Summertime!

So it has been forever since I've really blogged. This end of the year stuff was killing me. Yesterday was our last day with kids. Monday is a work day but I'm trading it out with a day I worked back in the summer, Tuesday is a half day where kids can pick up report cards, then Wednesday is an inservice day. I'm not excited about the day weds. The county tacked on an extra day for us teachers and I'm none too happy about it. We used all our snow days and then they took away a couple of vacation days and I still think we had a day left. But oh well. What can I do. I think the worst part is they are making us all meet for a training and the training is soooo far from my house. So summer is pretty much here. I've been wanting to link up with Mrs. Jump's Class for her linky party. I'm only a week late to the party.

1. First up is doing some shopping for my classroom from Creative Teaching Press. I was lucky enough to be part of a group of exclusive bloggers to check out their new back to school stuff. Well all that stuff went live a week or so ago. I am late to that party too. These past few weeks have been crazy and I'll explain a little more about it later in this post. But I'm planning on updating somethings using their chevron line.

I love these stickers and I think they'll be perfect for some back to school creating. Be sure to head over to CTP and find some great new things for your classroom.

2. Read! Read! Read! I've been stocking my kindle and my kindle wish list with new books this week in anticipation of the summer. Summer reading is one of my favorite things to do.
I recently purchased these books.

And pre-ordered these two.

The newest Stephanie Plum will be here just in time for my beach trip.

3. Enjoy some quality time with Chris at the beach.  Last year we went to North Topsail Island in North Carolina and we are headed back again this year. We plan our vacation around our anniversary. So we'll be spending our 2nd anniversary at the beach again.

4. Spending time with nieces. For the past 2 summers I've kept my niece Sophie one day a week but now that my sister is working part time, I won't be keeping her officially. But I still plan to hang out as much as I can with my girls.

5. Finish catching up on Downton Abbey. I think I'm on Season 3. I want to have it all watched so I'll be ready for the new season when it comes out.

 I also want to start watching this show on netflix. I've heard good things about it and mindless fun is what summer is all about.

6. Reading Outreach with our public library. Last summer my BFF Cassie and I started a reading program with our library that brought books out into our community. We plan on continuing that fun this summer and hopefully adding the component of checking books out. Bookmobile here we come!

7. Getting materials ready for a new year. I haven't created anything new for TPT in quite a while. I have some projects I've started on but I haven't finished. Then because I loop, I'll be moving up to First grade. So I'll need to get on making some materials to go with our Journeys series in first grade. My fluency homework for kindergarten has been my best seller. I hope to do something similar for First grade. You can check out my kindergarten one here. 

8. Just relaxing and doing not much of anything. I live in the most beautiful place so I plan to take walks and bike rides around my house.

9. Get my craft on. I have pinned all kinds of crafty things and I can't remember the last time I did a craft project. I have been working on a blanket for a while and I'd like to get it finished. I'd also like to get to my sewing machine back out.
You can check out my craft board here and my sewing board here.

10. Lastly and definitely not least, my biggest project this summer is going to be take our guest room and get it ready to be turned into a nursery! Chris and I are expecting our first baby in December. Currently our guest room is full of all kinds of stuff. I had to clean it way out when Chris and I got married and it's time to clean it out even more. I don't know what I'm going to do with all my books. We are thinking of a Hawaiian theme for the nursery. It would work for both a girl or a boy. We have some pictures and a Hawaiian quilt we can hang in there from our Honeymoon. We couldn't be more excited about our news. I have felt pretty yucky the past few weeks and so exhausted which is why I haven't been blogging and have been late to all the parties.

So that's my plan for the summer. We'll see how it goes. I loved my class this year and I'll have them again next year but I'm so ready for this break!
Be sure to head over to Deanna's blog and check out what everyone else is up to.

Five for Friday on Sunday

So Friday we got out of school an hour early because of a parade. I had ever intention of posting this then. But I ran an errand for my mom and then came home and tried to take a nap and it just didn't happen. Then yesterday I really wanted a day to just spend at home getting somethings done. But that didn't happen either. Chris wanted to get the oil changed in one of the cars so off to we both went. By the time I went to get him, it was about a 20 minute drive. So we didn't really want to drive home only to turn around and drive back again. Anyway, I didn't get anything done yesterday but the kitchen cleaned up a bit and to see the new Spiderman. I liked it. But we're kind of comic book geeks in my house. So here I am Sunday morning trying to do too many things including post to my blog.

