Are You Considering SeeSaw for Documentation?

Are you considering SeeSaw for documentation in your classroom? 

I there are many great options about it as well as a few items to think about! I recently decided to use the program SeeSaw in my classroom to help with documentation of the learning.

I LOVED parent communication with it as you can send out notes and reminders through it. It is easy and efficient to use. My student’s parents absolutely loved looking up their student’s photos, work, and assessments which were shared with them. A few parents checked it regularly and raved about it. Other than that, to be honest, I didn't get any other feedback from the families in my classroom.

Assessment

There is a lot of AMAZING collaboration which can happen with this program! So many people have already created many assessment tools to share with others. These can easily be found in collaborative grade Facebook groups or with friends who you know who have created them. It helps teachers keep assessment simple and not having to worry about reinventing great assessments which have already been created.

Limited or slow internet?
Consider using a computer to search for assessment or add an assessment to SeeSaw. At first I was using my iPad but I eventually found that this was the most effective way to access all my stored information as my iPad ended up slowing down too much. With having two educators in the classroom I didn't always know what had been uploaded and the computer provided the fastest "check" for me to see so I wasn't making duplicates!

iPad problems

Our school had purchased a large allotment of iPads for teacher and student use which we have been very fortunate to be able to use. The unfortunate part of this is that in order to purchase many iPads, the purchasers sacrificed on storage space and our iPads came with the smallest amount of storage space available. Once our Board installed apps were added to them we had next to no storage space left! I found that SeeSaw is a memory hog as it is always trying to access what has been downloaded. As a result, the app crashed all the time

Not CASL approved
Our school board is very diligent in making sure that all our communication abides by the CASL designation and SeeSaw is not CASL approved.

Ultimately, this upcoming year I will not be using SeeSaw because of the CASL. This decision is totally out of my control. If I could, and I had access to better storage on an iPad I would LOVE to continue to use it!

What have your experiences been with SeeSaw? Please comment below to let me know!

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Kindergarten Fundraiser Ideas

We are always in need of a little extra cash for running our kindergarten program. Most of our fundraising goes towards our outdoor classroom. We are constantly finding new ways to make our learning environment more engaging and, to be honest, outdoor materials wear out a lot faster than our indoor materials.

1. Cupcake Sale
Make cupcakes as a class and sell them!

2. Art Gallery Fundraiser
Buy canvases of various sizes for students to paint at the Dollar store or local art store. Parents come to either purchase the paintings at a fixed price or auction them off. I've heard of action prices start at $20/piece. For a set price I have heard schools successfully sell the artwork for $25. At a fixed price, each parent can buy their own Childs art. Saying that there is more motivation to spend more at an auction.

3. Cookie & Lemonade Stand
Make some cookies with a favourite recipe or two! Make several drinks and sell them to the staff, school or parents at a special event.

4. Prepackaged Popcorn
Prepackaged popcorn is great for selling as there is no prep. Perfect for a nutrition break sale! You just need a place to store the boxes throughout the week.

5. Sell Popcorn to the School
Have a popcorn machine at your school? Put it to use!

6. Book Sale
Parents donate books they no longer need. Then, sell them to students and parents in the community. Students can learn lots by organizing the books!

7. Gift Cards
This can be done around the holidays or all year long. I've seen it successful at some schools and not work at all at other schools.
www.fundscript.com

8. Basket Raffles
One for each class (allow each student in each class to pick a theme)
Christmas Basket
Easter Basket
* Be aware of local gaming licensing

9. Spaghetti Lunch
Make a meal together and sell a limited number of tickets. Looking for a staff meal for a Friday? This might work!

10. Label Fundraiser
Students always need to label their school supplies!

11. Bulb Sale
Perfect for organizing from January to March to help families prepare for the spring weather.

12. Cake Raffle
Our school loved this! The kindergarten teachers organized it and gathered parent volunteers from our kindergarten parents to help facilitate with the organization. We charged $1.00 for five tickets.

13. Movie Night
Although you cannot charge for watching a movie where I live, we can charge a minimal amount for pizza or popcorn. Although this fundraiser will not earn a lot of money, students and parents alike enjoy coming to spend time together at the school and be with friends! An average of $200 per night would be considered great.

14. Pizza Kits
This works best if it is sold to the whole school. Companies such as Little Caesars sell kits to schools!

What other ideas have you found work great for your school?

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Welcoming Families To Kindergarten

Including parents in their Childs education is extremely important. Children feel more comfortable sharing about their school day when they know that their family understands what they area talking about! Parents feel more involved with the school and it becomes a more welcoming place.

I wanted to make a list of activities to invite parents in on a regular basis. Having something fun or exciting makes the activity a bit more engaging for families to want to participate. Our first invitation was for Stone Soup and we did not invite siblings as we knew the participation was going to be huge. Our suspicion was correct and our classes were bursting at the seams! In the future I will consider inviting younger siblings to help ease their transition into kindergarten!

