Groundhogs Day

Just a quick little blog about Groundhog's Day.  I was excited that he didn't see his shadow... after 3 feet of snow, an early spring sounds delightful.... although I will miss the possibility of snow days and delays.  Today we had a 2 hour delay because of ice so I was only with my kiddos for 2 hours... 30 minutes of which they were in library!  I had time to read my favorite Groundhog read aloud and do a quick craftivity!

What is your favorite Groundhog Read Aloud?  Mine is Go To Sleep Groundhog.  It is about a Groundhog that just can't get to sleep so he wakes up in October, November and December.... seeing things he's never seen before (Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas).  I love it and the kids enjoyed it too!

After we read the book, we created these pop up groundhogs.  I have seen it just so the pop up, but I decided (on my way to school this morning) to do one side as if he saw his shadow and one side if he didn't.  The kids enjoyed pretending to be the groundhog popping up.  They loved their puppets and it helped them remember which one meant 6 more weeks of winter or early spring.  I normally watch the groundhog on the weather channel with the kids... but we ran out of time!  I may show them tomorrow!

Happy Early Spring!

Differentiated Morning Work

I've taken a vacation... or rather it was gifted to me.  Here in Northern Virginia we just had a second winter break thanks to Snowzilla.  Today was my first day back (on a 2 hour delay) since Thursday, January 21st.  It was great to spend some time at home with my little lady and husband and watch the beautiful three feet of snow fall.  It was also nice to get back into the swing of things today.

Today I started differentiated morning work for the first time.  I found that some of my higher kids were flying through their morning work, while some others were struggling to finish each morning.  I created three different morning work packs and the kids did a GREAT job with it today... especially considering they've been out of school for 10 days!

For my higher readers, I challenged them with what basically was my morning work when I taught first grade.  They will have a daily writing prompt.  They did a really nice job with it... and loved being "challenged."

For most of my kids, I stuck to the basic morning work.  In January, they worked on identifying the days and filling in a closed sentence.  This month, I added some decoding and math.  I was very impressed that they were all able to sound out pig... when I know if they came across it in a book, they wouldn't try.  I hope daily decoding practice of CVC words will help in their general reading.  Following the directions in the last part about coloring 17 red circles was the hardest.  Most of them did a great job using their classroom resources to figure out the word "red" and "circle."

Finally, for some of my kiddos I gave them the same work, but filled in some of the days to help them get started independently.  For a few of them, they still struggle with the days and have lost confidence by needing my help everyday.  I am happy to say they did it all by themselves today and I hope to build on that independence with their March morning work... one step at a time..

I hadn't put any of my kindergarten morning work in my TPT store because I feel like there are so many wonderful choices out there, but this one is in there because of the leveled options!  I hope you can use it in your classroom!

Illiterate happy kindergarteners in Finland

Well so much for my New Year's Resolution to blog every day... but a few times a week is better than nothing I suppose!  Before I do my review of the day, I just wanted to mention a lot of my inspiration for the week.  Over the weekend, I read an article titled... the Joyful Illiterate Kindergarteners of Finland.  It is about how kindergarteners have fun and learn to play and academics are not pushed as much.  It made me really reflect on my classroom.  I only teach half day kindergarten so they are only with me for 3 hours and there is a lot of stuff I NEED to cram into the day... and not much time for things I WANT to do.  I tried adding a few things this week to try to add more fun into the day!  Here is my review of today... er I guess week.

3 Things I liked about today:

* In an attempt to create more time for creativity and exploration, I opened up the Creation Station yesterday.  Its now an extra on my Daily Five rotation and as of now, students can visit it once a week (I choose the day to make sure they get everything else in).  The kids LOVED it.  I actually had a student in tears this morning because she wasn't assigned to go to until next Tuesday :(  I simply put a bunch of craft supplies over there and told them the only rule was to clean it up when they were done.  They have created so many different things... you can see the kiddo today made his house out of popsicle sticks :)  I think this is going to be a keeper for the rest of the year!

* Another way to increase fun in the classroom is I am finally implementing Go Noodle.  I had seen so many bloggers/instagrammers talk about it in the past, but never actually looked it up.  We are using it for transitions.  I was tired of timers and countdowns so when it's time to transition to the carpet, I put up a 2-3 minutes video and the kids get cleaned up and to the carpet FAST!  Its also nice for me to get a little more exercise in during the day :)  Will keep you posted if the novelty wears off... but I doubt it!

