Happy Long Weekend!! (With Freebie links!)

Happy Columbus Day Weekend!!  We had quite a week!  This post is full of all the things we have been working so hard on this week!  I hope the links are helpful for you to find ideas for your own classroom! 

 We read "Christopher Columbus" by Marion Dane Bauer.  Then we made these cute FREE finger puppets so the children could go home and retell the story to their parents/guardians!!!  We also learned a Columbus Day song called "We Celebrate Columbus Day".  

 My Work on Writing area is open during Free Choice for the moment.  They love all the word cards they can copy words from and they love filling out the Fill in pictures using the word cards hanging on the wall.  I will be opening up this area as my real Work on Writing soon.  First we are going to add "Listen to Reading" next week.  That is our third part to Daily 5!!  The children are up to 12 minutes of stamina :)  So, technically, they are doing 24 minutes total!!  I am super proud of them and you should be too!!

This is a list we made for Writing Workshop on Wednesday.  The stories they wrote were so cute :)  They drew a picture of something they do in Kindergarten, then would come up and find the word (with assistance) and copy it onto their paper.

This week was also Fire Safety Week.  The children made these fire trucks inspired by Miss Kindergarten.  The children will be bringing home fire hats and coloring books next week...they weren't order in time :(

 My colleague gave me these hats for the kids to make!  They were adorable!  They say "Salisbury Firefighter" on them :)

Daily 5 is going very well!  Like I said, I am very impressed with their stamina!  Here, the children are sorting uppercase and lowercase letters.  I found the mat on another blog, but can't remember where I found it :(

 The kids still love their special book nooks!  They get so comfortable and are very good at not being distracted by the other kids doing Word Work.  It totally paid off doing only Read to Self for over a month.  They really built up their stamina and can do it now while others are doing different things right beside them.

 They LOVE Writing the Room!!!  This is from "A Year of Write the Room".  I will change the page next week to the Shape Words and Free Write.  They have been writing Color Words and Free Write.

 This is one of their favorite Word/Letter Work activities.  They are from Caitlyn Clabby at Kindergarten Smiles.  I have them separate all the capital, lowercase and pictures.  That makes it much easier for them to find the matches quicker.

 This is a pocket chart activity that I got from my mom years ago.  They put the uppercase and/or lowercase letter in each pocket, then find the picture that has the same beginning sound.  This center is changing to an uppercase/lowercase sort next week.  They really love the new dabbers game.  They need to roll a lowercase letter and dab the matching uppercase letter!  Here is the FREE packet!

 We start a new unit in Math next week dealing with 2D shapes.  To finish off this unit, the children have been counting objects in our Counting Jar, then showing the same amount on a plate and drawing a representation and posting it on the board.  The objects in the jar were ghost erasers, that's why she drew ghosts :)

**PARENTS**

No School-Monday, October 14th in observance of Columbus Day.

Next week is Pumpkin Week!  Look for all the activities we do to learn about pumpkins!!

Have a great long weekend!!

Aimee

Busy, Busy, Busy Little Bees!!

Sorry I didn't blog last Friday. :(  I was in training for two days learning all about Teaching Strategies GOLD.  WOW is it going to be A LOT of work!!  But the class was still busy little bees, even though I wasn't there!  Here are some photos of what we were up to the past week (and the past two days as well!)

We started Writer's Workshop!  I was so excited to see how they would write their first story.  We discussed the Rules during Writer's Workshop.  It is the one work time that I allow no talking.  I put on Classical music and they can just be one with their thoughts.  I feel like I get much better stories doing this because they are totally concentrating on what they are working on.  They did a great job, beautiful illustration and the beginning of great writing to come!

 This is where I will put one piece of writing each month to show their progression throughout the year.  I can't wait for them to see how they were writing now, but in June! (HOPEFULLY, it will be a BIG difference!!)

 Here are a few close up samples.  We have some just hearing the first sound.....

 And others hearing, well, lots of sounds :)

 So cute!!

