For most of you, today is the final day of classes
until January, and you're looking forward to the holidays and finding a little
time to relax before gearing up for the second half of the school year. I
hope your holidays are warm and wonderful, and that your loved ones are able to
be at home. I pray daily for our troops, our government, and world peace,
and know that many of you join me in my prayers.
*
40% Off Winter Products Sale ends on
December 31st.
Don't miss this chance to add some wonderful new materials to your winter
themes. As always, you must use the purchase links on the sale section of
the main KinderKorner page in order to receive sale prices.
* I have
temporarily closed
my eBay store -- for the entire month of
December -- in order to spend time with my
family, do some major redecorating at home, and
get caught up on other projects. If you're
interested in any of those goings-on, stop by my
personal blog for photos and updates on the
nitty-gritty of my day to day life ... I write
about cooking, travel, home decor, photography,
antiques and collectibles, crafts, quilting,
thrift stores and junking, family, things that
are pink, and whatever else is on my mind.
12-14-2008
Hello from snowy Vancouver, B.C., where
I'm on the last day of a relaxing vacation with my wonderful
husband. It snowed last night, and today the roofs and trees
are white as far as the eye can see, getting me in the mood for the
upcoming holidays. If you'd like to see a bit of what we've
been up to this week,
click here to visit my personal blog.
Winter Break is nearly here, and
there's so much going on with year-end assessments, holiday
excitement and special activities, and last-minute holiday gifts for
parents. If you're looking for ideas to fill out your
curriculum this week -- or are planning ahead for your January units
-- be sure to check out the links below, where you'll find hundreds
of great ideas based on popular winter themes.
In
addition to my online materials,
KinderKorner
offers ready-to-use materials for
purchase, including reproducible big
books and emergent readers, monthly
thematic literacy packets, and the
resource books from my popular
balanced literacy workshops.
For additional information about
KinderKorner Resource Products,
please check the
What's On Sale section on this
page, as well as the
Online
Catalog. The
Winter Products Sale ends on
December 31st.
Have a great week, and check back
soon for updates and new materials being added to the site!
12-02-2008
Can it really be December already?
This is such an important and exciting time in our classrooms, for
teachers and students alike. The holidays are coming, the
weather has changed, winter break is almost here, and there's so
much to do!
DECEMBER PRODUCT SALE:All winter-themed products are currently
on sale at 40% Off the regular price. You must use the
purchase button links in the sale section of the main KinderKorner
page, as only those links offer the sale prices. All
items are available for immediate download to your computer, when
you pay through PayPal using a credit card, debit card, or funds
already in your PayPal account. Sale prices are good through
December 31st.
I like to kick off December with a
unit based on Jan Brett's wonderful Gingerbread Baby
book, and this
year Brett has a brand-new sequel called
Gingerbread
Friends
that I highly recommend: it's the story of the Gingerbread
Baby searching for a friend to live with him in the gingerbread
house that Mattie built in the previous book. I'll be updating my
G
Is For Gingerbread unit over the next two days, to add some fun new
activities to integrate the two books.
Your students will also enjoy many
of the activities from my other winter themed units, and I've
provided links here for your convenience:
As you may have
noted, I'm not quite finished with the links on
the KinderKorner index/home page. My
wonderful father-in-law, Rex, passed away on
Halloween, and the past six weeks were much
busier than originally anticipated. Rex
was 94 and dearly loved by everyone who knew
him. Although he was elderly and had been
house-bound for several years, he was not
actively ill and he died peacefully at home,
shortly after going to bed for the night ... his
wife and one of his daughters were with him and
it took us all by surprise. My family
appreciates everyone's good thoughts, and
welcome prayers for my mother-in-law, who is
beginning a new chapter in her life after
spending nearly 70 years of marriage.
Enjoy your winter holidays, and
thanks so much for being a part of KinderKorner.
Victoria
10-15-08
It's
hard to believe we're already half
way through October!
Bakersfield had a couple of
fabulously cool days last week, and
now the temps are back in the
mid-80s. The trees still have their
bright green leaves, and -- for most
people -- the only signs of fall are
Halloween decorations showing up on
porches. But if you step
inside a school room, fall is in its
full glory.
