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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Destination Vacation

I love to travel! So this linky hopefully will inspire me to discover some new place to explore. I especially love places that have seasons. Being in Florida, does not give me many opportunities to see a blustery fall day or a snowy winter white one.

It has been a while since I have been to Hendersonville, North Carolina. It is one of my favorite hidden places. My sister and her family lived there for a little while, and I stayed with them two times: once in the winter and once in the summer. Hendersonville has one main downtown street with yummy restaurants and cute shops. One restaurant in particular stood out. I don't remember its name, but the restaurant got their food locally and served seasonal deliciousness. I was surprised at the sushi place, Umi's. It is the only place I have seen soy wrapped sushi. I have been to many sushi restaurants, and this was a new concept to me. Amazing to find it in such a small town! Before my summer visit, I had never liked peaches. They were watery and mealy- yucky in my opinion. I changed my mind once I tried some at the market stands. Deliciousness!! I also discovered heirloom tomatoes. Food there just taste so magnificent! Besides yummies, there are plenty of outdoorsy things to do. My favorite was visiting Hooker Falls, a cute little waterfall swimming area. Last summer, while visiting family in Asheville, I didn't get to make it up to Hendersonville. I really want to see it in the fall and go apple picking!

Soy wrapped sushi

Heirloom tomatoes- yummy!

Hooker Falls

The second place is Washington, D.C. I have been a few times, but usually for a day trip. My hubby and I went in 2013 to see the cherry blossoms, but it was a long winter, and I almost missed it. The trees had not bloomed yet... just blossoms. :0( They have a great zoo there- I loved how the monkeys could go up their towers and travel between the two monkey homes. We walked everywhere, taking the train only to the zoo. So many free places to visit. The last full day, we happened upon 3-4 little cherry blossom trees. So pretty! Made me happy to see them! During our last night, it snowed a bit, and left an inch on the branches.

Hubby's ears were frozen... he had to wear my owl hat!

Monkeys traveling up on top across the zoo! Be careful not to stand under!

A glimpse of cherry blossoms in full bloom!

The third place is my favorite city: Seattle, Washington. I don't have any pictures to share, as they were from a while back. I went in October to see fall, and I loved it! I loved Pike's Market, the great coffee, art museums, Space Needle, etc. It was fun just walking around and discovering the city. I almost moved there because I loved it so much.

On a side note, on my bucket list there are at least 3 places new I would like to visit...

1. Macchu Picchu (better start running again, so I can be in better shape for that hike)

2. Antarctica (on a cruise and take an excursion to walk with the penguins, certainly not for the marathon that is held there!)

3. Africa (go on a safari and say I have visited all the continents!)

What about you? Where have you been that you just love to visit?

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All About This Kindergarten Teacher

A new collaboration blog has been popping all over on my Blogger feed- Kinder Tribe. I am super excited to find some new kinder blogs for me to follow! I joined in on their first linky. Click the button below to find out more and join in on the linky fun.

It took me a while to figure out how many years I have taught kindergarten. I have also taught 1st and 2nd grade... looping up with classes and going back. Next year will be my 20th year of teaching and 10th year in kindergarten!

Besides the people who surround me, I cannot live without my flash drive. This may be due to me being somewhat nomadic. I moved classrooms for the first 14 years of my career. Then I stayed 3 years in one kindergarten classroom, and then off to moving again. I am hoping to stay in my current room for the 2nd year. So I keep all my digital files, music, videos, pictures, ideas, etc on my flash drive! This helps keep me sane, rather than hunting for a CD or idea in one of my many boxes that I do not remember where I put or placed.

I love books! I have books all over my classroom. I especially am fond of Pete the Cat books. Love the positive messages in them. What did we do before Pete the Cat was created??

There are so many great blogs out there. One of my favorite blogs is Differentiated Kindergarten. I have learned so much from Marsha McGuire and how to organize my own differentiated centers.

I adore kindergarten. Kindergarteners are naturally curious, brutally honest, and genuine. They make me laugh and keep me in the moment. They keep me young! Well I am off to learn about some other kindergarten teachers.

