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!

End of the Year ABC Countdown

This year for the last 24 days of school the Kindergarten team did an ABC countdown with a special alphabet themed activity for each day.  My kinders then wrote about the day in their ABC countdown journals.  They LOVED doing the activities and it made the last month of school extra special.  Here is what we did.

ABC Countdown Letter

 This was one of the student's journal for C day. I love the stink lines coming off of the socks ;)

 For outside day, we went out and drew on the sidewalk with chalk.

This is our classroom quilt that we created with all of the students and adults that work in my room.

 

 

I had pictures for all of the days except for the last few, but somehow can't find them on either my phone or my camera, so I am afraid they have probably been deleted somehow :(  Hopefully this will give you a few ideas of how to keep your students engaged those last few weeks of school!  Enjoy your summer.

Donors Choose

Donors Choose is a great organization that allows teachers to post projects asking for donations for supplies and other things for their classroom.  Donors get to choose exactly where their money goes and to whom.  I have recently posted 2 projects for my Kindergarten classroom.  Any donations will be doubled in the next couple of days with the match code "INSPIRE" at checkout.  Please take a moment to check out the website and my posted projects.  Thanks!

Book Binding

Wonderful Workstations

100th Day

Hello all!  It has been way too long since I posted last.  I didn't realize that I haven't done any posting since September....yikes!  There has been lots of happenings in our classroom.  I wanted to let you all in on our special 100th day of school and what activities we did.  The kiddos had an absolute blast!

I always send home a note beforehand asking for the students to bring in 100 items to make a snack mix.  They love the mix and it usually lasts us a few days.

 I had my students fill in a blank number grid, writing their numbers from 1 -100.  I keep these grids to put into their 5th grade memory books.

We did special 100th day stations all afternoon that day.  Here are the stations that they got to participate in:

 This station was stringing Fruit Loops onto yarn by groups of 10 to 100.

 This station was coloring and cutting out a 100 puzzle that they got to take home.

 This station was a roll and color grid to 100. They each had a dice and they colored in how many squares they rolled on the dice until they filled up their whole chart.

 This station had a jar will 100 small circles.  They used mini stamps to make 100 stamps in their jars.

 This station was making a cup structure using 100 Dixie cups. They were trying to use all of the cups in a pyramid without making the cup fall.  Too fun!

 We did this coloring sheet as a fun activity after lunch.

 I am a class book addict.  We made these two books on the 100th day as well.

I don't know why this picture is sideways....

We also made "100 Days Smarter" crowns when they came to school and they were able to wear them all day.

We had so much fun on the 100th day, which was the end of January, and they learned so much.  This is one of my favorite days of the school year and I love planning different things for them to do on this special day.

Math Stations

I run math stations in my classroom every day except for Late Start Wednesdays.  I have a total of six math stations that use the acronym BUILDS.  I found this idea on Pinterest and adapted it to fit kindergarten.  Here is what the letters stand for in my classroom:

B - Blocks
U - Using Manipulatives
I - Independent Work
L - Learning About Numbers
D - Doing Math
S - Solving Puzzles

Each student does every tub twice, to reinforce skills that we are working on.  They are in mixed ability groups to allow for questioning and help within each group, so they don't have to rely on me while I am doing Guided Math groups.

Here is a picture of my math station tubs, which are housed in an easily accessible shelf above my Literacy Station tubs:

Here are the activities for the first set of math stations.  They are pretty easy this rotation, so that I can monitor the students and explain expectations.

I - Looking at counting books.

L - Shapes with Geoboards 

U - Links

B - Foam Blocks

 D - Puzzles

I started the S tub with our second rotations, which we are doing now. Thanks for stopping by!

