Kindergarten Rainbow Classroom Reveal

It's starting to come together!  I love rearranging my classroom for the beginning of the year.  It's all about solving problems I ran into last year, and incorporating all the new ideas I've learned over the summer!

Problem last year:  I had this rainbow storage shelf over my lego table.  It also happened to be in the path where my kids lined up.  Without thinking they would "hang" on it, and a couple of the bars were cracked.  Trying this new spot!  The two shelves on the side hold crayons and markers.

Love, love, love my stage!  It is also storage!  The two tall parts of the stage are on hinges and have a ton of storage space in them.  I finally have a place to shove all those wipes, kleenex boxes, baggies, and extra supplies parents bring me!

My small group corner.  Getting it all organized for my Science of Reading small groups I've been working on all summer.

Trying something new with my calendar time this year.  Making it more like a timeline.  It has all the birthdays, early out days, and holidays already in.

This is kinda messy, but shows off my flexible seating storage and the "tall" seats that are a favorite.

I love chalkboards.  :)

My new loft is actually a bunkbed off amazon.

I'm doing so much more with playdoh this year after an amazing session from the online Elevate Conference sessions this summer!

Yup.  I have a rainbow order problem.  I admit it.  I embrace it.

Moved my art center this year.  Still have some organizing to do.

My writing center.  Waiting for all the "Family Word Page" posters my kids will bring in!

Lots of name game activities for the beginning of the year.

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New Year's Unit

I'm in the middle of those days between Christmas and New Year's Eve where I'm not quite sure what day it is, or what time it is.

In the midst of my stay-up-too-late-sleep-too-late-Netflix-binging days, I updated my New Year unit for the week we go back.

That week, I plan on talking about goal setting, new beginnings, and trying new things...all the things I love about the new year.

When I create a new unit, I am developing small group activities for my small group rotations.  This is our skills practice time of the day when the students are working on skills independently while I am working with my reading group or math group.

When planning my small group activities for literacy I use a modified Daily 5 (but I have control issues) plan.  I plan weekly activities for:

Working with Words

Working on Letters

Working on Writing

Working with Names

Listening to Reading (my reading group)

My math rotations are similar, with activities each week based around the math strands:

Geometry

Counting and Cardinality (Number Sense)

Patterning and Base 10

Measurement and Data

Operations and Algebraic Thinking (my math group)

For New Year's here is my small group plans:

Can't wait to celebrate the new year with my munchkins!

Happy New Year Unit on TPT

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Planning for 2015-16

Here’s my year unit plan schedule for 2015-16, as well as my daily schedule…at least until I change it AGAIN.   Yes, I know I have a “rainbow” problem.

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Happy New Year!

Along with a lot of rest and just plain laziness this Christmas break, I did do a little school reading…

I've read other things by Debbie Miller, and always loved them, but this was my first time reading this book.  I HIGHLY recommend it.  I love the way she works hard at helping kids make goals, and be responsible for their own learning, all the while getting them excited about becoming a reader, and learning about HOW kids can help themselves grow in reading.  Her class discussions and format also work REALLY well with my work on substantive conversations in my classroom. 

In my usual over-eagerness…I am seriously rethinking my whole schedule and the way I do book boxes and mini-lessons in my classroom.  I would love to hear from other kindergarten teachers who implemented ideas from this book in their classrooms.  Send me and email!

angie@ilovekindergarten.com

I spent some time this afternoon revising my "Happy New Year Mini-Unit".  We go back to school on the 2nd this year…which means I have 2 odd days to fill.  These 5 math and literacy activities are what I am planning.

Baby New Year Labeling

Making 12 addition

Months of the Year Write the Room

New Year's Resolution Book

Happy New Year Dice Game

Click Here for a freebie of the New Year Dice Game.

Click HERE for the whole unit on TPT.

Happy New Year!

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Busy Days

I am ridiculously behind on Blogging!  Been super busy getting ready for presenting at the Florida Kindergarten Teacher Conference on December 6th.  I am presenting 4 sessions:  Number Sense, Morning Meeting, Literacy Centers, and 8 Math Practices for Kindergarten. Spending my day on December 5th watching my good friend Dr. Jean all day. I can't wait!

