Catching Up...

Whew! It has been a whirlwind in kindergarten since we got back from our 2 week fall break. We took a field trip to the AW Shucks Corn Maze. It was so much fun! The kids visited the animal barn, the hay sack slide, the hay ride, the treehouse, the nature trail, the hay bale run, and, of course, the corn maze. The day was beautiful and we were the only school there so we had our run of the place! :)
We have been learning all about pumpkins for the last 2 weeks. I am so sorry that I do not have pictures of the fun things that we have been doing...my camera is on the fritz. :( Some of the activities that we have done are...pumpkin parts diagramming, sink or float pumpkins, sorting pumpkins by size, sequencing pumpkins from smallest to largest, counting the seeds in our pumpkin, carving our pumpkin, graphing, color mixing red & yellow to make pumpkins, painting a pumpkin patch, apple/ pumpkin comparisons, making jack o' lanterns...wow! It has really been a blast!
Tomorrow is Halloween (my favorite holiday!) and we will be having all sorts of fun. I promise to take pictures & post them for all to see!
Happy Halloween! BOO!

We LOVE Apples!

For the last two weeks we have been learning all about apples! We learned how an apple tree looks in each season and all the parts of an apple. Did you know that the inside of an apple is called the flesh? We did lots of activities to go along with the unit like apple prints, apple suncatchers, apple paintings, and we even made a classroom apple tree. We wrote our own version of the book Ten Apples Up On Top that we will be able to read for the rest of the year. To wrap up our unit we made homemade apple sauce from a reicpe that we wrote during interactive writing. We also tried caramel apples! Yummy, learning about apples is so much fun!! Check out a few of the pictures from our Apple Fun Unit...

Here is our delicious applesauce recipe that we created during interactive writing.

This is a pocket chart activity that they did during work stations. They LOVED this one!

This is our class appletree. (Iknow, I still haven't figured out how to rotate on Blogger...)

Apple diagram done during interactive writing time.

Apple suncatchers...these are one of my very favorite crafts that we do all year!

Here are our apple prints. The kids loved making these!

Center Time!

Here are a few of my math centers from the beginning of the year...

Using cubes to make patterns

Using playdough to make triangles

White board number writing

Here are a few of my literacy centers...

Pocket chart center

reading center

listening center

computer center



Around the Room...

Rules to live by...I love my classroom rules! Each rule has movement that goes with it & the students LOVE to recite them everyday. I actually have them recite them everytime they come down to the carpet.  I will try to post a video of them saying the rules. Gotta figure out how first! ;0

Here is my word wall. It irritates me that it is so big and takes up pretty much all of my white board space, but I don't have anywhere else to put it & it is a requirement in my school that it be this big!

 This is my birthday bulletin board. My assistant made it & I am not crazy about the color scheme...but, hey, I didn't have to make it so I'm not complaining! I give the students a little treat bag on their birthday. The bags are hanging with their pictures and birthdate written beside them. On their birthday, they get to pull their bags off the wall. For some of my students, this is the only gift that they get :(.

This is my (sideways) name chart. It is made following the K Phonics book from Fountas & Pinnell. It aggravates me too because I have a very transient class & I am constantly having to modify it. But, it looks pretty right now!

Ready to Roll...

Here is the mess that I came back to... (actually, I did it at the end of the year)...

Here is how it turned out after I put everything back together. This was taken about 2 weeks into the year, that's why there is some work up on the walls.

I still haven't learned how to line the pictures up horizontally...ugh! I know that these aren't the best shots of my room for you to get the idea of how the entire room looks! Sorry, I'll do better next time...

Back to Business

Well, we have officially been back in school for 2 weeks. I will post pics of my classroom next time. I have a great class & I know that they are going to make huge progress this year. I do have more students this year than I have ever had before. I have 21 right now, and children are still continuing to register everyday. I may end up with about 25 when all is said and done. Luckily, I have a great FULL time assistant that is willing to do all she can for me & the students! I am looking forward to what this year holds for me!  Tomorrow I will take some pics of my classroom & post them so that you can see what's going on in my K class so far...

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!!