A Kindergarten Smorgasboard Of Clip Chart Clips!

Happy Friday!  For those of you who had to work this week, YAY!  You made it!  For those of us who go back Monday...it's time.  Do you feel that sense of dread?  No more naps.  No more late nights.  Well, late nights but...back to early mornings!  No more sleeping in.  Back to reality.  Back to exhaustion.  Back to doing what we love!

Today I marked another classroom project off my list!  I made new clips for our clip chart!  I LOVE the clip chart idea!  I like that the monsters start neutral in the middle.  I like the idea that we don't start good or bad!  We just start.  Neutral.  Nothing.  In the middle!  I also like that my monsters can go up and down all day.  It's fluid.  Just like our lives and our days.  I might have a rough morning (have you met me?!  I am a total morning person...so I would have a rough afternoon because um, I need my nap.)  but I can still end up fixing it and having an "off the chart" day!  In my first year of Kindergarten, I decided to use pictures for our clips.  For practical reasons, some monsters can't read their names early on so it makes it accessible to everyone.  I really like that I can glance at the chart and quickly see who is on what color.  And what the monsters like and what is powerful is that people instantly recognize the students who are "off the chart"  so they can praise them.  They might know every name, but they can quickly match faces.  I also (and this is just my own thinking...which we all know is skewed and dangerous at times...ya know, in my own special reality of Greg-land!)  think it helps them take more responsibility for their actions because they see themselves on the chart.  It's not just a clip but it's their face staring back at them.  Just my thought...

So here is how I assembled my new clips.  I got some heavy duty plastic clothes pins from the Dollar Tree (better known as teacher paradise!  Um, I spent $24 but could have spent $100.  The lady in front me spent $110!  I've never seen someone spend that much before at the Dollar Tree!), wallet size picutres at Walgreens (.99 cents a print!) and hot glue!

I like these heavy duty clips because they won't break like the wooden ones.  TIP:  Did you know soaking wooden clothes pins in salt water makes them stronger?!  True story.

These wallet prints are amazing!  99 cents at Walgreen's!  They are the perfect size for clip charts and many other classroom uses!  

I cut the pictures apart and hot glue them on the clips!

Clip chart clips!  BAM!  Look at that.  And yes, it's a pink glitter background in the picture!  

Here is my Friday Freebie!

It's a sample of my new sight word creation:  Sight Word Tech!  A technology themed kindergarten smorgasboard of sight word activities.  Reading, writing, building, finding, graphing sight words and sight word phrases!  165 pages of sight word fun!  All designed for my monsters and all designed to be used in many, many ways!  

Check it out!  Click on the picture to visit my freebies page to download a free preview! 

Click on the picture to check out this fun and useful creation that is aligned to the common core standards!