Kindergarten Tips

So I guess I have been in denial these past five months that I'm going to be returning to the classroom in August. So with that denial came neglecting my blog. I have been very focused on being a mom to this sweet girl.

But now that summer is here, I am coming to terms with having to go back to school in August. Not that I have a child care situation yet or is Sweet girl taking a bottle yet. But it will be here before I know it.
I will back in kindergarten with a new set of kids and I really enjoyed reading the blog posts from Mary at Sharing Kindergarten's Linky party and thought I would join in.

My husband is dreading my return to kindergarten until October because it is so hard and I'm so stressed. But I have learned that if I take my time and focus on procedures and management pieces then the teaching of the academics will come much easier. I always want to jump into the reading and writing and math but I try to focus on the making a line, sitting on the carpet, behavior during lunch, not getting up and wandering around the room first.

When I first started teaching kindergarten, I'm not sure that I really understood five and six year olds. But after 8 years in kindergarten and first grade, and 3 nieces later, I have a better understanding of the kids. I was criticized my first year teaching for not being touchy feely enough and I still think that there is a time and a place. During the middle of the lesson is not necessarily the place for stories and hugs. But I always try to listen to them during recess, lunch and other down times. I always start the day by greeting them at the door with a good morning and a smile and we always end the day with the kids choosing to give a hug, high five or handshake. I'm not a hugger by nature with adults and try to respect kids that might not be huggers either.
So those are my tips! I'm not looking forward to leaving my sweet girl in August. I have enjoyed my time at home with her more than I ever imagined. But I'm hoping to get back into reading blogs, writing blogs, and creating new activities this summer. So check back again! Meanwhile, check out the other great Kindergarten posts here. 

A Peek at My Week and a freebie or two

I had this already to go yesterday but I had left my hard drive at school which had my freebie on it. I'm exhausted this Monday so I'm just going to share my plans with you. Remember that you have to download the plans from google docs to get the freebie.
I'm linking up with Mrs. Wills Kindergarten.

Click Here to download my plans and get access to the freebies. 

Be sure to head over to Mrs. Wills Kindergarten to see what others have planned this week.

Back to School

So I had every intention of blogging last week and participating in Teacher Week. But it just didn't happen. I had registration Monday and Tuesday night. We have registered so many kindergartners. It is crazy. I have 22 on my list right now. Wednesday was our first official day of work and things just got more and more hectic from there. Friday was the first day of school for all kids except kinder. We screened in the morning and then did planning in the afternoon. I was at school until after 7:30 on Friday night. Chris beat me home which never happens on a Friday. Usually he's the one working late. He's been threatening to go live with my parents for the first six weeks of school because I'm so crazy. I just don't sleep this time of year. I'll go to sleep fine but then I wake up at ridiculous times. Wednesday morning it was 4:30 and Thursday it was 5 ish. I used the time to work on some things. We had these videos we had to watch for training on bullying, cyber bullying, suicide and blood borne pathogens. It was loads of fun. But at least I got it over with and could do it from the house. Another big change is we are required to do our lesson plans on an online website. So worked on that one morning as well.
So I think my room is ready for kids to come and I think I have planned what we're going to do. But I'm still not sure I'm ready. We have a staggered enrollment for 3 days thankfully. But this is the first year we've moved to a full day kindergarten. In the past on the first week, all the students left at 12:30. But it's going to be good and I have some fun stuff planned for the week. I thought I would share a few things we're doing.

We're going to read Pete the Cat Rocking in My School Shoes and then go on a tour of the school. Thanks to my friend Mary over at Mrs. Lirrette's Learning Detectives. She posted one earlier this summer. (Check it out here.) When we get back to the room we're going to have Pete and a snack waiting for us. If the weather is good, we're going to have a picnic outside for snack. Later in the week when all the kids are there, we're going to reread the story and practice retelling the story with pictures.
We are also going to start on Nursery rhymes for the week. Monday-Weds we'll read Humpty Dumpty and make a puppet. Thursday we're reading Little Miss Muffet and making a spider and then Friday Twinkle Twinkle little Star and making a glittery star. I made a PowerPoint of nursery rhymes and I'm sharing it with you.

Click here to download the freebie from TPT

We're also going to be doing a self portrait and a picture of me. I found this freebie from Fran at Kindergarten Crayons. (check it out here) This will be their first piece of work to hang in the hallway and I will keep it as part of a portfolio assessment. 