* Yesterday I asked my kids what they knew about Dr. King.... crickets.  I'm use to teaching first grade and they come in know something about him.  This was honestly my first opportunity to teach them something that no one had a clue about or any prior knowledge.  Its hard to get all of the facts across to five year olds, but we focused on Dr. King wanting to make the world a better place and one of the ways he did so was by giving a speech to encourage people to be fair and nice to each other.  The kiddos drew a picture of their "dream" for the world and then I took a picture of them "thinking" to put at the bottom.  I'll post a picture tomorrow of the final product!  They really want a world where people are nice to each other!

2 Things I am looking forward to tomorrow

* Last week, I mentioned our Skittles Science experiment and how the students used their science minds to question what would happen if we did the same thing to M&Ms.  I took it a step further and bought a few different types of candy at the store today to put in water to see what happens to the color.  Tomorrow we will test sweet tarts, M&Ms and gobstoppers (I'm very curious about these!)  I'll post pics of our results!

* We've been working really hard on letter writing, but its been a slooooow process as I only have time for Writers' Workshop 3 times a week... for 20 minutes.  Tomorrow we will finish our first "guided" letter and then after that they will be able to write more letters at their own pace.  I am excited for them to "mail" their first letter to a classroom friend tomorrow!

1 Thing a student did to make me smile

I am in the middle of mid-year DRA testing.  When I asked a student his favorite book today he told me The Bible.  He then told me about why he likes it and that he knows God loves us and will one day give us a mansion.  Adorable and so heartwarming that he chose this book!

My goal is to do a Five for Friday tomorrow!  Happy Almost 3-Day Weekend!

Article about Finland: http://taughtbyfinland.com/the-joyful-illiterate-kindergartners-of-finland/

Five for Friday - Sunday Edition

Well, I didn't blog on Thursday... or Friday... or Saturday (but technically that wasn't part of my goal) so here I am on Sunday trying to get in on the Five for Friday action.   Thanks for letting me link up Doodle Bugs Teaching!  Here are 5 things from my week,

1. New Year's Wall
I wanted to do something for New Years, but with everything else I wanted to do and us only being half day, I had to do something quick.  This only took about 10 minutes.  They decorated their hat and then I glued it on their head.  It makes for some cute decor in our room and they love seeing themselves up on the wall.

2. Daily Five

I was so worried that after break my kids would come back and not remember our routines.  After some refresher conversation, I told them I was going to try to catch them doing what they are suppose to do and if I saw a great example, I would snap their picture for our Daily Five wall.  This kiddo was really enjoying a new January book in our Listen to Reading center and was thrilled to be a "good example." for our wall!  Easy peasy.

3. Weekly Science Experiment: Skittles!

We dissolved candy canes before break so bringing out the skittles for our weekly experiment was fun.  A lot of them thought the skittles would disappear.  Maybe if we had left them longer they would have?  We did enjoy watching how quickly their color disappeared.  They enjoyed mixing the water too with the different colors.  This was a very easy experiment to do, but I head a LOT of scientific talk.  My kids noticed that the primary color when all the colors blended was orange.  We got to talk about the orange skittle, but also how the red and yellow skittle made the orange color.  They also created my follow up science experiment for next week.  They were curious what would happen with M&Ms.  I'm a bit curious now too since they have chocolate in the middle.  Next Friday I plan on bringing in a bunch of different colored candies to try... maybe gobstoppers, skittles again M&Ms, jellybeans... any other ideas?  I'll tell you how it goes!  

Science experiments have been so easy this year because I spent the summer prepping for the year with my TPT product.. A Year of Science Experiments.  Every week, there is a question, materials, procedure, hypothesis page, etc. already done to follow along with.  It has made my life super easy!  There are printables to go along with each experiment as well, but that would be a lot for my kiddos right now in the time table I have to get experiments done.  Doing weekly experiments has been great as far as teaching vocabulary since they are exposed to it all year long!

4. No Folders

Since this is my first year in kindergarten, I am getting use to not having desks.  I didn't want them to have an unfinished work folder that they always forgot about so I just have them put anything that is unfinished right here where they can see it.  It's also a quick way for me to see who hasn't done specific assignments.

5. Rainbow Words
I blogged about rainbow words earlier this week!  You can check that out.  Here is where I keep track of who knows what lists.  Three out of 18 of my kids already know how to read all 18 lists of words.  One student already knows how to write them all too!  Wow!  This is great to motivate them to learn those sight words at their own pace!

