Alphabet Vacation

Most of the alphabet vacation activities can be found in my Alphabet Vacation unit on TPT. Download the preview to get a glimpse of what is inside the packet.

Next week, we will learn about fairy tales, focusing on the 3's. Have a wonderful weekend!

 

1

Nursery Rhymes & Freebies

For the past two weeks, we have concentrated on learning about nursery rhymes. We had a blast participating and working on various skills. Here are a few pictures to show what we have done.

 

We illustrated Humpty Dumpty for our poetry folders. I have one for each nursery rhyme I do in my classroom. This can be found in my Nursery Rhyme packet on TPT.

 

Each student made a Humpty Dumpty.

Each student made a rhyme. This one says, "Humpty Dumpty sat on a roof. Hummpty Dumpty fell on a boof." Directions to make these are in my Nursery Rhymes unit on TPT.

A co-worker had her students paint these cute Humpty Dumpty's. I want to do these next time!!

 

 

Acting out the Itsy Bitsy Spider

Directions to make these Itsy Bitsy spiders are in my Nursery Rhyme unit on TPT.

What rhymes with Jack & Jill? You can get this free at my TPT store- just download the Nursery Rhyme Preview packet.

 

Making 5 with Jack & Jill- also found in my Nursery Rhymes unit on TPT.

 

Another poem being illustrated for the poetry folder

Putting Little Miss Muffet in order. I got this free from another website. I will add link once I refind it.

 

 

Mary Had a Little Lamb poem for the poetry folder

At my teacher center, we were playing Memory with sheep cards, matching numerals to dots. I'll add link once I refind it.

A couple of students adding water drops (blue cubes) onto Jack and Jill's buckets. This can be found in my Nursery Rhyme unit on TPT.

 

 

A few mice hand puppets that students made to act out Hickory Dickory Dock. Directions to make are in my Nursery Rhymes unit on TPT.

Students facing the screen to act out Hickory Dickory Dock with a powerpoint.

 

We also had a QU wedding and made some QU words with these letter vests from a catalog. I found them here too.

This past week , I used J. Meacham's free 5 senses resources. In addition, we used Mrs. Will's wonderful 5 senses unit free at her TPT store.  I made some parts for my students to create their own Mr. Potato Heads. Click on the picture to get the activity.

 

 

I am looking forward to this week, because we will be going on an Alphabet Vacation this Friday!! Have a wonderful week!

 

 

3

Green Walls & Ham

Originally this week, I had a different perspective of what I wanted to blog about. However, several things have put a set back on that. C'est la vie! Last Friday, I had to take things off my wall and move everything away 3 feet from the walls. Over the weekend, we had our walls painted! Instead of the white, we went with a light beige with a green accent wall. Here is what it looked like when I entered my room after the long weekend...

I didn't have time for green eggs and ham, as I hurriedly tried to get my room back together in the 90 minutes before my students came back. I managed to get most things back in their spots. I just need to put some things back on the wall, and put more up (as I did not earlier, due to me knowing the walls were going to be painted at some point). I think I am liking the new colors on the walls!

Besides fresh new paint, I have been busy trying to assess and start small groups with my students. I will return this weekend with a post about what we did during our nursery rhymes and five senses units. I will be posting a Potato Head Freebie that we created during our 5 senses unit!

Thanks for visiting!!

1

Kindergarten Common Core

This is my second year of implementing Common Core standards into my teaching of kindergarten. I just downloaded a free preview of a great resource:

 

 

In the preview of this Kindergarten Common Core workbook are colorful resources to use in a kindergarten classroom. At the beginning of the preview, there is a list of standards with page numbers to easily access resources. There are over 600 pages in the original resource!! The sample of question cards for reading were illustrated with Scrappin Doodles artwork. On the Sounds sheet, pictures with words were included with each. The student would have to think about CVC words to figure out which word is the correct one. One of the math resources includes Number cards showing different ways to represent the numerals 1-10. There are a few literacy and math worksheets. Take a look at it yourself to see what the sample download includes! It looks like it will be a great resource in a kindergarten common core classroom!

 

If you have a blog, you could post about this by following the steps and receive this Kindergarten Common Core workbook free through email. You have to do this by September 16, 2012. CLICK HERE FOR THE DIRECTIONS TO GET IT FREE BY POSTING ON YOUR BLOG!

 





2

Favorite Freebie Linkie Party

Just a quick post to join in on the Favorite Freebie Linkie Party at the 2nd Grade Pad!

My favorite freebie that I created is this one: (click on picture to get it)

I am currently working on nursery rhymes, and hope to share my class pictures soon. I am almost done with my nursery rhyme unit that I have been working on!

