An Apple a Day...

First - I want to apologize to my parents who actually take a look at my blog.  I did take pictures last week, but it is hard to post them when I leave my camera at school!  :/  Sorry!  I will take twice as many this week and post a lot of pics next weekend to make up for it.

Well, maybe I need to eat an apple a day b/c I had to go to the doctor today!  (This sounds like a Dr. Seuss book in the making, huh?)  I'm fine - got a super strong antibiotic to fight off the junk and have an extra day off tomorrow to rest.  Anyway...I decided to make an apple-themed page since one of our stories in Unit 1 is Picnic at Apple Park.  My kids have been "eyeballing" the magnifying glasses sitting on my desk all last week.  Every time they would go by I would catch them looking desperately wanting to snatch them up and then the question would come from more than one of them at the same time, "What are those for?"  My answer was always, "I don't know...it's a surprise...you'll have to wait and see."  Oh, the grins and giggles!  Well, I am going to put them at the word work station this week.  I am certain there will be more grins and giggles - lots of them!!!  I use the Treasures reading series so these pages deal with letters (Mm and Aa), HFWs (I, can, we, the) and color words (red, blue, yellow, green) b/c those are the ones we have covered so far.

 

The first page is a writing page.  The second is a stamping page.

If you would like a copy of these two pages - CLICK HERE!  :)

 Enjoy...and as always...please leave a comment if you grab the freebie.

Run, run, as fast as you can...

Well, I we have survived the second full week of school.  My class is already settling in nicely.  Most of our kids go to half-day preschool before coming to Kindergarten.  Preschool kids go home right after they eat lunch.  So...for the first week or so of school the kids always expect to go home when we return from lunch.  They are so sad when they figure out that we have to stay for 3.5 more hours!  This is a rude awakening to some of them.  Because it is such a LONG day for me them, I always plan the first three weeks to introduce new things daily to keep them excited.  I always save the most exciting "thing" for right after lunch b/c we always need that little "boost" to get through until we go to special class.  I am SO thankful for a principal who understands that we must have special class in the afternoon.  That is such a small thing that makes such a big difference!

Our school using the Treasures Reading Series.  This week's Read Aloud Anthology was "The Gingerbread Boy".  This is one of the kids' favorites of the whole year.  They just love hearing this story and participating when we get to the "Run, run...as fast as you can...you can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!"  They nearly squeal in anticipation each time.  Even though I do my big Gingerbread Unit right before Christmas, I do pull out a few activities for the kiddos after we read this story.

 Activity 1 - First, color your gingerbread man exactly how you would like it.

Next, cut out all the pieces and glue them together on a piece of construction paper.

Finally, glue the poem to the bottom of the paper.

To grab a free copy of my poem - CLICK HERE!
*Sorry I didn't get a picture of the final products posted out in the hallway.

Activity 2 - Here the students are playing Cookie Connect Three!

This activity came from a great packet on TpT by Deedee Wills.

You roll the dice, count the spots, trace that # somewhere on the page.

Then, when you get three in a row, up or down, you circle the group.

The kids absolutely loved this game.  I know that it was the highlighter that really did it! 

Activity 3 - This was a page called Ginger's Walk where the kids traced the letters.
One page had uppercase letters.  The other had lowercase letters.

I also had a 3rd page of counting gingerbread men and writing the #.

These pages came from Pocketful of Centers.  CLICK HERE to see unit.

Pam, from PofC, makes the greatest creations.  :)

Another group of boys - one working on upper and one working on lowercase letters.

Activity 4 - Oh, my!  Yes, I did it - I pulled out the dotters on Day 11!

The kids went bananas over this activity.

You would have thought I had a million $s over at that station.

Kids would roll the cube, identify the letter, and dot it on their page.

Who knew this could be SO much fun...and educational...all at the same time. 

Some of my little ones still need lots of practice writing the alphabet.

They also need to see the alphabet in order without singing it aloud.

This is an oldie but goodie!  I don't know what I did before Write-n-Wipes!

Oh...the power of a dry erase marker and a tissue!  HA HA

I am looking forward to Week 3 with my class.  This is our last week of Start Smart.

SS lessons are shorter giving time to teach routines and procedures. 

When we return after Labor Day, we will kick it into full gear.

Hope everyone is having a great start of the school year.