I'm
still putting the final touches on
the KinderKorner index/home page,
and I appreciate your patience while
I fit this in among my other
activities. I'd also like to
thank everyone for their kind
remarks about the new design, which
is making the site much easier to
navigate.
Many of
you are planning ahead for November,
December, and January, and have
asked me to post a list of links to
units for those months:
Each
year, I try to add one or more
seasonal units per month to the
website, so please keep an eye on
this page for updates. I have
Halloween and Thanksgiving units in
the works, but they were on one of
my older computers and I haven't
found them yet.
I'm
sincerely hoping that those two
units-in-progress weren't on the
laptop that broke on an airplane
before what I was working on could
be backed up. Meanwhile, I'm
checking all of my back-up disks
from the past 12 years, to see if I
have a copy somewhere.
That's
the kind of thing that used to drive
me nuts, especially since -- like
many of you -- my work is spread
over several computers (two at the
office, my main laptop at home,
another laptop that I carry when I
travel, and all of my "old" laptops
and desktop computers).
Copying and transferring data from
one computer to another -- by email,
on backup disks, through a Lap Link
cable, or by wireless network -- has
always been a time-intensive task,
and back-up disks take up a lot of
space.
I have
more to say on this topic, but will
save it for a separate post instead
of climbing up on the "don't forget
to back up your data" soapbox right
now :o)
Have a
great week!
Victoria
:o)
10-01-08
Hello
From Victoria!
And
thanks for visiting KinderKorner.
As you may have seen, the front page
of the KinderKorner website has a
new design, making it faster and
easier to find what you're looking
for. I'm also adding new
content to the site, mainly in the
form of materials excerpted from my
workshops and published materials.
I'm
not quite done with that new page,
so not all of the links are working.
Until they are, the
old
KinderKorner index page is still
available by
clicking here. (Please
note: it takes a long time to load).
For
convenience, here are quick links to
my favorite Fall units -- these are
the units I usually begin in August,
September, and October:
While
you're here, be sure to visit the
In My Room
Photo Section, which contains a
photo journal of nearly a full year
in my classroom. It's packed
with additional thematic activities,
dozens of student projects, many of
our monthly quilts and TLC art
activities, and hundreds of photos
of the day to day work in my
classroom.
01-03-08
Happy New Year!
It's A
Brand New Year at KinderKorner, and I've been
hearing from lots of teachers about their plans
for the second half of the school year. If
you're spending part of your winter break
preparing for the new semester, you'll find lots
of support, materials, tools, and ideas on the
KinderKorner Website & KinderKorner Listserv.
*
New Product Released 01-02-08 -
IT'S A BRAND NEW YEAR
THEMATIC LITERACY PACK: This is a
terrific mini-pack filled with materials that
are ready-to-use on your first day back.
Includes 4 original songs & poems (3 were
written last weekend) plus a new emergent
reader, all on a New Year's or Leap Year theme.
Reproducible masters included for Poetry Journal
Pages, Song & Poetry Cards for Shared Reading &
Independent Reading, student-sized Emergent
Reader, Big Book masters, Pocket Chart
Illustrations, and Vocabulary Cards.
Available as an
Instant Download in .pdf format for only
$6.95.
*
Website Updates: The
main KinderKorner.com page has a new look,
which is actually the return of an old look ...
I've brought back the
Featured Units & Activities Quilt, to make
it easier for you to go directly to the pages of
photos, themes, and ideas that support your
current units. I'm also compiling and
reorganizing some of the old
In My Room Photo Pages
materials onto their own pages, to save you
time.
OLD
UPDATES
11-11-07 - A Note From Victoria
Hello
from beautiful Bakersfield, where the weather is
still warm and the days are too short ...
It's
been a long time since I've posted here, so I'd
like to take a few moments to fill in the gaps
since the beginning of 2007.
As many
of you know, I've been unavailable for much of
this year, due to my mother's illness and death.
She died without a will and left a very large
house -- literally filled from floor-to-ceiling
with stuff -- located several hundred miles from
where I live.
