Spotlight Saturday: Mrs. Roltgen and Cute By Designs Co.

It's Saturday, and you know what that means! Time for this week's Spotlight Saturday link up!!

If you've never linked up before, Spotlight Saturday is a link up where educators and bloggers can Spotlight one of their favorite products, resources, activities, or ideas. We try to include an awesome freebie you can download, too. You can read more about the rules for this link up at the end of this post!

For this week's freebie I would like to introduce you to the TPT store of Mrs. Roltgen. In her store she has almost 200 different resources to choose from, including over 20 freebies and many products listed at less than $2. Today I'd like to Spotlight one of her awesome freebies!

This gem is a freebie she created for having 1,200 followers. How awesome of a milestone is that?? I really like this freebie for several reasons. It's a huge concept that we cover in kindergarten and spend much of the year trying to master it. Besides being such an important skill, Mrs. Roltgen has made this book super-easy to make.

There are two copies per page and it is easy to cut out based on the straight lines of the frame. Make enough copies for your class and then slice each page in half on the paper cutter. Then all you have to do is put the pages in order and staple to make a book.

Each page consists of a different number combination for 10. Each combination is represented by circles in a ten-frame. Students must find the missing addend based on the picture and then write the numeral. This is a book that can be used during a small group guided math lesson where you can focus on the skill of decomposing numbers, or this is simple enough for students to finish independently. I really enjoy having books like this because once we are finished woking on them they go right into my students' Daily 5 Book Boxes. This is a perfect addition for the beginning of the year because it is so easy for kinders to read independently or read aloud to a friend. Having books like this in their Book Boxes makes them feel confident in their reading abilities, and it is so good to hear them reading to a buddy. As an added bonus, the more they read this little book the more they are practicing identifying the number combinations of 10. It's a win-win!! Click on the image of the cover to head over and grab one of your own. You can also follow one of the links below to learn more about Mrs. Roltgen and her awesome resources!

Mrs. Roltgen's TPT store:

Mrs. Roltgen's Facebook Page:

You should really go check out all the resources offered by Mrs. Roltgen, she has some really amazing things in her store!!

I am shining the rest of the Spotlight on an amazing lady I have 'met' through social media. I first came across her creations on Instagram and fell in love!! Cute by Design Co. creates adorable clips that fit perfectly in your planners, including Erin Condren and Kikki.K. I found her clips through Instagram pictures and couldn't get over the cuteness! She has so many different creations, I'm sure you'll find something to love! Check these out!

Pandas with glasses and bows and planners that sparkle!!

Cute kittens with teacher planners...

Dapper dogs with flowers in their fur....

Sweet treats including your favorite lattes, doughnuts, and cupcakes...

Bands you can get to keep your planner closed that match the clips to section it off, like these sparkly foxes...

Clips that are PERFECT for teachers...

Seasons and holidays and cuteness covered...

Bright, happy, smiling sunshine!!

She has everything in her shop from seahorses to sparkly crowns!! You really need to go to her store to check out all of her awesome creations. Best part? She even takes custom order requests!! So you just know I had to make a request, right??

Oh. Em. Gee. Can you stand the complete and utter cuteness of these dragon clips??? I asked if she thought she might be able to create a dragon clip for me, and she totally blew me out of the water!!

She used sparkly and solid colors of cardstock to create my little masterpieces! You know I had to order one for every color of the rainbow, as well as one in my favorite color!! Here is the green dragon <left> and my favorite color silver dragon <right>.

Here are my yellow and orange dragons. Look at the details!! Spots on their bodies and lines on their wings!!

Here's blue and red! She mixed it up for me and made some sparkly on the outside and others sparkly on their bellies. You KNOW I had to add the glittery sparkle!!

Pink and purple, look at those sparkles!! I'm so sorry that my camera just doesn't do these clips justice, they are so incredibly awesome and sparkly and wonderful! They are so absolutely perfect for my new Erin Condren Teacher Planner! They are packaged and shipped with the utmost care, taped down and encased in plastic, to insure that they make it to you without any damage to the cuteness! They are made out of such heavy-duty cardstock that they can handle the day to day use of my planner, but they are so incredibly adorable that I'm just not sure if I want to use them or display them!!

I am in love with her creations! I will totally be adding to my collection, including that adorable box of crayons clip she made!! If you use a planner, or even if you use cute clips to bind your papers to be graded together, I would most definitely recommend checking out Cute By Design Co. and all of her fabulous creations!! You can catch up with her by following one of the links below!

