Thanksgiving Crafts

I found this nifty idea for a Thanksgiving Craft on Pinterest this year!  I prepped the feet and nose and the students did the rest and I think they did a wonderful job!  They don't look as cute as the original posting found here on the blog Happy Home Fairy but I still think they are adorable and so are there answers!!!

"I am thankful for my baby sister."

"I am thankful for my teacher." - This one is probably my favorite :)

"I am thankful for my family."

Up and Running Centers!

The beginning of the year is so hard to get centers up and running because so much time is used to behavior management.  I started my centers at the end of August this year and it is so nice to have the students independently working already!!!  I have students in 5 groups of 4, and they rotate between stations that last anywhere between 7-9 minutes depending on how much time we have for the day.  Below are some stations that the students have been working on.

Students working on Starfall at our computer station.

This is also a math station where students trace numbers using PlayDoh

This math center is for 1:1 counting, students have to build and count out the corresponding blocks.

This center is called "PomPom Placement", in order to help with fine motor skills as well as color matching

"PomPom Placement" in action!

This is a math station called "Domino Parking Lot" where students have to park the correct domino on the corresponding number

Listening center is also used to share and play on the iPad.

Halloween Crafts

I know it's the day of but I wanted to share the crafts the students made to celebrate Halloween.  I tried to keep the crafts neutral, yet still fun!  The candy corn craft was idea I found on Pinterest two years ago so I don't have the site to source it back to but I just found a blank candy corn image on-line and had students fill it in using tissue paper.  Even though I can't stand candy corn, I think the project came out super cute!

I also found the following craft on-line two years ago, super simple Frankenstein!  All I needed was black strips for the hair.  As students were cutting the zigzags in the hair, I told them to save two of the triangles for his neck.  I printed out some circles for the eyes and had the students cut them out and then they drew the details for the eyes.  Some students even made their Frankensteins girls, you'll see the eyelashes in some of the pictures!  Then we drew a mouth and done!  But they look so awesome!!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

iPad Books

I don't know about you but my poor iPad has run out of space :(  Over the years, I've collected free books or bought books on iTunes to start my collection.  I hook up my iPad at my listening center and will play a story for students to listen to and they really enjoy it!  So, over the summer one of my projects was to listen to all my stories and organize them by length.  Last year, I would randomly choose a story for students to listen to and sometimes they would be done is three minutes and sometimes they didn't get to finish the story.  I told myself that I had do come up with some organized system for all this books I had on my iPad.  It took a few days but I downloaded all my books by going into the App Store and clicking on "Purchased".  I then downloaded all the books in alphabetical order, so I could know that I didn't miss any.  This was also a great time for me to delete any books that I didn't like or that didn't read out loud for the students.

This is the spread sheet that I came up with.  I've put a bullet next to the stories that we've listened to and underlined the stories that aren't my favorite but just didn't have the heart to delete yet.  I print this out and update it every so often, when I get a few new books and add them into the list.  I keep this in my data binder along with my center schedule.  I also created lists of all my Language Arts and Math manipulatives to help me organize my centers!!!

When We Grow Up, Year 2!

Last year I made my first When We Grow Up collage from inspiration on Pinterest.  It was a such a hit, that I decided to make this collage annually!  Here is this year gang and their future inspirations of what they want to be when they grow up!  I truly hope they all succeed!!!

Here's to a wonderful school year!!!

Back to School Part 2

As I had mentioned in my previous post, I would upload more pictures of my classroom and all the fun changes that I've made for this school year!  Mid last year, I decided to scan our class set of Decodable Books  to send home with the students, since there are not enough copies of the book for each student to get one.  I spent about 3 weekends scanning all 45 books and placing the pages into Illustrator and then making 25 copies of each book, whew!!!  It was a lot of work but I'm so glad that it's done and both the students and parents love having a Decodable Book to read each week.  I made these envelopes for the books to be sent home in.  By the end of the year, they feel apart so this year I taped them all around the edges and during the summer I paced out exactly when we would be reading each book and laminated in onto the cover.  

Book envelopes for weekly checkout of Decodable Books for students to read.  The entire year is paced out, the books are sent out weekly and parents must initial that the book(s) were returned to me.  

I found this idea on Pinterest and I spruced it up but I LOVE the concept to help reinforce reading comprehension!  

