Hootin' & Hollerin'

Hoot & Holler 

During this time of shelter in place, staying at home, and not being able to actually see our students, co-workers, and family in person we are grateful for the friends that ESGI has connected us with and provided to us!  We are actually WILD about these friends because these friends have created custom tests for teachers to use!  

 

 You can find our assessments and others included at no extra cost with your ESGI subscription! Don't have ESGI? No problem! Sign up today for an EXTENDED FREE TRIAL!  Just click on the picture at the top of this blog post to use the promo code GLITTERWILD to sign up!  

This is the last week to sign up, so you will not want to miss out!  Tell all of your teacher friends!!  

 

Who doesn't like winning prizes?!?!

Teachers that register for a new trial and try this free resource with students will automatically be entered:
Top prize - $500 Amazon Gift Card
Ten - $50 Amazon Gift Cards will also be awarded, and
Receive a $40 discount off your first ESGI purchase

(Winners will be announced Sunday, April 19th.) 

Stay safe and healthy out there ya'll!  

We are praying for all of our teachers, staff, and students near and far!  Stay strong, we will get through this together!   

Hootin' & Hollerin'

Hoot & Holler

ATTENTION ALL TEACHERS!!  
I know we have told you how much we love ESGI, and this is just another reason why we LOVE this company SO much!  They support teachers, and they truly care about making our jobs easier!  Check out what they are doing...

During this difficult time, ESGI is giving free access to parents and caregivers to support teachers with at-home learning.  This opens up the opportunity for teachers to work alongside parents and caregivers at home and support the digital learning platform that we are all using during this time. These parent At-Home accounts will not have access to your teacher account or affect your data.  Any adult can administer the skills review from an internet connected device! It’s as easy as CLICK, CLICK, DONE!

When students come back to school you will be ready to hit the ground running! 
Follow the steps below to get started:
Step 1: Sign up today for an EXTENDED FREE TRIAL using promo code GLITTERWILD at www.esgisoftware.com
 
Step 2: Look for an ESGI email to follow with more information on At-Home accounts!
Teachers that register for a new trial will automatically be entered for the following:

• Top prize - $500 Amazon Gift Card
• Ten - $50 Amazon Gift Cards will also be awarded, and
• Receive a $40 discount off your first ESGI purchase 

Hootin' and Hollerin'

Hoot & Holler

We are hootin' and hollerin' about the Awesome Parent Letters ESGI offers to teachers and parents! You can print out a parent report for one student or for your entire class with only 2 clicks!  These parent letters highlight what skills each student knows and doesn't know, AND they can be printed in English or Spanish. There is also an option to print flashcards to attach to the letter!  

You can download them as a Word document to customize the letter to meet your needs.  If you want to type suggestions for the parents to use at home, words of praise, or a date of the next assessment, then you can simply do this in a Word document!  It is so simple, easy, and saves TONS of time!  

What have you got to lose by signing up and giving it a go?  

Teachers that sign-up:
*Will be entered to win $500 Amazon Gift Card AND 10 Runner Up $50 Amazon Gift Cards.
*Will receive a $40 discount off their first year purchase.
*Will receive ESGI free through June 30th

Sign up for ESGI now with Promo Code GLITTERWILD to receive ESGI through June 30th! Click the picture below to check it out! 

Hootin' and Hollerin'

Hoot & Holler

ESGI always has these two Glitter Girls hootin' and hollerin'!  We are hootin' because it always save us so much time in our classrooms and give us SO much information to use with parents and for ourselves!  We are hollerin' because we are now officially "Friends of ESGI"!!  We are so honored and blessed to be affiliated with this awesome company!  We honestly cannot express how much this simple assessment tool has changed our lives!  

We use it to assess sight words biweekly, to assess report cards every 9 weeks, for progress monitoring, and to keep parents informed on their child's progress.  ESGI just makes our teacher hearts glow with excitement and joy because it truly has been a lifesaver for us in so many ways!   We have used ESGI in our classroom for 7 years now. It has saved us countless hours and millions of trees. We honestly do not know how we fit everything in before we discovered this online assessment tool. We would spend days, sometimes weeks, assessing just to repeat the process again in a few short weeks...it was a never ending cycle! Those days are over thanks to ESGI!!  Now we can test and get immediate results in the classroom, AND we can give parents immediate results. If you are looking for ways to maximize your instructional time, then ESGI is for YOU!   