Much of
my time this year has been devoted to the many
things which must be done before her estate can
be settled ... those of you who have been
through this know how mentally and physically
exhausting this can be, especially when it
involves being away from home for extended
periods of time. I expect it will be
another 6 to 12 months before my brothers and I
will finish going through everything and sell
the house. Many lessons to be learned from
this experience, and not all of them good ones
:o)
Please
keep an eye on the What's New page for additional
information and updates to the site, and thanks again for
your support and understanding during what has been a very
challenging time.
Wishing
all of you a happy and healthy holiday season,
Victoria
:o)
3-16-06
Come visit my new -- and still-in-progress --
St. Patrick's Day
page. As with some of the other pages
I've added in the past few months, it's
not-quite-late for this year and super-early for
next year. I'll be adding more art
projects, etc., later today.
3-4-06
* New product ~
March 2006 Thematic Pack is now available
for purchase.
Themes include
St. Patrick's
Day, Rain & Rainbows, Seasons, and Insects
(caterpillar/butterfly and grasshopper).
The set includes eight new songs and poems in
two sizes, plus a new emergent reader titled
"Winter Or Spring?" Packs are available
for instant download or delivery by U.S. Postal
mail.
Happy Monday, and Happy Day Off to those of you
who teach here in the U.S. and have today off in
honor of Abraham Lincoln. Enjoy your free
day if you have one, and if you're in one of the
snowed-in eastern states, stay warm and dry :)
I uploaded a new
Valentines Thematic Unit page at 6:30 a.m.
PST. There are many more things I'd like
to add, but I wanted to get it online for anyone
who might still be in need of a new song or
poem, or perhaps an art project or two for
tomorrow. Be sure to check back later
today to see what else I've added to the page
during the afternoon.
I also completed some updates on my
Breast
Cancer Awareness page this weekend,
and I hope you'll visit the page and add the
Fund Free Mammograms link to your favorites
so that you can click on it daily ... it's free
and every click helps pay for mammograms for
women who can't afford this vital exam.
2-7-06
I've received several notes asking if the
blackline masters for my
Black History
Month Emergent Reader --
"African-American Inventions"
-- can be purchased separately from the February
theme pack. I don't normally separate sets
into individual items, but I've decided to give
it a try this time and see what the response is
like. If you'd like to purchase only the
blackline masters for the little book and big
book sizes of
"African-American Inventions"
-- without the eight songs and poems in the
February 2006 Thematic Pack
-- they're now available as an Instant Download
for only $5.
Here's a link
to the information page ... the purchase button
for the book masters only is right below the
sample pages.
* The
February 2006 Monthly Thematic Pack emergent
reader is titled
"African-American Inventions" and includes a
set of bonus masters for making a big book
version for shared reading. I'm especially
proud of this book, as it dispels a lot of the
misinformation being circulated regarding
inventions by Black Americans, and the
illustrations -- the original inventors'
drawings submitted to the U.S. Patent Office --
are wonderful. Click
here to
see sample pages from
"African-American Inventions.".
* Winter Products Sale
~ save 20% to 40% on my most popular winter
themed resources. You must use the sale
links on the main KinderKorner page to receive
the sale prices when ordering online. For
mail orders, phone orders, and fax orders,
simply list the sale price.
2-4-06
Welcome to February! Things have been very
hectic in my life -- business and personal --
for the past two weeks, and in the midst of all
that's going on I somehow forgot to update this
page with the latest KinderKorner news.
Here's a brief recap of the past three weeks:
* I completed my newest
Emergent Readers
Set -- Groundhogs
& Valentines -- before the end of January,
and added the info to the main KinderKorner page
and the online catalog
page, but overlooked adding it here. This
is an all-new set of six thematic emergent
readers (3 for Groundhog Day and 3 for
Valentine's Day). There are two sets of
reproducible masters for each title: one
set to make a student-sized book and another set
to make your own large-format Big Book for
shared reading and independent practice.
This new emergent reader set comes in a new
format: all pages are 8.5" x 11", to
simplify the printing process when making big
books.
Along with the new format is a new price:
this set is just $20 (as an instant download)
and $25 (delivered by USPS postal mail).
