Be the Sunshine

Hello sunshines! I moved from kindergarten to first grade! I am so excited to be back in first grade after a long stretch in kindergarten. I am loving how my first graders can do so much!!  Such a fun age! Since I moved into a new room, I decided to change up my classroom theme- Be the sunshine! Here are a few pics giving a glimpse of my current classroom.

Class hallway bulletin board

 I only have one small bulletin board in my classroom, so I used the wall space above the cubbies to make a clothesline bulletin board. I hot glued a laminated sunshine face on each black clothespin. It is working beautifully to display their work.

I saved some of my owl stuff to decorate my classroom library area. Here's part of the library with the one bulletin board in the room.

I created some decorations for my whiteboard. A set of rules: Be the sunshine, Be safe, Be kind, Try your best, and Lead with Love. Underneath those rules is a space designated for sunshine notes written by me and classmates.

Our favorite time of the day is Read to Self time! They are already reading 15+ minutes! Here are some empty baskets before the students came. Then a close up with some books in the baskets.

Our cubbies are not the prettiest. So I laminated some cardstock with clipart to make them a little more appealing. The suns on their STAR binders make me smile!

I took their self portraits off the hallway bulletin board and posted them next to the cubbies around one of our weekly quotes.

Outside my class door, I put up weekly quotes. I started with sunshine themed ones this year! This is more for me, but my students enjoy reading them too! Shine bright!

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Ready for SMORE fun in kindergarten?

Time to start thinking about the new school year! My start of the school year has to do with s'mores. It all began with my s'more obsession at the end of last school year. I went on a s,more kick- drinking Dunkin Donuts S'mores Iced Coffee and eating S'mores pop tarts. (I don't even eat pop tarts!) I was so excited to find out that National S'mores Day is Thursday, August 10th. Which is the first day of school in my district!!!

I made these tags to go on some treats for the first day of school. Click on the picture to get to the freebie.

Since I am at a Leader in Me school, I made a back to school s'mores board. At the end of the last school year, I had my kindergarten students write a tip about being a leader for my new students. At the beginning of this school year, I plan to have my new kindergartners brainstorm ways to be a kindergarten leader and make their own s'mores for this bulletin board.

Talking about last year's group, I gave them a summer reading challenge. I made some bookworm tags to go with their prizes of reaching their goal of 50 books read over the summer. Click on the picture to get that tag freebie.

 Life has been a little bit more joyful with this little puppy! Meet Daisy, our Shihtzu. We got her late April and she has stolen our hearts! I am busy making different little bows for her to wear. I opened up an Etsy shop- TturtleTimeCreations. Below are some bows I made for my aunt's pups, Cherie and Caleb.

I have one week of summer left before I go back to CGI training and then Pre-planning! Enjoy the summer!

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Another Monday Made It!

Summer flies by too quickly! Last week, I spent time with my family visiting from out of town. This week, I am at workshops and pre-planning. I will meet my new students next week!

For My 1st Monday Made It: I usually like to make something for my team for the first day of school. I wanted to make a first day survival kit for them. My friend Tina and I made pencils out of Pringles cans. They are not quite done, but I think they turned out so cute! I filled them up with all sorts of goodies. I still need to add the tags, but that will be later! I will be making one for myself as a box top collector.

Pinterest Inspired Craft

My 2nd Monday Made It project is for my littles when they come to Meet the Teacher night. Typically I make homemade cookies, but just didn't feel like baking and icing the cookies this summer. I found some adorable owl pops on Sue's The Very Busy Kindergarten. I had to make my own! These were definitely easier and timely! 

 Linking up with 

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B2S Book Favorites: Robert Munsch

I go back to work on Monday- for workshops and preplanning. The children will be starting in 2 weeks! I have done a few things to get ready for back to school, but it seems I have a serious issue- a scattered brain!! While working on an alphabet center, I got distracted when I saw Brenda and Ciera's Back to School Book Linky.

I love books! One of my favorite authors is Robert Munsch. Children can relate to and laugh at his stories. During that first week of school, I like to use three of his books. The first one is Moira's Birthday. I found a youtube video! However, I like reading the book better. This story is about Moira who invites Grades 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and Kindergarten to her birthday party! She is quite the problem solver. I love how my kindergarteners react to this book and their facial expressions are priceless!

 I typically use this book during math before making a class graph about our birthdays. I use a classroom door to post the months of the year. Then I give each of my students a die-cut circle. They decorate the circles to look like themselves. We add them to the door with a tag stating their first name and birthdate. We use this birthday graph throughout the school year. Wish I had a picture to show. I couldn't find one easily accessible.