Literacy Stations

I run literacy workstations in my classroom starting on the first full week of school.  I use the first week to train the students on what is expected of them in each station.  I change out the materials every three weeks, to allow each student to do the workstation twice before the task changes in that station.  I run an 11 station rotation, with 2 students at each station.  My stations are:  Writing, Games, Browsing Box, ABC, Play-Doh, Computer, Pocket Chart, Work Work, I Pads, Library, and Listening.  I use Poetry as my 12th station if I need one.  The students visit 2 stations a day during my guided reading time.  I expect them to work quietly and cooperatively with their partner.  Here is a look at what our first set of rotations were:

This is my rotation board.  I move the student names down one rotation each day that we do stations.  I am currently using those green papers until I get the students placed into their guided reading groups.  Then I will use something a little nicer looking! If you would like my Literacy Station labels click here!

This is where my materials are housed for this rotation.  The students go get the bucket that corresponds with their station and then they take it to their designated area.

This first set of rotations was based off of activities that go with Chrysanthemum and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.

This letter tile activity was my Writing Station for this rotation.  The other cards also had the student's picture beside it, but this student was absent the day we took picture.

 This activity was in the ABC workstation.  The lowercase letter is written on the white spoon and the uppercase letter on the clear spoon.  Their task was to match up all of the spoons.  Pinterest idea!

This was in the Pocket Chart Station.  They had to match up the picture to the name.  I realized after taking this that this is NOT the correct picture and name match-up ;)

This was in Play-Doh station.  I had alphabet cookie cutters in the station and they cut out and matched up the names.

The other stations don't really change the tasks.  Library, browsing box, and computer all stay the same.  I usually have Starfall.com on the computers for them to use.  Listening is the same with the exception that the stories change every three weeks when stations change.  I pick a different app every 3 weeks for the I Pad station. Games this rotation was an animal domino game.  Work work was sorting magnetic letters on an oil drip pan from Wal-Mart that I have Command stripped onto the big shelf in my room.

Thanks for reading!

Classroom Tour 2013-2014

Welcome to another school year! My new kinders have already been in school for 3 whole weeks. I decided to post pictures of my classroom to give ideas and insight into my OCDness when it comes to my classroom. I am a super organized person and expect my classroom to be as well. I have high expectations of my students and expect them to help keep the room organized and clean, so that it is functional to all that use it. This is especially important this year as I have the medically fragile students this year (two of which are highly allergic to a lot of things), so we disinfect multiple times a day! Hopefully this will help keep the germs to a minimum this year ;) All of the posters and things on my wall are all posted in my TPT store. I have to have everything matching, so it is just easier to create them myself.


Studen coat hooks.  The book boxes hold my books that I use for read-a-loud and also the seasonal books that I change out in my library.  The Sterilite containers hold files and station materials by month.  You can also see my FOSS science boxes and some of my snack storage.



General view from the middle of my room.  The colorful boxes are for the browing box station.  The empty slots in the shelves are their cubbies.  The cabinets to the right hold my reading, math, fine motor, and sensory supplies.  The letter circles on the bulletin board is the start to my word wall.



General look from the front left of my room.  Ignore my messy desk.  The small table is my writing station.



General view looking from the back left of my classroom by my recess door.



Pink tubs are math stations.  Green tubs are literacy stations.  The green baskets on top are for homework folders and class books.



Guided reading area.  The shelf to the left holds the blocks for math stations.  The shelf to the right holds all of my literacy and math station materials for the week.  Pink tubs are for math and green are for reading.  The tubs on top of the AC unit are for the materials that I use with each guided reading group.



Computer and listening stations

  


This is my reading/whole group area.  To the left are my puzzles that are used during math stations and the bookshelves hold my classroom library books.

 


The shelf with the sheet covers all of my classroom supplies ( Kleenex, wipes, paper, pencils, crayons, etc).  The baskets that aren't covered hold things we use often (dry erase markers, glue, and watercolors).  The rolling book cart in the middle holds all of my guided read books that go with our Lead 21 curriculum.  The cabinets with the birthdays on the back wall hold my art supplies and paper goods.

 I share 1/4 of my classroom with a self-contained special education room for our high needs kinders. That is what the big supply shelf and the dividers are separating. It is super helpful have SPED staff just on the other side of the room. Thanks for visiting.