Cute By Design Co. Etsy Shop:

Cute By Design Co. Instagram Account:

If you want to link up with us and share the Spotlight, just read the rules below and then link up your post! I can't wait to read all about your Spotlights!!

Rules:

1) You need to spotlight an educational resource that either you have created or you have found from someone else and love! This means you must link up with a blog post you have written putting an activity or idea in the Spotlight. Please do not link directly to a product in Teachers Pay Teachers or Teacher's Notebook or similar sites.

2) If you are Spotlighting a product from your own TPT store or that of another seller, make sure that in your blog post you Spotlight a freebie or a paid product. If you have a freebie and a paid product from the same seller, feel free to use both in your post. If all you have is a freebie, then post about the freebie and how you used it. You can also Spotlight a freebie that someone else created along with a product that you created.

2) Make sure to give credit where credit is due! You will need to include the name of the creator as well as a link to their TPT or Teacher's Notebook store where others can get a copy of the resource as well.

3) Include pictures of the product in your post, either screen shots  or photographs of your kiddos actually using the product. Give us a snapshot, just a brief glimpse into how the product or activity works. Just an image of the cover and one of the pages you have listed in the preview of the activity on TPT would be fine. It gives readers a visual and helps them better understand what your product is all about.

4) Make sure to leave a comment on the post of the two people before your post and the person after. This will help get conversation rolling, and will make sure everyone feels recognized for their efforts!

5) This is not the place to share your frustrations or disappointment with an activity or how you would have done it differently. If you are unsatisfied with your purchase that is a private conversation you need to have with the seller via email. This is not a link up to bash any sellers or their products, and any posts like that WILL BE DELETED!!

6) Follow my blog with Bloglovin' to make sure you are kept up to date on all the latest link up additions. Don't forget to follow my Facebook page too to keep up with all the notifications I send out!

7) To Link Up, you will need to click on the small blue button underneath my closing signature. It is directly under my name on the left hand side of the blog.

Spotlight Saturday

Happy weekend everyone! Are these not the best days?? Well, until summer time rolls around, that is!

Do you remember last Saturday I posted about trying something new, called Spotlight Saturday? You can read all about it here, but basically I'm just going to be spotlighting different products from my TPT store and the store's of other educators. Every Saturday read about a few awesome products and then follow the links to add them to your Cart or Wish List! :-) Last week I shared with you some freebies from my store. This week I'd like to showcase some product from my sweet friend's store, Pocket of Preschool.

Click on the image above to head over to her blog and learn more about my dear friend Jackie and her experiences being a preschool teacher. I have been lucky enough to help her out editing several of her amazing products, which gives me some amazing resources to add to my tool kit!

This amazing product Jackie created is PERFECT for the beginning of the year in kindergarten! That's when we go over the basic 2D shapes and start to delve into their attributes. Jackie has provided so many wonderful activities in this packet that I know my kinders are going to LOVE!

I LOVE that she includes photographs of her activities in action in her classroom! This really helps me get a picture of how it could look in my classroom. One of my learning styles is being a visual learner, and the picture guides she includes are a great bonus! For each activity in her packet she includes a picture with Teacher Tips to help you better understand what she's talking about. I might just be stealing this idea from her for my own packets! ;-)

There are so many awesome activities in her packet. I'm choosing a few to talk about, so make sure you go check out her product in TPT so you can see all the other shape activities that are offered in this packet! There is an activity where students sort different real-world objects into categories based on their shape. Not only does this help improve their sorting and classifying skills, but it also helps them to learn to recognize the shapes in their environment.

She takes the time to show you what a shape sorting center could look like in your classroom as well as the different objects she found for them to sort. I know that most of us have many of those objects and manipulatives on our shelves right now, so that makes it even easier to set up! My kinders would love working on this during either their Math with Self or Math with Someone rotation times, it fits in very well for both.

There is a paper shape sorting activity where the kiddos sort different shapes into categories. This is perfect for differentiating which kinders need more work with certain shapes. Not to mention it gives them a chance to practice their cutting and gluing skills!

I really like this activity, since number of sides is one of the ways we classify shapes in my class. These sorting mats can be used with the paper shapes Jackie provides, or they can be laminated and put out with a set of shape blocks. Kiddos who have mastered sorting can try their hand at drawing the shapes and then labeling them with the shape's name. See how many uses just this one activity from her pack has??