That's a 20% savings off the "old" Emergent
Readers set prices of $25 and $32. Full
details and ordering information can be found in
the online catalog.
* I had a terrific time as a keynote speaker at
the three day SCECA conference held in
Greenville last week, and enjoyed talking with
so many of the wonderful teachers in attendance.
I'm looking forward to presenting summer 2006
workshops in Charleston, SC, as well as
Charlotte and Winston-Salem, NC. Please
check the Workshops & Conferences
page for details as they become available.
I will also be at the 2007 SCECA conference in
Myrtle Beach next January, once again presenting
a half-day pre-conference workshop plus breakout
sessions on the following days.
Two items of a more personal nature:
* While I was in SC, my 92-year-old
father-in-law had a heart attack and was
hospitalized for 8 days. He is now back at
home and enjoying a speedy -- and, hopefully,
full -- recovery. Please keep our family
in your prayers during this difficult time.
Updated
Winter Book List
page, which contains dozens of suggested
titles to use with your winter units, including
the following themes: Winter, Snow and
Snowmen, Gingerbread & Cookies, Penguins, Hats &
Mittens, and Christmas (yes, that's over for
this school year, but it's still a part of the
page). This is an "old" page that went
online in 2001, to help teachers match read
aloud titles with the books in my winter themed
emergent reader sets, but there's still lots of
good info here as well as some useful links.
1-6-06
Added additional links to the
New Year's @ KinderKorner
Thematic Unit page. Be sure to visit
this page to print out free math worksheets plus
your choice of nearly a dozen free calendars for
2006.
1-4-06
New page online ~
Holidays & Special Days 2006 ... find out
what's being celebrated in many parts of the
world, complete with links
* Links
to 10+ free printable 2006 calendars for you and
your students
*
Free printable "How Many Is 2006?" blackline
mastersfrom me ... so you can show your students
exactly how many 2006 really is. Four
different types of printables are in the free
packet, including a partially filled-in number
writing grid (1 to 2006) plus a blank grid with
2006 spaces to use as you wish.
Click here to
go directly to the download button.
* Lots of new links to printable resources, New
Year's lesson ideas, etc.
1-1-06
It took a little longer than I thought it would,
but the all-new New
Year's @ KinderKorner Thematic Unit
page is now online. I'm still tweaking it
a bit, so please try again if the page won't
load. AOL users who loaded the temporary
page during the past 12 hours may need to clear
their browser cache or open a separate copy of
Internet Explorer (or another browser program)
in order to load the updated page.
12-31-05
Happy New Year to all of you ... may it be
filled with love, health, strength, wisdom,
blessings, and both kinds of peace:
inner and world. My
deepest thanks to all of you for the support you
continue to show to one another, as well as to
me, throughout each year. The work that
each of us does makes a difference in the lives
of many people: the children, families,
and coworkers we meet with every day, along with
thousands of people around the globe --
strangers and friends, in cyberspace and beyond
-- that we may never meet.
I am ending 2005 and beginning 2006 with a
special thematic page for you,
New Year's @ KinderKorner.
Discussions on my listserv over the past few
days have revealed that are almost no New Year's
curriculum pages or thematic units available to
teachers on the Internet, and the few resources
that are out there are difficult to find.
I've spent the past three days putting together
a New Year's page, with more than a dozen
classroom songs and poems -- mainly brand new
ones I've written myself -- plus links to
curriculum, arts and crafts projects, the
history of New Year's day and how it's
celebrated around the world, online fun for
kids, New Year's themed webpage sets and
clipart, quotations, and a whole lot more.
Please stop by a bit later to take a look, the
link should be active around 10 p.m. PST on New
Year's Eve.
12-28-2005
Updated
Breast Cancer Awareness Page ~ lots of new
links, new personal stories (Michelle
Best's story about The BIG Haircut and being
bald is an upbeat, must-read essay), plus some
new graphics (sigtags, adoptions, web graphics)
to show awareness and support.
12-27-2005
New Product: January
2006 Monthly Thematic Pack. Themes
include New Year, Snow and Snowmen, Mittens,
Penguins, Martin Luther King, Jr., and 100 Day.
