Heidi's Classroom Amazon Favorites

Have you ever seen one of my posts, and wondered where I got a certain item?  Well NOW we have a way for you to always be able to find it, on my own Amazon page!  On there, you will find a list of my tried and true classroom favs that I purchased from Amazon.  I highly recommend these products and have mentioned them on many occasions! However, if you log on and spend too much, that's on YOU! 😉




1.  Beautiful, Bright Organizational Baskets

The first item I recommend is a set of these beautiful, colorful baskets!  Yes, they are a thing of beauty, and I've been using them for about two years.  I purchased two sets, and I just LOVE how bright and cheerful they are!  I organize instructional supplies in them, especially the pieces of art projects that my students need to create things.  For example, the piece for the duck's head goes into one basket, and the pieces for the feet go into another.  Then the kids just help themselves!  Nothing gets mixed up or lost (usually!)  LOL






2.  Play-Doh Alphabet Stamps

These play dough stamps are just the BEST!  I really like that they don't have any inner grooves or spaces that the dough can get stuck into.  That's because they are not really cookie cutters, but rather raised stampers.  I used them last year to have the kids stamp out their sight words in both play dough and Kinetic Sand!






This tray came with the magnetic letters linked below.  I just dumped out the letters and put in the stampers!


3.  Step-a-Logs

Full disclosure:  these stepping stone things are very similar to another product that I have that is no longer available, so this isn't exactly it.  But it's close!  I like to put these out when I take my students out for Motor Development, which is a fancy early childhood word for PE.  We have some tricycles, a balance beam, some walking "cups," and jump ropes, etc. for the kids to work on their large motor skills.  The kids LOVE this time, and any challenge that I can come up with is just heartily embraced by MOST of the children.  Sometimes, certain children are a bit afraid to try them, but they eventually all come around!




4.  Egg Candler
Do you ever hatch chicks in your classroom?  This is one of my FAVORITE activities, and the children just learn SO much!  Our chick unit was greatly enhanced by using this egg candler, because it allowed us to take a peek inside those eggs and watch the development of the chicks!  The only problem is that the room has to be VERY dark, so if you have lots of windows, this probably won't work well for you.  I had to go underneath a table and try to use it.  Then I videotaped what I saw inside the eggs and showed the children later on our large screen.  WONDERFUL!  By the way, the incubator I use is also linked on my Amazon page!  Not only that, you can purchase fertilized eggs on Amazon, too!




5.  Melissa & Doug Abacus
I picked up this tip from a teacher friend!  She uses an abacus to help the kids visualize how many days we have been in school.  So each morning when we look at the calendar, we slide over one more bead on the abacus, and secure it with a small clothespin.  Then I change the number on my 1-100 pocket chart, which is also linked.  We learned to count by tens also by using the abacus (and my Musical Math video as well, LOL!)




6.  Child-sized HEADPHONES!
I don't know what it was about my students last year, but I've never had so many children totally unable to use regular, adult-sized headphones!  So when the PTA gave each class some money to spend, I decided to purchase some headphones that were actually MADE for children!  I searched a long time until I found some headphones that the reviewers said were sturdy and worked well.  And you can see one of them below!  I bought them on Black Friday, when they went on sale for just $9.99 each!  Note:  Right now, they are $13, so if you need several, I suggest that you wait until there's a sale!




7.  Magnetic Foam Letters in Six Different Colored Sets
If there is any one item on this list that I get asked about the most, it's this set of magnetic letters!  I really had to spend some time searching to find one pack of letters with several complete sets of the alphabet in SIX colors!  This particular set has lowercase letters from A-Z in orange, yellow, light green, light blue, and dark purple, and light violet.  AND it has two more sets of capital letters- one in red from A-Z and another in dark blue from A-Z.

The benefit of getting sets of letters in so many different colors is that you can use them in small groups, giving each child a different color, and know that the children will not mix up their sets.  I actually purchased a different set FIRST with all of the consonants in blue and the vowels in red, and I discovered IMMEDIATELY that this was not going to work with my littles!  The children kept "borrowing" letters from each other, and by the end of the day, I had big MESS of letters that I had to sort out after school.  This took me about 20 minutes of my precious time, and I knew I had to find a different solution.  So that's when I went searching for the sets in different colors.


This is my calendar set up with the abacus enlarged in the inset.  Notice the small clothespin holding one bead apart to represent just one day of school.

    
8.  Construction Paper Organizer/Sorter This is DEFINITELY one my favorite purchases!  I absolutely despise having a drawer filled with random colors of construction paper, or even just having them all stacked up on the shelf.  So I looked everywhere until I found a reasonably priced storage solution for my construction paper!  This has been working GREAT for TWO FULL YEARS, and even though it is just cardboard, nothing has ripped, split, or broken!  I keep it in a closet, and yes, it actually fits in a standard school cupboard!  I have NO regrets spending money on this one!


