Become a Facebook Fan for Exclusive Freebies

Are you a Kinder-Craze fan on Facebook yet? If not, you are missing out on an exclusive chance to score some great freebies from me.

I've been developing several new products in the past month and my Facebook fans that are online at the time of completion get a heads-up when the new products are uploaded. Lately, I've been playing a little game with my fans and offering the new items as a FLASH FREEBIE on Teachers Pay Teachers. I call it a "flash" freebie because the offer lasts for 15 minutes or less. Want to cash in on the fun? Become a Kinder-Craze Facebook Fan!

Wondering what you've been missing?

 Kinder-Craze Facebook Fans have enjoyed these exclusive freebies:

Each of these products is an emergent reader booklet that's just right for kinders. Students cut out the letters, unscramble, and glue them in the correct order onto each page of the book. All of the readers feature a predictable sentence and pictures to support the text. These (and many more great items) can also be found on Teachers Pay Teachers and Teachers Notebook. 

I hope to see you on Facebook!

Paper Plate Apples

It's that time of year...apple season! I have the PERFECT activity for teachers with busy schedules that want to fit a quick apple-themed craft into their day. Make paper plate apples!


Materials needed:
small paper plates (dessert size)
red tempra paint
paint brushes
red glitter
red and green construction paper
stapler


My students each covered the convex side (back) of a paper plate with red paint. While the paint was still wet, I had students sprinkle a few pinches of red glitter onto the plate. (When it comes to glitter, less is usually more.) I let the plates dry for several hours, then stapled a leaf and stem onto each apple and wrote the artist's name on the leaf.

The finished apples are a great decoration by themselves - hang in a window or from a clothesline in the classroom for an easy way to show off student artwork. Each year I make a tree in the hallway out of green and brown butcher paper, then hang all of the finished apples on the tree. The finished result is such a fun hallway display. (Please excuse the photo - it's difficult to get an attractive photo in the hallway!)

My kids had such a great time painting this fun apple project!

BINGO! We Have a Winner!

Thank you to everyone that participated in my BINGO Giveaway. The random number generator has selected commenter number 56 as the winner of this giveaway. Congratulations to Holly Draughn-she has won all four sets of my BINGO games. Holly, I will be in touch shortly! 

Colorful Birthday Board FREEBIE

You know how much I love to experiment with my classroom decor and to create my own items that don't look like they came direct from the local teacher store. This year my birthday board was no exception. I found some adorable crowns from Creative Teaching Press that coordinated with my classroom colors.  One of the crowns became a part of the "Happy Birthday" sign on the board. Add a few student photos, colorful cardstock and a few items printed on my classroom computer and Voila!  A fun, student-oriented birthday board with plenty of bright colors. You can download my printables for FREE and create a matching birthday board in your own classroom.

Yes, I know 3 months are missing from my birthday board. My class is small (only 15 students) and I don't have any birthdays in June, July, or December. Those months were not included on my board this year.

 The Header

These Royal Crowns by Creative Teaching Press serve as the header on my birthday board. I created a banner that can be trimmed and mounted on black paper (I used black cardstock to prevent fading). Once mounted on black paper, the entire banner was trimmed once more to match the length of a headband and all pieces were attached with a glue stick. 

Add Student Photos

This board is all about my students, so I grouped students by birth month and snapped a photo of each birthday group for the board. I wanted the background to be an enhancement to the birthday board, so I placed each group in front of a large sheet of magenta Fadeless Paper (of course I selected a color that was already featured in my classroom decor.) I then had all photos developed into 4x6" prints.

Mount and Label Photos

My student photos needed a little extra embellishment to really pop on the bulletin board. All photos were mounted onto the same color cardstock to prevent the bulletin board from looking too busy. The crown is fun and busy enough by itself - all other details needed to be simple. I started by mounting each photo onto a 6x7" sheet of lime green cardstock - being careful to leave ample space at the top.

Next, all photo cards were labeled with the corresponding birth month. These were printed on plain white paper and trimmed to fit. I wanted to keep things interesting, so the labels were placed in the upper-left corner of each photo card.

Finally, I added each child's birthDAY to the photos. These were printed on Avery 5163 address labels - the labels were trimmed and placed near each student's torso in the photos. I considered printing signs of some sort for the students to hold, but label stickers just seemed so much simpler.

Laminate, Cut and Arrange

I ran all my birthday board components through the laminator - the HAPPY BIRTHDAY header and all photo cards. Once the pieces were trimmed, they were ready to be arranged onto the bulletin board. I just love how it all came together.

Create Your Own Birthday Board with a FREEBIE!

Happy Un-Birthday to You! Let's celebrate with a really great FREEBIE. The download includes a PDF to print my "Happy Birthday" sign, the names of each month, and labels for each date. The date labels can be printed on white paper and trimmed, but I used Avery Labels #5163. Trimming is still required, but it's SO much simpler. Click to start downloading and enjoy the FREEBIE!

BINGO Giveaway!