 

On a side note, I don't like to get too personal, but it has been a sad weekend for a variety of reasons. If you get a chance, please visit Cheering For Caitlin. This little girl and her family sure can use some extra positive thoughts and prayers. Thank you!

 

Have a great week!

 



6

September Currently...

Yesterday, I made a yummy vanilla bean cheesecake to go with dinner at our friends' home. It is delicious, but way too many calories. I will have to attempt to lighten it up using some yogurt instead of all that butter and cream cheese.

My friend, Amy, was awarded all her funds for her classroom yoga project! I am inspired by her to try some yoga out in my class. Here is one book on-line that I will use: You Are A Lion.

I am ready for my next two weeks of nursery rhymes! However, I do need to print out some things. I have been searching for my usual cheap Georgia Pacific white cardstock. It is $5.48 for a package of 150 pages. The two nearest Walmarts are out of it!! I wonder if they are discontinuing this product. My husband suggests that I find a new brand. Not sure if that is possible for that kind of price! Any suggestions?

I am loving this 3 day weekend! I feel well rested and ready for my 4th week of kindergarten with my new students!

 

5

Back in the Swing of Things!

Three weeks of school have passed already! I was out for the end of the second to the beginning of the third week for a visit in St. Louis with my family. So maybe that is why it doesn't quite feel like 3 weeks. Yet, it does! I have a spectacular group of kindergartners! I am having fun learning about them and we are moving along.

During the second week of school, my kindergartners heard different gingerbread men stories. Here are a few pictures of what we did.

Kindergartners kept track of the different endings of the various endings of the different gingerbread stories. They are doing great with Kagan's StandUp-HandUp-PairUp.

We are learning about being good listeners and giving feedback with "happy talk".

This is our gingerbread man we made on Monday. He ran away! I didn't get to join my class on Friday's hunt through school. I did spy some deer and their fawns while on a little hike.



Sorry for the blurry picture! I am so wanting one of those DSLR cameras!

On Tuesday, we made a missing poster for our gingerbread man and posted it outside our door. One of my cuties was asking everyone he met to help us look for our gingerbread man. I am glad they found him. They told me he was yummy!

This was inspired by Kim Adsit's gingerbread baby persuasion writing. My sub did this activity with my class.

 

 This past week, my kindergartners had fun with Brown Bear and Pete the Cat. There are many wonderful Brown Bear resources out there. I didn't take any photos this year, but I had created a ditto for my students a few years back to retell Brown Bear with. I used clipart from Microsoft's gallery. Here is a picture from another school year. CLICK ON THE PICTURE to get the Brown Bear pictures for popsicle puppets for retelling the story.

When I came back from my trip, I spent 3 days on Pete the Cat. I saw that there are some more new titles besides the 3 that I have. Here are some things we did:

We made Deanna Jump's Pete the Cats. We also graphed the color of shoes we made and analyzed the data.

 

I saw this Pete the Cat song on Pinterest. Not sure of who is the original creator. I copied it and put the chart at one of my centers. In the basket are bags for sorting different pictures by their beginning sounds.

I am also using this book as a resource for this sorting center. Click on the book picture to get more information about it from Amazon.com.

This Question of the Day shows how my students enjoy listening and singing along with Pete the Cat books. I am so proud of them. It's only the 3rd week, and they are trying their personal best to write their names with a capital and the rest lowercase letters.

Before heading off on my vacation, I asked my students who/what they would see first- me or the postcard. The postcards made it back before I did!

Here are 2 boys signing in. They are getting into the routine pretty quickly! I am so proud of my class.

This week we will start our 2 week unit on nursery rhymes. I am in the process of creating a nursery rhyme unit to put on TPT. One of the activities I created a few years ago was a Jack & Jill Rhyming Activity. I used clipart from Microsoft's clipart gallery. I cut the pictures and words out and pasted them onto red construction paper. I had them laminated. For a whole group activity, I had my students respond with "ack" and rolling their hands to show me they knew the word rhymed with Jack. If it rhymed with Jill, they put their hands on their foreheads and said "ill". If it rhymed with neither, we said nothing. We sorted these pictures on a pocket chart while doing the activity. CLICK HERE TO GET MY JACK & JILL RHYMING ACTIVITY.

Here are just a couple of pics from St. Louis. We were busy each day visiting different sites. I got to visit with my sister and her family, as well as my father. I also got to visit with an old high school friend and meet her daughter for the first time. I also went to my nephew's school during his first week of kindergarten and had lunch with him. I checked out the Galleria mall to see what their Anthropologie had to offer. We went to LouFest, the City Museum, and the Art Museum. It is a fun city to visit.

The arch.

At the zoo with my family.

We made several homemade meals together, as my sister and I both like to cook. We made four different types of ravioli one night.

Enjoy your Labor Day weekend!!

 

1