1. This week was all about the letter u. Which means it was all about underwear. This is our circle map we write every week about our letter. We also read several books about underpants. Like Pirates Like Underpants and Aliens in Underpants.

2. We started our state testing this week. I made treats for the first two days. If you check back later today, I should have a freebie linked up with all the testing treat cards. I've been making them as I go but I hope to finish up the last two this evening. I know there are lots of these as freebies on TPT, but I wanted to be able to fit 6 on the page and to be kind of simple. Plus I have some food allergies so my treats were a little different. I used smarties, starburst, fruit roll ups, and blow pops. Here's a link to the freebie on my TPT Store. 

3. Because it is state testing, we have to cover everything. It is so depressing when everything is covered. Last year, the only available paper was black. This year it is purple. Here's our word wall covered. I keep looking at it to try to remember if a word kids are spelling on their papers is a word wall word, so I can imagine my kids are having trouble. 

4. We have started a 20 days of school countdown. I love all the abc countdowns but with the way our spring break fell we didn't have enough days when we got back. So starting May 1 along with our testing window, we started the countdown. Thursday was bubble day and Friday was game day. We had a blast playing board games. I think it is really important for kids to play games with each other where they have to interact, so I don't let them bring electronic games or get out my iPad and iPods. They had a blast. I helped put a 100 piece puzzle together, played don't break the ice, uno, jenga, candy land, chutes and ladders and more. 

If you would like to see what our countdown looks like, you can click here to see the pdf.  Monday is going to be ice cream day. 

5.  I don't have a last picture. I realized this as I'm finishing the post. I'm a little annoyed with my computer right now because I was trying to edit a screenshot and it never would cooperate. So I'm doing a little shameless self promoting which I usually don't do. I have a giveaway going on right now for Sharing Kindergarten's Math Computer sheets. Be sure to head to this post and enter. They are awesome!

So that's my five for Friday this week. Due to testing, I really didn't do much this week worth documenting. We have testing Monday and Wednesday and then an inservice day Tuesday. So maybe I'll have more to share next week. At least of our fun countdown days. Be sure to head over to Doodle Bugs Teaching and check out the party. 

Literacy and Math Centers

So I usually keep my centers for about 2 and half weeks. I started this post about 2 and a half weeks ago. I took the pictures and did the slides and then realized I didn't have all my centers. But then we had end of the year testing, report card testing and other craziness so I didn't have a chance to take the last few pictures. I was busy testing students. (Joy) So I thought I should just share what I have because I would have some new ones after Spring Break.  So here are what our centers have been:

 Stamp It Up Printables

 Growing a Garden of Math Activities

 Spring Print and Go

 Wild About Words

Short I Word Families Unit

  Growing a Garden of Math Activities

 Computer Center Sheets - Math

The kids also use iPods and play the Teach Me Kindergarten App.
One more center is pokey pinning with sight words. This is from From the Pond with 100 pinning pages. My kids love it and it is good fine motor practice.
So that's what we've been working on. We start testing when we get back from Spring break so it might be a little while before we have centers again.

Five for Saturday

Oh my. It has been crazy busy lately and I haven't felt like blogging. We have had a whirlwind busy two weeks since I posted last. We did our end of the year testing (The Brigance, I hate this test. IT is so out of date),  report card assessing, then this past week we were videotaped for the local channel, watched the school play, had a spring fling and an egg hunt. Now today starts my spring break and I'm excited to have a week off.  So I think I took five picture this week. I really meant to take more but completely forgot in the craziness that is the week before spring break. So I'm linking up with Kacey over at Doodle Bugs Teaching.

1.  This was dinner Tuesday night. It was the only night I ate dinner all week. I started some new medicine and it was making me not feel so hot at night. But this was a delish dinner. Greek Pizza. (Here's the link to the recipe. http://www.pepperlynn.com/2012/01/fresh-greek-pizza-with-homemade-tzatziki/) I found the recipe on pinterest. If you don't follow me on pinterest, you should. I think I'm an excellent pinned. (http://www.pinterest.com/kheinrich9/)

2. Wednesday my class was videotaped for this local channel. All the schools in my county have videos made about them and then they are played on the local channel. My class was videod using our promethean board and iPad and iPods. I was not excited about it. I get so nervous in front of adults. It just isn't my thing. Mostly I was freaking out about what to wear. I tried on about four outfits for Chris. This was what I decided on, but I texted it to my bestie first.

