One day I hit the jackpot and found pieces that were the perfect size for a game board...and they even were perforated down the center for the perfect fold!  I printed out clipart offline and colored it.  I used colored card stock and permanent marker to finish off the details.  After gluing everything down, I covered the board with contact paper in an attempt to save it from the kids' sticky fingers.  I used some old dominos to make the game pieces.  I simply used a hot glue gun to attach the pictures to the dominos.

If the player answers the question on their card correctly, they receive a ticket.  The player with the most tickets at the end of the game wins!

When I created the cards for the game, I made the questions on red, blue, and yellow cards.  The color of space the student lands on after rolling the dice determines the color card they choose.  I usually put different types/levels of questions on the different colored cards (ex: blue = math, red = sight words, yellow = letter ID, etc.).  

I've always had a slight obsession with The Wizard of Oz, so of course I had to make a Wizard of Oz game too!

I made this game the same way as the Thomas game.  I forgot to make distinct spaces on the Yellow Brick Road, so I will have to go back and put stickers or something before the kids play it.  

So the kids wouldn't get bored playing the same game, I made a variety of cards for them to use when playing.  While cleaning out my basement this summer, I came across an old Junior Trivia game.  

I browsed through the ridiculously outdated questions and decided I would cut up the cards and use them for my classroom games.  

After lots of cutting, pasting, organizing, and labeling, I had a plethora of card sets for the kids :)

Each bag is labeled with the topic of cards it contains.  It also is labeled with a colored sticker that corresponds with a colored sticker on each card.  It's a simple way to keep cards organized by topic!

Kids can roll the dice and answer the question that matches up with the number they roll.  They can also answer all the questions on the card.  You can adapt the games however you want depending on the amount of time available and the group of kids playing the game!

The cards for the game can be as simple as letter or sound identification for pre-school, kindergarten, and first graders!

I mostly used sight words when playing the board games with kids.  They always needed to practice them, and this was a fun alternative to just reading them off the cards.  The game made it more exciting!

Including the dice on one side of the cards also helps the kids practice numbers / counting while practicing sight words.  Using the dice really helped a lot of my kids with counting fluency and adding because sometimes when they used 2 dice to roll, they'd have to add the numbers before picking a card.

Counting money and making change is always difficult for a lot of my kids, so we'd practice it while playing a game! 

I used these cards with my fourth graders.  We didn't use the game boards.  Instead they had bingo boards.  I gave them blank bingo boards and they had to fill in their vocabulary words (bold words on these cards).  Each student was able to pick the 20 words they wanted (from their entire vocabulary list) and place them on the board where they wanted.  To play, I read the definitions of the words aloud and they had to know the word that matched each definition and cover it on their board.  This was a fun alternative to just studying their vocabulary words.  

All of these games and game cards are really easy and fun to create!  The kids really enjoy playing when the games are related to their interests.  It's also really easy to create 100 different games using one single game board!  

Let Your Imagination Roll Wild

Okay, we all know that a lot of students don't particularly enjoy writing.  I work with a lot of kids who have difficulty reading and writing, so the last thing they want to do is write for me.  I've tried a variety of creative ways (at least I think so) to get my kiddos excited about writing.  I've been unsuccessful.  Then, this weekend I was shopping at Meier in Dayton and came across the game aisle.  I'm always trying to think of ways to adapt my favorite games such as Candy Land, Jenga, and Scattergories into educational games (Jenga Trivia will come in a later post!).  I came across the answer to my troubles....Rory's Story Cubes.  This game, consisting of 9 picture dice, comes in a small box that is used in the game.  There are many different ways to use this game in the classroom!  In the original instructions, students are to take all 9 picture dice and roll them.  Their job is then to create a story, beginning with "Once upon a time...", incorporating the pictures from the 9 dice into the story.  This seems a little difficulty for the students I work with, so I will have them roll 3-4 dice.  The pictures on the dice include things such as an airplane, a lock, a magnifying glass, a parachute, a question mark, and a credit card.  With the wide variety of picture combinations, the stories are endless.

For a fun twist, students can work in a group.  Each member of the group gets the same number of dice.  Starting with one player and continuing in the circle, students take turns rolling the cubes and adding to the story based on the face up image on the dice.  

After purchasing them, I played the game with my friend's little brothers who are in first and second grade.  They had a blast with it!  We just told the stories out loud and took turns rolling 4 dice.  I haven't used these in my classroom yet, but I plan on trying them out tomorrow in my after-school intervention group.  I can't wait to hear the interesting stories the kids come up with tomorrow!

The Perfect Gift For Any Teacher

I actually made this before the lamp, but just came across the picture again.  I made this for one of my co-teachers.  I printed off a letter 'B' off my computer to use as a guide.  The picture frame fits an 8x10 inch picture.  I removed the glass and took the cardboard that comes in the picture frame and covered it with black fabric.  To make the crayons easier to cut, I put them in the freezer for about 3 hours.  I think an hour would have been sufficient though.  I used a butter knife to cut them, however, I think a sharper knife would've been better (I couldn't find one at the time and I wasn't patient enough to go on a scavenger hunt in my kitchen looking for one!).  After cutting my crayons, I arranged the crayons on top of the printed 'B' to get an idea of how to place them on the frame.  I then used my hot glue gun to glue the crayons to the fabric.  The zebra print around the outside is scrapbook paper.  I also used ribbon to decorate the outside of the frame.  To finish off my project, I used stamps on white paper to spell out  B is for Mrs. Bigrigg.  This craft is super easy and super cute for any teacher!  