In math we're going to be exploring manipulatives and working on counting. I hope to have a chance to listen to each kid count and to check about their one to one correspondence. We'll see. 

There will also be lots of practicing and learning procedures. I plan to launch into some Whole Brain Teaching. I've also decided not to use a clip chart this year. I'm a little nervous about it but I think it will be good. Kids are going to have logical consequences for their actions. They will also have a place they can go and have a breather. I bought 2 bath mats to make the spaces in the room. So that's what's going on in my room. 

I'm participating in the Back to School sale over at TPT. So be sure to head over there and check out what is on sale. 

Monday Made it (Yeah it's Tuesday)

Last week was the first time I linked up with Tara for Monday Made it and now I'm on a roll. I don't know if it is just the end of summer is near so I better get my craft on or what. This week I worked on a couple of projects.
First project is a K to take first day of pictures with. I've seen this on several blogs and pinterest and I think it's super cute. I made a picture frame for last year's first day of school picture. Since I keep my kids for 2 years I like the idea of doing something different.

My colors in my classroom are all over the place. I'm trying to go with bright colors more than primary colors. 

The next project is a can to put my box tops in. This is such an unnecessary project but I ate the last of my almonds and thought this is the perfect container for something. 

I thought it turned out cute. (I know cute is not that important but I like cute. Makes me happy.)

The last project is a little something for some of my friends at school. I still have one more to make. One of my fellow k/1 teachers is a guy and I couldn't decide whether he would like it or not. But I found some boy scrapbook paper so I think it will be manly enough. I just need to add the post it notes. I got those yesterday at Target but they are still in the car. 

So those are my Monday made its for the week. Chris and I went to JoAnn's on Friday night. (I know we're wild and crazy) I got some fabric for a couple more projects. I'm pretty excited about. So I'll be back next week with some new projects. I haven't busted out my sewing machine in a while so hopefully it will go well. If not, I'll still post. 

I'm headed for a little more back to school shopping with a teacher friend. We have to have partners in crime. Yesterday my partner in crime was my sweet niece. She was very helpful. I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not. I didn't say a word and she knew that I was putting stuff in the cart for school. She would say is that for your class? So cute. 

Be sure to head over to Tara's blog to check out the other Monday Made its!

Fabulous Find Friday

I'm linking up with Fun in Room 4B for her Friday linky party about your fabulous finds. This is probably the only time I'm going to get to link up since I'm on a spending freeze after a trip to Big Lots.

Ok so I'm not sure that I followed all the rules with this whole linky party. I'm pretty excited about some of my recent finds. The first big one is from Big Lots. I found dry erase circles that I want to put on my table that I use for small groups. This would give kids a fun place to build words or respond to texts.

I also found some sticker dispensers from crayola that were really cheap and some large zipper pockets that I think I'm going to put math station activities or word work activities in it.
I went to Walmart Monday with my niece and found some really fun stuff in the 88 cent section. They have some really neat teacher geared things.

I found some of those smelly markers that I've seen all over blog land. I'm pretty excited about using them to grade papers. I also got some snap it things for your pencils. I'm working on an idea for rewards like erasers and these snap its for pencils. I haven't gotten it all set in my brain yet, but I'll share when I do. In the clearance section, I found some removable wall stickers in letters and then the phrase, "You are somebody's reason to smile." Not sure what I'm going to do with them but I'm sure I'll figure something out.
So those are my finds for the week. I'm going to have start finding some things in my classroom to finish decorating my room and getting ready for next year. Chris has put me on a spending halt. He was none to happy with my total spending this past week. I'm not use to having to worry about anyone else being affected by my spending. But I have lots of things in my room and my craft materials at home. I think I can finish most of the rest of the room without buying too much more. I'll probably have to avoid the dollar spot at Target and the Dollar Tree. Eeek! I'm off to Bible Study, tutoring, and then lunch with my teaching friend Sarah. I started attending a Bible study at church 2 weeks ago and I thought it started at 10:30 but it started at 10. Whoops. Don't want to be late today. Be sure to check out the other Fabulous Finds at Fun in Room 4B.