  
9.  Lowercase Scrabble Tiles

There are so many things you can do with little wooden scrabble tiles, but I have always avoided it because I just didn't like the idea of having the kids practice spelling word all in capitals.  And then I happened on these lowercase Scrabble tiles on Amazon!  I never thought to even LOOK for them before, so this was a wonderful surprise for me!  I had parent volunteers Gorilla glue these onto some wooden clothespins, and now my kids can make words by clipping the letters onto a paintstick!  Fun!




Scrabble tiles on a paint stick!

 9.  Favorite Pocket Charts

There are a lot more things on my Amazon page, but I wanted to include these because I have been asked SO MANY TIMES where I found them!  I use these two long, narrow pocket charts to display my Letter of the Week and Number of the Week cards.  I use one of the Pocket Chart Squares to display the Shape of the Week cards.  I usually use the blue one to display my Visual Schedule.  (It's editable!) Since there is a large, magnetic, whiteboard on my wall right at the front, I use magnetic clips to hold them up.  What I love about this is that I can easily remove them if I want to actually WRITE something on the board, lol.  I just lay them on a table.  Easy peasy!  By the way, I have never used the dry erase schedule cards that come with the purple one.  I think I gave them away...




  




I hope that this has been useful to you!  There are many more items on my Amazon list.  Just take a look!  :)


HeidiSongs is an Amazon affiliate.

----------------------------------
Follow me! Did you enjoy this post? Do me a favor and share it with your friends! And follow this blog by signing up for my email updates here, and follow me on TPT! I'm also on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, too! Don't forget to sign up for our email newsletter for special deals and promo codes that you won't find out about anywhere else.

Popular posts from this blog

Creepy Crayon: Free Craft Template!

Image
Today, I am going to give you a link to our free Creepy Crayon craft that we made to accompany the book Creepy Crayon by Aaron Reynolds!   Yay!  If you are a fan of Creepy Carrots and A Creepy Pair of Underwear ,  then you were probably just as excited as I was for the next book in the series, Creepy Crayon !  And so by popular demand, we have have included the Creepy Crayon craft here as a free download!  We have also included links to our other crafts for Aaron Reynold's creepy books, too.  They are such fun! The Illustrations are FAB! I definitely need to give a shout out to illustrator Peter Brown, whose wonderful illustrations play a huge part in the popularity of these books!  I love the way he made almost all of it in gray tones, except for the crayon, of course!  The illustrations really give the story a creepy, but friendly tone.  I know I'll be a Peter Brown fan forever! This is a photo of my Creepy Carrots crafts samples in my classroom before I retired. Check Ou
Read more

How to Help Children That Have a Hard Time Learning the Alphabet

Image
Is your child (or student) having a hard time learning the alphabet?  Are those letters just not "sticking?" Does your child seem to know a letter one day, and then forgets it the next day- or even just a few minutes later? In this post, I will share my most recently developed techniques for helping kids learn and remember the alphabet. Check Vision- Thoroughly! During the past 30 years as a teacher, I have tried many things for all of the different types of learners that I’ve had. One thing that I would highly suggest is that you have your child's eyes checked, just in case you have not yet done that. I know that most schools have their school nurses do this, but I would suggest that a nurse is really not an optometrist, nor is he/she an ophthalmologist. I wrote about one little guy with vision issues in my post, Tips for Teaching the Alphabet to Struggling Learners . In that post, I shared that I had been teaching one child that had had such a difficul
Read more

Fun with STEM: A "Punkin Chunkin" Catapult with Craft Sticks!

Image
In this post, I am going to tell you about a really FUN, seasonal STEM project that I did with my first and second graders:  they made "Punkin" Chunkin" catapults with craft sticks and masking tape!  Then we measured to see who's pumpkin went the farthest!  The "punkins" were actually orange pompoms, so we had to use our imaginations, but none of the children cared.  They had an absolute BLAST! For this fun activity, we invited our new fifth grade buddies to come in and give us a hand, but I really think that the first and second graders could have done it on their own as well.  So if you are thinking of doing this with your own young students alone and without the help of older students, go for it!  I think that Kindergartners could do it too, but I would do it in small groups so that I could help those that needed it. My inspiration for this came from many different child constructed catapults that I have seen on Pinterest- along with a
Read more

A Creepy Pair of Underwear Craftivity FREEBIE!

Image
Today I have a fun and easy craft based on a SUPER fun book by Aaron Reynolds called A Creepy Pair of Underwear .  After reading this book just ONCE with my class last year, it instantly became the class favorite, and I KNEW we had to make the project!  The illustrations by Peter Brown provided the perfect inspiration.  We are providing the master and instructions free for you today at the end of this post.  I hope you enjoy it as much as we did! If you are unfamiliar with this fun book,  you can read the synopsis here on Amazon, where you can also purchase the book .  Another great book to go with it is Creepy Carrots, by the same author and illustrator.  Both are instant Halloween classics, in my opinion!  Don't miss them! My teammate Jeff Pang is super creative, and he adapted the design from the book to make it into a craft that would be simple enough for the children to make into their own little Creepy Pair of Underwear!  So kudos to Jeff!  He seems to be able t
Read more

Teaching Kids to WRITE the Numbers! – FREE Number Poems!