Leaving you with a FREEBIE - just a little something I made for my class.

We are going to use this to review the Gingerbread Man.

I am also going to use this to introduce magnifying glasses!

Enjoy - please leave a comment and let me know what you think.  :)

Back to School FREEBIE

Well, I survived the first full week of school...BARELY!  It is amazing how tired a person can feel after just one week back in the routine of things.  I slept late this morning and even took a nap late this afternoon!  I have 24 kids in my class.  Thank goodness they are 24 great kids because that is a whole lot of little people for just one adult to entertain teach all day - especially at the beginning of the year when they do not know routines and procedures.  Whew - tired just thinking about it.  We did accomplish a lot this week.  We learned several how to work with several different activities.  I was very proud that by Friday we knew how to rotate through our four areas with very little confusion.  This might be a record folks!  Here are some of the things we worked on this week in stations.

 

Here the kids are learning to work with Play-Doh.  I have three main rules when working with Play-Doh.  #1 - DO NOT MIX THE COLORS.  #2 - Only roll out snakes (at the beginning) to form letters.  We are not making snowmen or other really cool things right now.  Once they got started they were perfectly fine making only snakes.  #3 - Put every tiny bit of your color back in the container when finished and SNAP the top on tightly.

OK - what is it about a dry erase marker that makes kids so happy?  I really do not understand it, but every time I hand them out, it is pure joy!  :)  We learned how to stay ON the gray rug (notice how close to the edge that this little guy got - ha ha, but he was ON the rug).  We learned how to snap the lid on the end so it doesn't run roll away and how to drive like a granny or grandpa with the marker and stay on the road (lines) when tracing.  I love what a great job the kids did when tracing in these Write-n-Wipe sleeves.

We also learned how to look at the color board if we don't know our color words yet.  The kids loved coloring the Chester Colors Book that I got from Jayme Pierce at kinderbabies.blogspot.com.  Check it out because it was FREE and has LOADS of activities.

 We learned how to recognize a title (usually on top) and how to read from left to right.  I think we all know that using a pointer made this a very fun activity!  Kids learned how to pass the pointer (without whacking someone) and how to point to the word they were reading.  Students loved reading about Chester.

We also learned where the Pocket Chart Station was located and how to maintain it.  Kids loved counting Chester and matching the picture with the number.  I was surprised how many kids could already count and knew their #s up to 10.  I have to say that I am totally impressed with this BIG group b/c not one time did I find my cards scattered on the floor (even though they did leave a book on the floor - ha).  The kids did a wonderful job keeping this area clean and orderly.  (This activity also came from Jayme Pierce.)

This was a favorite - color words for colored Chesters!  

It is funny to see a purple raccoon!  Just sayin'.  :)

 (Another activity from Jayme Pierce)

 

The students were also introduced to the Computer Station where they learned to log in to Reading Eggs.  If your district doesn't purchase this for your kids, you are missing out.  The kids love it, and it is a wonderful literacy station with a variety of fun, educational literacy activities.  We have used this program for the past three years and it is a favorite of the kids.

 

As you can see above, I put out too many cards to start with in this pocket chart.  The kids were confused and had cards here, there, and everywhere - seriously, upside-down and backwards!  I didn't really mind b/c they stayed in their station area and that was one of the main things I was trying to teach at the time.  I did take out the cards and only put five back in - one for each row and that made it much simpler.  (Again - Jayme Pierce activity)

 

Here is one  of my little sweeties working on a "red" page which was our color-of-the-week for the first week.  We were all about red this week!  This is a page where the kids write the word three times, find and color the word in the boxes, and finally find and circle the word in the sentences at the bottom.   All in all we had a wonderful first week of school!  I love how excited my kids are and how receptive they are about every little thing. 

 I see great things happening with this bunch!

 
Many people have asked me how I organize and store my Treasures Reading materials.

I use these wide-three-drawer storage units from Wal-Mart.  I have four of them, but the other one is on the other end of my counter by my reading table b/c it is the one that I am currently using.  I have EVERYTHING for the unit in the labeled drawer.  This includes student activity books, sentences strips, cards, games, activities, teacher's manual - EVERYTHING fits in this drawer.  I can't tell you how much time this little system has saved me.  I LOVE it and can't imagine using anything different.  If you use Treasures and would like a copy of my drawer labels, please CLICK HERE.

