I LOVE Target!!

The dollar spot at Target is awesome for teachers this time of year! I got some great kindergarten friendly stuff...check it out:

1. Dry erase boards for writing & printing practice

2. These cards show animals & their actions...they will be great for my animals unit.

3. These cards are similar to the animal action cards, but they show the sounds that the animals make.

4. They had tons of sorting packs. They had animals, numbers, colors, shapes, etc...I got them all!

5. These cards will be great when I teach community helpers. The words describe the job.

6. I thought that these would be great when I teach transportation.

7. Insects & spiders. I love that they are real photographs.

8. Animals... again, real photographs & info on the backs of the cards.

9. Dinosaurs...the boys will love these!

*With all the cards, I am going to teach the thing on it & I am going to use them in my writing center. I am hoping that the kids will find one that interests them & be able to write a little story or fact sheet about it.

10. Alphabet cards for an ABC center or a writing center. I love that the pictures are a little silly. Maybe I will get some creative stories from them.

11. Loved these dry erase mats. I have them for an ABC center & math center.



12. And, last but not least, I adore these birthday stickers & certificates! I can't beat the price anywhere else!!





All Packed Up!

The closets are organized, the books are packed up, the students have taken all of their things, the walls are bare, and all the furniture has been moved...it's official, my summer is here! It seems silly that we go through so much work to close up our classrooms when we will be putting them back together next month, but we do have to get them cleaned. :) I am ready for a fresh start with a new batch of students that I will get to mold and prepare for 1st grade. I am already thinking about things that I am going to improve upon or change for the next school year. I am a little sad at the news that I cannot teach a letter of the week anymore. We were told that it was "old school" & did not fit into our curriculum and teaching practices. I think of it as "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", but they don't seem to buy into that philosophy. It will be an adjustment for me to teach students to read & write when I cannot teach them the letters & sounds the way I am comfortable (and successful) teaching them. Oh well, I guess that I will make the adjustment and move on.

On another note, I am very excited that we will now be assessing the kindergarten students using the assessments that we use quarterly to track learning & progress. In the past, we have done tests that were good, but didn't really help me all that much in driving my instruction. This new way of K testing will be much more effective & give us information that we can directly use to implement lesson plans that are appropriate and on the level of their learning. I am so happy that my principal has put her trust in us to know what we need to do for our new K students!

I am looking forward to my little summer break. I am going to rest & enjoy myself so that I can be refreshed & ready to start with a new, sweet group of K babies! :)

The end is near...what will next year bring?!?!

I cannot believe that I am ending yet another school year. It has really flown by. I am going to miss this sweet group as they move on to first grade. I really hope that I get a great group next year. I have been doing a lot of thinking about how I am going to change things next year. I have been reading Debbie Diller's math & literacy work stations books. I am going to be revamping the way that centers run in my classroom. They are going to focus solely on reading & writing skills. I am only going to have things that are developmentally appropriate to ensure that the students will have no difficulty & will be encouraged by their own success. I want them to have multiple opportunities to read & write throughout the day to strengthen those skills.

 I am going to bring back weekly class books in interactive writing. I am also going back to making our letter of the week interactive writing charts. This year's class did not get into interactive writing like classes in the past. They were very hard to manage during carpet time & I got frustrated and ended class books & charts. I know, it sounds bad, but I was going crazy trying to manage them so I quit doing it. Instead of doing it whole group I did it in small groups during center time.

I am also going to have a classroom that is saturated in print. I am going to make anchor more charts- another one of my weaknesses this year. I am going to involve the kids in everything that is hung on the walls so that everything that I have up will be meaningful and useful to them. I want everything to be a usable resource for the kids to use during reading, writing & math.

I am considering doing a morning message. I have never done this before and I am studying the merits & benefits of doing a morning message with the class everyday. I am still looking into this, but I like what I am reading about it so far.

Discipline is another area that I am going to be looking at. I had a really good group this year and I really did not have anything that I could not handle at the classroom level. Hopefully, the same will hold true for next year, but I am still thinking about my discipline because it has been said that we will be having between 20 & 25 students...whew! Yep, I will need a strong discipline program in place!!

It seems that I have a lot on my plate for next year, but I want my students to be over-prepared for first grade. I am going to expect a lot from them and I am sure that they will work for me. I love to see them rise to the challenge.

Underwater Fun!

This is always one of the most fun themes to teach. To kick off the week, the students come into the room & we are transported to being underwater. I put blue cellophane over all the lights and the room has a cool blue glow to it. We learn about a different sea animal everyday & make a corresponding craft. I then hang the sea animal craft from the ceiling so that it looks like we are under the sea swimming with them. We make fish, jellyfish, sea horses, sharks & crabs. I took a picture of the room, but it didn't turn out. So you will just have to visualize this one on your own.

In centers I have fish measuring...

I have watercolor word painting...