Day 3

I honestly cannot believe I am here blogging for the third day in a row.  I think I have a nice system set up.  I am always close to my 10,000 step goal at the end of the day so from now on, I take my laptop and sit it on the treadmill and walk those last few steps as I blog.... two resolutions done!  Here's my hump day!

1. My kids always impress me with their ability to take things to the next level.  My first graders did this last year, but I was so surprised to see my kinders do it this year.  Every morning we draw tens and ones for how many days we have been in school.  Some kids have gone back and written the numbers in their drawings.  We call it "stretching the brain."

2. During reading groups, I try to encourage the students to use our strategies.  I always ask at the end, which word did they have to use a strategy to figure out.  They never remember!  I took out some highlighter tape today and  gave them each a piece to put on the word when they figured it out.  That helped them remember which strategy to share at the end.  Right now, we are just working on Lips the Fish and Eagle Eye for most of my reading groups.

3. We started our telling time centers today!  The kids loved the centers I had for the day.  For this rotation, they get to spend one center on the computer, one center playing Memory, one center playing Bazinga, one center with Time Bingo, one center playing a Board game and one center with me where they work on a true/false activity.  I pulled all of these games from my first grade unit on telling time and just took out the quarter hours!  We had a good time!  Bazinga is my favorite (an ode to The Big Bang Theory).  This is where they pull out a card and have to read the time.  If they can read it, they keep the card and the first kid who has 10 cards wins.  If they pull out a card that says BAZINGA, they have to put all of their cards back in... womp, womp, womp.  Here is a link to my TPT unit... 2 weeks or mini lessons, games and an assessment.  Make sure you use a Promethean Board though because it is Active Inspire!

Telling time Unit

1. Tomorrow I have Guidance... which means I have a thirty minute planning block.  I don't get much planning, so I am excited about this!  I want to re-vamp some centers.

2. Tomorrow we will draw things we need vs. things we want.  I think they have a handle on it, but sometimes its interesting what kids think they "need."

1. A student gave me a picture of a Christmas Tree... so "I could celebrate a little longer."

Day 2... and here I am blogging again.  Unfortunately, I forgot to snap the pictures I wanted to take today before I left my classroom.  Maybe tomorrow my entry will be more visually stimulating!  Here is my day in 3... 2... 1

1. During our Morning Meeting time, I play the Fifty Nifty United States son (which I learned in first grade).  We've only been doing it since December 1st, but some of my girls can sing all of the states!  I credit my first grade teacher, Mrs. Conroy, for knowing all of my states and it infuriates me when people can't name all 50 states.... have you seen that Friends episode?  So, you're welcome students, future adults, for teaching you your 50 states.

2. We did a spur of the moment math project today because our hallway bulletin board looked a bit bare.  We made hot chocolate mugs and put "marshmallows" in.  They created two sets of them and then added them together.  It ended up very cute and they followed directions really well.  (pics posted tomorrow!)

1. Over break, I encouraged the students to practice their sight word packets.  Some of them are rocking it.  They are almost through them all and have their names on every color of the rainbow.  I love this system.  I give each of my kiddos a sight word pack called "Rainbow Words."  There are 18 separate lists of sight words.  Each list has 6 words.  Once they have mastered a list, they get a sticker.  Once they've mastered three lists for each color, they can put their name on that color of the rainbow!  Once they finish the rainbow, I put their name in a cloud to be displayed around the rainbow.  If they need the extra challenge, I have them go back and write the words.  I had one student already be able to write all of the words!  Her name is in a sun!  Here is a link to the product on TPT:

Kindergarten Rainbow Words

1. Tomorrow we start our letter writing unit!  I know the kids are going to love writing letters to each other and putting it in the mailbox for Friday deliveries!  Since I am use to teaching first grade... I am going to slow down the teaching part of letter writing.  We are going to learn about the date and greeting tomorrow.

2. I hope all of my kiddos are back tomorrow.  Two were out yesterday and two again today!  I hope all 18 are there tomorrow because I honestly miss them.

 1. I told one of my kids that I liked her fluffy hat today... I was corrected multiple times that it was a PUFFY hat... not a fluffy hat.  It's the little things :)

I'm Back?

Well here I am, back on my blog.  It is my New Year's Resolution to blog every day.  I think I have created a simple enough idea that will make it manageable to give you a sneak peek into my classroom on a daily basis... but first a little catch up.

I am no longer teaching first grade.  I had a beautiful baby girl, Julianna, in May and was offered a part time kindergarten position at a school less than a mile from my house!  To get into this school, I decided to give kindergarten a try and go part-time for the year.  I LOVE kindergarten and am enjoying every day!  I do miss first grade though... so if ever presented with the opportunity to choose between the two, it would be tough.

