Busy and Almost Dizzy

Have you been crazy, busy this week? I have so much going on in my classroom. We are heading towards report cards and conferences and I really struggle with comments that don't sting but need to be addressed. I think I have learned over the years how to take the "bite" out of anything but still getting my point across. Even so, it takes me hours to do this. We were off for Thanksgiving but gave out our conference slips just before leaving. Yikes... no one will even remember there is a conference so I came up with this: This is just a "friendly" reminder so I don't sit around waiting. Will it work? I will let you know.

I tried to use other hw that some of the very best bloggers gave me. So much of it was amazing quality and finally it gave me the confidence to create my own. Why? We work at a very different pace because our kids are ELL's. We need to build their academic language along with the Common Core. I also use Open Court with a very specific phonemic awareness framework. I don't give a ton of hw either. I want the kids to get a break and spend time with their family.

So here are some of the things I created for this unit and they are all aligned carefully to the Common Core.

I always post the Big Idea and Essential Questions because you want to refer to these and make your students aware of them. Ask them, "Did we answer this question?" "What do we know now?" "Has this changed our thinking?" 

This is a great visual to keep near your calendar. It can be done quickly and easily by the "meteorologist of the day." Clothespins are used to mark the type of weather and the temperature. The graphics really help support your student's understandings.

Here are 2 little books I made to reinforce the sight words we are working on right now. Our students confuse he and she frequently and I am hoping this will help them practice this language. I love trimming books with washi tape just to jazz them up a little. This is a version of paper dolls for weather! Okay don't judge.

I needed to add some math activities to this and I love using these weather frames for practicing counting and writing numbers.I also made umbrella cards with raindrops to 50. We need to practice these for sure!

I like to have my students practice working in collaborative groups and this is an activity for that purpose. I will make a recording sheet for them to use and share with the class. Our students need lots of opportunities to present in front of the class.

That's it for today. I have to finish this weather packet but I got a lot of activities made over this break in spite of having a wonderful Thanksgiving with my family and shopping more than I should have.

Together We Are Better

Our district has a Thanksgiving Unit of Study that kindergarten teachers implement during this time of year. It is the story of the Pilgrims and Wampanoag working together to reach common goals. We open up the unit with collaborative activities in groups of four but I will talk about that in another post. Here is the pictorial I made to help the children retell the story. If you are not familiar with this GLAD strategy I recommend learning more about it. It is great for ELL's. Each title and picture has velcro so that I can hand out the pieces and make the learning more interactive!
The Mayflower is on a stick so a student can show the journey the pilgrims took. All of this helps to build oral language.

To help support this unit I made a few extra activities I thought my students might really enjoy. There is a lot of new content vocabulary they need to know so I made a separate set of cards just for this unit. We can refer to it as we travel through the unit and it will help support their writing. I attached all the cards and it is a mobile that can be moved around the classroom. What do you think?

We are continuing to work on syllables and I thought they would love to do this in a pocket chart as drum beats. I better look for those musical instruments that I packed away. I thought it would be fun to stay with the Native American theme here.

Here is another version of our pocket chart sight word game but this time I am hiding a wetu behind one of the Wampanoags. I better think of a good chant for this before tomorrow!

This is just a simple math game 0-10 showing a variety of ways to express a number. I thought it would be fun to do this on the sails of the Mayflower and add Pilgrims and Wampanoags to the pictures. 

There is so much more I could add but I have too much to teach in just five days so I think I better stick to just these few but I also have a packet that I use during this time with great little emergent readers: I made this last year but I love many of these ideas

Both of these are available in my store if you might need a little extra for your math and literacy stations. Click on each picture to find them. What Thanksgiving activities do you love to do? 

Have a great week of learning!

Adding Just A Little Pumpkin Spice to your math and literacy stations...

I hope I am not too late to the Pumpkin Party. I just had a Pumpkin Activity Day and made about a "zillion" pumpkin centers to review all the concepts we have been working on in our classroom. We do not celebrate Halloween and yes I want all students to be able to attend school, regardless of their religious beliefs. Okay, now that we have that out of the way I want to share some of the fun we had...

For those students who still need letter naming practice this is an activity the children greet with great eenthusiasm They have a recording sheet and work with a partner rolling the soft  die and coloring in the number. I can put letters they are struggling with in these clear pockets and differentiate, based on individual needs

This is a popular, non competitive game in my classroom and provides another means for reviewing sight words that we have introduced. I had a chant that went with this and children love getting a turn and picking a card they can be successful with. A picture of pumpkin seeds are hiding behind a word. If a child pulls the right card and can identify the word, they become the winner and the game begins again. I use this whole group but the children love doing this during workshop time! Activities can be so simple.

My students loved doing these ten frames and we had great "math talk" about how you don't always need to count each candy corn. We learned if the frame is filled then we know there are 10, one row means there are 5, etc. Students who are still struggling used counters and placed them on top of these images and counted before finding the numerical match. The loved filling in the response sheet that went with this on the following day.