There are hundreds of assessments for you to choose from, or you can create your own.  If you are a kindergarten teacher in Mississippi, then we have some awesome news for you!! Kinder Glitter Girls has done the work for you. You read that right! We have now created assessments that you can access on ESGI!!! How cool is that!! These assessments align with every Mississippi Kindergarten Standard (MCCRS). Click the link below to see a list of the assessments that we have personally created to help our fellow kinder colleagues quickly assess their students, so they can spend more time focusing on growing their students.

Click on MS to see a list of ELA and Math Assessments for kindergarten teachers on ESGI. 

ESGI offers a 60 day free trial you can use before you purchase. What do you have to lose? Once you use it, we promise that you are going to want to keep it. Once you decide you want to keep it (which you will), we have even more good news!!  You can use the promo code "GLITTER" to get $40 off your first subscription to ESGI! Click the ESGI button below to watch a short video to see why you need ESGI in your life TODAY, then it will take you directly to the website so you can sign up  for your free trial. 

Pre-Kindergarten - 1st Grade Classroom Tools

We would be happy to answer any questions anyone may have about this wonderful tool or any of our assessments!  Just contact us by commenting below or through emailing us at southernglittergirls@gmail.com   Happy Teaching to all of our fellow Mississippi Kinder Teachers out there!  Ya'll keep on making a difference and changing the world one child at a time!  

Two Hoots and A Holler

Hoot #1

Our first hoot is all about DATA!  This year our students have 2 computerized tests that they will have to take.  One is mandated by the state, and the other gives teachers a plethora of information about their students' strengths and areas of concern.  Our goal this year is to GROW, GROW, GROW!  In order to help us stay on track, our wonderful principals have created a "data room" that displays every teacher's data.  This is a great visual for teachers to see how their students are growing.  This forces us to look at our data and allow our data to drive our instruction; therefore, we are tailoring our instruction to meet our students EXACTLY where they are.  We love looking at our data, and we definitely can't wait to see how much these Jitterbugs and Rockstars will grow!

 

Hoot #2

Speaking of growing our students and data, we are only 2 months into school and have seen our students begin to SOAR!  We use ESGI in our classrooms to help with assessments that we give our students.  A huge focus is on letters and sounds at the beginning of the year.  We set a personal goal for ourselves and our students...we want all of our students to know all of their letters by Halloween.  And with the help many Jack Hartmann videos, Leap Frog's Letter Factory, perseverance, and a few tears, we are almost there!  Look at all of this growth!  In August I had 7 students who knew all 52 letters, now I have 18 that know all 52!!!!  I was super excited to see all of their growth, and  I am proud of my kiddos for all of their hard work! 

  

This Week's Holler...

This week's holler goes to ESGI! Thank you ESGI for your continued support of teachers and saving us HUNDREDS of hours of assessments!  If you do not use this tool, then you are wasting a lot a valuable time assessing your students. Did I mention that it is paperless???!!! At a glance, I can look at my standards that I am targeting to see if whole class review is necessary. 

 When I click on a students name, if gives me an overview of the student's knowledge. If I press "details," then it will give me the exact question that the student doesn't know. My students have so much fun with this! It is not uncommon to hear them say, "Look how much my brain has grown!"

You can click any of the icons on the right and with no effort at all, you can have a detailed parent letter explaining their child's knowledge. We have heard of some teachers that even use these as the report cards that they send home! Every primary teacher needs this in their life!

Click on the ESGI button at the top of our blog home page to receive a code for a free trial and a discounted price!!!

Two Hoots and A Holler

Hoot #1
This year Dr. Seuss's birthday and our monthly house meeting fell on the same day!  We learned all about Dr. Seuss and read several of his books in class throughout the week.  On Friday, we got to celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday with our house buddies!  Their 5th grade house buddy read a Dr. Seuss book to them, then we sang "Happy Birthday" to Dr. Seuss. Finally, we had a small birthday party in honor of Dr. Seuss.  After 300 cupcakes, 40 tubs of cotton candy, 250 drinks, and lots of Dr. Seuss books, we think these kiddos had a blast! 

Mr. Hickerson, a 5th grade teacher, really enjoyed reading to our kinders!  The kinders LOVED hearing him read and seeing him dance at the celebration.   

 Some kinders read to their 5th grade buddy!  Seeing our kinders reading to their buddy made our hearts so happy! 

Hoot #2

Well, we have been lucky enough to be able to expose our kindergartners to more technology than ever this year!  This week is "Report Card Testing" week. We don't know about you, but usually that also means it is a review week. It is a little more relaxed. In a world full of assessments and rigor that is not age appropriate, it is nice to sit back and show our students how much their brain has grown! ESGI allows us to do just that! Our students are so excited to see how much of their pie graph turns green.