Another story I read for math time is Purple, Green, and Yellow. This story is about a little girl who loves to color with different markers. This story is a great lead in to a class graph about our favorite colors.

In kindergarten, my students color paper crayons and we make a floor graph about our favorite colors. When I taught first grade, I did it a little differently. I had my first graders bring their favorite colored crayon over to the circle. They sat together in a circle with same colors together. I stood in the middle and used masking tape to show the piece of the pie for blues, and then to the next color. I also took a picture and put it into a classbook of graphs. We discussed what we noticed and added that information to the classbook of graphs. So sad, no picture easily accessible for me to post!

Another Robert Munsch book, I enjoy using in kindergarten is We Share Everything. This is a great story about two kindergarten kids who learn to share everything. It is a great lead in to how we share many things in kindergarten, but there are some things we do not share (kisses, lunch, snack...). Robert Munsch has his own website with auditory downloads to go along with his books. I have downloaded many to go along with the books I already have in my classroom library to use at the listening center. Many of his books are also found in ebook format on Tumblebooks.

Using Robert Munsch books helps my kindergarteners love listening to stories for enjoyment. His books easily captures my students' attention during that first week of school. If you have not read any of his books, you should check them out, especially if you love humorous stories. 

If you are still here with me, then click HERE to get a little freebie to go along with these 3 stories. Maybe I will eventually get back to that alphabet center that I keep going back to these past 2 weeks!

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Five for Friday: 1st Week of School

I feel it has been a whirlwind these past two weeks: preplanning, new classroom, new Reading Series, Kindergarten Parent Orientation Night, Meet the Teacher, First Week of Kindergarten, Gingerbread Man Hunt... oh, in addition on a personal note... my car is still in the shop (was rear ended at a traffic light 4 weeks ago) and my friend welcomed a baby girl!

 

1. Thanks to Amanda from A Very Curious Class for my blogger exchange gift! Love the magnetic board and owl goodies you found! I haven't used the smelly markers yet, but this coming week, I think they will come in handy.

 

 

 

2. On the first day, I introduced the multiple intelligences to my kinderkids. They rated themselves on what kind of smart they thought they were. It gave me insight to what they think about themselves. At the end, I gave each child this freebie note with Smarties attached. Links to the originals are below the photo.

 

The SMART lesson came from Falling From First's Back to School Bash unit.
The Smarties note was a FREEBIE from Technology Rocks.
 

3. I am starting earlier in teaching my kinderkids how to rate their understanding. My good friend Amy and I were talking about creating a pocket chart to hold popsicle sticks so our kinderkids could rate themselves. Here is a picture of what I will be using. Click on the photo to check it out at my TPT store.

 

 

 

Which reminds me that the big back to school sale at TPT starts tomorrow!! Use the promo code BTS13 at checkout to get an additional percentage off products!!

 

 

 

4. I loved how Greg from Smedley's Smorgasboard of Kindergarten put his first day in numerals. Here's my attempt...

 

 I was worried that I might have some real criers on Monday morning! Just 2 pairs of teary eyes... no bolting out the door! Phew! I have had my peers' children before in my classroom. Usually it is one or two at a time... not five of them! They are such a cute bunch... maybe I'm partial as they are my new class.I think we will have a wonderful year!

5. Here are some classroom pics:

 

Walking in the main door, in the cubby area, looking to the left of the classroom. I put up my CAFE letters on the 4 cabinets above my students' sink. The main storage closet is a bit full of my big bins... my neighbor's side looks very spacious. I need to find space for the bins! I didn't include a picture!

This is the meeting area of my classroom. The left side has a door to a smaller storage closet that I share with my teammate.

 

Just recently I put up the new word wall.... ready to add our names and sight words!

This is the view of my classroom looking from the word wall corner to the opposite corner.

The bulletin board is now decorated with my students' owls and my positive classroom management behavior chart (Filling Buckets). I forgot to take a picture of the cute little owls that came from Michelle Oakes's Back to School behavior unit.

Next to the classroom library and bulletin board is the real kitchen with a real stove and oven. So fun to actually bake a gingerbread man in the oven!

Next to the kitchen, there is a bathroom door. Inside is a HUGE bathroom!! I could do a cartwheel in there! It has a tub, changing table, and toilet. The toilet is in the far right corner- I choose not to take a picture of it! I will need to make it look more "home-y" in here. Recently, I stacked some bins and crates on top of the changing table. I will need to move them, because it looks not so good. I'm thinking the next move may be in the tub. :0)

I really love my classroom library area with my newly Monday Made It READ letters and the special homemade gift from a special room mom! Makes me smile every time I look at it.