In the mean time, things are busy in Mrs. B.'s class as well.  Freight Train Bulletin Board

I love the book Freight Train by Donald Crews.  It's a great book for reviewing color words, and one that my kindergartners learn to read right away.  We did lots of fun Freight Train activities on this week.  The kids did a great job with this simple retell/geometry activity.  

Train Activity Bundle

Pizza Sight Word Game

I love making dice games.  This is an easy one I did during our pizza week.  You roll the dice, and highlight the word (highlight=cheese on the pizza).  I've played it as a Bingo game as well as an individual "Keep rolling till you are done" game.

Planets and Stars Math

For my CGI math friends, this is a fun Part/Part/Whole Part Unknown activity for early in the year. Circle stickers are planets.  Star stickes are stars.  The problems are all planets +stars= how many all together. 

Included in my Outer Space Unit  

High Tech Listening Center.  :)  This is kind of a sad picture.  I think my cassette player is finally dead.  This was the last week we got to use it, and the last picture I have of it in my Listen to Reading Center.  I love my iPads, my Elmo, and my Mimeo, but sometimes simple is best.  I'll miss you old friend!

This past week we read several versions of the story Stone Soup.  Our culminating activity on Friday was to make our own version of stone soup.  Everone brought in veggies, and we had the crockpot going all day.  Anyone who was brave enough to try our soup got to take home a stone "trophy" that said: "I tried Stone Soup!"  I'm proud to say everyone tried it!  It was yummy!

This next week, (and the 3 days after) we are doing some fun Turkey activities for Thanksgiving.  I'm excited about the fun activities we will be doing.  Here are a few!

Turkey Bundle on TPT

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Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

My number one favorite alphabet book, and one of my favorite book themes of the year.  We did lots of fun stuff this week.

This was part of our small group math rotations this week…with a little bit of a literacy as well.  It was in my "geometry" group.  My goal is for this rotation every week is for them to use shapes to make other shapes and use that to create.  

Common Core standard:  

• CCSS.Math.Content.K.G.B.6 Compose simple shapes to form larger shapes. For example, “Can you join these two triangles with full sides touching to make a rectangle?”

In another of my math small groups, the activity is patterning and number, and operations in base 10.  This early in the year we do lots of patterning.  Patterning is STILL a part of kindergarten, even with the common core.  From the 8 math practices:

CCSS.Math.Practice.MP7 Look for and make use of structure.

CCSS.Math.Practice.MP8 Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

Our whole number system is based on patterns.  Patterning is still VERY important!

For my Work on Writing small group activity this week we did a fun book about Bandaids (always a popular topic in kindergarten).  We have been working really hard on color words, so the first page is "I wish I had a bandaid the color ______.".  The second page, we used our kindergarten spelling to finish the sentence "I wish I had a bandaid shaped like a __________."  My favorite answer of the week was motorcycles.  The last page, they got to tell one of the bandaid stories they are always dying to tell me.  "Once I had a bandaid on my ______.".  

     

During intervention, my high groups played a fun game of sight word Bingo with a Chicka theme!

The other groups played alphabet bingo.  I love that the games look very similar…it feels like everyone is playing the same game.

Click on the picture for my Chicka Chicka Boom Boom unit on TPT!
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Chicka-Chicka-Boom-Boom-Packet-328363

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Elmer The Elephant

We had lots of fun with our Elmer The Elephant week.  We tied it in with "All About Me" and celebrating the ways we are the same, and the ways we are different.

We used tissue paper and liquid starch to make Elmer.  Loved all the color mixing discussions that happened during this activity!

Just a simple shape activity…but everything is more fun with paint.  We added these shape words to our math vocabulary wall this week.

I used this activity for my "Working With Letters" rotation.  It was a BIG favorite.  I wrote all the letters of the alphabet with a white crayon on each of the sheets.  They used watercolors to paint the squares until they found all the letters.  

Love this activity!  We did a "Who Lives at My House" glyph this week.  Blue=Boys, Red=Girls, and Yellow=Pets.  

Click for my Elmer unit on TPT!

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