Who doesn't like a great game of BINGO? When the parent volunteer brought out candy corn to mark the answers I thought the students were going to lose their minds from enthusiasm! It was too cute. However, I told them they would be able to take 5 pieces home in a baggie and get permission from Mom and Dad. Yup, let them decide if they can eat them. 

This was the most popular activity of the day. A parent ran this center and did such a great job. All the supplies need to be well organized and this year I got smart and made large posters for them to follow. They also had a matching little book to take home to retell the story and explain the color of each bead. This was a  a huge hit. The moms really did a great job monitoring this station.

This is an outdoor activity but well worth the time. Many of our students have never seen the inside of a pumpkin and felt how slimy it is. They got a chance to see the strands close up and touch the pulp and seeds. They helped me add the soil and water and now we are going to see if anything magical happens! The following morning a child swore he saw a sprout coming up and I loved his conviction.

We were not ending the day without sharing a couple of pumpkin pies and deciding if we liked it or not. We even put a little whipped cream on top. All our parents who came to help shared this treat and helped make this day so special. 

These are just a few highlights from the day. We made headbands and did some fabulous pumpkin investigations. The children were shocked that pumpkins float in water and it was so much fun to drop a huge one in a large tub of water.

It was a great day of learning and the children took all their special projects home in a folder. We even squeezed in a simple art project and tasted pumpkin seeds. 

Do you have use for these materials? If you do you can purchase all 159 pages in my TpT store. Click right here to get there.

Now I better start working on assessments for report cards.

Happy Sunday!

Cutting Paper Not Hair Or Clothing!

Do you have those students in your classroom that I refer to as "scissor happy"? I do. They love to cut anything in sight and I need to pay attention or disaster is right around the corner. When my students get tired of cutting out pictures, they start making confetti. That means they are not on the lines I have for them to follow and they just want to get the project over with! Who is on my page? So when I decided to make them a Letters and Sounds book I really tried to keep it simple but effective. Here is what I can up with:

 This is quick and easy but I think it will still be effective. We have been using Open Court for about 12 years and I am amazed that this never dawned on me before. I want to keep this in the classroom as a resource that kids can use when writing or doing other related activities. That is what Common Core is suggesting we do and it makes sense to me!

When we are working on letters and sounds I can pick and choose which pages I want to do. I am running these off 2 at a time and will save so much paper this way. I think this might be more fun for a little kinder person that writing and gluing a whole page. I will let you know if it is effective or not.

A Passion for Pumpkins

Our school does not celebrate Halloween. We are a fundamental school that has many students who do not celebrate this holiday. So I always need to come up with activities that are still lots of fun challenge them academically, but no witches and goblins can come into our rooms. I also want them to reflect the Common Core. That can be a tall order at this time of the year! 

I worked on a variety of activities today and have not moved away from my computer. I really had to think about what to use to build letter naming fluency and would not be "more of the same thing" for my struggling readers. Yup, you read that right. We are already talking about progress monitoring this little ones but that is a whole, other post. 

Students just roll the cube with a partner (collaborative model) and fill in this little recording sheet after telling their partner the name of the letter. I am giving them crayons that are fall colors to spice it up and make it more fun. I can have them focus on the letters they need to work on since I am the boss of the cards! Easy and fun.

If you have been following my blog you know all about this game. Now I made it with a pumpkin graphic. These are the words I want my kids to know fluently so I have repeated them several times. One card has pumpkin seeds hidden behind it and when the student pulls the card and finds this they win this round. Here is what we like to chant once a student has been picked... "Pumpkin, pumpkin on a vine, we love your seeds. They taste so fine."

This is a very simple ten frame activity that I am introducing during guided math. I want students to understand that when a 10 frame is filled you don't even need need to count the candy! For students with a limited understanding of this I will give them easier cards and have them put counters right on top of the candy corn to make these concepts more concrete.

Here is a simple cut and paste activity that I will provide for students who are ready for more abstract learning. I will use it for my top students. It might make a great homework activity, once students clearly understand these concepts. 

Students need lots of practice counting and this is just another activity using pumpkins and seeds.

I'm going to make a recording sheet that allows students to draw their own seeds. They will love doing that. I like the idea of showing 10 on one pumpkin and putting more seeds on another to count all the seeds together. Here is where subitizing work will really pay off. Your higher students will not always need to count each and every seed!

I love this little activity the best! What do you think?

My students have been having a blast will all the fishing games I have mad but seriously you don't fish for a pumpkin! So I had this big, clear spoon in my kitchen that I glued a magnet to. I covered the inside with a pumpkin. So students will play with a partner and dig for pumpkins. Each card has a magnet on the back.Once they identify the letter, the partner will place them on the vine with lowercase letters on the bottom and uppercase letters on top. I hope my little farmers like this activity. 

These gorgeous graphics all belong to Whimsy Workshop. I recommend purchasing them if you want to make some of your own centers. Aren't they adorable? Please check out her products. I love all of them! Her blog is right here.