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Daily 5 Second Edition- Chapter 2

Jen over at That First Grade Blog wrote up a great summary of Chapter 2 of the second edition of Daily 5. Chapter 2 goes into details about the core beliefs. These beliefs are trust and respect, community, choice, accountability, brain research, transitions as brain and body breaks, and 10 steps to Independence. The last core belief, 10 steps to independence, is given a whole chapter- Chapter 3. Instead of repeating what Jen wrote up, and saving me some time, I decided to just focus on community, choice, and transitions as brain and body breaks. Click the above icon to visit Jen and read more about the core beliefs of Daily 5.

At the beginning of the year, I focus on building community to get my little kinders to become a "family". I use morning and afternoon meetings. My morning meetings follow a combination of Dr. Becky Bailey's Conscious Discipline and Roxanne Kriete's Morning Meeting. After our morning routine and Read to Self time, we start our day with a morning meeting.

•  First, my kinders stand in a large circle at our meeting area. 
• Next, I play a community building song that has my kinders doing actions together. Some of students' favorite songs are by Dr. Jean (Hello Friend or Ride That Pony). 
• Then, we sit in a large circle and pass a morning greeting around. 
• Last, we discuss our goal for the day to help our classroom become a better place. 
• After that, we move on to our morning message and word work goal. 

In the afternoon, I have my students group together for the last part of the day. This is a time to focus on the positives of our day. We share what we are proud of or how someone filled our bucket. This way my students can go home and hopefully share some of their successes of the day. Success mapping is a way to help build optimistic attitudes. According to brain research, optimism can be taught, and students who have optimistic attitudes are more likely to be better problem solvers than those with pessimistic attitudes. We end our day with a fun brain break song (usually a Just Dance Kids video on youtube).

In addition to my classroom meetings, I use Kagan cooperative learning strategies to build classroom community. Sometimes, we have a meeting during the day to discuss any problems and ways to solve them.

Choice is such a deterrent to behavioral problems. I remember sitting in one of my early childhood classes, and Dr. Becky Bailey was telling us that giving children choices would help with those who wanted power. I applied this technique one night watching my nephew. This three year old cutie did not want to go to bed. Instead of arguing, I told him he was going to go to bed, but he had a choice in how he went: piggyback ride or horseback ride. He choose piggyback (tired me out with him on my back). He went to bed without any issues. The next night, he looked forward to trying the horseback ride to bed. In class, I have had children who do not want to draw or write. So I gave them choices depending on their needs. Sometimes it is the writing materials (markers or crayons) or place (carpet or small table). I apply this to the Daily 5, in a way that works for me and my kindergarteners. My students choose their books to read during Daily 5. They choose from one of the 3-4 word work choices at their assigned area.

Transitions seem to go smoothly as I use music to signal clean up time. I use my ipod with pre-made categories to help with transitions. Dr. Jean has some clean up songs that my students sing along as they put away materials. After word work, I like to use my whiteboard and overhead to display HeidiSongs singing and moving to a sight word song. My students know that they must clean up before joining, so they get right on task and join as soon as they can. They love to sing and dance!

Check out my previous D5 posts for some freebies. Have a great week!

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Valentine's 5 for Friday

It has been a fun week of learning about penguins and getting in the Valentine's spirit! Here are my top 5 of the week.

1.

I asked our cafeteria ladies to save some large cans for me so my kinderkids could make some penguin tins for their Valentine's containers.

Here is one holding his with some Valentines in his penguin tin.

2.

I used my Papertrey Ink stamps and crafting supplies to make some Valentine covers for lollipops.

 3.

These yummy homemade sweets made by my room mom made our day more festive!

 4.

In the afternoon, my Valentine, Mr. Brinn, came to help out with our Valentine Math Centers. He helped my kinderkids measure with nonstandard measurement with these Valentine Cards we made for our families. This one shows the outside, before Happy Heart Day was written on the outside arms.

On the inside, we used Kim Adsit's activity to measure the arm span in nonstandard units: pennies, cubes, paperclips, and hearts.

5.

Here is another math activity we did. It is an old one using candy hearts for addition. We also practiced subtraction using hearts with my freebie offered on TPT.

 I hope you had a happy Valentines. Enjoy the 3 day weekend!