Even though I am part time, my afternoons are spent playing with Julianna.  I had fully intended to make TPT products and blog, but that just wasn't happening.  I am still going to work hard to add some products to my store, but for now, I'll blog.  Every day I am going to share my 3, 2, 1.  You will get:
3 things that went well that day.
2 things I am looking forward to tomorrow.
1 thing a kid did to make me smile.
So here you go:

First Day Back From Break in 3... 2... 1...

1. My kids were much more awake than I anticipated this morning and super excited to be back at school.

2. I changed the morning work and made it more challenging, where they had to write the days for yesterday, today and tomorrow... they rose to the challenge.

3. All of the hugs and welcome back smiles were a nice way to get back into things after two weeks of break!

1. Tomorrow we are starting out math centers for telling time.  I love teaching telling time and I hope they enjoy some of the fun games I have made.  I will post a picture of them playing the games tomorrow and provide a link to where you can buy it online!

2. Tomorrow, we are going to start comparing needs and wants.  We briefly discussed it today with a fabulous book: Flakey the Naked Snowman.  It is about a snowman who doesn't have any clothes because he gave the all to people who needed it more!  If you haven't read it, I suggest giving it a go!

 1. Two of my kids came into today, who I have been working hard with on their handwriting... and were rocking the handwriting!  They were writing so small and neatly and were so proud of themselves!  It was a great start to the new year!

What was your day like in 3... 2... 1...?

Until tomorrow!  I hope I can keep this New Year's Resolution going!!

September Currently

Good Morning!  I am linking up with Farley for September's Currently! Here it goes!

It is the first day of school today.  I am up, enjoying my coffee and my husband is downstairs watching Seinfeld, maybe a first day of school pick me up?  Normally he isn't up this early, but I think the excitement of the day has us both up and running before the sun!

Even though this is my seventh year teaching, I still couldn't sleep last night and the anticipation of the first day is killing me.  I hope we get to do everything I have planned for the day and it all goes smoothly.  As long as they all make it on the correct bus to get home, I will be happy!  

Even though I am wide awake, another hour of sleep wouldn't hurt.  I have a feeling an early bed time will be up for tonight!

The three trips section was fun :)  I love to travel!  We spent our summer in Alaska and Southeast Asia. I have yet to make it to Hawaii.  It is one of the 3 states I have left to visit and we will probably save it for last.  I've always wanted to go to South Africa and New Zealand as well!

Happy first day of school to all of you guys starting today and have a great September!  I am ready for some football and fall weather :)

Classroom Reveal!

Here is my big reveal this year!  This year I decided to do an ocean theme.  It was really fun to put it all together.  I wish I could claim all originality, but this wouldn't be possible without Pinterest!  I don't know what I did before without it :)  Here is where my 22 kiddos will come each day this year :)  I am so excited!

It's hard to believe it all started like this:

                                      

And was transformed to this in only a week and a half!

This is the welcome board in the hall.  I created the whales using shapes in powerpoint.  I was really happy with how they turned out.

How cute are these little otters for our class helper area?!

A shot of the classroom.  I am starting with four tables because I like symmetry, but I am sure this will turn into five tables shortly.

I am trying out Class Dojo this year!  Has anyone had any success using it?  Any pointers?  I think it will be much more manageable than my old behavior management and I am excited to introduce it to the kids tomorrow.  We are going to color in avatars and create speech bubbles for them with classroom rules.

I love the birthday board.  Last year, I did the same thing with super heroes, but NEVER put their pictures in as the faces!  This year that is number one on my list - take their pictures to go in each boat.

The crabs in the tens frame are so cute!

I broke up my board this year by subjects.  We have a lot more that needs to go into lesson plans this year so I am hoping to incorporate them in each section.  For example, in addition to learning targets, we need to add vocabulary.  These will kind of serve as Anchor Charts, but on the board.  I hope I can keep up with it!

This will be the Word Work area.  I am also trying Daily Five this year.  I always had about 9 centers for kids to go to, but this year I have consolidated them into the Daily Five.  I am excited to try this.  I hope it results with me working smarter and not harder.

A tank of writing ideas!  I can't wait to introduce all of these fun writing projects to my kiddos.

Our word wall!

In my Read to Self area, I put all of my theme books (which use to be a separate theme center), my Author of the Month center (Kevin Henkes) and then the classroom library.  I hope it works out.

