Beginning of the Year!

I am so excited that I have a whole new group of kinders this year! The beginning of the year is always hectic and stressful, but totally worth it.  I wanted to share some of the things that I do those first few days of school. Along with rules, procedures, and expectations we do lots of stories and activities with getting to know you themes.  The first day I read The Kissing Hand and we made these cute Chesters:

                                  

I also read David Goes to School and we discuss appropriate behavior and actions at school. We also did a Kagan structure called Find Someone Who, where they go around a find someone who likes pizza, sports, ice cream, etc....I also made the students "Magic Playdoh" to start off the day right. It is seemingly white at first, but as they play with it the Playdoh turns a color.  They are so excited and amazed.

The second day I read Monstergarten and we made these glue dot glitter monsters to teach about glue control.

                                 

We also read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and make torn paper trees, which we put foam letters on to spell their names. Sorry, I forgot to get a pic of these! My favorite first week project is the name rainbows shown below. I read Chrysamthemum and then we make our name rainbows out of torn paper. I usually leave these up all year if they don't fall down because of the crazy Kansas humidity!

                                   

I simply cut a sheet of construction paper in half lengthwise and then write their name with a Sharpie. They then have to cover up the letters with paper, going in the order of the rainbow.

The first two full weeks of school we study a color each day and do a special activity, along with wearing that color. It is neat and I will post more about that later.  I am so excited to be off to a new year with my new kiddos!

Dr. Seuss Weekly Activities

It's been another month and I apologize.  I am now 34 weeks pregnant and it is taking its toll.  I am trying to prep for a sub and a new baby all at the same time.  Here is what I am looking like now-a-days:

 

I wanted to give you all a peek into what we did over Dr. Seuss week last week.  As his birthday was Saturday, we celebrated all week long in preparation for this great author's birthday.  Some activities included: 

A special snack each day to go with a book. 
One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish - colored goldfish
If I Ran the Zoo - animal crackers
Green Eggs and Ham - scrambled green eggs and ham cubes (of course ;)
The Cat in the Hat - Jello and whipped cream Thing 1 and Thing 2 cups that I made.  Here is a pic:

We also made 2 class books, one related to The Cat in the Hat where they wrote about what they would do on a rainy day and another one related to If I Ran the Zoo where they wrote about what animal they would be and why.  I compile these into class books that I rotate through until everyone has had it, then it goes into the classroom library.

We also made colored people with liquid watercolors to go with My Many Colored Days.  We then wrote a sentence stating which color we would be and how it makes us feel.  Here is how they turned out:

 

We also made Thing 1 or Thing 2 paintings.  These turned out sooo cute!

October Art Image

Okay, okay.  I know that it has been a month since my last post, but things have been hectic! The first quarter is done and I had to do grades for the first time.  The last two years in preschool have not prepared me for the horror that is doing grade cards.  Don't get me wrong, they are beneficial and a good measuring tool, but it is hard to pass judgement on young six year olds.  I was soooo proud of my babies, as their knowledge of sight words when way up from where they were in August.  Yeah!  The daily drill during guided reading groups is paying off.  I am ready to move one of my intensive groups up to the first grade list.  This makes me uber happy.

On to fun art projects; we had our second Art Image project last week.  In the spirit of Halloween, we made oil pastel paint resist with jack-o-lanterns in the night sky.  The sky turned out purple instead of black, but I like that they now look eerie and creepy instead of just dark.  A big thanks again to Cori's mom for organizing and setting up this art project.  Here are some pictures of the project in progress and our finished products.  They look so cute hung up in the windows in the hallway.

 

I love how hard they are concentrating on their pictures!

 

Our finished products:

 

 

Hopefully, tomorrow I will post about our visitor for Fire Safety Week and later this week on how I run my Literacy Workstations.  Being pregnant is tiring, but I vow to be better on posting more often.  I am looking forward to seeing all my parents this week for conferences.

Constitution Day

Our school is a big believer in Constitution Day.  On Monday we had an Army National Guard soldier come and speak to us and then we sang patriot songs as a whole school in the auditorium.  It was really neat to hear 520+ students all singing the Star Spangled Banner and This Land is Your Land, among others.  It really makes you proud to be an American where we are free to express ourselves and our country.

We have 5th grade buddies which we do art projects and read with.  Our buddies came down and helped us to complete a patriotic heart, complete with a sentence that says why we love America.  I thought that they turned out darling!

My silly camera would not take a good picture without the glare of what her sentence says so I will just tell you.  "I love America because I get to go to school and learn."  How precious is that?!?!  Sorry I couldn't post pictures of us making them, but our buddies were in all of the pictures.  Go Red, White, and Blue!

Apple Time!

I am going to start posting twice a week (hopefully!) on the happenings within our classroom.  Last Monday, the 10th, we had our first Art Image class.  That is where one fabulous parent comes into the classroom once a month to teach art to our kiddos.  I am so thankful that I have Cori's mom to do mine this year!  Since it is September, we decided to do apple prints.  Here are some of my students creating their apple prints:

 

 

 Here is one of our finished products:

 

 I loved how they were all different and unique.  Some students put lots of apples on their paper, covering it, while one student did one apple of each color and called it good.  I love Fall and Fall themed art.  They had lots of fun with this art project and some even asked if they could eat their apple afterwards :)  Yuck!!!  I, of course, told them no and they smirked at their joke.  A big thanks to Jennifer for setting this up and we are looking forward to next month's project!