A Fourth Gone By!

A fourth of what? A fourth of the 2013-14 school year, that's what!!! This week is the 9th week of school, which is completely unbelievable to me, but indeed it is! We have been up to a bunch of good stuff already this year, with a whole lot more to come! We already have three members in our 100 Club (which has been updated with new photos)! The kinders are so excited about getting to try out for this club. They ask DAILY if we can try again!

Last week was Fire Safety Week in Kindergarten, which culminated in a final presentation by the firefighters in our community. It was awesome! They were all super listeners for our guests. I hope they all enjoyed the surprise coloring and activity book that they were each given by the fire department for this special day. Our class was especially interested in the 'jaws of life' that were laying out by one of the trucks. They got a special explanation of what they were and how they are used. I am so thankful that our community has such great volunteers who are also willing to give of their time to help educate our children.

When you're this cute, there's always time to smile for the paparazzi, right?

I am so proud of this group of sweethearts! They are really working hard and have come a long way already.

Wow, It's Been A Long Time!

Everything has been going by in such a blur the past few months that I haven't had time to keep my head straight, much less blog! Sorry to leave you all with no new reading! The Knight Owls have been doing a lot of learning, and boy, do I mean a lot! Most recently, we read the entire chapter book of "Mr. Popper's Penguins" and then got to watch the recent movies for a comparison/contrast activity. With the reading of that book, we have also been reading a lot of non-fiction text about faraway places like Ireland, Mexico, Spain, and the Amazon Rainforest. In a few weeks, we should have a story of our own about the rainforest to publish here for you all to see!

We also had a visit from some Easter chicks last week...check these cuties out:

We had an awards assembly...

And so much more! There's no way I can get it all in tonight, but I will try to be better about getting posts on here to keep everyone updated for the rest of the year. There will definitely be a lot going on in the next 8 weeks. Yep, that's all that is left! Unbelievable! Future posts will include: 100th Day of School, Rainforest Story, more Easter chick pics, updated 100 Club, reading and math interactive activities, and scientific studies (a few weeks away). Keep checking back!

A Big Fat Turkey!

To teach our kinders about Thanksgiving, we put on a program each year that tells the story of how the Pilgrims came to America. The students begin practicing lines and scripts immediately after Halloween. It is a LOT of work! This year, I had more Indians than Pilgrims, so I had to do a little costume creating. I also made myself a new costume. It all looked a bit like this...

This is what all the Indian costumes looked like before.
Now they are the Indian boy costumes.

Supplies...yes, those are chocolate drops with vanilla creme...necessity.

The basic shape. The fabric was this great fuzzy stuff...no clue what it was called!

Finished!!! They were so cute!

A few of the wild Indian Boys!

And the adorable Indian maidens!

I had plenty of Pilgrim costumes for the boys and the girls. They don't change much anyways, so I couldn't spruce them up any. My cute lil' Pilgrim kids looked like this...

Finally, there was a Turkey Hunt in our play. The Big Fat Turkey was one of my sweeties! Wouldn't you love to catch this Turkey?

The kinderbabies did such a fantastic job! We performed twice, once for the school as a dress rehearsal and again for the parents in the evening. They all did great on their lines, songs, and motions. It might have been the best year for our Thanksgiving play yet!

Fall Carnival!

Last night, our school put on its annual fall carnival. There were lots of kiddos there, of all ages! Different activities were a Pickle Walk, Prize Walk, Hair Painting, Bingo, a Silent Auction, various raffles, an indoor Bump-N-Jump, and of course...the Kindergarten Cake Walk. Parents of kindergarten students donated a variety of baked goodies for the event...and it looked something like this...

Three tables loaded down! Thanks, thanks, and more thanks to our wonderful bunch of parents!!! We definitely could not pull off something like this without your help!

Look Who's Counting!

In years gone by, it has seemed as though I have only scratched the surface of counting and writing/recognizing numbers with my kinders. There has been so much time dedicated to phonemic awareness, phonics, and reading that math has been sadly neglected! This year, it seems the other way around! I am already realizing that I need to slow down with the literacy component in my classroom, but I am thrilled with how much time is being devoted to mathematics. Look at how we are learning (yes, we are just now learning, so please overlook any imperfections) to work with numbers!

Field Trip Shirts

Field trip shirts are in the making! Instead of the traditional (for the last five years, at least) tie-dye, I opted to do something a little different. Check out my original post here, and I hope everyone enjoys their kindergarten shirt!

Meet the Food Groups

Our fantastic PE teacher organized a school-wide health and nutrition week with field day as the culminating event. Classroom teachers were asked to conduct at least a week-long unit focusing on physical health or nutrition. With this in mind, I taught the five senses last week and am teaching the food pyramid this week. Much of my material for this week has come from a really cute website that I found, so be sure to check it out here. It has great FREE reproducibles and interactive tools that work well on a Smartboard, and they are all accessible without a membership (although you do have a membership option). Today, to introduce the food pyramid, I combined a sort page that I already had with the pyramid printable from nourishinteractive to have the students create their own kid-friendly pyramids...involving color, cutting, and sorting! They had fun!!