The following is a list of the ideas that I would like to use in my classroom. Several of them I have used in my classroom already. I hope you find this list to be useful. As I come across new ideas I will be adding them.

Play Invitation

Invite parents to learn along with you as a natural part of the day. Some teachers do this quarterly, monthly or weekly. I know colleagues who have invited parents for the last 45 minutes of the day. Others invite them for the last block and I have even heard of a "drop in" style where parents are invited any time of the day to stay for 30-60 minutes at a time. "Welcome Wednesdays" and "Family Fridays" are two coined phrases I have heard of over the years to help parents remember when the visit days are scheduled.

Stone Soup

This is the very first family visit that we had in our class. Students bring in a vegetable and we made a soup together. During the last learning block, families were invited to eat with us and learn with us as we shared our soup! Click here to read about our stone soup experiences!

Games Day

Who doesn't love playing a game? Children love to play and harnessing this energy makes learning fun! Most games have many math concepts which support the math curriculum. Plus, the extra bonus of social/emotional development. Have families bring their favourite to play and swap for the afternoon with other families to learn a new game!

Puzzle Day

Families bring their favourite puzzle to school and build it together with friends. Share/swap with other families for a new challenge.

Math Event

Provide a variety of math games for parents to participate and learn along with their children.

Reading Invitation

Provide a wide variety of books from the library and invite parents to come in to read with their child a wide variety of books!

Baking Fun

Students bake something that they all can enjoy (we have many allergies in my classroom) and share with their visiting family members!

Class Concert

Practice a song or two and put on a concert for your families! Children love to perform and what can be better than an intimate concert? If you've already presented for an assembly, perform the same activity for the families!

Class Play

If your students have created a play, shown an interest in puppetry or love nursery rhymes this is a perfect opportunity to put on a show!

Inquiry Celebration

After an inquiry, students can show off all they have learned to their families!

Multicultural Food Day

Have families bring in a special food from their culture to share with others. Make sure they bring an ingredients list if there are allergies.

Build a Community

If your students have an interest in community helpers, 3D figures, maps or even treasure hunts this might be a big hit in your classroom! Have students create a community and show it off to others. This can be done with Lego, recycled materials or even as a mural that they create together. The options are endless!

Gingerbread Traps

The gingerbread man is on the loose in the school! Challenge parents to make a trap with their child in order to help catch him. When parents come the children can share how they created the trap with each other.

St Patrick's Day Trap

St. Patrick's is on the loose in the classroom! Challenge parents to make a trap with their child in order to help catch him. When parents come the children can share how they created the trap with each other.

Teddy Bear Picnic

Invite parents to a teddy bear picnic with their child. Bring your own food or make it a special event to share food.

Create Gifts

Teaching others to reach out to the greater community is a valuable lesson to teach even young children. We have hosted parents coming in to make crafts that we have donated to local senior homes in our community. Parents and children love to be a part of this and the seniors love to decorate their residence with gifts from our class! In the past we have made wreathes with patterned paintings of our hands and door hang decorations for during the holiday seasons.

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Four Frames Bulletin Board Set

I love creating bulletin boards that represent the learning of the children in my classroom.

Our old curriculum was very subject bound. At times we would have a writing, art, science or math focus on them.  I love the freedom of our new curriculum as it has changed to the Four Frames. There are so many cross-curricular links and I love being able to show that off.

One of my personal favourite ideas is to make a collage of current photos and collages we have made of the learning in our classroom. We have five different bulletin boards in my classroom so we use one board for each frame except we use two to separate demonstrating literacy and mathematical behaviours.

If you're interested in checking these out, click on the image below to pick it up from my store! There are five title pages and four pages with the corresponding expectations for each of the Four Frames. The titles are identical to what I have in the photos above but the expectations look better in the download.

I hope you enjoy it and find it useful for your classroom!

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Affordable and Engaging Building Toys and Provocations

Simple is best. My mom and my grandma always swore by it. Now I believe it!

Despite "knowing" this for my life (aka being told this) it has taken years for me to fully embrace a simplistic understanding of play. My children grew up with us not always ever getting the "latest and greatest" but they were never lacking a variety of toys, often colourful and plastic. Mostly these experiences were thanks to great local thrift stores and a mom who was never willing to pay full price for anything!

As I have delved deeper and deeper into understanding play, watched and learned along with them, I have developed a deeper appreciation for simple items. I see the richer experiences and their imagination grow. As a result, I prefer open-ended activities which allow children to decide where to take their play.

My students have shown me their love for all things simple. One of our biggest hits has simply been cardboard roads with real photos of our local community. They can take any shape, design and students can add to their play in an unlimited way.

This is the aftermath of an afternoon of creative building. You can see a lake in the background, a green carpet as the zoo in the foreground and the "remains" of roads where there were different buildings from our community. There were six students who collaborated to make this. 

I printed each photo twice, put them back to back to each other and then laminated them together. Super easy, affordable and relatable for the students in my class as it is relevant to their personal lives.

