Mrs. Pauley's Kindergarten: Giveaway

At the beginning of this school year, I noticed that the majority of my class had trouble with pencil grip. I had never had so many students in one class with poor pencil grip. I didn't know what to do so I asked our district literacy coach for some help.

She suggested I get pencil grips for my class. After searching online for just the right ones, I found these pencil grips.

These amazing pencil grips are from The Pencil Grip, Inc. You can find them here. I bought a class set of the "Training" Crossover Grip. Oh my goodness gracious......I couldn't believe the difference it made in just a few short days. Once I put these pencil grips on my students' pencils and taught them how to properly hold the pencil (courtesy of the pencil grip user guide) their grip started improving.

After I felt my students started mastering their grip with the Crossover Grip pencil grips, I then started moving my students to the "Transition" Pinch Grip pencil grips. I had them continue to use them until they were ready to move on to the "Graduation" Pencil Grip.

When my students would use crayons or markers and I would notice poor pencil grip, all I had to say was "Hold your crayon like you hold your pencil," and their grip immediately switched. By the end of the year, most of my students no longer needed a pencil grip at all!

Now, you may be wondering about how to handle the pencil grips if you use community supplies like I do. At first, I removed the pencil grips when a new pencil was needed and would show my students how to remove it as I was doing it. Then after a couple weeks my students were able to take the pencil grip off and place it on a new pencil independently. They were very protective over their pencil grips and thought they were the coolest things ever! I thought so too because they were finally mastering their pencil grip!

Have you ever had a class that just had a hard time mastering pencil grip? Would like to win your own Pencil Grip 3 Step Training Kit? Then enter the rafflecopter below. A winner will be chosen on Saturday!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Do you ever get to that point in the year when you are exhausted and feel uninspired? I was there two weeks ago, but then I went to the Spring Teacher Retreat in French Lick with 200 of my closest teacher friends. I left the retreat feeling inspired and re-energized for the rest of the school year.

First of all, when you are in the car for six hours and it seems like two because you are chatting so much with your blogging bestie, (Heidi from Flipping for First) you know the weekend is going to be amazing.

If you have not been to this meet up, then believe me when I say it is a MUST do! My sweet friends Holly and Brittany put on an amazing event.

Our theme this year was “Take your passion and make it happen.” It is amazing to be with 200 other people who are just as passionate about their job as you are about yours. It just ignites that fire within you.

I have to say that my biggest takeaway from this event was this quote from Kim Bearden: "Build relationships that fuel your soul!" That is what this weekend is all about. We need to surround ourselves with people who lift us up not bring us down.

During our daytime event, we had some very generous sponsors spoil us with some amazing swag.

I am beyond excited that I won a year subscription to ESGI! I can’t wait to get started with that. I know it will make doing assessments so much easier and less time consuming.

In the evening, we had an EPIC 80’s party. Where else can you see Madonna, Richard Simmons, Tom Cruise (times 2), Axel Rose, and Pee Wee Herman all in one room?

I think my favorite part of the 80’s party was the fact that we are able to pull off our flash mob successfully. It was so much fun.

My other favorite part was the amazing photo booth provided by GoNoodle. I have all my pictures from that booth hanging by my computer at school so I can always just look at them and smile.