New Year's Reflections

As the hour approaches, I look back at the last 4 months of teaching.  Here's the "highlight reel"...
~Getting a classroom loft! I was so jealous of the one my co-teacher made herself(!) and then my
   wonderful principal said she would pay for one to be built!  Double yeah!!
~Meeting my awesome new class--definitely one of the brightest I have ever had.
~Discovering Pandora online to use for rest time, then promptly being asked by one of my darlings not
   to play that "old lady music" anymore.  :-)
~Having 100% participation for Parent/Teacher Conferences--a first in 14 years. 
~Earning several Blue Ribbon Awards and Encore Class Awards.  My class rocks!
Actually, now that I think about it, every day is a highlight because I work in an amazing school with an amazing team, a supportive administration and a class that I would love to have every day for the rest of my career!  Happy New Year to all my students, parents and colleagues and I am looking forward to an exciting 2011!

A Busy Holiday Week!

Whew!  I love this time of year because of all the special activities that the students get to do, but 2 1/2 days of activities has completely worn me out!!
Monday
Several times a year, we have a Kindergarten activity rotation.  Students go to each room and participate in different holiday activities.  This year for Christmas, our students played a Santa's Beard math game, made a Christmas tree glyph, played musical chairs and made a snowflake magnet.  It's always a highlight and the students enjoy getting to go to another teacher's room.  Here is a picture of my students playing the Santa's Beard game in my room.

Tuesday

It was PJ Day...ahhhh...who doesn't love coming to work in their pajamas?  Tuesday morning we had our annual school wide caroling. 

Everyone's ready to begin!

Our WONDERFUL K team--Mrs.Wilson, me, Mrs. Renfro and Mrs. Clouse

Wednesday

It was a half day, but a busy day.  Today was our classroom Christmas party.

First, a little bit of brunch. 

Then a craft...a super cute peppermint candle holder.

Finally, the "best part"--our gift exchange.

Finally, after passing the presents for what seemed like a lifetime, they finally got to open them!

Math Tubs

While visiting http://growingkinders.blogspot.com/ and http://mrsleeskinderkids.blogspot.com, I saw some WONDERFUL ideas for some Math tubs.  I recently attended a Math DI workshop and they discussed the idea of the growing trend of guided Math.  This is a great way to give my students additional practice on concepts we are covering or have covered in Math and give me time to do some reteaching or enrichment.  While I'm not sure I could do these tubs daily (this year!), my plans are to have a Fun Friday and use the tubs at that time.  Here's what I came up with and used this week while I was completing end of the quarter testing:

(Some of the ideas were found at the above listed blogs!)

Pattern blocks.  I found some patterns online for my students to copy.

Racing Bears.   This is a game from a previous Math series that I couldn't bear (no pun intended) to part with.  Students roll a die and move a bear counter up trying to capture a tile.  They love it and never get tired of it.

A gumdrop counting and color word game that was a companion activity to our gumdrop graphing we did earlier in the week.

Candy Cane patterning.  Students create a pattern using paper squares then copy and extend their patterns on the recording sheet.  I am going to revamp the recording sheet next year and ask students to tell me what kind of pattern (AB, ABB, AABB, etc.) they created.

Mitten number 0 to 10 sequencing.  It was actually an assessment for our grade card so I had the students take their supplies to anywhere in the room to work.  They cut out the mittens and glued them in order left to right on a sentence strip.

Feliz Navidad!

On Friday, the high school's Spanish III class came to our classroom to carol for us...in Spanish, of course!  They came complete with costumes and a singing burro!

Lost...and Found!

Another busy week!  I love this time of year and so do my students but there are so many awesome activities we can do and never seem to get them all worked in.  Next year, I will be ready!

We concluded our Gingerbread Man study this week.  On Wednesday, one of my co-teachers made a huge gingerbread cookie and offered to share it with our class.  But at lunchtime, he disappeared!  The students were so concerned, we made lost posters and posted them in the hall in hopes that someone had seen him.

We also discussed why we thought he always runs away.  I loved some of the reasons they came up with!  (I think a little text to self connection was going on :-))

When we came back from our Encore classes, we found our custodian, Mr. Garry, reading a note he found from the Gingerbread Man and the chase was on!  Our reader, Tyler, would read us each clue and then off to find the next one!

The students chased him all through the school and we finally cornered him in the office where Mrs. Renfro snuck up and grabbed him!

Run, run, as fast as you can...you can't catch me! I'm the Gingerbread Man!

What a week!  Monday and Tuesday we were busy practicing for our Christmas musical, "Forty Winks 'til Christmas".  It was amazing!

