We love to pretend

This is how I have kicked off my holiday season at school for the last several years.  How many others enjoy wearing pajamas at school, while drinking hot chocolate, eating cookies and watching a great movie?  I love to watch my littles, who sometimes don't know what "pretend" really means.  They have to take care of their ticket until movie time so they won't be put off the train.  It never fails that at least one of them really think I will put them off the train, but can't figure out how.  Of course nobldy has ver been left behind.
What fun!!!

working independently

Does anyone remember these yellow manipulatives from an old reading series?  They are still useful.

I love watching the kids do these syllable counts.  Even the weakest students like a reason to clap.

Last, but not least, our annual candy corn graph.  I actually made this graph, but still can't upload and share anything yet.  I'll figure it out one day.

apple fun

Last week I actually correlated math and ELA into an apple unit.  We read "Up, Up, Up It's Apple Picking Time" in ELA and discussed it to pieces.  I don't think I've ever gone into as much depth as this.  Trying to get ready for Common Core for next year.  

In Math we read "Ten Apples up on Top".  As I read I stacked these little shot cups on a stool by me without saying much about them.  It got very quiet as I got to the end of the story.  Would the cups fall? 

By Friday we were ready for some fun.  I divided them up into groups and let them try to stack the cups on a group members head.  How many could we get up there?  They loved this.  One group actually got 5 up on top without holding them, but I could get to them for a pic before they fell.

We also tasted 3 varieties of apples.  A,green, Granny Smith, a yellow, Golden delicious and a red, Red delicious.  A lot to discuss there.  Finally we graphed our favorite.  Golden delicious won this time.

Labeling

I saw this on Pinterest and LOVED it.  My littles loved it, too.  We've been labeling for a while and finally a crazy Friday came.  Can you tell what they mostly wanted to label. I had 6 post-its on my eyes.  This was so much fun for everyone.  Thanx Pinterest <3

We've been i school almost 6 weeks and this is the only picture I've taken of my room.  It's my morning corner.  You can see the calendar, pocket chart for straws, days, months, behavior chart, book basket and morning message for the first few days of school.  Noise chart is above the message.   

Kindergarten Common Core

Louisiana has introduced teachers to the Common Core this year and as A Kindergarten teacher am VERY VERY  overwhelmed.  This book seems to have what I need to survive the insanity.  

Click below to learn more about this great resource!

Kindergarten Common Core

A visit to Target

The town I live in doesn't have a Target : (  So when I go and find this much good stuff I get really excited.  It doesn't take much.  They had lots of different colored baskets and bins in the $ spot.  I'm not sure what I'll do with them yet.  I picked up few more of the small dry erase boards since my littles love using them.  The dry erase pockets will be great.  Now I won't have to laminate so many sheets.  Can't wait to go back.

Alphabet Song

This year I have discovered Have Fun Teaching and my kinders love it!! We have to play at least one Alphabet Song everyday!!
Our favorite is :
Check out their giveaway and enjoy them as much as we do.

word study

We do alot of activities with words and letters in as many ways as I can come up with.  Thanx to blogging, I have a whole new world of resources now.

This is a simple thing I've done for years.  Words to go with whatever we are talking about are written and matched with letter tiles.

Stamping and writing are simple, easy and fun.

A site that correlates with our reading series, "elderweb" created these to go with our popcorn words.  They have to create, glue, write and draw using words we have already learned. 

We are just now getting the hang of nonsense words.  Games like thses help alot.

When I found the Scrabble Jr. Cheez-its I had to try this.  They had a blast.

What fun things do you do to help your little ones learn to use their letters and words?

100 days "tireder"

We celebrated our 100th day today and I am worn out.  we started out sharing what we would do with $100.  We made headbands with ten strips of ten stickers, that turned out so cute.  We found 100 pre-numbered stickers all around the room and matched them to the 100's chart.  (I think I posted this last year, but forgot a pic this year)

We strung 100 Froot Loops in sets of 10 for an edible necklace.  

I see I put my pics in backwards order.  That's how tired I am, but I really wanted to post.  I am exhausted, but the kids had a BLAST!!!  For me that's all that mattered.

I did try to get a shot of them in their headbands, but I couldn't block out faces so I gave up.

Only 80 more to go!!!

inside recess

Winter time in Louisiana can be pretty messy.  Going outside would mean either tracking mud in or being too cold to play.  We're not used to the cold temps. So.....

i drag out our Rainy Day Recess toys .

It's a treat because it's things they don't usually get anywhere.  I get them from retiring teachers, thrift store, yard sales .... They're all manipulative so it keeps them busy in new ways.  they have to think of different things to do with them.  Blocks are just self explanatory.

I spread them all around the room and nobody has a problem with rules of how many people can be there and sharing is seldom a problem.  they know if they don't play "nice" I may not take them out the next day and that means a boring recess of just coloring or nothingness.  I don't know what that is because we've never had to do it.

And of course, Dr. Jean and Jack Hartman, along with any other cd's or dvd's that involve lots of moving.  We always end with Tooty Ta.  They never get tired of it since this isn't an everyday occurance.