I needed something else to use when kids finish up b/c we all have those little speedsters in our room!  This activity had to be something that everyone could do.  So I made this little packet of pages for every letter of the alphabet.  I made a D'Nealian set for those of us that use D'Nealian handwriting, and I also included a set of ABC Print (Zaner-Bloser) b/c I hate when I see something I want to use and it doesn't come in the style I need. 

 If you would like a copy of my creation - CLICK HERE.  

If you pick up my freebie or have any comments on stations, organization, or just have a back-to-school tip -

 please leave a comment!   :)

Classroom Ring Masters!

Mrs. Lirette over at Mrs. Lirette's Learning Detectives is giving away a great package to help your students learn sight words.  Please check out her giveaway by CLICKING HERE.  Your students will be RING LEADERS of sight words in no time if you win this packet.  If you don't win, you can still pick up this great set for a great combo price by visiting her TpT store.  Good luck!

New Bloggers!

I have received my 2nd Award!  All this blogging is new to me, but it is nice to have new followers.  I was happy when I reached 50, but I am looking forward to getting to the 100 mark.  This time it is the Liebster Award! 

 

Thanks so much, Crystal from Ms. Jones' Junction.  I'm so glad you found my blog and introduced me to yours.  :)

This award is named for the German word "Liebster," which translates to "beloved" or "favourite", and is given to a "new, up and coming blogger."

Here are the rules:
1.  Link back to the person who gave it to you. Post the award to your blog.

2.  Give the award to at least 5 bloggers with less than 200 followers
3.  Leave a comment on the 5 blogs to let them know that they have been offered this award.

 
I am giving the award to:

Miss A's Kindergarten

What I Learned in Kindergarten 

Kindergarten Schmindergarten

Lisa's Kinderland

Hopping Into Kindergarten

I can't believe that I only have ONE more week of summer vacation before going back to school.  WHERE DID THE SUMMER GO?  WOW!  Check out these new blogs.

 

 

Birthday Bags

Today's project was BIRTHDAY BAGS!  I plan to hang a handled birthday bag for each month across the top of my bulletin board using Command Hooks.  On each child's birthday, I give the birthday boy/girl a birthday crown to wear, a sparkly birthday pencil with a fun eraser, a birthday sticker, a birthday card, and a present (toys from the dollar section of Target or Dollar Tree - think stickers, toy cars, lip gloss, etc.) that he/she chooses out of my birthday box (which is a box wrapped like a giant gift).  This year I plan to have a gallon size Ziploc bag that already has the crown, pencil, sticker, and card for each child already in the monthly birthday bag hanging up ready to go so that I am not frantically getting those things together the day before (or of) the child's big day.  :)  I made monthly labels to put on my jungle-themed bags that I found at Hobby Lobby.  (I LOVE that place!)  Here is a pic of the bags.  I was pleased with the way they turned out! 

 

Here is what the finished product looks like!  :)

If you would like a copy of the monthly labels for the bags -CLICK HERE.

As always - if you pick up a copy, please leave a comment.

Teacher Tool Box and Math Stations

Well, I broke down and made myself one of those super cute organizers that everyone has been blogging about.  I have to say it was SUPER EASY and turned out SUPER CUTE.  Obviously, my room is done in a Jungle theme so that is how I made my box - giraffe and vines.  The only color box that Lowe's had was dark blue so I would really like to paint my box.  Hmmm...part 2 of teacher tool box project?  Have any of you all painted these plastic toolboxes or does anyone know the best type of paint to use to paint these?   

My next project is fixing up my new bins for Math Stations.  I would love to know what you all do for math.  Do you have a series that you use?  Do you not have a series and totally rely on your own math activities?  Do you use a series and then do stations on the side?  So many options!  My district uses Harcourt Math (orange workbook with a big elephant on front).  I am not crazy about the series, but it isn't horrible either.  I think I would classify it "middle of the road".  I usually teach math as a whole group lesson at the SMART Board and then call small groups to my teaching table just like I do in reading to do the Math Workbook page from the series.  While I have these small groups, my other groups do themed math activities at stations or go to the computer.  My VERY favorite activities come from the very talented Julie Lee.  I just love her stuff, and so do my students.  :)  So...what do you all do for math time?  I would LOVE to know.