Not really classroom decor, but for open house/bts night every year, I always have my parents/students sort their supplies.  This year I even had them put what they needed to keep in their desk away.  This saved me so much time.  Next year, I am adding a step though - unwrapping everything!  Do you know how long it takes to take all of the glue sticks out of their packaging?  I hope the parents won't mind doing that themselves next year :)

Tomorrow is the first day!  Good luck to everyone else starting tomorrow :)

Happy Teaching!  Rest Up!

Annie

I'm Back!!

This blog has been severely neglected!  I haven't posted since January, but I hope to contribute to my blog a lot more this year!  A couple of major things have happened since my last blog entry:

1. We moved to a great new home!

2. We went on a month-long adventure in Asia!

What do both of these things have in common?? $$Money$$  To make both of these things happen I tutored non-stop last year and had absolutely no time to add to TPT or to blog, but now that everything is under control, I have cut back and am ready to enter the blogging world again!

I don't have anything to say about school just yet.  We don't start until after Labor Day and aren't required to head back until the 20th.  I do plan on heading in later this week to start my set up :)  This year I am doing an ocean theme!  Last year, I did a super hero theme, which I loved.  In honor of my renewed adventure in blogging, I am giving away all of my super hero themed decor FREE in my TPT Store!  

FREE!!!

Go check it out!  While here, I also posted a whole year's worth of morning work/daily journals!  

I am happy to be back :)

Our Daily Routine, Continued: Daily Journal

Do you do a daily journal?  This is one thing I started my first year teaching and I cannot let go of it.  I really think in the long run, it helps my kiddos with their writing.  Every year prior to this one, their journal was their morning work.  This was great for my kids that arrived on time, but all of my stragglers were always behind.  

This year, I decided to do the daily journal at the beginning of our Center Time (which is about an hour).  It takes the students about 15 minutes to complete this, but this way when they are done, they can go straight into their literacy activities.  My kids like their journals and work really hard in them!

How do I motivate them?  I choose an Author of the Day daily.  I pull three random journals each day at the end of our literacy block.  These students read their journal and then I decide who wrote most like an author (included interesting detail, spoke clearly, answered the prompt, etc.)  The student I choose for Author of the Day gets to display their work on the board and use my smelly pencils (nothing fancy and very manageable.

I do not correct their journals or even look at them on a daily basis.  At the end of the month, I flip through them and look for the first grade standards.  I write a quick note on what they do well and their goal for next month to improve their writing.  The one great thing about the journal instead of daily work, is I copy it once a month and I don't have to send it home until the end of the month.

My February Journal is now available in my TPT store.  It features primary lines, daily writing prompts and a place for illustrations.

Happy Writing!
Next Up: Center Time!

Word Study Break Down

Continuing in my attempt to post about my daily routines, I figured I would go in order.  Every day after Morning Meeting we do word study.  I have an extensive amount of word study resources, but I have finally figured out a way of managing it.  Below you will see four different boxes (CHEAP from IKEA!)  They are labeled with each of my four different groups.  On Monday, they have to go to their box and cut our their words for the week.  They keep them in a plastic bag in their desk to sort each day.

Every Monday, I meet with every word study group for about ten minutes.  We do the sort that is part of each of my Word Study Units where they sort on pictures.  I cut out the words for each unit (and laminate them for further use) and together we talk about the words and put it on the correct picture.  Before they leave my table, they have to do the sort with their own words and read the words to me.

I have invested TONS of time into making all of these games for my different word study units.  I keep them in this big old binder (I've added a second one!)  Each sleeve has a unit.

After Monday, I put the leveled games into the different boxes.  Students can choose to play whatever game they want during our word study time.  To make my life easier, I created game bags for each game with all of the required pieces.  Students simply grab the game from their box and the bag with the pieces, play it and then return it to the box.

I want students to do written practice of their words so each group gets a written activity each week for their words.  Below are ones that I rotate through:

During the week, the students must complete the tic-tac-toe sheet at home for homework.  They can choose any activities they want each night, but they must get three in a row by Friday.

On Friday, I give each word study group a test.  It may seem a bit daunting to give 4 different word study tests, but I simply put each of the groups at different tables and walk around and give the different words to the different groups.  They must write the words in the correct sort and write them all correctly.  If they do this, they get a super speller award, which they LOVE!

I hope this has helped your word study.  I love word study and think it is so helpful for the kids to learn their spelling patterns!

Happy Teaching!

Annie