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So I heard that I had some fans in Benton, Kentucky.  My friends Nicole and Crystal work at the school with said fans.  Well, it just so happens I am on fall break.  And Benton, Kentucky is just 2 hours away from Nashville.  AND it’s just 20 minutes from one my favorite people, Kim and her classroom.  So hopped in the munchkin mobile and hit the road for my first ever Kindergarten Smorgasboard school visit.

My first stop was at Benton Elementary School!  This school is so cute.  The halls and floors are painted in the school colors!  All of the teachers have these awesome signs with their names above the doors.  The people were super friendly!   As I was walking to the library to see my friend, The Library Fox, a first grader who was in line with her class, grabbed me and latched on.  Her teacher was a little scared that the student had latched onto the strange man!  But it was all good!  I spent a couple of hours with the amazing kindergarten teachers at Benton and got to chat with them and share ideas and stories.  I got to watch them teach and talked to some of the students while they worked at centers.  I wore my official Kindergarten Smorgasboard shirt (it has my picture on it!) and one little girl asked who was on my shirt and when I told her it was me she said “Oh my goodness it is you!”

I snapped some pictures of some great ideas that I found in these classrooms and I want to share them with you.  Thank you to the Kindergarten teachers at Benton for giving me some new ideas for my classroom!

This might be my all time favorite!!  B and D confusion is so hard for my ‘staches.  Every year we struggle with this.  I’ve seen lots of posters to help with B and D but this is my absolute favorite!  I can’t wait to get one made for my classroom!
This is another awesome idea that I cannot wait to use.  Let’s face it…sometimes, boys are just harder to engage.  I see this is being a huge hit!!  It’s just a styrofoam football with letters written on it.  I can see this being an awesome activity for letters and sounds.  If you catch it, you tell me the letter your finger is on….or the sound…or a word that starts with the sound.  I can see sight word footballs…ten frame footballs…number footballs!  So many possibilities!  
Styrofoam football is added to my shopping list!

I’ve seen these coloring anchor charts all over the place.  They were in every classroom I visited.  The message here:  I need to make one of these for my classroom ASAP!
The following pictures are from my friend Kim’s classroom.  She had a little friend to come meet me in the office and walk me to class and the friend walks into the office and says “I’m here to get you!”  and turned and took off down the hall.  Her little 5 year old feet were fast too!  
Ya’ll know we love to paint…we love anything we can paint with our hands, arms and feet so this got me super excited!  It’s a handprint tree with fingerprint leaves.  
Added to my plans for fall!  Seriously…adorbs!

We will definitely be doing this project when we do pumpkins!  We will paint the plates instead of color them…but this is too cute!

This is one of those things that’s so simple…but so life changing.  A sentence strip number line on every table!  GENIUS!  It’s right there for them to use for number formation, counting and more!  
Sentence strip number lines are on my to do list!

This is just too darn cute!  Who doesn’t love a good rainbow door?!  It’s just so bright and cheerful and welcoming!  

Thank you to all of these amazing teachers for inspiring so many new ideas!!  And giving me more to do!!!

My first official kindergarten smorgasboard school visit was a huge success.  Where can I go next?

The winner of my Franken-Core unit is Heather VanKuiken!  Heather, shoot me an email (you didn’t leave your email address) and I’ll send you the unit!

But don’t fret!  Let’s have another give away!  I spent today updating some products and this is today’s favorite!  I tripled the size of this Common Core resource to nearly 70 pages from 20 pages!  I added in center cards, number bonds and re worked the whole look of the activities!  My class LOVED this last year so I know they’re going to love the updated version!  Who wants to win a copy?? Just leave me a comment about anything and your email address!  I’ll pick a winner tomorrow!

And now a new feature!  When I first started my manly little blog I was so blessed by the veteran bloggers who helped me and posted about me and tolerated my craziness so I want to pay that forward!  If you have a blog and would like to be featured as my Fabulous Friday Friend, just click the picture to fill out the form!  I will be in touch!

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