Showing posts with label TPT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TPT. Show all posts

Valentine's Day Handprints

How is it already mid February?  I have a CRAZY week ahead of me in kindergarten, including the 100th day tomorrow, an early out on Wednesday (more about that later this week), and Valentine's Day on Thursday.

The Valentine's Day party is my last big "holiday party" with my class.  It always feels a little like the beginning of the end of the year.  I have such a great group of munchkins this year, I'm sad to see it winding down.

You can't have any major holiday in kindergarten without some sort of handprint craft parent gift.   Nothing better than painting little ticklish hands. :)

 Handprint Valentine's Day Gift



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Journaling-Our Research Journals

It's almost the end of January, and we were ready to start our blue journals this week.  Our journal progression has been (yes, in rainbow order!)

Red-My Picture Tells A Story
Orange-My Labeling Journal
Yellow- Stories About Me
Green-My Opinion Journal
Blue-My Research Journal
Purple-Five Star Journal

My goal, with all of the journals, is for my kindergartners to write about things that are important to them, and topics they are interested in.  Choosing their writing topic is the hardest part of the writing process for some students, but I love what happens when they discover their "voice" and share with me their excitement in our writing conferencing together.  

Our first few pages in each of the journals, however, I pick the topic.  It helps us get the basics of what each journal is about down before we get more creative.

Our Research Journal is our nonfiction journal, and helps us get to our final goal of writing 3 sentences.  The format or "main idea and 3 supporting facts" is familiar for my students.  We use the same organizer in the listening center, when we listen to non-fiction books.  I make sure to introduce that listening center response sheet a couple of weeks before we introduce the journal.  I've also been using it with my guided reading groups for a couple of weeks.  

Listening Center Response Sheet-Nonfiction




When I introduced our new journals on Monday, they were very excited to see what they looked like, and immediately made the connection.  

Our first day, I read a very simple nonfiction book about baby giraffes.  I then showed them (with much fanfair!) the first page of the journal, and modeled what I wanted them to do.  We talked about what the main idea of the book would be ("giraffes!"  "baby giraffes!") and I wrote that in the big circle, leaving room for a picture.  We then talked about 3 facts we had read in the book, or facts they knew about giraffes.  In the small circles, I  wrote "milk" (the book talked about how the mama giraffe feeds her babies), leaves (the book discussed how they eat leaves when they are older), and tall (we talked about if someone-like an alien- had never seen a giraffe before and we wanted to tell them about it, the first thing we would say is it is tall).  I then wrote my 3 sentences, making sure to model capitalization, sounding out, and periods at the end of each sentence.  I wrote "Giraffes are tall.  Baby giraffes drink milk.  Big giraffes eat leaves".  I then turned off my projector, and passed out their new journals.  

They ROCKED it.  Look at these great first day results:









They've come such a long way this year!  So proud of them!!!



A Year Of Kindergarten Journals


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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!

 TPT Happy New Year Activities

Happy New Year Unit on TPT







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The Mitten

Virginia Was Awesome!

Pulled into my driveway last night at exactly midnight after an amazing trip to the SDE Virginia Kindergarten Teacher Conference.  Dragged my suitcase in the door, said hello to Lucy (my Miss Bindergarten look alike) and Paisley (the gorgeous, yet arrogant cat), and planned on crashing right away.  Instead I was up until 3 a.m. reading and planning and organizing all the new ideas I got from the wonderful kindergarten teachers who shared their ideas with me at all my sessions, as well as the incredible-ness of Marsha McGuire from A Differentiated Kindergarten .  She was amazing and made me feel like I'm a total slacker.  :)

We found out we are almost exactly the same age, but she has little kids at home (mine are all grown up!).  We both teach kindergarten full time and present for SDE whenever we can squeeze it in.  She, however finds time to blog, and create, and does the most amazing things in her classroom!  I don't know how she finds the time.  

Yesterday, I sat in all 4 of her sessions, and just soaked it all in while I created some activities to go along with the book "The Mitten".


Have a great week!






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A Peek At Our Week-All About Me

All About Me

We've been doing 2 weeks of All About Me.  Last week we had lots of discussions centering around the book Elmer.  

This week, we are continuing with our new graphing skills with lots of graphing activities about ourselves, as well as other ways to show how we are all alike and how we are all different.


Graphing Book






Ten Frames Teen Numbers (with Emojis)


All About Me Book


Making Faces



Make A Pattern With My Friends




Problem Solving This Week



Grab the All about me book, emoji math, and graphing book on TPT here  .  Have fun!




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Pizza Voting

We've been learning about voting in my classroom, and it fit right in with our Pizza Unit!  We voted on what kind of pizza topping is our favorite.

Pizza Voting


Pizza Voting





On Friday, we had a REAL pizza chef from Ge-Angelo's come in and show us how pizza is made.  He threw the dough in the air and everything!





It was a great introduction to voting (without a whole lot of controversy) in my classroom.

 Pizza Activities

Pizza Activities on TPT



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Book Write


Literature Response Sheets 
(click on the picture for a link to TPT for the whole set for $3.00)


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What's Your Super Power?

What's Your Super Power?

