Friday, December 31, 2010

Games

Last year I found this really great site for Center Activities!  Pocketful of Centers has a lot of really cute and engaging activities for our young learners!!  Here are a few of them in action!!

Matching color word to color

Apple Tree Number Match

Apple Tree Number Match in action... :)

I also use a lot of resources from the Florida Reading Research Center.  Check them out if you have not already.  Here is one of our favorite activities....Beginning Sound Wheel Match(I also have a capital/lowercase wheel).  I wrote the answers on the back of the wheels so they are self check too! :)


Thursday, December 30, 2010

Attack of the Target Dollar Section - Valentines

I should know better then to even go near that part of the store but my buggy just seems to drive itself to that side of the store!!! :) Look at all the goodies I found!!  I love when I find all the good stuff before it is all picked through.  As I went through the bins I quickly tried to think of all the things I could do with each treasure I found...I came up with some but I would love to hear any fantabulous ideas anyone else might have!


2 came in a pack - thinking some sort of partner game??  

Definitely some patterning going to go on here... :) or counting too! :)

I was thinking something with math - I bought enough so I could have 20 - 

I think I may laminate these and either write letters or number/number words on the hearts so the kids could match beginning sound / number - or maybe laminate and cut them apart to make a matching game?

O.K   - this wasn't in the dollar section but I couldn't pass it up - they were only $5!

Maybe storage for an activity?

Who could pass these up??  I had to control myself and only get 4...I sooo wanted to buy all 10!  :)

I think I may get creative and create some games/activities to use with my new toys!

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Decorating Trees

We also had some fun decorating some Christmas Trees using Deanna Jump's Christmas Unit.  The children decorated a tree using lights and then they graphed/tallied what color lights they used.    

On Wednesday morning they were excited to come in and not do their typical welcome work!!  They got to color a candy cane if they liked them and decorate a star if they didn't.  I think the tree turned out beautiful.  You can't see it in the picture, but we counted to find out that 21 children like candy canes and 2 do not.  :)

Gingerbread Man Fun

O.K - I told you I would post some pics when I could recover them....so here we go!! :)

Thanks to Deanna Jump, we had a great time creating our Gingerbread Pie Graph and writing about our results.  The children had a much easier time writing about these results than when they wrote about the Turkey pie graph(Do you like turkey?).  Practice makes perfect!! :)  
Which Part of the Gingerbread Man Did You Bite First?

 







Saturday, December 11, 2010

How Tall are You?

I found some pictures!!  We used our Gingerbread Men to measure how tall we are!  They had a great time.  We took turns standing in front of our gingerbread men and counted the gingerbread men.  We graphed our results and then showed our work on a response sheet.  They had a great time and most were able to show their work.  :)




Daily Five

The Daily Five has saved my life!!!  I love love love it!  I love how easy it makes my planning, I love how much the children are learning and I love how independent it has made hem.  Here are some pics I snapped during the last few weeks (that did make it off my phone before it drowned) of my children hard at work!!

Read to self

Read to self...notice he is using his finger to track!  Woo hoo!  It's the little things isn't it??!!  :)

Andrew always sits in this same place. :)

Read to self in the library.

Joel Working on Writing!  We are finally writing sentences!!!   Yeah!!!

Word Work with Wikki Sticks


Drowning Phone...

I will posting some new pictures of some of the fun stuff we have been doing during our Gingerbread Unit soon - I usually snap my pictures with my phone but I dropped it in the toilet yesterday morning before school so right now I am praying that it will turn on after being submerged in rice for 2 days.  Anyway, all of my most recent pictures are still on my phone so I will post them as soon as I can recover them.  Here is one that I did get before the phone drowned...

Poor Gingerbread man...

Friday, November 19, 2010

A Kindergarten Thanksgiving


Wow!  Thanksgiving krept up on me so fast!!  This week has been crazy busy, but it is one of my favorite weeks of the kindergarten year.  Preparing for the annual Kindergarten Thanksgiving Feast is always an exciting time for our students.