Image
Teaching children to write the numbers  correctly can be very frustrating for early childhood teachers! Also, attempting to GRADE their writing can be equally TRICKY! What does a number written correctly look like, versus one that is not?  In this post, I am going to tell you how I teach my students to write the numbers. I’ve posted some examples of student work showing numbers that look correct and some that are not, in my opinion.  I explain under the photos why certain numbers “would pass” or not.  I also have some FREE number formation poems to share with you, plus a FREE download of a parent guide that explains what those correctly formed numbers should look like- and the incorrect ones! So it seems that every year, getting the children to write those numbers can be something like pulling teeth: it comes slowly, and getting them to just “CARE” seems to be half the battle!  Perhaps the reason for this is that we know that the most important learning in math comes from wo
Read more

Getting Control of a Very Difficult Class: TAKE TWO

Image
Have you ever had a class that just tried your patience day after day? Have you ever felt like you could walk away from teaching forever tomorrow, and be fine with it?  This is a repost of a piece that I wrote several years ago when I was teaching Kindergarten.  I'm now in second grade, and finding that I have many of the same problems!  Since I actually went back and read my own post again, I thought I would post it here for you again, too, with a few of my updated comments inserted in italics.  Hope it's helpful! This is the original post. ********** This year, I have one of the most challenging classes I have ever had. I am still working on training them to do what I want them to do, but I know that in the end, I will win! Meanwhile, we are spending a LOT of time on classroom management, modeling routines and procedures often. Here is a list of some classroom management tips and techniques that I have used successfully in Kindergarten, but I think that they would prob
Read more

Teaching Phoneme Segmentation: Separating Sounds in Words (Freebies!)

Image
Teaching children to pick out all of the phonemes (or sounds) in a given word can be tricky!  This requires good listening skills and well developed phonemic awareness in general.  For some children, mastering phoneme segmentation can seem just about impossible!  Here are some teaching tips that have worked for me in the past. *  The best advice I can give is to practice segmenting words with a designated MOTION for a short time every single day with your whole class.  Even just one or two minutes per day will help! Look for suggested motions on this post. There is also a downloadable list of words to use, plus a homework sheet that you can download here. Here is where you can get another  word list for practicing words with two, three, and four phonemes. And here is another post with lists of words with four, five, or six phonemes. *  Give kids beads to slide down a pipe cleaner as they segment the word.  I made these "Segmentation Sliders" out of p
Read more

An EASY Critical Thinking Game for K/1 Kids!

Image
Today I'm going to tell you about a fun and EASY game to help boost critical thinking skills in Kindergarten or First Graders!  I call it The Critical Thinking Comparison Game, because in it, the kids are simply comparing one thing to another and telling what they think are the similarities and differences between two objects.  Believe it or not, my first graders LOVE this game and often ask me if we can play it again!  I think they like it because the game makes them feel successful and "smart."  I have also played it with Kindergartners, and they enjoyed it, too! The Critical Thinking Comparison Game is really very easy to play!  All you need is a few questions like the ones below, and something for the children to color, just to keep them busy while they wait for a turn to talk.   ( I also used my Critical Thinking Comparison Cards as a visual aid, but you can certainly play it without them! ) Here is the type of question that I ask in this game: How
Read more

Creepy Carrots: A Free Halloween Craftivity!

Image
Here is another fun, FREE craft for kids based on the book Creepy Carrots by Aaron Reynolds, with SUPER FUN pictures by Peter Brown!  Did you enjoy the free Creepy Pair of Underwear craftivity from a few weeks ago?  Well  Creepy Carrots is the sort of like the companion book to A Creepy Pair of Underwear - and it is just as much fun as the other one! When I first got this book out and showed it to one of my students, he said, "Oh, I want this book!  I want it REAL BAD!!!! "  And that was before I had even READ it to them!  He had only just looked at the cover !  LOL! When I found out about these books last year, it was right before Halloween, so it was really too late to share the ideas that my teammate Jeff and I developed.  We made a creepy pair of underwear on Halloween Day at school, but did not get a chance to do the carrots. So this year, we got right on it!  I hope it's not too late for you to take advantage of using this project this year!
Read more

Teaching CVC Words: What to Do When They Are STILL NOT GETTING IT

Image
In this post, I am going to tell you several new things to try with children that just can't seem to sound out words, even after MANY different interventions have been tried!  So for those little sweeties that are "just plain stuck" on the road to learning to read, here are a few more things to try or to think about.  The inspiration for this post came from the question from a reader below.  Hope it is helpful! Question: I really enjoy using your songs and activity ideas in my kindergarten classroom each day. I wanted to seek your advice for a couple of my readers. They have phonemic awareness skills in place and can segment a CVC word independently, but they are unable to blend it into the word independently. If I segment the word for them, they can blend it just fine. I use the Elkonin boxes, manipulatives, etc. to help, but still they are not really making progress and they are the only ones who are unable to demonstrate this skill in my class. I would love to
Read more