The busiest week of October

The last week of October was packed with activities, fun days, special moments, and a little bit of craziness. Tuesday started us out with letter P day which I mentioned in a previous post. Then Wednesday we had our kindergarten fall festival! We started our festival fun before anyone got to the multipurpose room. First we did a little photo booth activity the kids thought that this was one of the funniest things and I am glad they got a chance to just be silly kids.

Fall Festival Officially Begins

THANK YOU to all the parents who came to help out that day and to the parents that sent me the pictures you took. During the fall festival we made Popsicle stick scarecrows! They came out very cute and they stuck together pretty well with glue sticks! (This surprised me.) Another activity we did was paint mini pumpkins. Each kid got to pick out their own pumpkin and then they painted it.

Students did a grab and count activity on a ten frame with pumpkin seeds. The kids did AMAZING at this! No one ate the seeds, ate glue, or hid seeds in their pockets (this happened in previous years) it was actually a very smooth activity. Then we had the relay! This was one of my favorite activities this year. The kids had to balance a small white pumpkin on their head as they walked from one large pumpkin to another. Then they had to hand off the pumpkin to the next person in line. It was fun for all to see the kids try to balance a pumpkin on their heads! We ended the festival with a story on the projector about apples. Afterwards all the kids got to taste some apple cider, yum!

Grandparents Day

Thursday was the craziest day of the week it was grandparents day, Halloween, storybook character day, and rock star day! There was so much going on it was almost too much! To begin the day we spent some time with our grandparents. We worked with them to make our own pumpkins that were special and unique just like us!

For this day of fun we got to dress up as a storybook character or a rock star. Check out some of the kids costumes! They were very creative.

After making our pumpkins we went outside to recess. Which was a blast! Kids played soccer with some of the grandparents, they tried on my ears from my costume and just enjoyed themselves. 

I was dressed as Pete the Cat for the day. I wore my pink shoes and carried a sign that said 'I love my 

Pink shoes'. The cutest thing was when one kid asked me what I stepped in that turned my shoes pink! Too cute! As a class we decided I must have stepped in pink lemonade. In the picture you can see it but I did have a little blue tail. Also Mrs. Williams dressed as Pete the Cat too but from the book Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons. 

In the afternoon before math we made our own Pete the Cats! The kids thought it was fun to pick out their own shoes and then to figure out what their Pete stepped in to turn his shoes the color of their choice. 

Overall it was one crazy busy week! Enjoy the photos and keep your eyes open for another post coming soon! There is just so much going on! I will also try to post these pictures to our password protected class photo site. I will let you know on Facebook when I am finished uploading them. 

Tootles! 

October went out with a bang!

We got new white boards! Last week Mrs. Autman the reading coach at Wilbur Elementary delivered to our classroom 20 new white erase boards! The kids were so excited that they began writing right away!

Pumpkins Pumpkins Pumpkins

Two weeks ago our weekly theme was about pumpkins. During this week we read the books Pumpkin Pumpkin, Life Cycle of a Pumpkin, and Pumpkin Town. We also watched a cool You Tube video on how to grow the kind of pumpkins that we eat.

We also tried weighing our class pumpkin. We first took turns picking it up and we compared the weight to a kid, a brick, a chair, a table, an apple, and other materials. Next we sorted pictures by things that weighed more and things that weighed less. 

That week we got to cut open a pumpkin to see its 'guts'. The kids were sooo excited about this. They got to scoop out the pulp and seeds. Then they separated the pulp from the seeds. Once they finished we put our seeds in the sun to dry.

Once the seeds were dry we made our own mini pumpkins. Each student then labeled the parts of the pumpkin that we talked about.

JDRF Walk

Last week we also had the JDRF walk Tuesday before our special time. The kids walked outside for a while then were brought back inside once they completed their laps. 

Anti-Bullying Assembly

A couple of Mondays ago we had an assembly on bullying. The speaker was GREAT! He really got on the kids level, involved them and made it fun. You may have seen them wearing special stickers that day when they had come home.