My good friend, Courtney, made me one for Christmas! Check it out.

Crayola Lamp

Long weekends always leave me looking for something to do to occupy my time.  Alex and I decided a trip to Hobby Lobby and Lowes to get stuff for her new apartment was a good idea.  Of course, we got distracted from our real shopping purpose and bought a load of stuff for crafting.  Three hours of shopping later, we headed home to make lamps for our classrooms.  Although time consuming, this lamp is simple to make and is super cute for my classroom desk :)

Finished Product :)

Here's how to create this sweet lamp:

Step 1: Glue crayons to your lamp (or other surface...Alex has done this on a flat canvas before and it looks wonderful hanging in her room).  Make sure that you use at least 4 crayons in each shade otherwise the colors run together and turn brownish black.  I prefer to use a hot glue gun to glue the crayons on to ensure they stay.

Step 2: After gluing the crayons around the outside of the lamp, I put a layer of hot glue around the inside edge of the lamp.  I wanted to ensure the crayons don't fall off if the lamp gets knocked over or bumped by the kids.

Step 3: Use a blow dryer to melt the crayons.  Be careful because the wax will splatter!  We had a plastic sheet to cover the floor with for this part, but forgot to bring it.  Our friend Craig's bathtub was a good substitute.  We used the highest heat setting and aimed the heat toward the center of the crayon.  Place the blow dryer close to the crayons.  You can change the drip design depending on the angle you hold the lamp shade.  You can change the thickness of the drip design, as well, depending on how long you expose the crayons to the heat.  The crayon wax will dry quickly.

Step 4: Clean up.  Since the wax dries almost immediately, the bath tub was stained with wax splatter.  To clean up the mess, we reheated the splatter with the blow dryer & used paper towels to wipe it up.  After getting most of it off, we used scrubbing bubbles and hot water.  The tub was sparkling white when we finished.

The finished product :)

Alex was excited to show off our craft!

Behavior Savior

Anyone have a hard time with behavior in the classroom? Fear no more...Class Dojo is your answer!

Class Dojo is a realtime behavior management program.  With Dojo, you can keep track of students' positive and negative behavior and the best part is students are able to see it as it happens.  One of my fellow teachers introduced this site to me and I am in love with it.  It's really simple to set up, too!  Simply go to www.classdojo.com and follow the site directions to create a class.  This site is awesome because more than one teacher can be logged into a class at once so behavior can be tracked throughout the day.  Class Dojo also works on iPads and Smart phones, so you can keep track of student behavior as you travel through the school building. 

Step 1: Create a class.  You can type in student names and create an avatar for them.  This is how your class will look once you've created it.  The site also has a demo class so you can practice the features and see how everything works before creating your own class.

Step 2: Set up behaviors.  The site has a pre-made set of behaviors you can use or you can create your own.  You can change the icon and the name to match the positive or negative behavior you want. 

Step 3: Start a class.  Once you've customized your class and behavior options, you select "start a class."  This begins the realtime behavior management.  Simply click on a student's name and award them the appropriate behavior.  Once you award the behavior, a bell sounds and a banner comes across the bottom of the screen announcing the student name & behavior point given.  

After you award the point, the screen keeps track of student points so students can see their behavior in live time.  

At the end of a day, you can "end class."  After ending the class, you can get a graph of overall performance of the class.  This chart shows how the class behaved throughout the day.  It gives a visual and also lists the behaviors that were observed.  You can also click on each individual student and get a report of their behavior throughout the day.  

With Class Dojo you are also able to download or e-mail the PDF files of the behavior charts.  This is awesome because you can simply attach it to an e-mail or print it out and send it home to parents.  Parents can easily see the breakdown of their child's behavior throughout the day.  

Some of the teachers in my building began using this and it's amazing to see how it has helped the behavior.  The kids are constantly looking up to the SmartBoard to see their point values.  Traveling in the hallway is  no longer like a circus.  One teacher carries her iPad with her and the kids know that if they are rowdy in the hallway they'll lose points so they are quiet.  It is a wonderful tool to use to monitor behavior within the classroom.  And I forgot one of the best parts of this....IT'S FREE! 

Word Board

When I was working as a paraprofessional last year, I had a few students who had difficulty differentiating between sounds in the initial, medial, and final positions of words.  Some also struggled with blends and vowel sounds.  To help them practice, I created this colorful "word board."

Each ring has a different letter or combination of letters.  The student flips the cards in the first, second, or third positions depending on the types of words they're practicing.  If the student is practicing sounds in the initial position, then they would flip the first set of cards.  

  

If the student is practicing the final sound in a word, then they would flip the third set of cards.  There is also a set of medial vowel sounds students can practice on the top row.  I didn't take pictures of it.  All of the combinations of letters form real words.  The kids have a great time working with this "word board" because they get to turn the letters themselves!

                    

A Great Addition to Every Classroom

Every teacher needs this amazing tool.  One of my fellow teachers introduced me to the VuPoint Magic Wand and I just had to get one for myself.  This is every teacher's savior.  This handy scanner is hand-held, portable, and comes in a variety of bright colors!  You can easily scan a variety of documents, save them on the microSD card, and upload the documents to your computer via USB cable.  The scanner scans in both black/white and color.  Once you save them to your computer, you can easily upload each file into Google Docs (which is also another amazing tool to use in the classroom if you haven't used it already).  Once it's in Google Docs, you can share it with other teachers or link it into your unit design through Google Docs for easy access.  The best part is the price...I found mine on eBay for only $50.  It's definitely $50 well spent!  

VuPoint Magic Wand Scanner

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