I honestly thought I was on my A game in the classroom and I always received amazing teacher evaluations.

I know that when it comes to end of the year assessments, it can be a struggle.  At times it can feel like you are up against a wall with the pressure of time.  You are out of time and the testing has to get done.  Sometimes kids must stay in centers a little longer than usual so you can finish up that last 3-4 minutes of assessments with a student.  From experience and from listening to other kinder and 1st grade teachers, behavior can take a nose dive as you devote time to assessing while students must manage themselves.  

Resource Link

                         more pictures are included but not shown

Resource Link

Another way to use these is to pair the pictures with stories. Students work on the pictures that go with the story for that day.  So, if you need to,

• Pair different linking cube picture mats with different stories. This will enable you to get 30 minutes or more of testing in a day for at least 2 weeks!
• Read a story a day and project the linking cube picture mat to eliminate prep.
• Read a story and place 1-3 linking cube picture mats in a center.

Resource Link

• Some students lay the cubes flat.
• Others build the picture and stand up.
• Students must use critical thinking skills to turn the cubes so the entire unit stays together.

What Kids Are Working On
Kids love these.  Kids spend a long time creating the pictures. Kids can spend an entire week building these.  But . . . kids are also working on:

• counting
• estimating
• fine motor
• spacial reasoning
• patterning
• even and odd numbers

Resource Link

Resource Link

Happy end of the year and have a wonderful SUMMER!

Last year I thought I had finished this resource but I didn't finish before school started back up again. I have been tweaking this system for the past 3 years and each year I was able to integrate more of the components so it was a well rounded sight word system to help students master sight words and move ahead at different times WITHOUT going absolutely crazy.  

I'm going to post some pictures and hopefully the pictures will explain most of it.  The 1 thing that I feel made this resource the most successful was the display of the word lists with student clips that were placed within the children's reach.  This alone is worthy of a try with your current words and clips with students names.  You don't have to own the resource to do that but if you do this, you will see how much easier it is for you and kids to keep track - AT A GLANCE.


The children ended up using the lists for everything.  Half the time they were all crooked because they took them off the walls to use them then put them back which was absolutely FINE by me because anything would be fine if it meant they would NO longer interrupt me when I was trying to teach small groups.  

This also made it easy for volunteers to come in, pull a word list off the wall or see the names and then pull the kids and work with them on a game of SNAP! Without asking me what to do.  
Parent volunteers would also help assess students if I wasn't able to on a particular day.  They would just grab the tote, pull out the color of folder for the students who were suppose to be assessed that day (1 or 2 colors per day depending on how many kids were on a color at a time) and assess them.  

If they passed their assessment, students would move their clip, color the rainbow color they passed in their data notebook and wall display, and then continue on to the next set of word with the same type of sight word activities but with different words BUT after they put their new fluency sheet and word list in their home folder. Children learned to put the sheets in by them self and they did great!

Many teachers have been asking me how to create a QR code and many more teachers have been asking can you use QR codes with Chromebooks.   In this short video, I will show you how to create a QR code and remove adds and how to scan a QR code using a Chromebook.  There may be other ways but here I am showing you what I use and know.  

So this difficult situation of a classroom has stabilized or I have adjusted.  Let's just say we have met in the middle. I want to come back to address the rocky start of the year with an update.  I still have 3 Adults in the class and have learned to utilize the help I have when I can.  I have put more trust into my parent helpers and enlisted their help with Interventions.  We have worked extra hard to get kiddos up to speed due to a rocky start and over the last month I have learned to have fun with the kids! Hooray! 

I took a step back and through much reflection, I am Thankful to have been able to meet the two aides who help with 2 students. They go out of their way to help with others when they can.  I have learned to deal with the room arrangement and switched out some tables so I can have one of the aides sit at a table and help with other students  - if possible at that time.  This is how we are catching up! It all good - I GOT THIS!

I am back to finding what my kids need and addressing their needs. I ended up adding beginning sounds, same and different, and more games to a Thanksgiving unit from last year because I have a lot of English Language Learners this year and they need support in these areas as well as vocabulary building.

If you need vocabulary support but are short on time for integrated thematic type units and foundational skills these activities may help you get that accomplished.



I usually do Daily 3 or 4 or 5 but like I said - I have enlisted the help of parents so this coming up week I have a different parent come in every day for an hour at the same time so I will be having them help with the build a graph activities, and with the games. They wlll do 3 different graphs over 3 days. 


I'll be able to address the students who still need same and different and beginning sounds  with the same and different cards.  The kids will then go and show what they know on the independent activity sheets.  I think I'll have the children take turns putting clothespins on the cards for same and for different.   I am doing same one day and different on another day.  There are 10 cards total.  I can always add this to a center later.

I go back on the 17th with kids so I am in full swing of thinking about everything related to back to school!

In the midst of all that thinking I made a video. It's my first face to face video.   I talk about some activities I plan on using to help teach routine and procedures.  I'll just show you and stop talking now.  You can also download a clickable linked file below with routine and procedure tips.  The file is useful even if you don't want the activities.

