Chirp...Chirp...Chirp

Do you hear the crickets chirping? It has been way too quiet on here. My work life has kept me very busy! I think this will be a pattern for a while. Too much going on. So what are my 5 highlights for this past week?




1.  My district uses Reading Street as its series. At my school, we use it as a resource. This past week we worked with the big book Baby Animals in the Grasslands. I made my first bridge map with my kinderkids. Our vocabulary consisted mostly of baby animal names. I went online and printed out some pictures from google searches. Then I laminated them so I could use those pictures again.

2.  I was looking for a new lion craft, and was inspired by this pinterest pin. I gave each of my kinderkids one yellow 11"X11" square to paint stripes from the center out. For the head, I gave each child a 3 1/2"X 5 1/2" yellow rectangle. We cut the 4 corners and rounded it to make an oval shape. We used the scraps to make ears. I modeled how to make a lion face. They did great! Each one came out adorable! Then each kinderkid cut around his mane to make a fringe and added yarn for texture. Last we glued the heads on. On another day, we used Kim Adsit's lion treemap. To help my kinderkids understand how to make a sentence, I made a tree map on a pocket chart. Since children come up with ideas that I do not think of- I wrote them on sentence strips and added them. I forgot to take a picture of it, but to get your own tree map pieces click HERE FOR FREEBIE. Kim's tree map is a freebie. I saw she has a teacher version as well.

3. Text Dependent Questions...
This summer I went to a workshop about TDQs. It really helped me to better understand close reading. Currently, I am in the process of collaborating with other district primary teachers on TDQs.  From that summer workshop, I wanted to share a packet of TDQ stems I put into a pdf file. I printed mine out. They are on a ring to help me when needing to create questions. Clink on the picture to get it:

4. We are moving along in the Leader in Me process. I am excited about using the 7 Habits with my children more explicitly. We created our class mission at the beginning of the year. I asked what kind of classroom they wanted, and combined the words into positive statements. The original is posted in our classroom on chart paper. The one below is one I created recently to post outside my classroom door.

5. Girls on the Run- I am so glad that I volunteered to be part of this program as an assistant coach! It happens twice a week after school. It is a great program that helps young ladies (3rd - 5th grade) to build self esteem and encourage others. I enjoy the activities we do with the girls. In December, we will be running a 5k as a team! Sorry no pictures!

I am so looking forward to this Wednesday! It's our 50th day of school! Kindergarten will have a sock hopping, jump roping, hoola hooping, frisbee flinging, and bowling kind of day!