First Post

With all the wonderful teacher blogs out there inspiring me to become better at what I do, I thought I would give it a try at collaborating through blogging. These past few weeks of school, my kindergarteners and I worked on learning about wild animals. I had them create their own animal covering maps. In years past, I have had my students glue tactile items to match their words: feather, piece of fake fur, sequins for scales, and wax paper for smooth. This year I didn't do it and left out smooth. I guided them in drawing and labeling their maps. Afterwards, they were left on their own to draw and label two animals for each category. Below are pictures of their animal covering maps. They did a great job!

This student decided to challenge himself by adding labels and doing three pictures for each category.

This one also challenged himself. On the top left hand corner is evidence of the first time this year that we wrote praise on each other's projects. It worked out wonderfully, as each child had a page of comments from their peers.

Later on, after everyone completed their project, I discussed with my students on how we would share our projects. Usually we use Kagan's HandUp-StandUp-PairUp to share our work with peers. This is a great opportunity for my students to be actively engaged. I told them that we would try a new way of giving "happy talk" to our peers. This time we would go around and write our words on paper. I gave them free roam of the room with one rule- only one person in line was allowed to wait to write a comment. They were on task and quiet for the 5-10 minutes we did this! Everyone had at least a page full of comments, and some even on the back. My kindergarteners were excited to try and read their praises from their peers! We all had our buckets filled before going to lunch!

I haven't figured out how to upload documents to my posts yet. But I did post a freebie on TeachersPayTeachers. It is an alphabet book that incorporates use of the free website Starfall. My kindergarteners use this book when they learn about the computer center at the beginning of the school year.


This upcoming week, we will be learning about dinosaurs. I am excited to try out a cooperative learning project with my students. They will work on deciphering between fiction and nonfiction pictures. We only have 22 more school days left!! I am ready for summer! Thanks for visiting.