First Week of Stations, Color Days and Other Random Things!

We are currently having our Color Fun Days!  We are using many acitivities from the Color Day Fun unit I got from Made For 1st.  This simple idea is one that I came up with.  I have been having them cut out a simple shape related to that color and then placing cut-up letters in order to spell that color word onto the shape.  Orange pumpking, red apple, pink heart, etc.

We also began stations this week.  I am very proud of how well they did!  My main goal was to have them go to their station  with their partner, follow the given instructions and stay there!  So, this week, we made the tasks pretty simple!  Here is what we were up to!
Computers:

*Not pictured

Listening Station:

ABC Puzzle Station:

ABC Station:  sorting letters

**Camera died...will try and post later!

Counting Station:  They placed the numbers in order to create a picture.

Creation Station:  They made lions for our Letter Ll study!  I cannot remember the site I found this from many years ago!  If you might know, please let me know so that I can give proper credit.

Playdough Station with numbers:
I got these mats a few years ago from Childcareland.  You can also get them from Makinglearningfun.com.  Both sites also have these mats for the alphabet!

This was a whole group activity from this week as studied letter L!
Licorice Letters:

Oh!  One more station to share!

Write Around the Room Station:

I found the shelf at a garage sale for $2 over the summer.  It is working out great to hold our supplies for Write Around the Room.  It will also hold more purpose as the year progresses.

Well, that is all for now!  I hope that you are having a great weekend!  My husband and I will become Godparents to our 2 month old nephew tomorrow.  He is so sweet!

And the Winner Is.....

Sorry it took me so long to get this announcement made!  It has been a busy day!  Without further delay...the winner of the $15 gift card to Target OR Dollar Tree (winner's choice) is....

True Random Number Generator

Min:

Max:

 

Result: 3 Powered by RANDOM.ORG

Jody from Camp Kindergarten!!!!!

Jody said...

I follow your blog!
☺Jody

Camp Kindergarten

September 15, 2011 8:34 PM

Congrats to Jody! 

Jody please contact me in the next 48 hours and let me know what your choice is so that I can send it your way!!!

Email me at bearcom1000@msn.com or comment on my blog with your email. 

Versatile Blogger Award and the Giveaway!

Jody over at Camp Kindergarten has nominted my blog for a Versatile Blogger Award!!!  I am so honored and appreciate this recognition!

So, with this there are some things to do!  First, thank the blogger who awarded you and include a link.  Second, list 7 things about you and then nominate 15 other blogs!

Here are my 7!

1.  I love to camp with my family!

2.  I have taught for 14 years, with 10 in Kindergarten.

3.  I have my Masters in Elementary Education.

4.  I live on a farm.

5.  I LOVE my job!!!!

6. I have only flown twice in my life. 

7.  I love to be as creative as possible in my teaching.  Pinterest has been a great resource to help this!!!

Now, for my nominations!

1.  Kindergarten Crayons

2.  Mrs. Jump's Class

3.  Chalk Talk

4.  Can Do Kinders

5.  Castles and Crayons

6.  Fairy Dust Teaching

7.  Heather's Heart

8.  Hello Literacy

9.  In the Teacher's Lounge

10.  Mrs. Lee's Kindergarten

11.  Mrs. Miners Kindergarten Monkey Business

12.  The Moffatt Girls

13.  The Weekly Hive

14.  The Shroeder Page

15.  The Teacher Wife

ALSO, TOMORROW is the last day to enter for my giveaway!  Hurry and don't miss out!

Writers Workshop

Our school uses Write Steps  Writing Program.  We have been VERY happy with this program in Kindergarten and have been impressed with the students' growth every year.  This program provides a pacing guide as well as DVD's that has lessons in action in classrooms.  The company has been busy updating the program to match the Core Standards.  We will be getting updated material very soon! 
We also turn to the book, Teaching Writing in Kindergarten by Randee Bergen in the beginning of the year to help with the very basic drawing and writing skills that we deal with very early on.  This helps build their confidence in their drawings as well.  After just a few weeks, we will be well on our way! 

Here is a sample of one of our first entries in our Writing Notebooks.  I forgot to take a picture of my shared writing piece!  We begin with a few entries done whole group as I write on the board and they write in their notebooks.  They have their sound cards to refer to.

Please don't forget to enter my giveaway!  You have until Thursday to enter!

101 Followers and a GIVEAWAY!

101 Followers!  Wooohooo!  I am so excited!  I am also so proud to be a part of this teaching blog community.  I have truely grown as a professional because of all you and your inspiring words and sharing.  I love that I can see what other teachers are doing across the country and use that to reflect on my own teaching.

                 

On to the giveaway!  I will be giving away a $15 gift card to Target or the Dollar Tree (winner's choice)!  Here is how to enter:
1.  Follow my blog and leave a comment.
2.  Grab my button and leave a comment with a link to your blog.  (I will be sure to grab your button too!)
3.  Blog about this giveaway and leave a comment with a link to your post.

You will have until Thursday, September 22nd to enter and I will announce the winner on Friday the 23rd!  I can't wait to see who wins!
Have a great Friday!

Two Giveaways!

There is an awesome giveaway going on at Kreative in Kinder where EVERYONe can win!!!  Hurry and check it out!

Also, I am super close to 100 followers!!!  A giveaway is near! 

Almost to 100 and the Common Core!

I was working on an assessment to use for a pretest, progress monitoring and post-test for the Math Common Core Standards!  I came across this awesome assessment over at Teachers Notebook!  The best part is that it was on sale for only $2.70!!!  Check it out!