These are the owl cookies I used this year to make for Meet the Teacher.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Cooperative Learning #9 & Little Bus Flash Freebie

Today is my last day of summer break. I am going into my new classroom tomorrow to organize and put things where I need to. Next week is teacher planning week, and I have so much to do!

Storyboard is a cooperative learning structure that I have introduced earlier on my blog. For the Throwback Thursday part I'm focusing only on the Storyboard part of my post. Click HERE to see that full post.



Not sure if she is having this today? She joined others in a big giveaway for August 1-5th.

----- Below part was originally posted on April 5, 2013. -----

3. Last month, I went to a Kagan workshop, and learned a new strategy called Storyboards. I created my own Storyboard (not Kagan endorsed) for my Australia unit, G'day Mates. The week before spring break, we learned about Australia animals. We also talked about nouns and verbs. This song was on a pocket chart as we changed the nouns and verbs using Australian animals. This week, we continued learning about Australia with the Great Barrier Reef. This time, we used a Kagan Storyboard strategy. Each group got a storyboard, cards, and a pointer. One student from each group passes out the cards. As a whole group, we sang the song and put down the cards as we sang the words. This group didn't quite get it, as they missed putting two of the pictures down.

 

This activity came from my G'day Mates unit.

We continued throughout the week with this activity, and they got better with working together in placing down the word cards as they were sung.

This activity came from my G'day Mates unit.

 

Now back to the present...

 

After the first week of school, we will be following the new Reading Street Series in my county. I made a thematic unit to go along with the first story, The Little School Bus.

 

Link to TPT store will be added once it's there!

 

In it, I have included a storyboard structure with using the letters. I will first introduce this on a pocket chart during whole group activities. After a few days, I will give each group their parts to review one letter. We will do this activity in small groups, but still whole group. When they are ready, I will add more letters. After they are familiar with this structure, I will put the storyboards at a literacy center for students to practice their letter recognition and sounds. Here is a preview.

 



 



 This unit also includes:

 

1. Who Rides This Bus?- A letter and beginning sound sort for small groups or independent work. There are 4 different variations included: color or black and white in either Basic Print or D'Nealian.

 

 

 2. Letters on the Bus Pocket Chart & Storyboards- in Basic Print or D'Nealian.

 

3. Road Rally- Even though there is a free set of road letters at Making Learning Fun, I used Charlotte's Clips to create a learning center for my students.

 

 

4. Bus Stop: Write the Room- Just a simple write-the-room activity for copying words onto paper.

 

 

5. Bus & Letter Webs- These are to be printed out and used on class charts.

 



 

6. How Do We Go Home Graph- Parts to make a graph on how students go home. Use bulletin board paper to glue parts onto. Students write name and draw picture on sticky note to place on graph. Then collect data and write about it on the bulletin board paper. See example below:

 

 

 

7. Five on the Bus- Use counters, beans, or children pictures to make 0-5 on the bus mats.

 

 

 

8. Ordinal Numbers- Pocket Chart pieces to tell story of The Little School Bus (Reading Street story) and practice ordinal numbers.

 

 

 

9. Putting the Buses in Order- Students put buses in order and find number matches.

 

 

 

10. Shape Bus Craftivity- Students use shapes (rectangle, circle, square, octagon) to make a bus.

 

11. Little Yellow Bus Snack- Students make a little yellow bus out of a graham cracker, yellow icing, Oreos, and Chex cereal.

 

If you are interested in this packet, I am offering it as a FREEBIE to my followers until Sunday evening 6PM Eastern time. I am almost done with it, so Saturday I will start sending it out to you. Just leave me a comment to this post or email me at learningwithmrsbrinn@gmail.com to let me know how you follow me and your follower name: Google Friend Connect or Bloglovin. Make sure you leave an email address too, so I can email you my newest digital packet.

 

If you would like to link up a post about cooperative learning, please do. I would love to hear how others are using these strategies in their classrooms. If you ever get a chance to go to a Kagan workshop, I highly recommend it. It has helped me to better manage my classroom, and get my students to interact and be engaged more often. I am not being paid for this statement. It is my opinion, and definitely worth an educator's time. I was fortunate to have my workshops paid for through school funds. :0) This is the last cooperative learning linky of this summer.

 

 

 

 

 

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