Here is an a video of our presenting doing the same presentation we saw but in Washington DC!

Finally we had a new Zero the Hero!!! Welcome the hero for the 40th day of school! Even though this happened 8days ago I still wanted to share the cute photo!

These past couple of weeks have gone by in a blur! It is hard to believe that we are already in November. Keep your eyes posted later this week because I will be posting about the fall festival, letter P day, grandparents day, and storybook character day. If you want to see what we have been up to in math head over to Mrs. Williams website at The Kinder Kids Website .

First week of October

We have had a busy FUN week! I added some things to our class calendar and made a change so take note! Tuesday, October 29th will be our Letter P Day (P is for Party). On this day students can come to school in their pajamas. Wednesday, October 30th will now be the kindergarten Fall Festival. It will be at 1:40-2:40, if you can attend and volunteer please let me know! Last year we did pumpkin activities, counted pumpkin seeds, painted pumpkins and had a sack race. 

This past week was fire prevention week and on Monday we had Mr. Bill come from the Delaware Fire Company to talk to the kids about fire safety. Each kid got to sit in a fire truck and see how it works. 

Once we got a tour of the fire truck Mr. Bill told us about when to call 911 and we talked about what an emergency is. Then Mr. Bill showed us a fire alarm and actually set it off! All the kids were surprised at that! Finally Mr. Bill put on his fire suit and told us were the good breathable air is during a fire and where the bad air was. The kids were a little scared of Mr. Bill in his suit at first but quickly were able to settle down.

After Mr. Bill was done he gave us our own plastic fire hats and a bag full of materials. It was a fun activity and all the kids learned a lot!

On Wednesday this week we did a science experiment! We combined orange paint, glue, and shaving cream to make a puffy foam paint! Then we painted paper plates that we could turn into pumpkins!

On Tursday we turned our orange paper plates into pumpkins and put a picture of ourselves inside the pumpkins! Right now they are decorating our classroom door and are too cute!

We also learned two new letters this week and three new words! This week we learned the words in, to, and here. That means that so far this year we have learned the words: a, I, the, of, and, in, to, and here. The letters we learned this week were letter H and letter J. For letter H we made H hotdogs and for J we made J jellyfish! (I will post the J jellyfish pictures next week)

For math we had Zero the Hero come for the 30th day of school!! 

As I said it has been one busy week! The kids were great through all the changes and activities and they learned a lot.

The SLANT box

This past month I was lucky enough to participate in a kind of teacher exchange program. For this program you get linked up with another teacher somewhere in the country and you send each other a box of themed 'goodies'. I have found that this program has allowed me to meet people that have the same passion for teaching that I do. They care for children and their future, it is a way to make connections, share ideas, and become a sort of community. These exchange boxes were created by Jameson over at Lessons With Coffee. She named this cute program SLANT box (Sending Love Across the Nation to Teachers). 

I am excited to write this because I got my first SLANT box last Thursday!!!! It came cutely packaged with pink polka dot tape! Thursday was the perfect day to get it, especially since we had P.I.E. night at school that evening. To come home to a surprise gift box.....let's just say I felt like a kid at Christmas!! I could barely wait to open it. Thank you to my partner Sarah over at Miss Whites Classroom!!!!!

Inside my box was the cutest note card! Sarah out did her self with this box, I kind of feel spoiled! There were notecards, post-its, pens, dry erase markers, labels, tissues, hand sanitizer, Sharpies, CANDY, and a mini first aid kit. Who ever remembers to bring band-aids outside to recess? I always have to run inside to grab some, now I will always be prepared! AWESOME! 

The candy/snacks will be perfect for all the late nights at school or for those days when you just need a sweet treat! I also got my first roll of Washi tape! I don't know how to use it but I am excited to find out!!! There was also a beautiful plaque that says "BE You tiful".