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Five for Friday (Saturday)

I meant to post sooner... but other things kept me busy! We said goodbye to my intern and a classmate. Then we got a new student. We celebrated the 50th day of school. My kindergarten team and I threw a baby shower for our teammate. I had Reading Endorsement classes. We started a running club for the kids in the mornings. My husband and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary. We had our annual costume parade and festivities. Now November is here!

 

1.) One Wednesday afternoon past, I was grouped with other teachers from other teams to work on a scarecrow. Each group of teachers worked on a scarecrow. The kids are suppose to vote for their favorite. Do you know which one I helped to create? Make a guess in the comment section below and the first person to make the correct guess can have one item free from my TPT store.

 

 

2.) My kindergarten team and I threw a baby shower for our teammate Jen. She is due late November, but we predict she is due earlier. She is having a little girl, and is not fond of pink. I looked for pastel colors of M&Ms and did not have luck. I ended up getting yellow candy melts to put over the white popcorn. It tasted like kettle corn. I added sprinkles too, but it cannot be seen in this particular photo.

 

 

 3.) We used a floor ten frame- made of green construction paper squares and hooting owls to figure out ways to make ten. I got this idea from April over at Chalk Talk. She gives a great description on how to make the owls and do math with the book, 10 Hooting Owls.

 

 

4.) We had our annual costume parade and festivities. So much fun! Here's one group all ready for the parade.

 

 

 

5.) Halloween night, we dressed up our dogs and met up with our friends to go trick-or-treating with their kids. Their little girl got a kick out of the dogs being dressed up. Last year, we bought these costumes on sale. Poor little guys.  

 



 

I'm linking up with Doodlebugs for her Five for Friday. Click below to check it out! :0)

 







 

 



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Five for Saturday!

 

I meant to post earlier, but it is now Saturday. As they sometimes say, "better late, than never." Here are my top 5 for the past 2 weeks.

 

1. My county has started to use Reading Street this school year. It really limits what we can use, especially when we are suppose to follow it with fidelity. Last week, we were working with the We Are So Proud unit. In the afternoons, I used Pete the Cat stories with math. Here is one tying in the words (red, white, and blue) with number sense. I found the tracers from Hooray for Kindergarten and I created my own I have ___ blue buttons writing prompt. Click on the picture below to go to Google Docs to get the writing math template.

 



 

 

2. For our writing craftivity, my students copied the words: I am so proud. Then each child drew a picture of himself being proud of something he accomplished. Then we added a head, hand, and legs to our writing to make it look like ourselves.

 

 

3. This past week, we made paper bag platypuses to go along with Reading Street's Plaidypus Lost unit. My kinderkids loved this story. The pattern for the paperbag platypus came from Danielle's Place.

 

4. I am really excited how my Rate Your Understanding is coming together in my classroom. I introduced the scale to my students during the second week of school. During the following weeks, we began rating ourselves on how they well they can tell the sounds that each letter makes.

 



 

Then each child graphed where they felt they were at. On top of the quarter page, I created a label stating, "I can say the sounds for each letter." This was printed on file folder labels. The graph has room for a beginning, middle, and ending date. This graph allows me to help my students track their various learning goals in the different subject areas.

 

 

Each child's book is kept on a hook for reference when needed. This is a great way to help differentiate activities at our independent or small group activities.

 

 

For example, at the word work centers, my students use their learning goals books to help them focus on the letters they need to work on. For example, they make the specific letters out of playdough or cubes. Some find matching magnetic letters. They do this by looking at their learning goal books. Behind the graph sheet are specific pages about which letters and sounds they know. Each letter highlighted is one they have shown that they already know. The ones not highlighted are the ones they work on at centers.

 

 

 

We will move on to working with words once letters are mastered. I already have 2 children starting to work with words. I will soon be including these tracking learning goal sheets into my Rate Your Understanding. Check it out for a cheaper price, as it will increase with the new addition. I plan to add them later on today or tomorrow morning.

 

5. I am also excited about my new math station bins. I tried 4 of the bins out last year. I really like them. So I bought more and finally numbered them. I will be working on making a math stations chart for my students. I think my new bunch of kinderkids will love playing math games with their partners. I am really enjoying this new bunch of kinderkids. They are full of personality and fun!

 

 

 





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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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