It's All in the Family

A mom was kind enough to email this picture. Since we are a self-contained K-12 school we have lots of students who are related to each other. Above is a picture of some of my current kinders, including one set of triplets, one pair of cousins, and one set of twins!

Newsletters

Hello my kinder families! I am posting the class newsletters for the past couple of weeks in case one did not get home in a backpack. Click on the links below to view them.

Newsletter Sept. 16, 2011

Newsletter Sept. 23, 2011

Week 2 is Through

It may have only been a 4 day week, but I am sure ready for this weekend! Below is a link to my class newsletter for week 2. We had a fun week, and are looking forward to parents visiting for Meet the Teacher night next Wednesday!

Click here for Newsletter 2

Class Newsletter

Thank you to all of my new kinders who made the first week back to school enjoyable! I can't wait to see what this year has in store for us! Below is a link to our newsletter in case you lost yours, a hard copy was sent home in your FROGS folder on Friday. Hope your long weekend was fun, and see you on Tuesday!

Click to view Newsletter 8/29-9/2

Class List

Hello my future Kinders!!! I am excited that a new year is so close to beginning. I wanted to post a list for you so that you will know who will be in class with you this year. I can't wait to see you at the picnic on Sunday, and then for our first day of Kindergarten on Monday morning! Enjoy your last few days of vacation!

Class List 2011-2012

A New Blog, A New Giveaway

A new blog has appeared called Castles and Crayons. Kelli is a new blogger, who already has more than 70 followers. She is hosting a giveaway for $15 to Target. I have checked out her post about binders and am definitely liking this idea for next year. Here is the link for you to check her out and have a chance at winning:

http://castlesandcrayons.blogspot.com/2011/06/25-followers-giveaway-time.html

Another Giveaway

Jennifer over at First Grade Blue Skies is also hosting a giveaway. Here is what you could win:

-$25.00 gift card to YOUR CHOICE of Target or Amazon

Wasn't that nice of her to let you choose?? Click on the link to find out how you can earn a chance in this giveaway:

http://firstgradeblueskies.blogspot.com/2011/06/gift-card-giveaway.html

Summer Blogging Giveaways

I just found a new blog, and the author is already hosting a great giveaway! Click the link so that you can head over to enter for your chance to win these great prizes:

-$50.00 gift card to Lakeshore, AND

-$25.00 gift card to Target

These would make getting ready for next year so much less painful!!

http://erica-elementaryexcitement.blogspot.com/2011/06/beginning-blog-giveaway.html

Postcard Exchange Giveaway

I have signed up next year's Kindergarten class to participate in a Postcard Exchange. What a great way to incorporate lessons on so many topics in a fun, real-life way! So I here is a chance for my teacher friends to enter a giveaway to win Erica Bohrer's Letter Writing Unit for free. This would be a great supplement to the Postcard Exchange, so I am really hoping I win, but you can have your own chance by clicking the link below and entering yourself. Thanks Erica for this offer!

http://tekyteach.blogspot.com/2011/06/postcard-exchange-and-letter-writing.html

Miss Bindergarten Unit Giveaway

I saw this great giveaway on another blog that I thought my fellow Kindergarten teachers may be interested in. I know that I plan to do a Miss Bindergarten book each day the first week of school, so to find a giveaway of a Miss Bindergarten was perfect for me. Check out this blog, and get your copy of the unit today!

http://kinderkraziness.blogspot.com/

Contest

My goal this summer is to get this classroom into more order. I did some before school started, but throughout the year more important things have required my attention, and not much else has been done. I am excited to have one year at CTA under my belt and now I know more of what I want to use and not use. This summer will hopefully give me plenty of time to get things just how I want them. I was just introduced to this blog: Clutter-Free Classroom, and they are having a giveaway. I am really hoping to win so that I have a guide to help me through this process. Check out this blog and enter to win for yourself!

http://clutterfreeclassroom.blogspot.com/2011/05/kicking-it-off-with-contest.html?showComment=1306957405306#c1274085519508564275

Popcorn Sight Words

I found these cute as can be Popcorn containers for only $1 at Deal$!! What a great motivator to encourage students to practice their sight words. A few days later I saw the post over at Kindergarten Whale Tales, where you can get a free game of Popcorn Sight Words! This was such great timing, now I have a game to play with my kinders that they love and think is fun, while they are practicing sight words! Plus it matches our bulletin board, bonus! Click the link to go to the blog and get your own Popcorn game.

http://kindergartenwhaletales.blogspot.com/2011/05/dollar-well-spent.html

Earth Day Crafts

Since our school was on Spring Vacation on Earth Day, we are celebrating now after we have returned. We made 2 crafts to celebrate taking care of our Earth. Here are some pics of the finished products. The first is an Earth sun catcher, or necklace. The second is a "litterbug" that eats litter to help our Earth. The kids loved both of these crafts, and they turned out pretty cute. Here is the link to the instructions I got from Enchanted Learning.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/earthday/litterbug/

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/earthday/glue/

Target Find

I found some chip and dip trays at the Dollar Spot at Target - but they really cost $2.50/each. Still a great deal for a tool to use to help kids practice sorting. We can sort lots of things with these trays, buttons, beads, beans, crayons, cubes, you name it, if it fits in the tray we can sort it!

