Holidays Around the World

Whew!!

We have been very busy in my kindergarten classroom. We have visited 11 countries in 2 days, learning about holidays, making crafts, and tasting food. This was a fun unit. I got it off Teachers pay Teachers. It's actually 2 units that I combined to get more countries. I think for next year that I will add more countries. The kids enjoyed it and we were about to do reading, writing, and math within the unit. All while having fun and travelling the world. I made passports and the kids made suitcases out of cereal boxes. Their suitcases were stuffed full by the end of the day today - good thing they were taking them home. Now I am exhausted, and glad that I only have 1 more day until Christmas break. Added to this - lots of testing for the end of the semester. I managed to get all my testing done and the crafts. Woo-hoo!
Here's one link for one of the units: Holidays.. Part II
And the other one:  Holidays... with passport

Here are some of the suitcases.

Maternity Leave!

She's here! Clara Emily Shipman was born October 4 at 4:22 AM. Weighing in at 7 pounds, 10 ounces and 20 1/2 inches long. She is beautiful and her brothers are smitten. I am officially on maternity leave now for 6 weeks. I miss my kinders already though I know they are in good hands with my long term sub. My project for this time off is to create a 4-day unit on Thanksgiving as well as a 5-day unit on Holidays Around the World. I'll be scouring Pinterest and Teachers pay Teachers for ideas - if you have any, send them my way. I only wish I had my lap top as I'm working on projects for my classroom. Had to leave it for the sub. LOL First order though, is making Halloween costumes for my kids. They want to be minions. Should be fun!

Loving Kindergarten

I am loving kindergarten. My kiddos are great and we are having such fun. The reading program we use is Success for All and I love the KinderCorner part of it. It is very engaging and I even get to use puppets! There are challenges in learning a new program, but so far it has gone very well. It's only been 3 weeks but I've sent home 4 books for my students to read to their families and keep. They are so excited that they are able to read these books all by themselves.

Welcome to Kindergarten!

Two days down. Today went much smoother than yesterday. I was more on my game as were the kids. Yesterday I had so many people coming and watching me - my principal, tribal officers, a newspaper person, parents. Much quieter today.

I have been having so much fun these last 2 days. I love Success For All - the new literacy program our district is using. The kindergarten program is fun with lots of activities. Byron did this program last year and I was amazed at how much he learned and grew especially in reading and writing. I'm excited to be able to watch the growth in my students this year.

Any teachers reading this - how is your year going so far?

Ready for Kindergarten!

I've been working hard in my empty classroom to fill it with lots of activity learning labs. I'm still waiting on furniture that has been ordered, but I'm making do. I'm super excited for the new reading program we are using, Success For All. The KinderCorner part is so fun and it really helps kids be able to read. I have one more day, Tuesday, to work on my classroom. Then I'll try and post some pics. Training on Monday, in my room on Tuesday, then school starts on Wednesday!

What a summer! Swimming lessons, soccer camp, moving, hanging with the kids, setting up house in our new house. I report back to school on the 14th - how time has flown. I still need to move my classroom stuff to my new classroom and set up. I've been assigned to be the kindergarten teacher in Towaoc ("toy-oc"), which is the town on the Ute Mountain Ute reservation. This is a "guinea pig" position as it's a trial year. There hasn't been a teacher on the reservation since 1963 and the district wants to bring school back to the tribal kids who are being bussed up to Cortez. So they are trying out a small kindergarten (it will be capped at 16 students) and they want me to be the teacher. I'm nervous and excited at the same time. I've been thinking and getting my mind ready for kindergarten. It will be lots of fun!

Mathematician Definition

This year I created a math vocabulary game that my students really enjoyed playing. This became one of their favorite games. It helped them to know and practice the vocabulary required in math. So much of testing uses these words, and if kids don't remember what they mean, they could get very lost. I made a board game and cards. Every time a player lands on a space, they need to choose a card and tell what the word means. The other players look up the word to check. If the player gets it right he/she gets to stay; if not, he/she has to move back a space.

Anyway you can get it from my Teachers pay Teachers store here

While there, check out my other products - I have some free stuff on there.

Another teacher renamed this Mathematician Definition.

Homophone Match

I've told you about my homophone match activity. The kids really liked this and it was a fun way to help them remember frequently mixed up homophones. I'm new at blogging, but I'm going to try and insert a link so you can download the file.

https://sites.google.com/site/cuckooforteaching/Homophone%20Match.docx?attredirects=0&d=1

Mesa Verde

We took the third graders to Mesa Verde this month. We are so lucky to live so close to a wonderful national park and be able to see and study the history of those who lived here.

It's been a bit since my last post. Whew! We have been busy as the school year winds down. The last day of school is next Friday and we still have a ton of stuff to do!

I wanted to share some pics of our puppet shows we put on. We received our puppets through donorschoose.org. If you have a need, check out the site - it's a great resource and you may be able to get resources that you need. Anyway, my students wrote their own plays, practiced them, then performed them for classes around the school. I also used my puppets for help during reading time. Lots of uses for all my puppets.

I'm working on some literacy centers. My students love using bottle caps to sort through. I'm writing homophones on the tops of bottle caps. I made some worksheets to go with the bottle caps. The first ones, students need to place the correct bottle cap in the blank so that the sentence makes sense. Then they use the bottle caps to write their own sentences. I will laminate these so I can use them over again, and to save on copies. I'll make up the bottle caps when I get back from spring break (I have a lot of bottle caps in my room). Another center I'm going to make up is matching words with their contractions. I'll use bottle caps again for this.

Literacy Center

I've been working on a literacy center that my students can go to when they're done with their in-class work. This is what I have so far. It includes my puppets (to practice their plays or to use when reading), paper for drawing, paper for writing, different writing activities including word work and prompts. They enjoy coming here and will often ask to come here. Before next year I hope to do something similar for a math center.

Puppets!

I am so excited this week! I put up a project on donorschoose.org to try and get some puppets to enhance my students' writing. It worked! I received all the donations I needed and this last week my class received lots of boxes of puppets. After spring break, we will be writing 5 minute original plays, practicing, then performing them for the school. I'm excited to see what my students will write. If you haven't done so, check out donorschoose.org and get a project going. I can't guarantee that your project will get funded, but it's a great resource to tap into.

Persuasive Writing - The Mary Celeste

I combined writing to literature and persuasive writing into one assignment. We read "The Mary Celeste, an Unsolved Mystery from History" by Lane Yolen, et al. My class loved the story and were engaged in the mystery of what happened to the Mary Celeste. This is a real event - we even googled it and looked it up on Wikipedia. I think that captured their attention even more - knowing that these events really happened and this mystery has never been solved. We talked through the theories, listing them on chart paper. Then we listed the facts about the case - like real detectives would. I had them each write what their theory is as to what happened. They needed to defend their position using facts from the story and answering questions that would discredit their theory. I was very pleased with the results. My favorite theory from my students is the theory that all on board the Mary Celeste came across an island and wanted to explore it. While they were on the island, the boat became unanchored and floated away - leaving them stranded. One of my students drew the boat on the bulletin board.

I have a blog now! I should have started this sooner. LOL I want to chronicle my first year at teaching. Now that the year is almost over, I'm finally sitting down to start my journal. It has been a phenomenal year. My students are great and we have done so much work. We just finished TCAP and are working towards spring break. This week we will be working on extended multiplication facts, writing a personal narrative, and getting some science projects in. I cannot believe that this year is almost over. I couldn't have asked for a better class for my first year at teaching. I will try and post often.