This is one of my favorite activities from her Shape Pack. Each shape has a mini-book like the one shown. These books will be perfect for us to work on during the first few weeks of school, as we learn about the expectations of guided math rotations. As an added bonus, these books are simple enough for my kiddos to add to their Daily 5 Book Boxes when we're finished with them, which means they have books they can actually read during Read to Self and Read to Someone rotation time. Do you know how good they feel about themselves when they have books they can read on their own? Yeah you do!

There are so many activities in Jackie's Shape Pack that I couldn't include them all in one post. She has sorting mats and playdough mats, card games and shape crafts like shape pizza and shape monsters. This is an incredibly extensive pack, with plenty of fun activities to keep my kinders busy and loving learning about shapes!

Jackie also has some AMAZING freebies in her store! One of my favorites is her Letter Hunt activity. I use this during our Word Work rotations for Daily 5, and my kinders get to complete it as a Write the Room activity. They LOVE all things Write the Room, and this freebie is PERFECT for the beginning of the year. It allows them to build their confidence while learning how to follow the routines of guided rotations, and Jackie has differentiated it very well.

Just click on the image above and you'll go right to her TPT store so you can get a copy for yourself! There are many different styles included in the pack, so you can use this for several weeks if you want to.

I like this style the best, because the letters are 'hollow' and my kinders can color them in. This will help improve their fine motor skills and pencil grip. Some of the pages have only lowercase letters, others have only uppercase letters, and a third set has uppercase and lowercase letter buddies. Perfect for differentiating.

This page might be my favorite, because it gives my kinders a chance to search the room and practice identifying the different resources that can help them (ABC charts/alphabet line/etc). Plus they get a chance to practice writing their letters and improving those fine motor skills!

I hope you have enjoyed this Saturday's Spotlight! If you want to follow Pocket of Preschool on Facebook click here. If you want to follow Pocket of Preschool's TPT store click here. Also, if you want to follow her blog click here. You should really become a follower, she comes out with AMAZING activities that can be used year after year. Don't forget to leave her some feedback love when you download!


P.S. - Click here to read about and enter my GIVEAWAY!!!

Saturday Spotlight

Happy Saturday everyone! I hope that you are able to get outside and enjoy this great weather! How many Mondays do you have before school is out?

I'm going to start using Saturdays to spotlight a different product. Either one I've made or one I've purchased or downloaded from another amazing seller. To start off with, I'd like to spotlight an activity I have available in my store. This is a FREEBIE that you can download and use right away!

This little freebie is the perfect addition to your Animal or Ocean Themes/Units.  In this activity the students are asked to sort animals into two different categories, based on whether or not that animal lives in the ocean.

I created the sorting sheet in a style that would allow my kinders to complete it as independently as possible. Don't you LOVE when they can complete activities independently? I included a key at the top with symbols for the supplies my kinders will need to complete the activity. The box where I want them to put the ocean animals has waves, and the box where they put the non-ocean animals has an X. Once I went over the directions and how to complete, I allowed them to complete this on their own.

These are the animal pieces my kinders cut and paste into the correct categories. This one page has two sets of pieces to help save on copying! I always let my kinders color the pieces after they have glued them into the correct boxes.

Finally, I included this writing prompt with the packet. During our World of Animals Unit, we discuss the different traits and attributes that each animal has which allows it to live in its habitat. We also talk about why some animals can't live in certain habitats. The kinders use this page to write about what the ocean animals have in common that allows them to live in the ocean.

Here's another freebie you can get at my TPT store. Don't forget to click on the green star under my name to become a follower!

This is an activity I created to help my kiddos understand the concept of decomposing numbers by illustrating their equations.  The kiddos choose 2 different colored crayons/colored pencils to complete each illustration.

The students read a story problem. I have my kinders use their two different colors to highlight the two different numbers in each problem. Then they use the same crayon to draw that many marbles in the jar. Finally, they write the numbers of marbles used in the boxes next to each color. I created two pages so you could copy them back to back. This could work as a small group assessment after practicing decomposing numbers, or as a math center activity using real marbles/manipulatives to show each problem.



I would LOVE for you to head over to my TPT store and download a copy for yourself! Feel free to search through the other freebies I have in my store, so far there are 26 different freebies listed in my store. I'm working on adding to that number! Please leave some feedback love, and I would LOVE for you to follow my TPT store! Just click on the green star underneath my name! If you have a product you'd like me to Spotlight on a Saturday, please just let me know and I'd be happy to!!!

I Appreciate Teachers!