This year, we have been blessed to get ipads in our classroom. We now have 7 in our room. The students love to get on them. If the students are doing individual work, they are doing Reading Eggs. This is a great tool that we recommend for your kinders. It helps with phonemic awareness and other reading skills. During free centers, they love to work together in pairs. We discovered these jewels, and we are loving these new headphones!

What makes these headphones different from others is that you can take any other head phone and plug it directly to the headphone and you immediately have a partner to work with. So now we have the ability to have 14 students working at one time on tablets!!! There is no more fighting over tablet time!

The additional headphone plugs in right under the ear!

This Week's Holler...

This week's holler goes out to Amber at A Smiling Teacher. She is an elementary teacher from Ohio. We are in love with her writing station. Super fun and super easy! She is selling it as a bundle on TPT, and it is on our wish list now!  Go check it out!!

Two Hoots and A Holler

Hoot #1

We had our Christmas party in kinder before we went on our break.  We had a day filled with hot chocolate, pizza, presents, laughter, and fun!  We loved seeing our students so happy!  Seeing students just as excited about giving as they are about receiving makes our hearts so happy!  They are the reason why we do what we do!  

 

Hoot #2

Now that we are back into the swing of things, we are all reaching our goals for the end of the year!! I do not know about you guys but we are willing to do everything that it takes to get these children excited about reading! 

 One of my Christmas presents was this cool microphone! What can I say, my mom knew exactly what I would love!

Isn't it pretty???

I couldn't wait to get this into the students' hands! It was the first thing that we talked about when we came back. The students were totally excited. I told them that they could read their sight words to me by using the microphone. The students were totally excited. Today we tested our students on sight words. We do this every other Thursday using our ESGI assessment (If you do not have this...YOU WANT THIS!!! It saves us a ton of time). They loved every minute of today as they read their sight words!! There is so much more this can do. I can't wait to figure it all out!

This Week's Holler...

This week we are hollering at Kristen at A Teeny Tiny Teacher!
We are in love with her listen and learn phonics pack! It is just what our students need to meet their year end goals! Thanks Kristen for sharing your great ideas!! Go check her out! 

Two Hoots and A Holler

Hoot #1

Since visiting Ron Clark Academy, we have been dying to incorporate the house system at our school and in our classroom!  Last Friday our classes joined two 5th grade classes for a house reveal celebration!  Each child got to pop a balloon to see which house had chosen them.  

 The students (and teachers) had a BLAST!!  Every student was excited and so were their house mates!  Check out some of these pictures!!

HOUSE OF GRISHAM! HEAR THEM ROAR!

5th grade house members created a tunnel for the younger house mates to run through as they welcomed them into their house!

Grisham is in the HOUSE!!

Jodi ran and gave "high fives" to the new students in Grisham.

Mrs. Gardner welcomes Parker to the House of Welty.

Presley 5th Graders 

 Bryson got green!!

 Leah got green!

Mrs. Amy was busy writing down the names of the first members
of Presley House!
OOOOHHHH YYEAH!!!!!!

Presley House Completed
Kindergarten and 5th
Let the memory making begin!!

Hoot #2 

The beginning of the year would NOT be complete without our yearly subscription to ESGI!!  We have LOTS of screening to get done these first couple of weeks, and this tool helps make assessing students EASY PEASY!  If you have not already heard of ESGI or you have never tried ESGI, then you MUST go sign up for their free trial.  We promise you will fall in love with all that it has to offer!  We honestly cannot say enough good things about ESGI!
There is a NEW Classroom Management feature.  WOW, just WOW!  Just when we thought ESGI couldn't get any better, they add this feature!  Using this will help you create class lists, name tags, name plates, cubby names, bus lists, etc.  We are still learning what all this new feature will do!  

We cannot imagine how we ever survived teaching kindergarten without it!  It is worth EVERY. SINGLE. PENNY.  If you have any questions about ESGI, do not hesitate to contact us.  We will be glad to answer any questions! 

Click the ESGI button below to go sign up!  If you decide you or your school would like to purchase, then don't forget to enter promo code B6125 for a discounted price of $159 ($199 regular cost). 

 

This Week's Holler...

This week's holler goes out to Tara West at Little Minds at Work.  She has SO many wonderful activities and tools to use in kindergarten and first grade!  We use her guiding reading bundle every year!  We LOVE how easy the lessons are to follow, and how simple she has made teaching guided reading.  Go check out her blog and TPT store!  You will be glad you did!  

Tara West's Blog