Ideas for pictures in your community to laminate:

aerial view of an airport
apartment buildings 

aquarium museums

bakery

banks

baseball field

car wash business

car dealerships

coffee shops

Costco

CN Tower

dollar store

farm

farmers market

fast food chains

fire station

football field

forest

gas stations

grocery stores

Home Depot

hotels or motels
ice rink

Lego store

movie theatres

Niagara Falls

park

pet stores

police station

race track

random houses in the community

restaurants

roundabout
aerial view of a ski hill

soccer fields

swimming pool

townhouses

train station

Toys R Us

zoo

No more worrying about which expensive toy is going to be the new "thing" in my classroom. A simple gift for which I am grateful for!

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Top Wish Listed Items

I am excited to be linking up with Diamond Moms Treasury for a link up of our most wish listed items! Check out some of my most wish listed items below and then head over to Diamond Moms Treasury to see some of the other wish listed in this linky.

1. Growth Mindset Posters {Bundle & Bonus}

These primary growth mindset posters are an excellent way to start discussions with students about how to have and/or develop a growth mindset! Great for class discussions and a way to make a positive impression on your students.

2. Calming Corner Feeling & Strategies

 We use a calming corner in our classroom to help students learn how to regulate their behaviour and their emotions. This has been an amazing tool to help students identify their emotions and refer to when needing strategies to help them calm down.

3. 75 Growth Mindset Posters {Printer Friendly Black & White Set}

These growth mindset posters are perfect for Junior, Intermediate or Senior classes. Great for inspiring class discussions on growth and providing an inspirational classroom environment. 

4. Kindergarten Start Up Bundle & Assessment Bonus {Ontario FDK}

This is quickly becoming my most popular product. Are you new to Kindergarten? This bundle might be perfect for you! There are lots of amazing resources to help you get your classroom started. It also includes a variety of assessment files for teachers in Ontario using The Kindergarten Program, 2016.

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Co-Created Class Schedule

Whenever possible, I am learning that my students like to use real photos of our day for our daily schedule. I like a consistent look and was looking for something that provided lines and boundaries for my kids to be able to add their own text in a differentiated way.

I looked around and couldn't find what I was looking for, so I ended up creating my own! If you want real life photos and children to print the environmental print in your classroom, this may be something you are interested in. It looks great printed in color and in black and white.

One thing that I love about this schedule is that all of the schedules are the same size (4.5" * 11"). I can print off different pages for different students based on their writing skill level and if they need to trace letters, I know that other students will be able to read their writing!

There are three different schedules that I included in one product to allow for differentiation! Tracing allows my youngest students, who often are non printers, to be able to participate in creating our schedule. The blank option allows for students to print all the words based on their own printing ability.

1. Insert photos & trace wording

2. Professionally print photos & trace wording

3. Insert photos and students individualize wording

If you're interested in checking this schedule out, click on this image to check it out!

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Burlap & Chalk: Alphabet Freebie

I am really excited to share one of my newest freebie from my store with you!

 I personally prefer like a calm, natural look in my classroom. I have found black, brown and tan colors are calming and that it helps students to focus throughout their day at school. 

Click on the image below to be able to download the alphabet labels for your classroom word wall. It can be used for any other variety of other activities you wish to use it for!

Alphabet Labels

 

If you like this, you also may enjoy the following similar products for a cohesive look, if desired.

Days & Months of the Year

Classroom Schedule Cards 

This includes 128 cards plus blank ones you can add text or your own images!

Math Bin Labels

 

Classroom Jobs

Square and rectangular options included. 

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Learning With Learning Buddies

Having learning buddies is a great way to foster friendships between students in different grades in a school and helps encourage a community.

1. Read library books together

2. Read home reading books or levelled books together

3. Go on a letter hunt in the school for hidden letters.

4. Go on a letter hunt in and around the school for letters found naturally in buildings or in nature and take pictures of them.

5. Go on a environmental print hunt in and around the school.

6. Create a puppet play together. Older students can write the script and the younger kids can create the puppets.

7. Create art to display around the school for a school event.

8. Educate the school about the environment by creating posters together.

9. Write letters to each other.

10. Create a presentation for an upcoming school assembly.

11. Spend some time "getting to know" about each others grade. What do you learn? What do you like to do? What do you find challenging?

12. Write some poetry about an approaching holiday.

13. Create a Mother's Day or Father's Day card together.

14. Create your costumes together for an upcoming concert. Older students can help the younger students do tasks much quicker than it would occur independently.

15. Fill in an "All About Us" booklet where they spend time getting to know each other about their family. What they like to do. Special occasions that they love. What they cannot do yet... etc.

16. Older students can scribe letters for younger children for their pen pals! They also can read the letters to younger students, if it is difficult for some students to read.

17. Solve simple math problems together to learn new strategies.

18. Play math games to support fluency in math.


What are your favorite activities that you engage your students with during their learning buddy time?

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