Whew! I just finished updating all four of my BINGO sets. Each set has been freshened up a bit and now includes a cover, instruction page, a set of cards for the BINGO caller to shuffle and randomly announce during game play, and 30 unique BINGO boards! I truly hope that no kindergarten teacher will ever have to use all 30 cards at once (that is WAY too many kinders!), but 30 cards are included just in case. 

My newly-revised, fabulous BINGO sets are:

• Sight Word Bingo
• Numbers 1-20 Bingo  
• Numbers 11-30 Bingo  
• Color Word Bingo  




You can find each Bingo set on TpT, Teachers Notebook, and the Kinder-Craze Store. I'm so excited about these newly-revised sets, I've decided to give away a free download of ALL four sets to one lucky blog follower. With a value of $15.50, this is a great item to win!



Giveaway Rules

Entering the BINGO Giveaway is simple and you have 6 chances to win.

1. Follow Kinder-Craze via Google Friend Connect or Networked Blogs
2. Follow me on Teachers Pay Teachers
3. Follow me on Teachers Notebook
4. Like Kinder-Craze on Facebook
5. Follow me on Pinterest
6. Blog about the giveaway (be sure to leave a link to your post when you comment)

Choose as many options as you would like. For each task that you accomplish, leave a separate comment on this blog post that includes your name and email address so I know how to contact you if you win!

Contest ends at 7:00pm Eastern Time on Sunday, September 23. Best of luck to you!

Bringing Constituion Day to K (Freebie)

Monday is Constitution Day! Since kindergarteners are so young, the concept of the Constitution is a big, tough concept to understand. Most Kindergarten students know that they should love our country, that the flag is a symbol of our country, and that our flag is red, white, and blue and that there are laws that we have to follow. These very basic concepts will be the springboard for my Constitution Day instruction. This year's lesson will have a patriotic spin with this super-cute (and easy) red, white, and blue hat project.

Materials needed

• 4x18" strips of red construction paper (1 per student)
• 4x6" pieces of red construction paper (1 per student)
• 4x1.5" strips of white construction paper (about 8 per student)
• 9x12" sheets of blue construction paper 
• Stapler (teacher)
• Glue sticks and scissors (students)

Instructions for Prep

• Copy star page onto blue construction paper (see download for the master copy) 
•  The 4x18" strips of red paper will not be large enough to fit around the head of most students. Extend this piece by stapling a 4x6" strip of paper to each long strip 

Create the Headband

• Distribute stapled red strips to students with 1.5x4" strips of white paper. 
•  Students will glue the white pieces vertically onto the red headband. Leave an inch or so of space between the white pieces to resemble stripes.
•  Students will each cut out blue paper stars and glue them onto the headband.
•  Once complete, the teacher will wrap the band around each students head, bring the two ends together to determine the right fit, and staple the headband closed

You can download a template and a set of printable instructions for a Patriotic Headband for FREE! Click the thumbnail to grab your FREEBIE! I would greatly appreciate it if you could leave feedback for your download as well :)

Other Monday plans for my classroom include discussing symbols of our country and learning a little about the Constitution. The headband serves as a fun springboard into all of it!
Happy Constitution Day!

PS-Hers'a an update after-the-fact. The patriotic headbands were a HIT with my class and a very sweet parent made these yummie patriotic treats for my students as well. The original idea was found at 5 Minutes for Mom.

Celebrate with BIG Savings

The Kinder-Craze blog isn't the only thing that recently got a makeover this week. I spent the entire day working on the Kinder-Craze Store. All product listings now have a fresh new look, and I added my new calendar number sets to the store as well.

To celebrate the new look of my blog and store, I'm offering a 20% discount on all items now through Monday, September 10 when you use discount code KINDER20 at checkout. Fill your cart with virtual goodies, enter the code, and see the savings reflected in your total purchase at checkout!

This sale only applies to items listed in the Kinder-Craze Store (not TpT or Teachers Notebook).
Click the image above to stock up on lots of great goodies for your classroom!

Step into My Classroom

The wait is over! I gave my classroom a MAJOR makeover this year and have been dying to share photos with you.

Here is the view from the door to the classroom. I am in LOVE with the polka dot lanterns from Schoolgirl Style.  It's no accident that the lanterns and supply boxes for each table coordinate.

Here are some additional views of my classroom. You'll notice lots of bright colors and polka dots (my two favorite things).

I used cardstock to create most of the bright materials on these bulletin boards, in the hopes that the cardstock will have better fade-resistance than the construction paper I have used in the past. These boards are all a work in progress - be sure to stop in again to see what these boards are all about!

The banner above my workspace is also from Schoolgirl Style and it is my absolute favorite detail in the classroom. I love how it is such a fun statement piece. It's also a great way to display my name as a reference for students when they write.

A glimpse at my personal workspace

Some homemade gifts, pictures of my parents' dog Hope (from her puppy days),  inspirational words of encouragement, and picture of myself and my denim-loving students from last year, and a fun photo of some cute shoes!