I had mentioned before that there are a total of 45 of these books, so I have them all organized by level so it makes it easy for me to send them home weekly.

Closer look of each scanned book, divided into their tabs!

When students are absent, this is the homework folder that I send home with work that the student might of missed and bring it to the office for the parent to pick up.

I changed out my cushion for the listening center this year.  Unfortunately, last year a few of my students accidentally drew on my super cute white bench and ruined it :(.  This year, I found outdoor cushions from CostCo that can withstand all types of weather so I'm hoping that they can withstand kindergartners!  I zip tied the label to the back of the crate and then sewed the front of the cushion onto the crate using 50lb fishing line!

We were lucky to receive AV carts for our Elmo's this year, here is how I set mine up to hold all of the electronics that I have.

Side view...so my projector is displayed on the shelving in the front and my computer is displayed on the shelving that slides out from the back.  If you look close enough, my speakers fit in-between the top shelf and the bottom shelf!  Woohoo!!!

Back to School

It's that time of the year again, Back to School!  I have been working hard these past two weeks in order to prepare for the new school year.  It's sad but I actually started prepping at the end of last year, by printing out our Group A and Group B signs.  I'm sure our school does back to school a little bit different, especially with kindergarten.  The first three days of school, we have 45minute blocks to meet the students and the parents and during this time we get to go over our rules and do and assessment on the students.  Then, we break the class up into 2 groups - Group A and Group B.  Half the class comes to school for 1/2 day (Group A) and then the next day the other group of kids come for 1/2 day (Group B).  That following Monday Group A would come for a full day and Tuesday Group B would come for a full day and then that Wednesday all the students would arrive.  So, it's a great way to ease the students into kindergarten.   More pictures are to come later on!

Welcome notes for parents!

I got these great trays from Lakeshore this year, and it helped me organize all my Group A and Group B papers for the parent conferences!

This year, I decided to ask parents if they were willing to help me prep projects for crafts we complete this year.  

I know this looks chaotic but I wanted to display some of the love that I have received over the years on my filing cabinets.  

This year, I decided to paint my desk and I think it looks awesome!  It was a puke green color before and I couldn't be more pleased :0

Reading Buddies along with stories for students to read!

Puzzles I bought from Ross for $4.99 and they are awesome learning tools!

Here is my morning station, otherwise know as calendar time.  I also bought these awesome magnetic ten frame frames for counting in the morning.  

I used sheet protectors to the dimensions of the shape and color cards and well as the rhyming words and everyday we review a color and shape and that cards just slide right into the sheet protector.  We do go over the rhyming words, I will ask students to give me other words that rhyme with "box and "fox"!  I also have a close up of the magnetic 10 frame, so easy to use!

Here is my behavior management plan, I moved it this year so that students would be able to move their clips on their own.  

I made thse signs last year and they just sat on my whiteboard :(  I am reinstating them again this year and hopefully will get put to good use.

Number Writing 0-20

I've started working on next years pacing and when we teach numbers in the beginning of the year.  I've found a lot of the worksheets that I've used in the past were probably photocopied a 1,000 times and looked just awful.  So, I decided to make some new pages for the kiddies.  You can find them here on my TpT store, they are on sale right now!

 Numbers 0-20 on each page to help students learn to write their numbers.  

 Four lines of tracing the number, with dots to help guide them.  

The fifth line has the dots for guidance and the sixth line, students must write the numbers on their own.

Guest Readers

The other day, we were lucky enough to have guest readers join us in the classroom and read to the students.  Our special readers were Tameka Johnson from the Seattle Storm and Lawrence Wright who is an international pro basketball player!  Tameka wrote the story "Temeka's Choice" and also wrote Decisions, Decisions, Decisions" with Quency Phillips.  They were also kind enough to donate a set of their books to the class!

PlayDoh Containers

I found this post on Pinterest last year from Chickbug and thought it was the cutest idea, and I've been dying to recreate my own version of these containers.  It wasn't until my Mother's Day project failed that I had to resort to PlayDoh and remember about this craft.

I'm you have dried out PlayDoh somewhere in your closet or craft corner and with a few pieces of scrapbook paper you could make your own monster containers.

After creating the strips, I laminated them to ensure that they would hold up to five year olds handling them.  

I'm using the monster containers to store my letters for when we use them during a small group or a Language Arts center.