Super Hero Reading Strategy Posters



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The Name Game

The Name Game
I am super excited!  I just downloaded my newest version of "The Name Game" to TPT.  I've had lots of requests for my "Name Game" sheet that I use in my kindergarten classroom. I have formatted it for names that are 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9, letters long. These are meant to be "personalized". Teachers write the "Name Game" child's name at the top of the paper on the handwriting spot. The dotted line boxes at the bottom are for you to write the letters of the child's name. These are for the children to cut out, then glue in order. To add difficulty later in the year, I mix these "cut out" letters up, so "Angie" would be "gAnei".
The box at the bottom is for "letters like me". In that box, the child writes any letters that are in their own name that are also in the "Name Game" chid's name.
In my classroom we do one classmate's name each week as part of my daily 5 rotation.
Here's what it looks like: (click the picture for a link)
The Name Game


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100 Days Awesome

We will be celebrating our 100th day of school this week!  The year is going by so quickly.  I love looking back and seeing just how far we have all come.
One of my favorite things to start after the 100th day is “Infinity Journals”.  It’s a lot like “scrolling” from Math Their Way, but easier to store and add to for me.
On the 100th day, I challenge each of my kids to be able to write all the numbers to 100 on a 100 grid.  If they do it, they get their very own Infinity Journal.  After making it to 100, they can have a new grid and get to 200, then 300.  Each time they finish a page, they ask me to check it, and I give them a new sheet.
I use it as a transition activity that the kids can choose to do when they finish their other work instead of learning bins or counting jars.  It’s funny how motivated some kids (especially my really competitive ones) are with seeing how far they can go.  I’ve had kids get past 2000 by the end of they year, and BEG me to let them take it home to work on over the weekends.  What an awesome number sense activity this has been in my classroom.  Best activity ever for working on handwriting, place value, and understanding number patterns.  Can’t wait to start it this week!
Click here for a copy of the 100 grid I use in my Infinity Journals.

My high school BFF has a daughter that is a first year kindergarten teacher this year.  She emailed me and asked me for some 100 day ideas.  I went into my file, and realized my 100 day stuff just wasn’t that exciting.  I created some new activities for my class (and for Abby!).
My 100th day unit comes right in the middle of a 3 week unit I am doing on Fairy Tales called “Asleep For 100 Years”.  We’ve read several versions of Sleeping Beauty this past week.  I created this writing page to go along with that theme and the 100 day theme.  We are taking pictures of the kids “sleeping”, to add to the page, but you could easily have the kids draw themselves instead.
My kids LOVE timers.  I’ve learned that if you add a timer to any activity, it adds to the fun!  We are going to see how many times my munchkins can write their names in 100 seconds.
Screen Shot 2015-01-19 at 6.23.52 PM
I’ve seen lots of fun 100 day graphs on pinterest.  I had a great time creating one for my group.
Screen Shot 2015-01-19 at 6.22.17 PM
This is a game I’ve been playing for the 100th day for a long time.  Roll a dice, cross out that many numbers until you make it to 100.  We are going to use brand new smelly markers just to make it even more awesome!
Here is a link to my entire 100 day unit on TPT.  
Screen Shot 2015-01-24 at 6.45.59 PM

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Resolutions

Happy New Year!  This has been a crazy week in Mrs. B.’s Class.  We just started back from Christmas Break on Monday, and so far we’ve had 2 late starts and a snow day.  -25 to -35 degree windchills here!  BRRRRRRR!  It’s done crazy things to my schedule!  I no longer am writing lesson plans this winter…just lesson “suggestions”.  :)
With all the extra time, I’ve been thinking a lot about New Year’s Resolutions.  A big one for me this year is to blog more regularly.  
Since most of the fun things I wanted to blog about have been a wash this week, well start that resolution next week!
One of my favorite pages from our New Years Resolution book this week.
Click here for a *Freebie* copy of the book.
Click here for my New Year’s unit on TPT.
 
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Happy New (School) Year!

A new school year has begun!  Love, love, love, my new class.  There is always that little bit of shock…even after 15 years…of how LITTLE they are at the beginning of the year, but we are just starting week 3, and really starting to come together as a group.  I think it is going to be an amazing year!
It's funny, this summer I bought a fitbit, and had to work hard to get my 10,000 steps in every day.  Since starting back to school, I make that 10,000 steps easily every day!
Mixing things up a bit this year with my units.  The first 2 weeks of school we did a unit called "Here We Go!".  Lots of getting ready for school books and activities.
My favorite books to read at the beginning of school:
Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten, of course.  My class especially likes this book because I tell them my lovable dog, Lucy, looks just like Miss Bindergarten.  This is a picture of her when she was a baby.  She's a big girl now, and such a smarty!  




We also love these super silly books.  You MUST read silly books at the beginning of kindergarten!


So much silliness happening in the first few days!  Love the giggles of brand new kindergartners as they laugh along side new friends that they can't quite remember the names of yet.
We did a second reading of We Share Everything with our clipboards and carpet bags, and kept track of things that we share and things we shouldn't share in kindergarten.  
We introduced patterning this week.  We made awesome pattern hats that everyone was so very proud to wear to lunch.


We love Dr. Jean's Bubble gum songs…the one for beginning sounds and the other that goes really fast.  After singing those,  we made a fun counting book with bubble gum machines and stickers.  It was an easy activity to differentiate.  Some kids had numbers 1-10, others had teen numbers.  I could also tell right away who has trouble with fine motor tasks with the stickers.  

Our FAVORITE beginning of the year activity was this roll the dice counting "Get Ready For School" game.  We laughed and laughed when we couldn't roll a two no matter how many time we tried.


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Push, Pull, Spin



Ever since we learned about tops in our Push and Pull science unit, my kids have been super excited about tops.  They love to have spinning contests at the science center, they love to build tops with building sets, and their new love is to use the spinning top markers I got off of amazon.


Click HERE for the "My Top Art" printable

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