I know I usually only post "classroom stuff" on this blog but I was just too excited and HAD to share about my nice little surprise!

September is almost over!

WOW! It is hard to believe that the first month of school is almost over! How did that happen so fast? It feels like the kids of G-3 have been in school longer than just one month because they are AMAZING! I am sooooo proud of all they do and how they will try anything! I wanted to post some pictures of some of the things we have done this past month. Enjoy!

Zero the Hero

Zero the Hero comes to school only when we have been in school for an amount of days that ends in zero. This means that Zero the Hero came during math time on the tenth day of school and recently on the twentieth day of school. Here are some pictures of our Zero the Hero thus far.

 

Name Punch

One day as a center we practiced writing our name by punching it in cardboard with a push pin. I was a little scared to attempt this, giving kinders something sharp. Yikes! However, my fear was unfounded because these children did wonderful and they had a ton of fun.

Tools at School

In social studies one week we learned about tools we use at home and tools we use at school. After the lesson we made our own school tools bags. Inside them were pictures of a glue stick, scissors, crayons, pencils, and other fun things.

 

Letters Galore!

Our current phonics program is called Discovery Phonics and it moves at a fast pace. So far the kids have learned the letters: A, B, F, D, and G. They have also learned the slides ba, fa, ga, and da. Along with the slides and letters they have also learned the sight words a, I, and, the, and of. Take a look at some of our cute activities so far!

I hope you enjoyed seeing what we have been learning and doing over the past couple of weeks! Have a great weekend.



Bus and Playground Safety

Hello again! This past week has been an exciting one so far. The kids are starting to come out of their 'shells' so to speak and they really seem to be adjusting to our class schedule. This year Mrs. Howell wanted teachers to teach children how to play on the playground safely and how to ride the bus safely. This turned out to be a fantastic idea!

 Bus Safety

In order to learn more about bus safety our vice principal Mr. Haber setup a special meeting with a couple of our wonderful bus drivers! Students were able to board the bus and listen to the bus driver.

The bus driver explained that there are some important rules to follow when riding a bus.

1). Stay sitting in the seat "bottom to bottom, back to back". This means that kids should be sitting with their bottom on the bottom of the seat and their back against the back of the seat.
2). Do not eat any food, candy, or drinks on the bus.
3). Be aware of what is going on around you when you get off the bus.
4). Tell the bus driver if anything (such as bulling, or name calling) happens on the bus.

Playground Safety

On the playground we have been learning how to properly use the slides, swings and playground equipment.

To help us learn playground safety the kids in Mrs. Amsterdam's class made us a video. The kids loved seeing the 'big kids' being a little silly in the video. Hope you all have a great week!

First weeks of school are a success!

Thank you sooooooooooooo much to ALL parents and guardians for all your help, understanding, and for filling out all the paperwork I had to send home and for coming out to Open House Monday night! I loved meeting you all. It seems that this year's transition from summer to full day school has been an easy one for the kids. Some have had a couple tears here and there but to me they have all been AMAZING!

The Class Dojo monsters you helped you kids create have been one of my favorite things this year! Never before have I used that feature of Class Dojo! Check out some of the monsters they kids have created!

 

If you want to receive your child's weekly behavior report, link your e-mail to your child's account. If you need me to send you an invite to join Class Dojo just let me know that and I will get right on it!

On another note, I tried to take pictures of what we have done over the past three weeks. Each day we started off the morning playing with blocks, cubes, puzzles, Legos, finger puppets or play-doh.

The kids are absolutely awesome at sharing and helping each other! One day the kids created their own finger puppet show! It was one of the cutest things I have seen in my six years of teaching.

Some of the books we have been reading include The Kissing Hand, No David!, David Goes to School, The Big Mouthed Frog, David Gets in Trouble and Wimberly Worried.

All the kids seemed to like the David books the best! My favorite part was when students made their own Davids! We made them as part of our Peacemakers and Peacebreakers lesson which connected to what we have been learning in Social Studies about citizenship. We learned that Peacemakers follow rules and Peacebreakers break the rules.

