Back to School Night

A month into school already and now it's Back to School Night, even though it only last for half an hour.  I had found some wonderful and very creative ideas on Pinterest this summer and I wanted to implment them into my Back to School Night this year.  The first idea I saw was this "When we Grow Up" collage, which I though was beyond adorable.  The original post was used with older students but I figured there was no reason why I couldn't implement the same idea with my Kindergartener's.  Especially, at this age they are so creative!  I was thrilled with the result, so I printed a 24x36 engineering poster (only $3.95!) down at Kinko's and I've hung the poster up, which will stay up for the rest of the year.

Another super cute idea I saw was when the student's had to draw a portrait of themselves and then the parents had to guess which illustration was their child's!

Parents had a chance to view their child's work that we have been working on all year!  We have been working on Brown Bear, Monster Colors, Shapes. and our Language Arts packet (which reinforces the color of the day that we learned).  At the end of the day, students draw the shape of the day in their journal.  They love making the shapes' silly faces!

As you can see, these are all of the shapes the student's learn during the month of August.  Each shapes comes with a rhyming poem and we learn the color that the shape is.  Students also dress in the color that we are learning.  

The last thing we did for open house, was our tissue paper art.  We will always make a project every month and hang it up on our Student Work Wall.  The art project the students do will always relate to the month, It's usually related to a holiday!  The pizza's are my rubric.  Since we don't give grades in Kindergarten, the pizza's are a great way to show the student's what quality work is and what is expected of them!

Shape and Color Flash Cards

Since August is almost over, so are our shape and color month long study.  I have these adorable shape and color printable flash cards that I found on mrprintables.com!  Super cute for review, I will be using them as an exit pass or when we stand in line for lunch I always quiz my kiddies and I will be using these flash cards :).  Download here:  Color Flashcards and Shape Flashcards

Color Wheel

Ok, we just finished our color wheels!  They were a little bit harder than I expected but, that's Kindergarten!  I found that using paint brushes was making the mixing process harder, so we switched to using our fingers!  They LOVED it!!!  Instead of making yellow red and red yellow, I just had the students mix the secondary colors in those boxes, which made the mixing process easier.  The students had so much fun and I will be hanging these up on the clothes line once they dry.  Here is the color wheel template freebie: Block Color Wheel Freebie or Flower Color Wheel Freebie

Parenting Your Strong Willed Child - Positive Discipline

I was on FB and saw this great article about how to parent strong willed children through the use of positive disciplince.  Even though I don't have any children there are some great tips in here that can help you manage some of those strong minded children that are in your classroom!  Positive Discipline 

Geoboard Shape Fun!

In the month of August, students learn the shape and color of the day.  Since some of the shapes are difficult for the students to draw, like a octagon or hexagon, I gave students geobaords to practice with. Some of the other shapes, like a rectangle or a triangle are much easier to master and they enjoyed making these shapes together.  I wish I had enough sets for each student to have their own, but they enjoyed working in small group, helping each other.  Tomorrow, we are making the color wheel, so that post should be up during the weekend!

Weekly Lunches

I was on Pinterest one day and stumbled upon these pre-made salads for the week, what a great idea.  I like to eat healthy, I am not one to buy school lunches.  Over the past years, I've always made my lunch every single day.  After seeing this idea, for the past three weeks I've been making weekly salads and it's been so amazing!  Not only does it save me so much time in the morning but it's super filling.  You need to layer your salads from the heaviest to the lightest.  I put olives, tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers, avocado all on the bottom of the Mason Jar.  Then, I make sure that the lettuce is nice and dry after rinsing it, cut it up and gently lay it on top.  DO NOT put salad dressing on until you are ready to eat your salad, otherwise it will become soggy :(.

Of course, I'm not done yet!  I also make apple and cinnamon muffins for the week so my husband and I have a healthy and easy breakfast.  Below is the recipe from the book, 500 Cupcakes.  They are so yummy!

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/4 cups superfin sugar

4 tsp. baking powder

2 tsp. cinnamon

4 tbsp. vegetable oil

1/4 cup sweet butter, melted

2 lightly beaten eggs

3/4 cup buttermilk

2 small apples, peeled, cored, and finely diced

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

Grease a 12-cup muffin pan

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and cinnamon.  Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the butter, eggs, and buttermilk with an electric mixer until well combined.  Add the flour mixture and beat until nearly combined.  Stir in the apples.  Do not overmix.  Spoon the mixture into the prepared pan.