I'm so good at selfies. ;)

3.  By the time Thursday rolled around, my kids were crazy! We were having the spring fling in the afternoon and that is all they wanted to talk about. It was nuts. (Spring fling is a like a carnival put on by the 7th and 8th graders at our school as a fundraiser for their graduation at the end of the year) It is fun watching the kids have a blast but the before and after is hard. So we read the Pete the Cat Easter book and then did a directed draw of a bunny. This was the only picture I took. I had seen several things like this on pinterest but mostly I just made it up. We used pencils and drew the outline of the bunny. Then they used black marker to go over the outline. They colored the bunny with crayons and then did a background with markers. They turned out cute. 

4. Friday was a half day and we had an Easter egg hunt for the whole kindergarten. My class brought in 255 eggs.  The egg hunt was done in record time. But the kids had a blast and that's all that matters. 

5. Today my nieces were staying with my parents so Chris and I headed over there to take the oldest to an egg hunt. Here they are. It was not as nice of a day as I had thought it might be. Here's hoping tomorrow is nicer. 

Be sure to head over to Doodle Bugs Teaching and check out everyone else's Five for Friday. 

Technology and Tutoring

I started this post last week but didn't get it finished because I ran into a couple of issues but I think I have it figured out now. Last week I had a great tutoring session with one of my kids and wanted to blog about it.
I tutor on Tuesdays and Thursdays. One boy on Tuesday and then 2 girls and 1 boy on Thursdays. They are mostly my ELL kids that need a little more small group instruction. Last week I cancelled both days because I wasn't feeling that great and it makes for a long day. Plus the student I tutor on Tuesdays wasn't all that great the last time we worked together. He just wanted to play the whole time. Now I try to make things fun but we still have some learning to do. But today he was great and I think that's because we were on the iPad almost the whole time. I let him play whatever he wants to on the iPad while I'm out at buses. There are all learning games on the iPad so he's learning. He likes to play the Super Why app and Grandpa's Workshop. I like both of them  for him. Grandpa's workshop is really for younger kids but it works well with his language. Super why is an expensive app to me. It costs $3.99. But it is a great app for kids that works on letters, words, and reading. Grandpa's Workshop costs $1.99. (I was lucky enough to get a grant from my PTA to purchase some apps to use)
We usually start out with a sight word game. All we do is turn over a sight word flashcard and if he knows it then he gets a skittle. I use this to give me some words to work on. So at this point, we go back to the iPad. I usually let him use one of two apps. Either Doodle Buddy or Magnetic ABCs.
He writes or builds the words and then we use them in sentences. He needs a lot of practice with the oral language component too. After we've practiced writing the words and using them in a sentence, I'll use the magnetic letters to scramble the letters in a word and he has to unscramble them.

This picture is from a while ago but it shows the kids using the Doodle Buddy App to write the sight word. Here's a screen shot of the magnetic letters with a scrambled word.

 Usually we put the iPad away and work on some other skills. But today I was noticing how he was making a few letters and I thought it was a good time to try out another app I had found, Letter School. This was the first time I worked on this app with a student. We both loved it. You can pick from uppercase, lowercase letters and numbers. We worked on both upper and lowercase letters. The app won't let him make the letter the wrong way. You have to start at the top and you have to follow the path it wants you to. You practice three different times and each time the app makes them a little more independent. It was a great and fun way to practice handwriting that kept him engaged. I forgot to take a screen shot of this app but I did take a screen shot from the app on the app store. This app costs $2.99 but I think it's worth it. Especially for kids who are forming the letter incorrectly.

With this particular student I work on math as well. He still needs some practice with one to one correspondence and numbers passed 14. So we opened up the doodle buddy app again and used the stamping feature. I let the student pick out which stamp he wanted me to use and then stamped a set of them on the screen. Then he counted them and wrote the number. It was good because I was able to work on these less fun skills in a fun way.

Then we worked a little on addition problems. I wasn't sure if I should work on the addition since we've not quite gotten numbers 11-20 yet. But that's what we're working on in class and I wanted him to have some strategies when we work on addition. I wrote a number sentence and then he used the stamps on Doodle Buddy as manipulatives to solve the problem.

I love having my iPad in my classroom and sometimes I bring in my personal iPad. I let the kids play on apps when we have time but I love finding ways to use the technology in a little more meaningful way. It can be a novel tool to help students with skills that can be a little boring.  I have had several people ask me about the apps that I'm using in the classroom. I hope to make a list soon of the apps and how I'm using them. I'm not sure what apps are available in droid or kindle apps but maybe some of them will be comparable. I would love to hear what kind of technology you have in your school and how you use it.
I'm linking up with Techie Tuesday over at the Technology Tailgate. Be sure to check the party out.