On an unrelated note, I'm guest blogging over at Kinder Kraziness. I have 2 freebies for Chicka Chicka Boom Boom so please go check it out. If you don't know Laura at Kinder Kraziness you should. She's my bloggy BFF and she's awesome. < /a>

Super Sleep

Ok so the title should probably be super not sleeping. I was so tired earlier I went to bed and started reading a book. It was a James Patterson and I had to finish it before going to sleep. By the time I finished it, Chris was sound asleep and snoring. So my brain started working and of course that means I started thinking about school. I've been seeing so many cute themes all over people's blogs and have been thinking about what I wanted to do. Originally I was thinking of doing a Mo Willems theme but there have been so many copyright issues, I wasn't sure. Then I started thinking of some kind of Hawaiian theme because I'm now obsessed with everything Hawaii. (If you don't know why, read this post)  
But I have over 3/4 of my class are boys. I already know because I'm looping with my kinders. And boys are really not into flowers and such. I also read a pintersting post from Reading with Mrs. D, I think about a super hero theme. So I think that's what I'm going to do. My theme is going to be Ms. Kerri's Super Students or something like that. Once I thought of that my mind started whirling. So I thought if I came in the living room and blogged about it. Maybe I would be able to sleep. I don't want to do specific super heroes but I do want to have group names. Last year they were animals based off Eric Carle's book. I'm thinking maybe different adjectives. Like the Incredibles. I'm thinking one group could be the supers, one the awesomes, and then I'm at a loss for 2 more adjectives. I guess I could steal the incredibles and have that be one but I'm really trying to stay away from already in place super heroes. I'm sure Chris would help me come up with a couple more ideas but he's asleep. What ideas do you have? I'm also thinking some super hero props for a photo booth for the first day of school. I also searched from some super hero clip art and found some cute stuff at scrappin doodles. I'm pretty excited about this idea so I see some creating in my future. I'm wanting to make a placemat like Jennifer at Herding Kats in Kindergarten made. So check her wonderful ones out if you want to know what I'm talking about. I had some similar last year and loved it. I put them in page protectors with a hundreds chart and it was great. So hopefully, I'll be back tomorrow or today I'm not really sure what day it is anymore with some super hero freebies. I just downloaded my clipart and it's super cute. Now hopefully, I've brain dumped enough and I can go to sleep. If you have any ideas to help with my super hero theme, I would love some suggestions.

Color Week Activities

For the past 2 weeks, we've been celebrating the colors. I'm kind of glad it is coming to an end but we've done a lot of really cool activities that I thought I would share.
Red day - We read Clifford goes to school. The plan was to make a Clifford mask from Scholastic.com. But we didn't actually have time for this activity since it was the first day with all the kids.
Blue day - This is one of my favorite days. We read Blueberries for Sal. They then completed this sheet and cut out blueberries to put in a pail and practiced writing their names.I cut construction paper in blue in half and drew 8 blueberries on the sheet. They could choose how many they wanted to put on the sheet. This group needs some practice writing their names. This was our first cutting and gluing activity. It was a little scary.

Blueberries for Sal Document 
Green day - We read Five Green and Speckled Frogs and made frog puppets. More practice with cutting and it went a little better. I sent these home that day so I don't have any pictures of them.
Yellow day - We read I'm your Bus.This was a really cute book. It talked about riding the bus the first time and had repetitive text in it. Then we made buses to go with it. I was inspired by the buses I saw on Deanna Jump's Fun with Literacy and Names packet. I cut yellow construction paper in half and then gave them 2 black squares to cut the corners off for the wheels.

 

Purple Day - We were going to read Harold and the Purple Crayon but I couldn't find my copy of the book. So we watched it on United Streaming and the kids loved it. Then they completed a sheet that said __________ loves his/her purple crayon and drew a picture to go with it. I then made a class book out of their sheets. 

 

___________ loves his/her purple crayon sheet    

Orange Day - My boyfriend found this story Axle the Freeway Cat on this website http://en.childrenslibrary.org/. This was a story he liked when he was a kid. It's a good story with good vocabulary and an orange cat for orange day. We read the story and then made cats. I had traced a circle and 2 triangles on orange construction paper. (I couldn't copy it onto the paper because we have a new copier and I didn't want to be the one to jam the machine.) They cut out the shapes and then added the face. I gave them some black rectangles for whiskers. They turned out pretty cute but I only have a picture on my example.

  

Brown Day - We read Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do you See? and completed the little book from Kinderpond. This actually went really well. I was worried because it involves a lot of coloring and cutting.But the kids did really well. We had a little lesson on how we color and we don't color. I was proud of how well the did and that most of them could put the pages in order with a little prompting so we got some sequencing done as well. Here's a picture of one of the completed books. 