The January emergent reader is titled "A
Snowman." January Thematic Packs are now
available to order, and can be delivered by
postal mail or by instant download if purchased
through PayPal.
In late November, I added some
free January
printables to the KinderKorner website. The
info is still listed on the What's New page, but
it's now so far down the page that there's a
good chance people might not read down far
enough to find the info :)
Here, again, is the link to the free January
printables, to help you get the New Year off to
a great start:
Updated G Is for
Gingerbread Unit Page:
* Added link to online video ~
author/illustrator Jan Brett reads and draws
Gingerbread Baby * Added photos and links for Gingerbread
Lamp Project, History of Gingerbread,
Gingerbread House Photo Album, Sugar Cube House
Project, and Gift Tags (all are near bottom of
page).
Updated Polar
Express Thematic Unit Page:
* Added links to Train Safety Lesson Plans for
grades K - 3
* Added link to printable Train Safety
Certificate
12-05-05
Updated
It's Beginning To Look
A Lot Like Christmas thematic unit
page:
* Added photos of five TLC Lessons
directed art projects
* Added new art project photos ~ handprint
wreath, hands-and-footprint reindeer,
poinsettias, and more
Updated Polar
Express Thematic Unit Page:
* Added five additional songs & poems
* Added section on Ideas, Activities, & Projects
* Added many new links to the links section ...
lots of great pages to visit!
12-04-05
CHRISTMAS THEME
EMERGENT READERS ON SALE ~ 50% off, save up to
$10.00
Oops ... I'm not sure how I forgot this one when
I listed the sale information yesterday :o)
3 title reproducible emergent reader set is
sale-priced for December. You must use the
special purchase links in the SALE section
in order to receive the sale prices, or call
Kelly at the KinderKorner office (M-F,
661.664.9508).
12-03-05
WEEKEND 25% OFF SALE
ON WINTER THEMED PRODUCTS ~ Save up to $27.25
All of my winter-themed resource books are on
sale this weekend, Saturday through Monday.
You must use the
special purchase links in the SALE section
in order to receive the sale prices. Phone
orders will be accepted on Monday between 8 a.m.
and 3 p.m. PST, and the sale ends at 12:01 a.m.
Tuesday morning. Here's what's on sale:
~ December Thematic Pack
~ It's Beginning To Look A Lot
Like Christmas resource book
~ Winter Themed Reproducible
Emergent Readers/Big Books set
~ Winter Wonderland Too! thematic
resource book
Hello from Calgary, Alberta, where I've just
finished two wonderful days at the Early
Childhood Education Council conference. It
was great to come to Calgary for the first time
and meet so many enthusiastic KinderKorner fans
and friends. Here's what's new at
KinderKorner this weekend:
*
New Product:
December 2005
Monthly Thematic Pack. Themes include
Gingerbread, Reindeer, Candles & Wreaths,
Christmas, and Hanukkah. The December
emergent reader is titled "Little Jack Horner."
* New Product/Feature: Just in time for
the holidays (and after three long years of
waiting), PayPal has added a Gift Certificate
that can be redeemed online.
KinderKorner Gift
Certificates can be purchased online, and
can be used to pay for materials and/or
workshops though the purchase and registration
links on the KinderKorner website. Gift
Certificates can be sent by email and/or you can
print out a copy to wrap and deliver. If
you need the perfect gift for a friend or
co-worker -- or would like someone special to
purchase a gift certificate for YOU-- please use the
Buy A Gift
Certificate banners/buttons found at the top
of the KinderKorner Homepage and the
KinderKorner Online Catalog.
11-02-2005
Hello from Victoria :o) Just a couple
quick things to share:
* A big
Thank You
to everyone who has taken the time to visit
TheBreastCancerSite.com during the month of
October. Your brief visits (just long
enough to click the
Fund Free Mammograms button) helped to fund
a total of 621 mammograms for women in need.
Please continue visiting the site daily and
continuing your free support of the free
mammograms program.