We worked very hard all week preparing our costumes.  The children had a great time making their headbands, pouches and shirts.  I put a plain white t-shirt on their School Supply List back at the beginning of the school year so we would have them for this special day.  I took the shirts home and dyed and frayed the edges.  Then during the week my para helped the kids stamp their own shirts.  This was the first time I used actual t-shirts and I think they turned out so cute!  I usually use the brown paper bag, but this way really wasn't any more trouble then the bags.  I think we will stick with the t-shirts from now on!! 

Each class was responsible for bringing something to the feast to share with the entire Kindergarten.  The only requirement is that is has to be something (or something close) that was actually brought to the first Thanksgiving.  Our contribution this year was butter.  I love to make butter with my kinders because they love seeing the whipping cream turn into the butter right before their eyes.  It tastes yummy too!!
Here is a shot of what was brought to our feast this year:
Popcorn, dried berries, bread/butter, jerky and pumpkin cookies.

Before we head to our feast we have a Thanksgiving Parade through the entire school to show off our adorable Pilgrims and Indian costumes.  The big kids show their respect by waving and clapping as we go by.  It is so much fun.  We eventually make it into the cafeteria where our feast is usually held.  We have wonderful parents and para-pro's that prepare the plates so they are ready to hand out when we arrive. We share our food together and the children have a great time sitting with their friends talking about this fun experience!!

 



During the week we did some other really fun activities.   I purchased Deanna Jump's Thanksgiving Unit and we had a ball with it.  I will post some more photos later this week. 

One activity that I do have a picture of right now is a Turkey Word Family Activity.  The kids had a great time writing and reading their favorite word families!!  I had to differentiate this activity to meet the needs of my students but by doing this all of my children were successful at their particular task. I got this cute turkey idea/activity from a very kind teacher whose blog I came across recently.  





Happy Thanksgiving!!


Monday, November 15, 2010

Special Guest Reader

On Thursday, our school participated in the Book It Celebrity Read In.   We had a very special guest come to our class and read to us.  We had a veterinarian visit our class and her name is Dr. King.  She talked to us a little about her job and then read us some books about veterinarians and the different things that she does.  The children were very excited about having Dr. King in our class.  I think the most excited of them all was Cedric.  He was the most surprised because Dr, King is his Aunt!! 






Monday, November 8, 2010

October Fun!!!

We have been very busy during the month of October.  The Fall is one of my favorite times of year in Kindergarten.  There are sooooo many fun activities to do that it is almost impossible to get to all of them!!  Here are just a few of the highlights from the month!

October Door
This is our door for the month.  I found those adorable Halloween characters at The Dollar Tree.  I think they look so cute hanging out with my polka dots!!  I will have to take the down to make room for our turkeys!!!

October Family Project
Our October Family Project was to design a Jack o Lantern.  They turned out really cute !!

Jack o Lantern
Following Directions

This was a great following directions activity for my kids.  The kids were really proud of their finished Jack o Lanterns!  They had fun brainstorming and deciding on how they were going to finish their "My pumpkin is _______." sentence.  They did a really good job.  I used them as decoration around our classroom door.  You can kind of see some of them in the family project picture above.

Carving a Jack o Lantern
This activity is always a highlight for the kids each year.  My children this year particularly  loved cleaning the "guts" out of the pumpkin the best!  This is the first time for a lot of them to ever see the inside of a pumpkin.  I made sure that they smelled the inside too!!  We got called to an assembly in the middle of the carving so we had to stop and I had to finish the carving part after school.  They were really excited to see the finished product all lit up the next morning.  I guess I was excited too because I forgot to take a picture of him.  :(


Haunted House Patterns

I found this activity a few weeks before Halloween and I knew when I saw it my kids were gonna love it, and I was right!!  They had a great time creating their own patterns using foam halloween pieces I found a Target.  I was surprised at some of the more difficult patterns that were made!  

Batty -at Words

I created this activity because so many of my kids were having a hard time blending and creating -at words.  I wanted provide them with another fun opportunity to use and manipulate the different letters used to make the -at words.  They had to read the words to me when they were finished.  


October flew by so fast!  I can't believe it is November already and only 2 weeks away from Thanksgiving! I have recently found some really great ideas and activities from some awesome teachers that I plan in implementing during these next 2 weeks!  We are going to have a lot of fun!!!