                                           

WOW!  I am almost to 100 followers!!  I am so excited!!!  I sense a giveaway coming!!!!!

Bucket Fillers and a Circle of Respect

Today I would like to share about our behavior management system in our classroom.  This idea was originally from Julie Lay.

During the first week of school we discuss our Kindergarten Rule:  Work hard and be nice.  Basically, if we are doing these things it covers all of the other rules we could list.  If I am using kind words, keeping my hands to myself, etc. I am being nice.  If I am listening, following directions, doing my best work, etc. I am working hard!

We all agree to follow our Kindergarten Rule by placing our clip on the Circle of Respect.  We use yellow and red choice boxes when we forget to "be nice or work hard."  These boxes stay on my desk to keep it more private...between the student and I.  However, we also have the ROYAL PURPLE CROWN!  Students have the opportunity to have their clip moved onto the purple crown for extra special behavior!

    

Our school is a Bucketfillers school!  We read these books each fall and incorporate them into our classrooms and school community.  In our classroom, each child has a bucket.  They earn warm fuzzies for their buckets when they fill my bucket for positive behavior.  I will be trying something new this year.  They will be able to trade in their warm fuzzies for tickets to do special things.  The warm fuzzies and tickets idea came from the blog:  Oh the Places We'll Go.  Please visit her blog for more information and her freebie tickets!

The bucket system above is from Beth Newingham's blog.

I would love to hear what you do!  Have a great weekend!



Day 2-More Activities

Well, we made it-Day 2!!!  The kids came in much more comfortable and are getting a little more used to our routine.  Here are a few of our activities for the day.

Our first project was inspired from Pinterest.  We used to use an apple outline on white paper, but this paper plate worked out much better for us!  This was great for fine motor practice as they tore the red paper.

This bus project was from a few sources.  We have used the bus shape for years with different construction paper cutouts for the wheels, door, etc.  However, this year I found that Oriental Trading had the foam shape stickers and they worked really well with this project!  Then, we used the fill-in sheet from Deanna Jump's Name Unit.
We also made these visors today.  I wish I could share the resource.  We have had them for many years and is most likely from a printable resource book.

Today I introduced the book, Have You Filled a Bucket Today? I explained how we will use this in our classroom, using some ideas and printable from other great bloggers!  Tomorrow I will post about it and include pictures!

First Day of School! First Day of School!

I always think of Nemo on this special day as I get my own two children up and say them, "It's the first day of school!  It's the first day of school!"  They were so excited!  I bet today will be the easiest time I will have getting them out of bed this school year!
My day with my new Kindergarten kiddos went pretty well.  I am not used to talking so much in one day though!  Lots of procedures and repeating directions today!  I have to remember that it gets better each day!
Here are a few things that we accomplished today:

I give each child a cut out of the first letter in their name.  I ask to see who can name the letter and then I give them a variety of foam sticker shapes to decorate their letter with.  The kids really enjoy it and I send it home with them the first day.
We also did a few activities to go with the book, The Kissing Hand.  It was so busy, I unfortunately did not take pictures of these two activities.  However, you can check out the links below for their sources!
The first activity we did was a card for their parents.  This  card idea was a freebie on the blog, Peace, Love and Learning.  After reading The Kissing Hand, they colored the cover and wrote their name.  I had an aide help each student place a painted handprint on the inside with the poem.  After they dried, they were given a foam heart sticker to place in the palm.  Grab this freebie from the link above and be sure to check out all the other goodies from her fabulous blog!


 To also go along with The Kissing Hand we made these neat headbands.  This idea came from another awesome blog and their great freebie! First Grade Blue Skies offered a wonderful variety of Kissing Hand activities including a fun Chester headband.



 

This little one was making her bears sit in a class and face the teacher.  How sweet! 

Finally, we completed our first lesson with Saxon Math where we explored Teddy Bear counters and writing the number 1.

Well, that is it for today!  I also am looking forward to posting about our Circle of Respect that we use as a behavior management tool in our classroom! 

Hope your day was a good one!  Do you do anything similar with your students at the beginning of the year?  I would LOVE to hear from you!

TOP 10!!!!

I was so surprised this morning to get an email from Mrs. Schroeder from the Schroeder Page that she has nominated me as a 10 Ten New Blog!  Thank you Mrs. Schroeder!!!  I am truely honored and just loving being part of the blog world!

Open House Goodies!

Hey there!  This morning we had our Open House!  Our Kindergarten and Developmental Kindergarten have our Open House in the morning with the rest of the grades in the evening.
During our Open House our little ones have the chance to meet their teacher, see their classroom, have a snack in the cafeteria and then go on a bus ride.  The time spent in our classroom involves briefly going over our K handbook while the children draw a picture of themselves and write their name on an index card that has rounded corners from using my rounder from Creative Memories.
Then, I passed out our goodie bags.  I explained to them that we will have a "Me Bag" that will be sent home with each child.  They will have the opportunity to place some items in the bag to share about themselves.  So, in the goodie bag I shared a few things about me with goodies that they could keep!  As I told them a quick snippet about myself, they had to find the matching item in their bags. This is what I placed in the bags.

                             

Book= I like to read.

Pencil= I like to write.

Smiley face=my school family makes me happy.

Smarties = I like school because it helps make me smart

Farm stamp= I live on a farm

Bubbles=I like to play outside

*My favorite part was the S'mores baggie!  I used it to link to my family loving to camp!  I got this idea from The Weekly Hive.  You can also get the printable labels there too!

We also read one of our Pete the Cat books!  They loved the song and I can't wait for all our upcoming activities!