I am so thankful to my good friend Steve Thompson for capturing the colors and fun of my classroom in these photos.

DIY in the Classroom

My classroom decor includes some fun hand-crafted DIY projects created by yours truly :) Want more information? Check out these popular posts from the past few months!

As you can see, yellow is one of my favorite colors and is the key color in my classroom decor. What is the the predominant color of your classroom?

Notice Anything Different?

No, your monitor does not need adjusting - Kinder-Craze just got a new blog design! The wonderful and talented Tricia from Tricia Nae Designs was fabulous through the entire process. By now, I think it's fairly obvious to all of my readers that I am a Type-A Perfectionist and Tricia was SO patient with my fussiness. She's also incredibly fast! Honestly, I have no idea how she is able to produce such beautiful work so quickly, but I'm not complaining.

Out with the Old, in with the New

I also have a new blog button. If you have my old button displayed on your blog, please grab the new one as a replacement!

<div align="center"> <a href="http://www.kindercraze.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img alt="Kinder-Craze" src="http://http://i812.photobucket.com/albums/zz49/tricia_nae/Clients/MM-buttoncopy.png"/></a>

Just in case you already forgot the old look of Kinder-Craze, here's one last peek...

So what do you think about the new look?

Comment Tips for New Bloggers

Are you a new blogger? Maybe just new the the world of reading blogs and leaving comments? If either of those statements describes you, I have a few quick tips to share with you that will make leaving blog comments much easier and more interactive!

How to Leave a Hotlink When You Comment

I'm sure you know the value of leaving a link back to your own blog when you leave a comment during your blog-stalks. Leaving the web address is good, but leaving a clickable link is so much better! If you've noticed other bloggers do this and wondered, "How the heck did she do that?" you can finally be in the know. It's just a little bit of magical HTML code.

Here's the code you need:
<a href= "http://web address of your blog">Name of Your Blog</a>

As a reference, this is the Kinder-Craze hotlink code:
<a href="http://www.kindercraze.blogspot.com">Kinder-Craze</a>

That's it! Just copy the code, replace the blue writing with your web address and the purple writing with your blog name. Paste your new code into your next blog comment and after you click "submit" your comment will be followed by a clickable link back to your own blog.

Get Creative with Your Hotlinks

You can also have a bit of fun with your hotlinks. Instead of simply leaving the name of your blog, you can display text that promotes a special blog post (such as a giveaway that you are hosting).

I left this hotlink when I commented on my friend Sarah's (from Miss A's Kindergarten) most recent post. Instead of just leaving my blog name, my hotlink says "There's a Giveaway at Kindercraze"

To create a promotional hotlink, you use the same basic code to leave a regular hotlink, but you customize it differently. 
<a href= "link to your SPECIFIC blog post">creative message with your blog name</a>

Please note: If you choose to mention a giveaway or other special blog post, it's important to use good etiquette and leave a link to your specific blog post instead of the general domain address to your blog. 

Once again, here is an example I might use for Kinder-Craze:

<a href= "http://kindercraze.blogspot.com/2012/08/zebra-pens-giveaway.html">Win Free Pens from Kinder-Craze<a>

Saving and Managing Your Hotlinks

I think we can all agree that hotlinks are pretty awesome for leaving a traffic trail back to your own blog. I think we can also agree that all of those characters can be a pain in the you-know-where to manage. Especially since they have to be PERFECT to work. One typo and your whole link is ruined.

I use several different hotlinks on various website that serve different purposes. All of these hotlink codes are saved in a Word document on my computer. Any time I need to type a hotlink, I simply open the document, copy the desired code, and paste it into the website at hand. So simple and such a time-saver!

Send Follow-Up Comments Directly to Your Inbox

Bloggers LOVE getting comments on their posts and most of us are very diligent about responding to comments from readers. You don't want to miss out if your favorite blogger responds to one of your comments or wants to engage you in a conversation. But if you're anything like me, you don't often revisit old posts or comments to see if there was a response from the author. Who has time for that?!?  

Luckily, if you comment on Blogger, you can have all additional comments and responses sent directly to your email inbox. All you have to do is click "Subscribe by email" at the bottom of the comment area.

Go ahead and subscribe to as many as you want. I don't recommend this for the HUGE blogs with thousands of followers (or else you will be completely overwhelmed by the volume of comment-related emails you receive) but this is a great trick for following the comments left on smaller blogs (like this one!)

One last thing...

If you're new to blogging and looking to grow, consider purchasing a membership to Teaching Blog Traffic School. The tips, tricks, networking opportunities and knowledge shared by Charity Preston are invaluable. I'm a poor teacher in a Catholic school but I scrounged up the cash to purchase my membership and it is proving to be one of my best investments this year. I'm a TBTS affiliate and I'd love for you to join by clicking the image to the right.

Zebra Pen Winner!

Congratulations to Cindy Lusk from All Things Teachery!

She was lucky number 30 for the Zebra Pen Giveaway. Thanks to everyone who participated. I'm flattered to have so many blog followers and I have another giveaway on the horizon!