 I put this picture up to show you the poster I am referring to on a daily basis to discuss Good Choices and Poor Choices.  :)

 We talked a lot about apples last week!  We made this 2 Column Notes Poster to show what happens to an apple tree through the seasons.  The children also got to make applesauce with Mrs. Mac and Mrs. Dunn on Friday!  We tasted 3 different kinds of apples on Monday and graphed what kind was our favorite.  It was the first time some of the children had something other than a red apple!

 Today we started the second part of Daily 5!!  They were soooo excited to Start Word Work!  They have many different choices, Stamping Uppercase to the matching Lowercase letter, putting unifix cubes together in ABC order, Playdough mats with color words or letters and Rainbow Writing.  I had half of the class Read to Self for 8 minutes while the other half did Word Work (well, Letter Work for now).  Then they switched.  I was so impressed that the kids doing Read to Self still kept up their stamina and were not distracted by the children working right next to them.  I sometimes wonder if I really went back to Kindergarten, or stayed in First grade!!  When I told them they did a total of 16 minutes, they went nuts!!!

 These are the Playdoh mats from Kindergarten Lifestyle.  This is a link to her bundle of mats. I just got the Letter mats this summer.  My Aide got the Pete the Cat color word mats.  I am not sure where she found them, so if they are yours, please let me know so I can give you credit!

 This is A Year of Write the Room from Polka Dot Kinders.  I am so glad I found this!!  They loved it and it is nice to see them looking for the resources they can use around the room.  This page has them looking for Color Words and Free Write, so they can write any words they find in that column.

 Onto Fundations!  This week we are learning the letters i and u.   We did Sky Writing today and colored the Key pictures in our Student Notebook.  They also got 2 new magnets to add to their Magnet Board.  The packet with the letter formation of these two letters will be going home this week.

And one last picture, because it is just too cute not to share, is my two children in what will be their Halloween costumes this year.  A few adjustments need to be made so they fit, but I LOVE THEM!!!!!  I was so psyched to find red glitter shoes and a Toto in a basket at Target!!

**PARENTS**
Reminder-This Friday, October 4th, will be a Half Day Professional Development day.  Children will be dismissed at 11:40.  The walkers are usually let out at 11:35.  We will still have snack on half days, but no lunch will be served.

October Book Orders will be sent home soon.  Please try to write a check/money order made out to Scholastic Books Clubs, or you can order online and use a credit card instead!  Every online order gets free books for our classroom!

Have a great rest of the week!  It's supposed to get warm again :)
Don't forget to comment below!!
Aimee

Got to love the full moon!!

WOW!  What a week!  We had our Academic Night and I think I had one of the best turnouts in the whole school!  15 out of 20 parents were able to attend!  It is great to see how excited the parents are about their child's education :)  Thank you all for coming!  

We also worked VERY hard this week!  On our way to lunch one day, I overheard a couple of kids talking and one of them said, "Man!  We did a lot of work this morning!"  A teacher's dream :)  I love these children, they are the best!!!  Here are some photos of the things we did this week!  I found myself so involved in what we were doing that I forgot to take pictures some days :)

 In Fundations, we have done the letters t, b,and f.  The children are putting together an alphabet book of all the letters with an object that starts with that letter.  We made T with toothpicks and B with band-aids.  I have to find some feathers at a craft store so we can make F with feathers :)  The children are working very hard at forming the letters correctly too.  I will take some pictures of our letter formation next week!

Making a train :)

Sorting by size and shape

 In Investigations, we are still exploring with different materials.  I made these button sorting mats because we started talking about the different attributes of buttons.  The children LOVED them!!  The sorting going on that day was amazing!  Ask your child what an attribute is!!  We talked about how you can sort things by size, shape, color, texture and thickness!