* On a more personal note, I am having several
minor surgeries (dental stuff) during the months
of November and December, and have had to
schedule my appointments and recovery time
around prior commitments to state and regional
conferences (ECEC in Calgary, CKA in California,
and SCECA in South Carolina). In order to
fit in the necessary medical stuff during the
holiday months, I had to cancel workshops that
were planned for Los Angeles/Burbank and
Victoria, BC. Like Little Rabbit, I will
"have a window in my mouth" for several weeks
(aaack!). All good thoughts and kind
wishes are appreciated ... I simply wanted to
assure everyone that I am not ill (and also that
I am not brave enough or wealthy enough to get a
face lift, now that I'm 50), and that I will be
working as usual during those months, despite
the workshop cancellations.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so
I've added a very special
Breast
Cancer Awareness Page for the KinderKorner
website. The page will be online all year
long, as a resource page for anyone who is
looking for information about most breast cancer
topics, including: prevention, BSE (breast
self examination), mammograms, diagnosis,
treatment, support for patients and caregivers,
family information, personal stories, cancer
organizations, male breast cancer, and a whole
lot more. Please tell your family and
friends about this new comprehensive resource.
*
Victoria, BC
~ Saturday January 21, 2006 ~ Working With
Beginning Writers
9-29-05
New Product:
November 2005
Monthly Thematic Pack. Themes include
autumn leaves, scarecrows, table manners,
turkeys, and Thanksgiving. The November
emergent reader is titled "A Turkey." I
put this pack online several weeks ahead of
schedule, as many of you teach some of the
included themes in October: leaves and
scarecrows are both popular October themes in
areas where fall arrives much earlier than in
Bakersfield, and of course Canadian Thanksgiving
is in October.
Product Update: On
September 12, I released a new-and-improved
edition of the
Good Morning Songs
for Pre-K and Kindergarten. On
September 27, I discovered the html code for
purchasing the product was corrupted, which
explains why no one had ordered the product
online during that two week period :o) As
my kids like to say, "My bad." Here again
is the info on this new item:
Good Morning Songs,
Set 1 ~ For Pre-K & Kindergarten Classrooms.
This is a greatly-expanded version of the
original Kindergarten Good Morning Songs, which
have been discontinued. The new book
contains an
additional 100 pages
of ready-to-use materials and extensions.
Added materials include reproducible Emergent
Readers, Large Format Song & Poetry Cards, and
Vocabulary Cards.
September 2005
Thematic Pack is now available for purchase,
and can be delivered by mail or instant
download. Themes are: I Am Special ~
Apples ~ Colors ~ Down On The Farm ~ School
Rules ~ Safety/Signs. Click here for full information.
8.20.05
New product: Workboard Cards For Learning Centers.
More than 160 reproducible
icon cards for your workboard and for labeling
centers in your classroom, divided into the
following categories:
Developmental Centers
Literacy
& Academic Centers
Math jobs, math manipulatives, and Math Their
Way Centers
Thematic Centers
These are the cards included in the handouts package from my Independent Literacy Centers & Workboard Jobs
workshop, and they have not previously been
available to non-workshop attendees. This
versatile set of centers cards is only $15, and
can be shipped by postal mail or purchased as an
instant download so that you can start using
them today.
8.16.05
Product Sale:
Save 15% on Happy All Year and Nursery
Rhymes For Joyful Times ~ you must use
sale links on main KinderKorner page to
receive sale prices
I returned home from 3 very successful and
exciting workshop days in Charleston, SC, and
got back to work on the website updates.
Please check back on Friday and Saturday to see
what's new.
Business
Office
KinderKorner.com
1805
Angers Court
Bakersfield,
CA 93311
Telephone
Numbers
office:
661-664-9508
xox
The
KinderKorner.com website, the KinderKorner Listserv, all KinderKorner
Resource
Products, and the business name/trade name "KinderKorner.com" are all
owned
and copyrighted in full by Victoria Smith, as are all
non-credited
photos and text throughout the website.
All rights reserved.
Nothing
on this website, or any of the pages herein, may be reproduced or
placed
on another website without the explicit written permission of the
copyright holder, Victoria Smith. All materials copyright the
date
of their origin and/or posting.
book, and this
year Brett has a brand-new sequel called