I will be adding more detailing my planning and back to school activities in hopes of helping others.  I don't know about you but I love reading other teachers "Back to School Plans and Activities."      

HERE is a file you can download with clickable links for the routines an procedures mentioned in the video. It will take you to Google Docs. 

HERE is the unit in that video if you are wanting it to begin your school year.

On Monday I will be going into my classroom for the first time this summer. This is the absolute latest I have ever went in.  Wish me luck! 

Warm regards,
Tonya Leslie

Teacher friends, I hope I can be of help.  My last day was yesterday so this morning I put together what has been an end of the year life saver for me for 2 years in a row now.  It saves me money, time, and my sanity, Plus, it is still cute and meaningful.  

I threw this together this morning in case you are still in school and could use it.  I know how hectic those last weeks are and I was definitely in a frenzy for the last 6 days straight with field day, kindergarten performances, art portfolios, report cards, assessing, and on and on and on.  

I know many teachers like to send their kids off to summer with something and with good intentions we send summer review packets in hopes that they will do it and not forget what we taught them. Here is an easy, inexpensive, solution for using what you have instead of buying things and copying packets that many kids never look at.

and HERE are the matching Bookmarks that are FREE for you! 

If you need more end of the year easy to  implement activities, check out this Summer Activities Post.

Happy Summer My Teacher Friends! I hope you found something useful to help you out at this time of the year!

I have had this thing in my head that I wanted to make and I was so close and then BAM! Power Point limited me or maybe I limited myself.  I wanted to throw my computer OUT the window.  Maybe because I just spent several days being patient with a project only to find out I was so close YET so FAR AWAY.  The agony. 

I use the Fry words FIRST 100 (1-100) for word work (the second half of kindergarten).   That's a whole different blog post on it's own which I plan to do a blog series about word-work, sight words, differentiating, and tracking using the system I use. If you want to read about that and pull an idea or two from it you might want to subscribe to my email list or follow me on bloglovin. The system has worked wonders in my kinder classroom.

Okay, so I have the Fry words broken up into 5 words per ring in order from the list and they are put on rings.  Children take the color of ring they are on and use it for their word work-activities throughout the week (I'll take a picture of this too so you can see what I am taking about). 

If children can't read a word:
1.  Children go get an ipad and scan the word (you can also       
     have just one ipad next to the words).
2.  Children scan the QR Code.
3.  The children are taken to a video where the word appears 
     and the word is read to them.  
4.  Children are then asked to say the word and spell the word.




I cannot express to you how much this has HELPED  cut-back on the interruptions from, "MRS. LESLIE, what's this word?" Then you start putting up the talk to the hand sign and then you start doing the shoo the fly movement.  You know what I am talking about.  This eliminates a lot of that.

You can tell them until you are blue in the face but some kids just forget or want the attention and when you are working with kids nothing can be more frustrating than an interruption.  They are just little and having these talking QR Codes does help.  I am sure I will have more on QR codes in the near future because I am LOVING them and so are the kids.   

If you want to read more about the units mentioned above or get them,  CLICK on the pictures below.   


                                                                 Try it out FREE.

If you want to see the pictures of the set-up in my classroom click on Bloglovin on the sidebar and sign up for email updates.
Otherwise, my blog might get lost in the land of blogosphere and
when you go to find it . . . well you just might not be able to.  It has happened to me before  - SAD but TRUE.

Warm regards and cheers to my new teacher assistant,
Tonya Leslie

Okay, as I wrote that title I know what you're thinking.  Pull your head out of the gutter!  That's not what I am asking for heavens sake.   I have been revising some of my earlier phonics units to match my more recent ones and the units became much larger. Now I realize size doesn't matter (stop laughing) but I am curious to know what you teachers prefer.

I am seeing a trend of teachers being tired of piecing everything together. Search here, search there, buy this, buy that, and then still they do not have a comprehensive unit that helps they do everything they need it to do in the classroom.  Time is something teachers don't have enough of so to spend TIME piecing lessons together can be SO TIME C-O-N-S-U-M-I-N-G!!!!!

                            So here is my question to you again.  
       Do you prefer my smaller or bigger Unit?   
                      I'll give you a rundown and a few pictures. 

Okay,  So you see.  This unit is much larger than the original one.  I really try to make sure the units I make include differentiation, learning styles, small group, independent, and partner work.  The pictures I showed for the larger unit didn't show the games included in the unit (there are 3).   I know teaching styles and teaching needs are different so that's why I have the huge variety.  You wouldn't possibly be able to use it all but what parts would you use the most and why?   Please leave a comment if you would telling me.  I would live to know. 

For now this Unit is on sale for $4.00.  I was also thinking of doing a bundle with all the units that have this format.   What are your thoughts on that?  I have 15 or 17 so far with approx. 6-7 needing revised to look like this one.   If you want to see this unit or more like it you can go HERE or click on the any of the pictures above.

As I was writing this post I was thinking, "This should be tied to birds (bird adaptations) and making a birdhouse in the classroom from recycled materials." My brain NEVER stops - SORRYNOTSORRY.

Warm regards and I look forward to your thoughts.