We then jumped head first into our Gingerbread Man theme.  First, our Gingerbread house that goes over my and Mrs. Renfro's rooms and greets our students and visitors each day.

Our Art Center project for the week

During the week, we read several different versions of the Gingerbread Man and made a comparison chart that focused on our state standard of identifying story elements characters, setting and problem/events.  I modeled mine after one I saw on http://babblingabby.blogspot.com.
We used the stories to practice retelling (see the Retelling TV post) and to discuss the idea of setting.  The students pretended they were the Gingerbread Man and wrote about where they would run.

 Some of our Draw A Rhyme gingerbread men

One of our phonemic awareness review activities that went in our literacy work stations--syllable counting with buttons.

 

As our Fun Friday activity, the students decorated gingerbread man cookies then we graphed where we took the first bite.

 

As with everything else, there was so much more we wanted to do with this theme.  So.....we're going to continue it another week!  YEAH!!!

Retelling TV

When I was a kid, I would occupy myself by making up a story and creating my own "tv show".  I would pull the long strip of paper through my own "tv".  For some reason, I thought about this the other day and thought it would be a fun way to practice our comprehension skill of retelling.

This week our theme was the Gingerbread Man.  After reading The Gingerbread Man by Jim Aylesworth, the students divided a long strip of paper into thirds and illustrated an event from the beginning, middle and end of the story.  They then colored their own paper TV, made slits in the sides and pulled their retelling strip through to create a "show".  It took a good chunk of our morning but it was worth it.  They LOVED it and even asked to do it again!!  At one point, I heard one of my students humming.  When I asked him what he was doing, he said he was making up the song they play at the beginning of the show.  Gotta love it!

Happy "Holly" Days!

It's been a crazy week this week and I almost feel the title should be "daze" and not days!  Here's a picture of  the door to our classroom.  From our class to yours....Happy Holidays!

Hibernation Day!

As a culminating activity for our bear theme, we had hibernation day today!  In the afternoon, we discussed hibernation and its meaning.  The students learned that bears will eat and store food for months to live off of during their hibernation period.  After eating our snack, we turned our tables into bear "dens", crawled inside with our blankets and read.  It was a very peaceful afternoon!

First lions....then tigers...now bears? OH MY!

We started our bear theme this week.  I haven't done this theme in ages and we are having a ball!

To begin, we made a schema (background knowledge) chart.  Not only does it help the students kick start their thinking, it also is a great way for me to do some pre-assessment and see where my kiddos are at and what they know (either right or wrong).  We try to do these charts every time we start a new unit.  I gave them a few minutes of think time, then asked each student to tell me something they knew.  Every student was responsible for giving an answer and if they said someone already told me what they were thinking, we kissed their brain then came up with something else. As you can see, they knew a lot!

Then we read Bear Feels Sick by Karma Wilson. I haven't ever read this book before and I LOVE IT!  It lends itself so well to several comprehension strategies and extention activities.

After reading, I led the students in a discussion about real bears and storybook bears and talked about their similarities and differences.  We created this Venn diagram to show our learning.

Several years ago I took a year's sabatical and worked for the state of Missouri as a STARR (Select Teachers As Regional Resources) teacher and gave in-services to school districts in my area.  As part of my training, I was lucky enough to work with the WONDERFUL John Antonetti--I highly recommend him.  He told us everyone 'does' Venns.  You have to make sure you are doing it right!  In order to maximize a Venn diagram's power, the differences need to be categorized.  For example, one of my students began with the idea that storybook bears talk.  I then asked how real bears communicate and recorded their thoughts.  By categorizing the differences, students are really truly comparing and contrasting!

Our comprehension strategy for this month is retelling.  We referenced Bear Feels Sick again and using a trifold piece of paper (one of my favorite ways to do a quick retell), the students drew something from the beginning, middle, and end of the story.  

One of the strategies that this book worked well for was making text to self connections.  Everyone's been sick at some point, right?  The students reflected on a time they were sick and how they felt.  They drew a picture in their journals of their connection.  Some added their own stories as well!

(It says "I puked"!  :) )

This is a game I made to review rhyming.  The original game was from a Mailbox magazine several years ago called "Ribbit, Splash!".  I've since then made several versions using seasonal pictures for the wands.  The wands are simply a craft stick with the picture on one side and a large button magnet on the other.  Students use the wand to turn over two pictures.  If they rhyme, they keep the cards.  If not, they turn them back over and pass on the wand.  After we played this in class, it went into one of our literacy workstations.