Chef Charlie's Pizzeria of learning!

I have been trying to think of innovative ways to teach my Firsties! I loved the Dr. Seuss room transformation so much that I thought I would try it again. This time, with the help of Oriental Trading, I transformed my room into a pizzeria. 

First, I covered the tables with this amazing tablecloth roll from Oriental Trading. It is red and white checked! Doesn't it remind you of a pizzeria tablecloth!!!!!

I used Melonheadz amazing pizza clip art to create all of my pizza props. First were the oven mitt supply holders. I took their pencil boxes away and enlarged the oven mitt from Melonheadz set and stapled a bag to put their supplies in to the back. Voila, they got to put their supplies in an oven mitt!

 For their pencils, I enlarged Melonheadz pizza cutter and taped it to the pencil because all pizza chefs need a pizza cutter!

I bought pizza pans from the Dollar Tree! I bought one for each pizza chef to have at their place. So here is their place setting!

I also decorated the morning message and their morning work sign with pizza clip art from Melonheadz!!!

 Oriental Trading had children's aprons and chef hats so I got those in order for my Firsties to be pizza chefs for the day! I also got an apron for myself and my student teacher to be pizza master chefs for the day! Don't you love the hats and aprons!!!
Of course we had to get mustaches as well!!!

So here is what the classroom looked like when I was done transforming it! Do you love my lights? I made them into giant slices of pepperoni pizza using the bulletin board paper from school!!

So that was the inside. On the outside, I enlarged the pizza topping clipart from Melonheadz  pizza set to make my door into a giant piece of pizza!!

Of course I had to have a photo booth outside! So I took a piece of the awesome tablecloth from Oriental Trading, Melonheadz pizza chef enlarged to 500 and an awesome banner I found at Target and created this awesome photo booth that I later turned into a writing display!! But first, here it is as a photo booth!

So our day was centered around pizza. We learned about pizza using a nonfiction text and then they did a follow me activity and made a pizza chef. They then used all of the new knowledge and their personal experiences and wrote a how to writing piece on how to make a pizza. I love how they came out!!

And here is the photo booth as a display for their how to writings!

They then worked on sentence creation centers and they also did a pizza read the room!

All of their centers were put into real pizza boxes that I received from a local pizza parlor!!

Then we went into Math! I just love Melissa and Doug products and Oriental Trading does cary them!!!! They had the amazing chef puppet, so of course I had to get one to teach fractions and pizza math with!!!

So we used these amazing stickers from oriental trading that looked like real pizzas to practice our fractions. So we made a fraction book, showing a whole pizza, a pizza cut in two halves and a pizza cut into fourths. Then we did a quick assessment by holding up the correct flap and showing the correct fraction when asked!

We then used pizza sticker scenes from Oriental Trading and built our own pizzas. We then cut them in half and in quarters. We were asked to come up and feed Chef Charlie different fractions because he was hungry! They loved this activity!

Pizza Number Bonds from oriental trading were a big hit during small group time!

They also did a pizza skip counting small group activity and a fraction activity!

 To end our Math block, they had a challenge. I gave each table a different amount of pizza erasers from Oriental Trading!!! They were asked as a team to make as many pizzas as they could before the timer ran out or in one minute!

Then they had to show me half of their pizza and a quarter of their pizza!!!

 During Math RTI, My kids did a pizza one more, one less, ten more, ten less read the room activity!

The Pizzeria was a hit! My kids loved it and were so excited to learn!!! Thank you Oriental Trading for being amazing and I can't wait to share my next room transformation with you!!!! I hope this has inspired you to try this out!!! Remember, oriental Trading has everything you need for your kids to experience amazing hands on learning activities!!!!

ESGI and their Pot of Gold

I love ESGI! It saves me over 400 hours per year! What can you do with an extra 400 hours during a school year? 

So what is ESGI? It is an assessment tool that allows you to assess your kids online! That's right online paperfree!!!

My firsties love it! They beg to be assessed!!! I love it because I can assess for report cards in one day! I can give formatives throughout my unit and not worry about excessive amounts of paper and grading! That's right! It grades it for you as well!!!

You can make an assessment that is aligned with exactly what you are doing or you can go to the test explorer area and find one there! There are 100s to choose from!! 

Differentiation has never been easier! We complain about having to differentiate our instruction but assess the same, no longer! You can create assessments based on your kids abilities!! 

Need assessment and data points for your IEPs?! Go no further! You can create your own in ESGI and print off the results and bring it to your IEP meeting! Progress monitoring has never been easier!

But it gets better!! Parent communication is a breeze with ESGI!! You have the ability to print off parent letters for each child with the assessment data and what needs to be a focus! There are flash cards that are also available to print off to send home so the parents can help your kiddos at home!!

This is truly an amazing and a can't live without program!

Now for the amazing information! ESGI is having a promotion!! Between now and April 10, 2017, of you sign up using my promotion code below (http://www.esgisoftware.com/ESGI/?promo=gators)

Or by clicking on my button on the sidebar for ESGI, you will be able to get a free trial period but not for only 60 days! You will be able to use ESGI for free until August 31, 2017! That is 5 months! At the end of the five months if you can't live without it (which you won't be able to) then you can get it for the promotional price of $159!!! 

Also! You will be entered into their Pot of Gold giveaway! They are giving away a mystery prize! Announcement of the winner  will be made on April 11,2017!

So what are you waiting for click for you free trial period and you will soon have to figure out what you are going to do with an extra 400 hours per school year!!