Last week we started our reading and math curriculum. In reading we learned the letter A, and we practiced counting the words in a sentence.

This week we will be learning the letter B and the ba- blend. If you want to see some of the videos and songs we learned to go along with these letters click on the dots located on each individual letter!

I hope everyone enjoyed the kindergarten keepsake boxes the kids made for you at Open House. If you were unable to come then keep your eyes open for a bag to come home soon with your child's box inside it.

Once again thank you all! I don't think this school year would have been as successful without your help! Also thank you for all the school supplies you provided to the classroom! As always if you have questions or concerns don't hesitate to e-mail me or post on our Facebook page. 

Classroom Pictures!!!!!

Hooray! I FINALLY have some class pictures! Now keep in mind I took these before I had the room 100% done. To me it's still a mess but then again I want it perfect for all my soon to be students!

This year I made some trees canopy around the SMART board. Now it looks a lot more fun and inviting. For those who don't know what a SMART board is just think about it as being a giant iPad. Kids can go up to it move things around on the screen and interact with it. As a teaching tool I find that it helps keep the kids engaged and it reaches all types of learning styles.

Our calendar time is going to be awesome this year! Mainly I am excited because I have an actual bulletin board for it (my old room did not have one). This year we are not just focusing on months, days of the week, dates and the year. During this time we will also have a math question each day to answer that is aligned with the Common Core State standards. We will also talk about place value, what it means to have hundreds, tens, or ones. Finally we will also look at the different ways we can show a number. For instance the number five can be written in word form, as a numeral, as five tally marks, or as five things (cookies, birds, toys). We will also go into how to decompose numbers. An example of decomposing the number five would be 2 + 3 equals 5. 

I this is a view of the left side of the classroom as you are walking in. This is the key place for students to go every morning. It is where they will sign in, turn in notes, turn in their take home folder, submit homework, turn in box tops, and where they will put their lunch box if they are packing their lunch that day. It is important for students to get in the habit of coming to this part of the classroom every day to complete the morning routine.

Cubbies are kind of like student mailboxes. Each student is assigned one cubby, it is where they put their work to go home and where I put important information for parents. Students pack up everything in their cubby at the end of each day. 

This year I made an actual word wall for students to refer to. Students are expected to learn over 50 sight words this year. After learning each word I will post it on this wall so that students can learn to use it in their everyday writing. 

The Common Core State Standards also known as CCSS are the standards by which our curriculum is built. It is on this wall where I will put up the standards that we are focusing on in science, social studies, math, reading, writing, and language. I will explain the CCSS better and in more detail at Open House so make sure you come on September 9th at 6:30pm!

This is an overall view of the classroom. You can see where students will be sitting at the tables and where some of the items are in the classroom. One of my favorite things this year are the giant pom poms hanging from the ceiling!! It puts such a smile on my face to see the owls in those pom poms. It's like they are sitting in a bush watching over everything! Just too cute! Can I just say that it was very difficult at first for me to figure out how to make those pom poms! However, Pinterest had a great tutorial! The purpose of the owls besides being cute is to help designate what 'color' each table is.

This is the final picture I have of the classroom. It just shows another view of the student tables. The door in the far left corner leads to the class bathroom and the door at the back of the room leads to the playground outside. As a quick note we do have a small sink and water fountain in the room however, my messy black cart is blocking the view of them. 

I hope you all enjoyed the pictures and to my future students get ready to come find your table, cubby, and locker! To parents and guardians thank you all so much for entrusting me with your child this year. I look forward to teaching each and every one of them. I will post some more pictures sometime soon when the room is 100% done! Also remember if you are a parent of a student in my class this year please fill out the parent contact form I posted about last week. Only I see what you write, the information goes directly to me and no one else sees it. See you Monday for the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!! (Can you tell I'm excited?!)