Morgan's Blog

Years ago my first grade teacher friend and I made lucky charm pancakes with the kids. We wanted to make them a rainbow stack of pancakes. Ya, don't try that unless you are at your house with maybe five kids max lol. Making all the colors of the rainbow pancakes for 40+ kids is not an easy task lol. We ended up giving up and they got two different colors. Fast forward five or so years and I just make funfetti pancakes with the kids. This is the kind I use. You can find it at Walmart. You could really use any kind of mix, but if you are doing it at school I would suggest any that is 'just add water'. I probably would use just add water with my own kids at home too, considering I use it for myself as well lol. I have portioned it out individually before, but this year I portioned it out for four tables. I did a bowl of pancake mix for each table and then a small cup of water for each kid. I was trying to portion out the water correctly, but it turned into a hot mess because t

LUCKILY Saint Patrick's Day was on a Friday because this teacher could not have handled another holiday falling in the middle of the week lol. The kids were pumped because on the calendar I put a little icon for the holidays and they were counting down. We called it everything from 'the leprechaun day' to 'the clover day'. I am not huge on Saint Patrick's Day. I'm not Irish at all and I just never really was fascinated it by it, even as a kid. However, when you teach kindergarten babes you have to be into every holiday. So we had a somewhat normal Friday, but added in rainbows in a cup and we made pancakes. The rainbows in a cup were so simple. I saw the idea on Tik Tok, but they had used green jello. Which I did look into, but I couldn't find it at target and I didn't feel like making any so something in my mind said vanilla pudding and food coloring. Walmart sells the pudding cups in packs of 6 which was nicer than doing the packs of 4 with how man

Okay so I've been dreaming of this table for FOREVER. I asked Nick if he could help me make it and he said yes! However, I probably could have figured it out myself now that I know how to use a drill lol. *This is not a hammer and nails type project...lol.* First you need to lay out the bins. I put painters tape around mine to get the measurements. My table is 30x36. Then head to home depot. We got two pieces of five inch width wood because my bins were five inches tall and I wanted it to have sides that they fit in without it going over the top. I forgot how many inches they were, but we needed two to make the 36x30 work. We also got one piece for the legs that was 92 inches long which would have been perfect for the legs (23 inches), but I insisted it would be too short so we used other wood at home and he had to cut the legs...oops!  We had wood for the bottom at home, but not enough to cover. So I suggest getting a big piece that can be cut into three or however you need to mak

It can be so hard to find the right books for you child when they are learning to read. The 'beginning reader' books are far too hard for our little babes who are just putting together sentences in stories. Here is a list of books that I like best! All of the books have good illustrations and are the texture of a 'glossy' book. I do not prefer the paper books with the black and white illustrations. I use books like that printed out in class, but books that cost a decent amount of money I would rather have color! :) I listed them through amazon (affiliate links) and scholastic. I know scholastic can be hard to navigate and I'm not sure if you need a code or not, but I left my code. You used to not be able to ship to your house, but you can now so if you need a code you can use ours! 1. First Little Comics -Repeated Sentences -Picture Clues -Levels A through F Click here to shop on Amazon. 2. Buddy Readers -Repeated Sentences -Sound Out Words -Picture Clues -Levels A

Another dramatic play in The Beach Classroom. Click here to skip straight to the product! So I started this one way back in mid march of 2020. Which today seems like ten years ago. I literally went up to school that week later on to continue working on this and then they never got to do anything with it. Last school year we didn't get to it because we were in and out so they didn't get as many dramatic play stations. So this year is the year. They were super hype to see this set out. Normally I have something having to do with food or a restaurant so this was definitely a switch up. Here is the back view. The top left stays the same no matter what. It has the credit cards, phones, dry-erase markers, and extra money. (I do have the Melissa and Doug market cash register piece so a lot of the money stays in that.) Then the bottom two are for whatever set we have. I have learned that LESS is so much MORE. More organization, more time, more patience, more peace. LOL The more items

If you want to skip the reading and go right to the door decor pack click here! So I did something wild yesterday. I let my kids decorate the door... A few years ago I said I wanted to put up a new door every month. The kids love when the door is decorated to something new. I lasted maybe 2 months LOL. I try to decorate it at the beginning, but it is such a pain. It always falls down, I can't get it straight, etc etc etc. Well last week one of my co-worker's decorated her door. It was a spring door with flowers and my kids of course were in awe. "Let's decorate our door!" So yesterday morning during my morning coffee I randomly thought to make a packet of things they could decorate the door with. It is homeschool at school in our classroom so I thought, I'll give them the stuff and some examples and they can decorate it together. I told them in the morning about it so they were pumped when it was time. I printed out all the stuff ahead of time and cut it into

If you've been around for awhile you know that I LOVE craftivities. I think they are so much more fun than just the regular day to day lessons and even more than random stations. I typically tend to hate station games and cut out cards because they get lost and what not. #iykyk Over winter break I was trying to prep to come back and I knew I wanted to start doing a math craft every Friday. I am a creature of habit and routine, so I want to start doing Monday-Thursday stations and Friday craftivities. I saw a few subtraction craftivities on pinterest, but they weren't really sparking my interest. I wanted something different than something being eaten and it needed to be winter themed. So penguins on and off an iceberg just popped into my head.   I decided to first let my kids color the penguins. I also made them number the back because I knew they would be all over the ground and no one would know which are theirs. So we did that, but it took longer than expected so I collected

I get so many questions when I post my dramatic plays so I am going to share all about our Ice Cream Shop. Of course dramatic play looks different, as all Covid things do, but we are staying safe, modifying what I am used to (let's be real they don't know any different) and still living our best Kindergarten life. :) First thing I always get asked is how I made this stand. Well I took Sulley to Home Depot and we bought the 4 wooden crates. I took them in the back and asked someone to help me measure and cut wood so I would have a piece to cover the top. Almost like a counter if you will. Then I knew I wanted it to look like a lemonade stand so they measured for that too and gave me all the pieces. Now mind you I said I need the easiest and cheapest wood to work with because I am NOT handy. So the guy gives me oak, come to find out the most EXPENSIVE and you can't just hammer through it. Thanks home depot guy....so anyways I got the crates together and then my neighbor came

Hi! Happy December. :) I wanted to share some of the activities I have done with my kids during December.  Click here to follow me on Instagram for more ideas! We have done some of these readers from my December easy reader packet. They have been perfect for our online learning small groups. I haven't been able to do the running record since we have been online, but normally I do it on Fridays as a reading grade.  Click here for the easy readers. We have been still doing our morning work. I have them do it as an independent activity in breakout rooms while I work with a writing small group.  Click here for the morning work. I LOVE this activity. We do it every year and I just saw that she made it digital too which is perfect.  Click here for the wreath craftivity.  Also  click here to follow on Instagram. We are doing Gingerbread day Monday. I always dress up as the gingerbread girl and we make the houses. We are still doing it this year online. I always let them make these houses

So I love following my friend, Dee, on Instagram ( abcdeelearning ). She has two little kids so she is always doing fun stuff that I can try out with my babes. If you're a mom of little kids, you should check out her  Instagram . All you need is shaving cream and food coloring! I made this on Zoom with my kids. They loved when I would do 'science experiments'. A lot of them would try it out after we got off. This project is super easy and also super easy to clean up (my favorite). Tips: The more you mix the shaving cream and food coloring together, the less chance of stains on hands. Baking soda works pretty well to get food coloring off little hands.