Using a Globe to Practice Probability

I use a beach ball globe to practice probability during our map unit. We sit in a circle and toss the beach ball to each other. The "catcher" reports whether their right thumb landed on water or land when they caught the ball. Then I use tally marks on the board to keep track of where our thumbs land the most. Before we begin we made predictions of which would win - land or water. Since we had previously made paper plate Earths that showed 3/4 water and 1/4 land they all guessed that water would win. The kids loved this game, and asked to play it for several days in a row afterward!

Giveaway

Hey teacher friends. Just wanted to share another opportunity with you to win! Head on over to First Grade Fundamentals for your chance to win a $20 gift card to your choice of either Target, Dollar Tree, or Teachers Pay Teachers.

http://firstgradefundamentals.blogspot.com/2011/04/choose-your-own-giveaway.html

Cute, cute litter bugs

Our class will be making Litter Bugs next week when we return to school. If any of my parents are checking in on the blog during vacation we could use as many empty egg cartons as we can get.

Finishing Our Globes

Here are our final products! We followed the Scientific Method and completed our projects to create our very own globes. (Continents not to scale!) We had been taking notes on a sequencing page about the steps of this project, then we edited those notes into formal writing so that others could read what we did to make these globes. This is always a fun project in my class, the kids LOVE it, and the other kids in school want to come and make their own globes too! We displayed our globes at our annual Achievement Fair, so pictures show the final products and our display.

Field Trip Fun

Here are some photos of our class having fun at Graeter's Ice Cream in Dublin, Ohio. We had a great time experiencing goods and services in a real life situation! Thanks to the moms who took time out to join us!

Poetry Pack Giveaway

Hello fellow teachers. I want to post about another giveaway because I really want to win the poetry sets listed in this giveaway. If you haven't checked out the Kindergarten Works blog you should do so, I have gotten many ideas from this teacher already! Head on over and enter to win, then share with me! :)

Wants and Needs Collages

We began this lesson by creating a list together of things that we want and things that we need. When these lists were complete we discussed what the difference between wants and needs is. We decided that a want is something that you would like to have, something that makes you feel happy, or something that helps you have fun. Then we concluded that a need is something that we have to have in order to keep living. To make the lesson more concrete for students we then made a picture collage of magazine pictures. Students were instructed to find pictures of 4 things for each group, needs and wants. In preparation for our field trip we discussed that ice cream is really a want instead of a need. The part of ice cream that we need is the milk, but we do not have to have ice cream. Please excuse the handwriting on our easel, it is not an example of my best!

Field Trip

We will be taking a field trip this Thursday to Graeter's Ice Cream! I am excited to be able to incorporate two of my favorite things: teaching and ice cream! :) This week we are learning about the differences between wants and needs, and goods and services. We will make predictions before we go, then compare them to what we experienced when we return. While we are there we will get to take a tour of the factory to see how they make ice cream. After we eat lunch we will get an ice cream treat. The shop also has a play area, so we can work off some of that energy before we return to school. Can't wait to post pictures of this fun trip!

Day 3: Paper Mache Globes

Our globes have hardened in shape, and now we are painting the water on the "Earth". We had fun, and got a little messy again. Some of us had blue hands, faces, hair, and clothes at the end of this day. We will paint one more coat of blue water, then on Monday we will add on the continents.

Day 1: Making Paper Mache Globes

Today we began our science experiment. We went through the scientific method, using the adorable printable cards from Ladybug Teaching Files. Get your own copy here:

http://ladybugsteacherfiles.blogspot.com/search/label/Science

We researched different websites for directions on how to create a paper mache globe. Our hypothesis was that when we mixed the flour and water it must make some kind of glue to make the newspaper stick to the balloons. Our plan is to finish this experiment by completing one step each day this week, so our final globe product will be ready for showing off on Friday. The pictures above show us working on covering our balloons with the first layer of paper mache. Tomorrow we will complete the second layer. We sure got messy, but we had TONS of fun!

Hoping to Win

There is a giveaway at Ladybug Teacher Files for a Dr. Suess themed Blog Design. If you look below to our Dr. Seuss blog entry you will see that his birthday is my favorite day of the whole school year, there is never enough time to get all the activities in that I would love to share with my students! I am really hoping to win this giveaway so that I can get my blog redesigned with this Dr. Seuss theme! Here is the link for entry to this giveaway:

2 Giveaways

For my teacher friends out there, who couldn't use a $100 gift to the Container Store??? I know I could! There are so many cool things it would be hard to choose! If you want a chance to enter the giveaway head on over to this blog: What The Teacher Wants, click the button below. Good luck to each of us!



After you enter to win that contest head on over to the Second Grade is Splendid blog for a chance to win $10 to use with Amazon! Wow, what great ways to help teachers!