Going Fishing... Gonna Catch A Freebie

My students need to learn to identify letters, sounds, numbers, and even colors. Flash cards do not keep them engaged but going fishing holds their attention for a long period of time. I introduce and model this for several days with the entire group and eventually will put it in my literacy and math stations for additional practice. GO FISH!

Remember when we use to take a dowel rod and add a piece of string with a magnet? Okay this is not one of your memories but older teachers are on board with me. Lakeshore has these fishing poles which can be used for a bazillion activities in your classroom. If you are not able to create your own cards stick with me and I will help you make this happen.

Walmart carries self adhesive magnetic buttons that make this activity so simple to create. I created the cards and added the Open Court letter-sound cards right on top. Easy and effective. Naturally I
laminated the cards before adding the magnetic buttons.

Here are what the cards look like before cutting them apart. My head is spinning with other cards I can make. What would you want? I was even thinking of making cards with student names and pictures since they still point to each other and can't always tell me each other's name.

Once I have modeled this enough (not sure how long that will take) I am releasing it to be used in a literacy station with partners working together. Each child will fish for a card, say the sound of the card and the name of the letter. This is then colored in on a chart! This will keep them actively engaged and accountable.

We had so much fun playing this game as a class and we chanted "Going fishing... we're going to catch a fish" which made it even more fun. The chant was what you would use for going on a bear hunt....
I have a free download for these cards on my Facebook page if you are interested. Just "like" my page at the top and hit the fan freebie button on the left side and the file will open up. If this scares you to death grab a cute, young teacher and she will have no problem getting this for you. That's why I love young teachers. Click on this Like button to get to my Kindergarten Crayons FB page and leave a comment just because you are so wonderful!

What other cards would make you so happy? Remember to keep it simple. They just started school!

Homework Folders Make Me A Little Crazy

So now we are implementing the Common Core and I have to face the fact that my homework folder no longer "cuts it" since it does not reflect the standards I am now using. Oh dear! I have to reformat them AGAIN! Here we go... What do I want to include on these? I finally decided to change a few things but the basic stuff remains the same! First, I buy a set of legal size folders in bright colors (okay it was $30). They look like this:

Now I had to decide what matters the most on these folders because space is limited. First I put my name on the top on a long strip so if a student drops it (not uncommon) someone will return it to me!

I also put my start and end time since parents ask this throughout the year. My hw theme was Pete which should not surprise a soul! Lovin' it! On the left are my sight words, color coded by trimester. and the OCR letter/sound cards are on the right. Got it? On the bottom I write their name with proper formation as a model for when they are working at home. Good idea, right?
Here is the back of the folder and notice that a few things have changed. Our kids need to know 2D and 3D shapes so I have them here, labeled. They also need to be able to count to 100 and count by 10's so I included that. I want them to know their colors and how to read them so they can do many of the stations I have created and these are important words to anchor them when working independently. The sticker is to remind parents to send in a note when their child is absent since this becomes a huge issue at my school.

Finally when all the pieces are cut out and glued on the folder with a label at the top (student name) I am ready to laminate the folder. I open up the folder and slide the entire thing through the laminator, cut it out, staple each side and cover it with colored duct tape. Generally these last an entire year but they are a huge amount of work! I also make extra ones to have on hand.

Do you have an easier system that you use. I like the legal size because I make many things on 81/2 by 14" paper and want it to fit in here. I also have them take home a literacy bag with their little books. I would love new ideas for this. What do you put on your folder? Do you have a better system?

I Need to Come Up for Air

Those first few weeks of school can kill those who lack stamina and enthusiasm. As I look around the room I am just beginning to appreciate all the hard work my partner and I have put into our "Pete" environment. The entire room has been done in blue, red, yellow and a hit of green. It is starting to shape up. Let me know what you think...

Here are the cards for my October calendar because I am trying to stay ahead of the curve. I love how they turned out. Each month I will make the cards and add more components to this as I get a chance.

It is definitely improving and I will have more pictures as I get a chance to take some.

Our students are learning about colors and we had so much fun coloring in our teacher avatars so parents could remember our names. This was a big hit with our students! 

I created retelling cards that went with the first Pete the Cat story and the children did well with this activity. The next day we worked on prediction and talked about Pete walking through a big pile of grapes, peas, oranges, and even pudding. I asked them to "predict" what color his shoes would turn. 

This was fun and challenged our English language learners. Then during small group instruction the children had to color in Pete's shoes, reading the color words. They are really not ready for this so I put a tiny clue next to each color word. It was a win-win situation and helped to build their confidence. They must believe in themselves!

I finally finished my sight word circles and they are all hanging in my Reading Corner within the reach of the children. It will encourage them to practice these with a partner. I also added the color words. I can move these around the room easily when I need to refer to them.

Right now I am building my PowerPoint for Back to School and working on the design for my homework folder... no relaxing for me! What touches are you adding to your room to make it special? Please share.