 We have also been working on Nursery Rhymes!  They love to hear them on the Dr. Jean CD when we finish our project that we will make into a book when we are done.  We have actually attempted to do these as a whole group and the children are listening SOOOO well!!  I thought I would have to do them all in a small group, but that takes a lot of time with 20 little ones. :)  We have a few more to do then they will be sent home to keep!  I love how different the same paper comes out with 20 different minds :)

 Salisbury, MA turns 375 years old!!!  We were all asked to color different pictures for them to display during the celebration!

This is some Rainbow Writing practice.  I wrote the childrens' names with a highlighter.  Then they had to make 5 dots with different colors at the top of their paper.  When they completed their whole name with one color, they crossed off that dot at the top, then moved onto the next color and so on!  They are all displayed in the hallway under our bulletin board.

**PARENTS**

Like I said, we were busy, busy, busy!!  Next week, I will be at Teaching Strategies GOLD Training in our building.  We have Ms. Mac coming in to substitute!  She was a teacher at SES for many years and came in this week to introduce herself to the children and get to know our routine.  I am very excited she will be joining us!!  The children were very eager to impress her!  The children will be completing lots of different apple activities while I am out!  They will have a lot of fun!

Also, a reminder that Friday, October 4th is a Half Day Professional Day.  I will be at a dentist appointment for my son that day, so I will be out in the morning.  Half Days end at 11:40am.

Have a great weekend!!  Leave a comment below! :)

Week 2 with Daily 5 pictures!

Week 2 is off to a great start!  I have been trying to take a lot of pictures that I can use for Teaching Strategies GOLD, but they also double as pictures for everyone else to see!  I will show you some of the work we have been doing, some adorable pictures taken during Daily 5 and some pictures taken during Math Investigations. 

 We had our first Star of the week!  This green background is Tac-On.  It is sticky on both sides, so I didn't have to put any staples in the wall and I won't have to everytime I change the Star of the week!!  LOVE IT!!!

Every day, I choose a different child that we will Get To Know!  They really enjoy it.  I love their answers for what they like to do and what they like to eat.

We are learning about a new color monster every day!  I found new and improved ones on TN created by Kinderone Kids.  I will be using those next year, I had already copied these :)

DAILY 5!!!  I am sooo excited about starting this right away!  The kids are doing great!  They love to find out where their Book Nook will be that day.  Read more about that here.  Thanks, Sprinkles to Kindergarten!!!  Her blog has really gotten me started on D5 implementation in Kindergarten! These are some of the special spots they get to sit at during Read to Self.  

My rocking chair

On the floor, laying down or sitting up

By the closet

At their table

We are up to 3-4 minutes of Reading To Self.  We had a hard time during the last minute of our 4 minutes today, but we stopped and we will try again tomorrow :)  More pictures of D5 in a minute :)

We had our first cutting activity yesterday!  We will do this for each letter we learn in Fundations.  I got this in May and I am not sure who I got it from.  As we were completing this, I realized we hadn't cut anything yet!  They did a very good job listening to directions and cut very nicely!

Back to Daily 5!!  I am soooo excited about my finds to make Reading to Self more fun!  I got some sunglasses from Oriental Trading and popped out the lenses to make "Smarty Glasses"!!  Also, I got googly eyes to find letters and words that they know!!  We had a very long talk about the proper use of these things and they are doing well so far!

More Book Nook spots- Housekeeping Table

They look sooo cute!!!

We made Play doh for everyone last Friday.  I keep some for each child in these Glad containers.  They each get just enough to make some letters on the Play Doh mats I got from Kindergarten Lifestyle on TPT. 

Lastly, the kids got to explore with some new things today during Investigations!  We used buttons, color tiles and Attribute Blocks.  I like exploration, but they will definitely need some guidance tomorrow ;)

**PARENTS**

Our picture day will be next Tuesday, September 17th. An envelope to order prints should be coming home soon!  Book Orders are due on the 20th.  Please be sure to send a check with your order or you can order online and use a credit card.  For every order online, I get a free book for our classroom!!  Thank you in advance!  Also, Open house (Academic Night) is also next Tuesday, September 17th at 5:30.  I hope to see you then!

Have a great rest of the week!

Aimee