Overall color week went pretty well and I learned a lot about my students and their abilities. Hope you can find something useful in this post. Please leave me a comment if you use something from here. I could use the encouragement.

Reading on the Third Day of Kindergarten

I'm slowly but surely getting a few things accomplished in class. We haven't had time for math yet but hopefully it will come. On Wednesday we talked about our first popcorn word, "I." We made an interactive reading chart of "I am _______" and they filled in their names. I typed to a promethean flip chart and they came up to it and read their sentences. They were so proud of themselves when they read their sentence. Even one of my ELL students who hasn't spoken many words read his sentence. Today I turned chart into a pdf and then printed that page off so they could read their sentence for homework. I was reallye excited about this idea and it was so easy to do. I just went to print on the file menu on the promethean board and from there chose print to pdf. It didn't print it just turned into the pdf.
We also made Fran's sight word necklaces from her sight words that rock your room packet. I definitely learned a bit about how to do that with the kids. They needed to be cut out, hole punched and made into a necklace before giving them to the kids. At least at first. I forget how little they are.
You can check out the flip chart we've been working through this week. You can see all the pages we didn't get to yet. I've been a little ambitious with my planning. But better too much than too little! Here's to Friday! I'm going to need some rest this weekend.
Click Here Flipchart

First Days of Kindergarten

Oh my. I just finished my first week at school. I only had 2 days with kids and only had 5 kids each day but I'm exhausted.  We have staggered enrollment for the first 3 days of school. I just caught up on all my blog stalking this morning and I was several days behind. Luckily other teachers out there are busy with school and not blogging too much. So far my little ones seem like they are going to be a great group of kids. I only have 5 girls out of my 16 kids and there are also 5 ELL students in the class. So movement is going to be essential. I meant to take some pictures of my room and the activities we did but it slipped my mind. I ended the year last year with first graders ready for second grade, so it is an adjustment to start the year with 4 and 5 year old kindergartners. The first day felt like it went awful to me and my critical self. But day 2, I started to get my kindergarten bearings.
We did some Chicka Chicka Boom Boom activities. We read the story and then went on a hunt for the letters throughout the school to meet the special area teachers and office staff. My kids loved this especially the ELL boys. They were so excited to find the letters and enjoyed helping with the story and saying "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom." We came back and they painted the first letter of their names. I know. What was I thinking painting the first day. They did pretty well and of course a couple of kids went home with paint on them including me.
I was most impressed with how well my kids did with my promethean board. We did some calendar activities on the board and they picked it up so quickly. They were able to move things and use the wand with just a little instruction from me. We played a little starfall (If you haven't checked that site out, it's the best. www.starfall.com) and they were old pros at the board by the time they left. If you have some kind of interactive whiteboard, I suggest getting on Starfall and letting your kids explore. It was a great way to teach them some skills on using the wand and pens that go with the board.
I have one more day of staggered enrollment and then Tuesday I'll have the whole class. Our system is still on a half day kindergarten so the kids have the option to leave at 12:30. The first 4 days of school they all have to leave at 12:30. Wednesday will be the true test. I will have all the kids and those that will stay til 3 will stay. I think most of mine will stay which is fine with me. I wish we had a full day kindergarten. I could get so much more accomplished with them.
I worked on my lesson plans today. I know it's an exciting way to spend a Saturday but my boyfriend was at a Boy Scout training. With our new evaluation system and common core standards, there are a few changes in how our lesson plans are suppose to be. They need to have the I can statements, standards, and differentiation plans. They took me a little longer to do than before and I didn't even include the differentiation plans this week. I'm not sure where they are yet to be able to differentiate. But I'm attaching my plans so you can check them out. I plan to use some Fran's sight words that rock activities this week to introduce our first sight word. I'm excited but a little nervous to dive into this year and all the curriculum and standards that I need to teach while ensuring that the kiddos love school and learning. So how's your start of the year going?
Lesson Plans

Classroom Update

My sister came yesterday to help me with a few projects in my room. She's super creative and I love any excuse to get her and my niece to come to Gatlinburg. The night before I made my tissue paper and canvas sign for the outside of my door. It turned out really cute but it was difficult to make. I used mod podge and the tissue paper tore easily when it was wet. But it looked really good when completed. I stapled gunned a ribbon to the top of the canvas and hung it up beside my door.