We Love Reading!

This is similar to the other video I posted of buddy reading, but I just love it when they help each other ro read! These two in particular crack me up when they are working together, because one knows it all already, and the other is a mini-teacher! Quite a combo! Also watch in the background the two who do not want to read together. They would totally rather read on their own!

Buddy Up!

Now that we are reading somewhat independently, I have the students 'buddy up' every day. We call it 'knee to knee' reading in our room, that way I know that they are close enough to hear each other without getting too loud. As you can hear though, it doesn't always work that way! This was a quick snippet of one of my buddy groups reading today.

Happy 107th Birthday, Dr. Seuss and other literacy stuff :-)

Today would have been Dr. Seuss' 107th birthday! We had a fun day celebrating by wearing Cat in the Hat hats, making birthday cards featuring each child's favorite Seussical character ("zower in the shower" from There's a Wocket in my Pocket was the class favorite), reading books written by Dr. Seuss, and watching a video of Hop On Pop. I am featuring his books all week long, and the kids love it! It is a terrific author spotlight incorporating rhyming and reading with expression. They are really beginning to understand how much fun books can be when you read with feeling!

In February, we have been working on reading grade level texts and independently taking Accelerated Reader (AR) comprehension tests on them. The babies think they are hot stuff getting on a computer and making "5 out of 5 and 100%!"



Another activity we have had fun doing is working with magnetic letters on the ELMO. I call each child up and assign them a sight word. They rummage through my letter box to find the correct letters to spell their word. This is a hard game for some of them, but they always work hard to figure out the correct answers!



First try to spell "of"



2nd time's a charm!



Literacy Caravan Rescheduled!!!

As you may have read, I was very bummed to have had the flu when my day came to attend the literacy caravan. Fortunately for me, it was cancelled due to snow, and they did reschedule! Three other teachers and I went to the event on Friday. I had a blast! I know...I am a nerd.

The programs that I was able to see presented are....*drumroll*

Harcourt "Journeys"
Pearson "Good Habits, Great Readers"
Scott Foresman "Reading Street"
Mondo
Macmillan/McGrawHill "Treasures"

If you know anything about any of these programs, please speak up! I know which my favorite was, but I do have reservations about it (primarily that we have that particular company's math program and all of us hate it!). I would love to hear your thoughts if your school uses any of these!

2+2=22???

When it is time for the babies to begin adding numbers, they unfortunately revert back to thinking about how the numeral looks. For example, if I make the mistake of saying one and one is...? Instead of one plus one is...? They automatically say, "11!" It makes me remember that the way I phrase my vocabulary is so important in my job. Over the course of the next few weeks, my kindergarteners will be learning how to combine numbers; adding them by way of pictures, manipulatives, numerals, and addition stories. On Friday, we did an activity to introduce them to this new concept.

 We began by using blocks to represent objects in a story: "I had 7 blocks in my drawer. My brother found 2 more blocks in his drawer. How many blocks did we have in all?"

 The next step was to write the number sentence. We began this after we had represented several different scenarios with the blocks. (Magic trick: dry erase markers WILL easily wipe off of student tables with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, and they think they are getting to do something spectacular when they get to write on the table!)

The final step of our lesson was to apply what we could now do on paper! They did great! I really love it when they begin transferring all of their newfound knowledge to do 'hard' work...which we sometimes refer to as first grade work...and then they really feel as smart as they are!!!

50 A Day #3!!!

Our principal began a behavior incentive a few years ago called 50 A's. It consists of a chart of 50 boxes attached to a clipboard. Each class from PreK - 4 has one, and that clipboard goes everywhere the class goes. When the class is caught being good or doing something good, whoever caught them initials a box on the chart and adds an 'A.' The classroom teacher can not give her own class an 'A,' but can take an 'A' away if the class is being extra unruly. Some things that are considered 'A' behavior are: standing quietly in line, walking through the building respectfully, following the lunch room rules, and behaving during inside recesses. The entire class has to be doing the right thing in order to get a box filled in. 

When all 50 boxes are full, the class gets to have a celebration! Some common themes are pajama day, character day, beach day, western day...you get the idea. Last week, my class finished their 3rd chart for the year!!! They chose to have a 'play centers all day' celebration with...

Puzzles

Sight Word Matching

 Letter Sounds/Recognition Games

Rice Box

Dramatic Play

Play-Doh

All in all, a fun day was had! The students changed centers every 30 minutes so that they wouldn't get bored. They never knew they were learning the entire day...it was just pure fun.

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