We also make an octopus puppet in a center & read underwater books. The kids love to learn about the ocean. On Friday, we make a class mural where the kids make their own sea creatures to make an underwater scene. So much fun!

I thought only birds came from eggs...hmmm

This week we learned that more than just birds come from eggs. We started the unit brainstorming animals that hatch from eggs & made an interactive writing chart. Of course, they were quickly able to tell me all types of fowl. Then, I told them to think of animals without wings that come from an egg. The first student raised his hand and said, "penguins". I said, "but penguins have wings". He said, "Yeah, but they don't use them." I guess I can't argue with that one. Anyway, I gave them clues about a turtle...hard shell, lives in oceans or ponds, hides inside the shell when he gets scared, etc. They figured out that it was a turtle. I read a book about sea turtles & then we watched a United Streaming movie about the sea turtles hatching and finding their way into the ocean. After that we made a turtle and wrote about him. Check it out.

 










The next day we learned that frogs come from eggs. Frog eggs look a little different from the eggs of other animals and it took a little convincing to persuade them that they were actually eggs. We talked about the life cycle of frogs. After that we made frogs, complete with long, curly tongues and wrote about them. Here is how they turned out...

 

I just love these little guys!

After frogs & turtles, we talked about snakes!
I am not a fan of snakes, but my students ALWAYS love to learn about them! This year my class is heavy on boys (12 out of 17) and this unit keeps them so engaged! I LOVE teaching through themes. I know that the theme keeps them so engaged that I can slip in writing, reading & math skills without them even realizing it! :) I do not have pictures of our snakes because I couldn't get them to turn out. We colored 2 sides of a paper plate and then cut them in a swirl so that they looked like curly snakes. Then, I hung them from the ceiling. They would twirl when the air kicked in and the kids loved it!

All in all, this was a great unit. My kids stayed engaged and excited the entire week. I was able to teach them valuable math, reading, writing, & science skills...what more could I have asked for? :)

Things That Go!

Transportation is always a fun unit in Kindergarten. The boys especially love it! Being that I have 12 boys & 5 girls, this unit was a huge success this year. Each day we learned about a different mode of transportation and did a corresponding craft/writing activity. We learned about different types of trucks, aircraft, boats, trains and cars. I began this unit with an interactive writing about transportation. As I suspected, this is one chart that the boys were excited to make with me!

We started the week talking about different types of trucks. We learned about dump trucks, tow trucks, fire trucks, 18 wheelers, pick up trucks, etc. Our activity was to build a truck using different shapes & to decide what kind of truck they would have. Then, they wrote about their trucks & how they can help us. I am so sorry that I don't have a picture of this activity because they did an awesome job with it.

The next day we learned about boats. We talked about row boats, kayaks, canoes, motor boats, cruise ships, pirate ships, & submarines. Then we painted boats & wrote about them. Here are some pictures:

(Sorry that you can't really see these...but you get the idea)!

By mid-week we learned about ways to travel by air...planes, hot air balloons, rockets, helicopters, etc. We made a rocket by tracing the shapes, cutting them out & piecing them together. This always turns out to be one of my favorites during this theme. Check out the pics.

Don't you just love the fire alarm right in the middle of my display? :)

Ok, so you can't see the writing...pencil just won't show up in my pics!

Our next mode of transportation was trains. We made signs with this one. They are pretty cute...here they are.


They traced the shapes of the sign, cut it out & tore paper to make the designs of the signs. Love these!



To wrap up the week, we reviewed the modes of transportation that we have learned and added any new ones to our chart. Then we created a trasportation mural. A colleague drew the picture for me. My class made houses to put on the mural. After the houses were added, we cut out modes of transportation from magazines and placed them in the air, water, or on the land. Here is what it looks like. It turned out even better than I expected! It is so long that I couldn't get it all in one picture...

This is the beach side of the mural.

This is the neighborhood side of the mural.

All in all, this unit turned out to be a lot of fun for the boys & the girls! Everyone learned a lot of new information...that's always good! :)

May Flowers

Spring is such a fun time of year! It just such a good opportunity to teach so many fun themes and topics. While learning about bees, plants, and flowers, we decided to make a word garden. We talked about the parts of the flower & the importance of bees to the flower. Our garden grows flowers that have words on their petals!  Check out what a great job the kids did...I will definitely do this again next year!

close up of the bees & flowers

the students made the letters

another close up of a bee & flower

the finished product :)

This was such a fun project. The students picked the words that were on their petals. The only requirement was that they had to be spelled exactly right & they had to be able to read them to me before they were allowed to attach them to their stems. Otherwise, they would just copy words in the room & the words would really have no meaning to them. Several times a day I catch the students going over to the word garden & trying to read the words that their friends have on their flowers. They have also used the word garden as a resource during writer's workshop time. I have been pleasantly surprised at how useful this beautiful display has been to them.