Guided Reading Books

If you are looking for good patterned text books to read with your children/students I love, love, love the printable books from Hubbard's Cupboard! The books are listed in several different groups, alphabetically, seasonally, by word family, etc. They are so easy to make, just print, cut in half and staple together. I would highly encourage you to visit the website and use these books for practice!

www.hubbardscupboard.org

Graphing Names by Syllables

Today we were introduced to syllable counting. We clapped out syllables in lots of words, wrote them on the board with boxes around each syllable, and then we each clapped and counted the syllables in our own name. Next we took our name card and placed it on the graph in our pocket chart. Since we are also working on our number words as sight words we graphed them underneath the number word representing how many syllables we had in our name. Two syllables was the obvious winner for our class this year.

Learning our Number Words

This week we have introduced number words zero through ten as our new sight words. We have practiced with flashcards, matching and reading stories. Our favorite story for this lesson was "I Knew Two Who Said Moo" by Judi Barrett. The words and the pictures made us laugh! While I was gone our teacher assistant helped us make flash cards with the number words, then we played memory with partners. Who knew learning number words could be so fun?

Guided Reading Groups

I have finally finessed my observation note page to where I love it!!! I am so excited to run my guided reading center and keep accurate, easy notes that I may forget when it comes time to assessments or for planning remediation. I have been researching different teacher's ways of this record keeping and took a little bit from here and there and added the things that I wanted to make this graphic organizer just the way I wanted so that it would help me the most. It includes a place to enter students most recent scores in reading so that I can quickly see what areas I want to be sure to hit in each group where they are all needing some extra help. I want to share it with you in case you are teaching and want some ideas to take away and add to your own, or feel free just to use mine. I was happy to get the cover and side labels for my binder at the following blog:


http://kindergartenworks.blogspot.com/2011/01/guided-reading-guided-setup.html


I also printed the reading log there to keep a list in my binder of books I have done a running record on for each child. Then I also revamped a running record documentation page. I wanted something where I could see the student's actual reading and comprehension progress on the same page. Again, if you want to take any ideas or use the page in its entirety please enjoy!



Guided Reading Observation Documentation Form


Guided Reading Group Notes -



Running Record Form


Running Record Form -

Buddy Reading

On Friday our Kindergarteners had a special treat from the 3rd graders. They came down to our classroom to buddy read with us! We all had lots of fun hearing some Dr.Seuss stories read to us by the big kids. Thank you to Mrs. Armeni and her class for sharing your time and talents with us!

Dr.Seuss's Birthday

This is by far and away my favorite day of the year! I always enjoy a day when I can share one of my favorite authors with children! Of course we never have time to do all of the fun activities that I would like to do, but we do get in a lot of them. We read lots of stories including: The Cat in the Hat, Yertle the Turtle, Too Many Daves, and My Many Colored Days. Since our school is creating our own Dr.Seuss Day next week we will get a chance to finish up some of the things that we didn't get to. Our crafts included a Dr.Seuss hat, and turtles. We worked on writing numbers from 1-30 on hats, a worksheet shared from the Kindergarten Hoppenings blog - see the link on the right. On Friday some of our 3rd grade friends are planning to visit and buddy read more Dr.Seuss stories with us. We love Dr.Seuss!!!

President's Day

For president's day we learned that both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were known for their honesty. We discussed the importance of always telling the truth - no matter what. Our bulletin board displays the silloheuttes of our past leaders - Washington and Lincoln - and our own silloheuttes as the leaders of the future. Seeing as how we have 30 silloheuttes up on the board, they would not all fit in the picture. We also discovered that the president's pictures are on the penny and the quarter. For a science experiment we predicted how many drops of water would fit on top of a penny and a quarter, then we used an eye dropper to find out the answer. This was a very fun experiment! We enjoyed learning about these important leaders of our past.

100th Day

Since some people have not be able to come into our class to view some of our fun projects that we did on the 100th day I wanted to post pictures of some so you can see them here, even though it was almost a month ago - where has a month gone??? What a fun, fun, fun day, even though it was delayed by 2 days due to our days off for snow. Of course everything we do on this day, we did in 100's. We practiced counting to 100 by 1's, 5's and 10's, did 100 exercises, wrote one letter of the alphabet 100 times, estimated how long it takes for 100 seconds to pass, chose an adjective to describe what we hope to be when we are 100 years old, created a school of 100 fish, made 100 day celebration crowns, and drew pictures of what we would look like when we reach the age of 100. Our bulletin board displays our 100 collections brought from home, and our ice cream cones with 10 scoops, which we used to count by 10's to reach 100. The second bulletin board shows our stars, on which we wrote and drew about an item we would like to have 100 of. Congratulations class on 100 great days of learning in Kindergarten!

Not so "plane" shapes

As we transition from learning about plane shapes to 3-D shapes we are making yarn shapes. Students describe the shapes by telling how many straight sides there are on each shape. We practice our phonemic awareness by sounding out some of the sounds when writing the name of each shape. Then we fold a large sheet of construction paper into 4ths. Each box is labeled with the name of a shape and how many sides it has. Before we glue on the yarn for each shape we draw the shape in the box. (This is easier than making the shape with glue - I learned this the hard way the first year I tried this.) Kids love making this shape craft, and bonus for teacher - it is not too messy! :)