Happy Friday everyone! Today marks the last day of Teacher Appreciation Week! Have you felt appreciated this week? I know I have! Even though I'm not able to be in my classroom because of my injury, I have been able to snatch up tons of freebies offered this week! Getting such great freebies that I can use in my classroom for years to come definitely makes me feel appreciated! Here are a few you should check out before they're gone!

This adorable freebie is a bee-themed addition activity that was created by A Special Kind of Class. She did such an amazing job creating this activity, and it is PERFECT to put out during our Daily 4 Math with Someone rotations! It is such a fun way to practice addition, I know my kinders will LOVE it! Go grab one for yourself, and don't forget to leave some feedback love!!

These amazing freebies are the creation of Jill Green over at Chevron and Centers. She has been making a new freebie for EVERY DAY of Teacher Appreciation Week!!!  How awesome is that!?!? I haven't downloaded Day 5 yet, but I am IN LOVE with the first four freebies! The picture above will take you to Jill's TPT store to grab her 'I'm a Sight Word Ninja' packet, which is an incredibly adorable sight word game! You'll need to search her store for the rest of the week's freebies. 'Gone Fishin'" is an adorable place value center activity, 'Summer Fun' is an CVC/CVCe activity that will fit perfectly with Daily 5 Word Work rotations, and 'Too COOL For School' is an adorable addition activity that will be great at a center during Daily 4 Math with Self or even used as a Write the Room activity! My kinders LOVE Write the Room, and I know they would really enjoy this activity! I can't wait to see what Day 5 brings! You really should go snag these super awesome freebies, and don't forget to leave some feedback love!

The incredible clip art creator over at Educlips has also been making freebies for each day of Teacher Appreciation Week! She has created an incredibly cute set of clip art for each day of Teacher Appreciation Week, and I am in love with ALL of them! I don't want to tell you what they are and ruin the surprise, so you'll just have to click on the image above to snag the first one! Then you can search her store for the rest of this week's freebies. You won't be disappointed, and don't forget to leave some feedback love to show her you appreciate her hard work!

I wanted to let all of you wonderful and incredible educators that I appreciate all your hard work and dedication to your kiddos! I know how challenging, stressful, wonderful, and rewarding this profession can be, and I know that it takes a very special person to commit to this lifetime career! I would like to share with you my newest creation, 'Knights versus Dragons'. This activity is one I use for dismissal and down times to help my kinders stay calm and quiet while they wait for their bus or for special to start.

This activity includes several sets of cards that address various Reading, Math, Social Studies, Science, and Health concepts in kindergarten. Each page can be copied on a color of construction paper, cut out, and then added to a binder ring. This binder ring can be easily hooked onto an apron, belt buckle, or clip board. That way you will always have the cards with you, so you can keep your littles busy while they're waiting!

Here is a set of Math cards. I tried to include a Common Core Standard where applicable, so you can make sure you're hitting those standards!

Here is another set of the math cards. I tried to include a wide variety of skills and concepts, so that you could add to your ring as the year goes on. Also, they could be used to give extra reinforcement to kiddos who are having a harder time mastering certain standards. I copied the math cards onto red construction paper and them laminated them.

This is a set of Reading cards that practice a lot of different phonics skills. You can pick and choose which cards you want to include on your ring, or put them all on!

Here is another set of the Reading cards. They involve reading some high frequency words and identifying different literary terms. Remember, you can pick and choose which cards to add to your ring throughout the year. As you teach a new concept, check to see if there's a card that can reinforce that concept. I copied the Reading cards onto green construction paper and then laminated them before adding them to my ring.

Finally I included some cards that touched on different Science, Social Studies, and Health topics we cover in kindergarten. We do a lot of work with seasons, weather, trees, and community helpers.

We also work with animals, rules, and where we are in the world. These cards I copied onto purple construction paper and then laminated. As we learned a new concept, I added the cards that dealt with that concept to my ring.

I divide the kiddos into two groups, one group are Knights and the other group is Dragons. They take turns answering questions from the ring while standing up. If they are unable to answer a question, they sit down. Last team to have kiddos standing wins!

For TODAY ONLY I am offering this packet up as a FREEBIE! It will be available until MIDNIGHT EST on Friday, May 8th. After midnight on Friday, this packet will go on sale in my TPT store. For the first 48 hours it will be marked 50% off, so if you didn't get it as a freebie you can still get it at a discount!  I really appreciate all the hard work teachers do, and I hope you have been able to feel appreciated this week! Did you get any sweet gifts from your kiddos? Were you able to snatch up any awesome freebies this week? I would LOVE to hear from you!!