Bake for 20 minutes.  Remove pan from the oven and cool for 5 minutes.  Then remove the muffins and cool on a rack.

Makes 1/2 dozen

Bathroom Passes

I don't know about you but after a few weeks of students' being in school, my bathroom passes get torn up, wet and soggy, or lost...even possibly flushed down the toilet!  This year, I made these cute bathroom passes and laminated them.  Then, I put them inside a name tag holder, which students must put around their necks so they don't get dropped, washed, or chewed on!  I went to FedEx Kinkos and bought heady duty name badge holders (also known as small conference credentials), which has a vinyl pocket you can put the laminated bathroom pass inside of.  I'm crossing my fingers that these passes can last me all year.  Download your set here: Bathroom Pass Freebie

Shape Review

During the month of August, students learn a new color and shape each day.  The first three days of school we teach red octagon, yellow hexagon and blue rectangle.  On Friday, we review those three shapes and colors.   In the past I just cut up strips of paper and let the students make a design but this year I saw something that trigged my creativity.  I decided to take the octagon and hexagon and turn them into birds and I made the rectangle into a telephone line.  The art project below shows the final outcome and I think they did a wonderful job!  Template can be downloaded here: Shape Template

Yearly Langauge Arts Pacing

Over the years I have gathered enough worksheets from prior months being paced that I saved and organized them by months (in my binders, of course!).  Right before school ended last year, I thought it was time to combine all the months together in one BIG binder, so everything was easy to access and all paced out for me.  I even went a step further and re-photocopied some older pages to revamp them!  I went to OfficeMax and bought a 4in binder and monthly tabs, so I could start organizing.   FYI  - Office Max will price match, so if you have a smart phone be sure to scan the barcode to your phone and stores selling the items at a cheaper rate will appear.  At checkout, show the cashier the cheaper price and you should be good to go!  I only paid $3 for my tabs which originally cost $8.

I then started going through duplicates and throwing old worksheets away.  I left three Language Arts worksheets and one sight word page for each day of the week.  Some pages consists of the letter we are learning, or concentrate on word building/blending.  Then, I went back and wrote the date on each page from our yearly pacing guides.  Now, I know each day is complete, easy to reference and each day will match up to my pacing guide!

Every month all paced out for the entire year

Sight Word practice for January 29th

Making 10

As you are all of aware with Common Core Standards, one of the standards that our grade level found challenging to teach was "Making 10".  Over the summer, I did a lot of research and I found a great idea to teach the concept, a rainbow!  I figured to introduce students to this concept right off the bat, so hopefully it will sink in without them even realizing.

 I've made a huge poster, 24x36 that I printed at OfficeMax and then painted it.  I used my Cricut to cut out the letters and viola!

Before

After

I also made a smaller version to put on the students' pencil boxes.  You can download the template here: Making 10 Freebie

Beginning of the Year Art Projects

Here are some of my favorite art projects we do in the beginning of the year.  My absolute FAVORITE is the paper dolls!  I use my Cricut and the Everyday Paper dolls cartridge to create the dolls.  Sorry, I don't have a downloadable file :(.

We also read Chick Chick Boom Boom and then the students use the letters in their names to "climb" up the coconut tree!  You can download the template here:  Chick Chick Boom Boom Template

Our last project is the Kissng Hand, I don't have the poem but you could copy it and re-type it and make it your own.  Then I get their hand print and stick a heart right on top of their hand!  

Yearly Binder Inserts

I absolutely LOVE organizing, it's one of my favorite things about being a teacher!  I have created binders for each month of the year, including the beginning and the end of the year.  Inside, I keep all art projects and other goodies for the month.  I also used my cricut to create my adorable covers.  I bet I could scan these in and make them printable.  Guess, what I did!  They came out soooo good!  They are up on my TpT site.

I have a total of 37 binders, crazy?!  I have binders for everything!  My most used binders are my yearly Language Arts pacing, student information and data binder.  Those binders are coming up in another post, soon!