My sister's task was to make coconut trees for my Chicka Chicka Boom Boom display. We are reading this book the first week of school and I wanted to the coconut tree for my reading center. The first day of school the kids are going to decorate the first letter of the name and put it on the tree. I plan on keeping it up all year. She did an awesome job and it looks amazing.

I went to Wal-mart this morning to get a few things and ended up getting more things that I had planned including a new set of Sharpie Fine Point Markers. They had 80s glam colors and I just couldn't resist. Anyone else addicted to buying sharpies. I love them!

On a non class related note, my sweet niece is turning 1 tomorrow. I can't believe she's already a year old. As any good aunt would, I've been buying her books since before she was born. For her birthday, I made her a container full of magnetic letters, numbers and some blocks. I used all my crafty inspiration from other blogs to make it look cute with paint and stickers.

A week from tomorrow is the first day of school, I can't believe it's almost here.

Top 10 Reasons it's back to school time

Over at Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits, she's hosting a linky party for the top 10 reasons you know it's back to school time. I really enjoyed reading everyone's list and was thinking about what my top 10 was.

10. My fingers are stuck together from gluing things and there is marker smeared on my hands.

9. My allergies are acting up due to being back in my school and moving things around in the dust.

8. There are bruises on my legs from moving furniture.

7. I have to start wearing real clothes again instead of shorts, flip flops and t-shirts. I also have to dry my hair and put make up on.

6. My bank account no longer has any money in it.

5. I still seem to find a way to visit Target, Wal-mart, Staples, Dollar Tree and other craft stores to obtain the supplies I need.

4. My brain hasn't shut off since I started thinking about school.

3. Sleep no longer is possible. As soon as I wake up I start thinking about school and what I need to do.

2. My house is turned upside down with school projects and other school related items.

1. I keep having a back to school nightmare that is ridiculous and frightening.

Head over to Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits to see other people's top 10.

Randomness!

I spent the day yesterday doing some back to school shopping with my sister and almost one year old niece. It was tax free weekend here in Tennessee so I took advantage. My wonderful mom and boyfriend had given me some money to do a little clothes shopping for myself. I don't get paid again til Sept. 15 and my money is starting to dwindle. I'm sure you guys can relate. So I was very grateful for the kindness of my mom and boyfriend. We also hit up Target. We don't have a Target where I live so I have to go to Knoxville and I guess I waited too late. The dollar spot was pretty picked over. I did find some of the foam shapes. Our first unit in math is about sorting and classifying so I think I am going to use those for that purpose. I also found some of the board books about colors, shapes, and numbers. I'll put those in their beginning of the year book baskets. I put a basket of books at each table for the kids to read when they finish whatever they are working on. They seem to really like the board books at first. I was disappointed because the one about the sun was no longer there. I had seen a neat idea on someone's blog for that book. I of course had to buy the board books and some magnetic numbers I found for my niece too. I'm determined she's going to love to read and so far that's the case. Our next stop was a wonderful used bookstore. I had a lot of teacher books to trade in. I've been trying to clean things out. I taught 3rd grade for 3 years before moving back to my hometown and I'm still slowly weeding out my 3rd grade materials. So I had around $100 to spend at the bookstore. Mostly we found books I thought my niece needed. She got really excited about the books and at one point she had them all around her in her stroller and was in heaven. But I did find some good books for the classroom. I've got the bulk of my classroom library from this bookstore. It's amazing!
To go with the randomness of this post, I'm so excited about something I learned this morning on

She has step  by step directions for creating some of the documents she does on word. I was most excited because she has section about installing fonts. I don't know if you're like me and you've been seeing all the cool stuff on blogs and trying to create some yourself. I'm one of those people that likes to tweak stuff and make it my own. I had downloaded some fonts but had no idea how to install them. Well thanks to Ms. Patterson I now have a bunch of new fonts to use in my word programs and my promethean software. Woo Hoo! I'm not going to get any cleaning of my house done today at all. Oh well. I had several projects I planned on completing this weekend.

• Making the letters for Making Words Kindergarten
• Sign for outside my door. I got my canvas in my back to school shopping so I'll post a picture when I get it completed.
• Promethean charts. I thought of some ways to improve of what I had already created. Can't wait.

Happy crafting this weekend!