Statue of Liberty

For Veteran's Day, my first grade team decided to teach about American symbols. We set up centers (1 per classroom) and rotate our students through. My symbol was the Statue of Liberty. I showed a video from Brain Pop Jr and then we made crowns and torches.

For the crowns - cut out the inner circle from a paper plate. Cut the outer strip to fit as a headband. Cut the inner circle into 8  pie pieces (if you have the time, the kids could do this and you could use it to talk about fractions!). You only need 7 for the rays on the crown. Staple the rays on the outer strip and viola - crown!

For the torches, I used a half sheet of white paper. I had the kids trace their hands on orange construction paper (you need 2 hands - they can be the same hand). They cut out their hands and glued them to the top of the white paper (short side). Roll this up and tape for the torch.

My son loved that I let him make one too (he's in 2nd grade) and he was my model.

Pockets!

I needed chair pockets but didn't want to spend $200 out of my budget for them. I found a pattern online to make them. My sweet sister-in-law offered to make them for me. They turned out great! The pockets are sturdy enough for lots of use and they are roomy enough for all the things my students put in them. Now I have some clear bookshelf space and they can save time by having supplies right there!

Fact Families for Halloween

For Halloween, I found a cute idea. My class needed help and practice writing fact families. One way to do this is to have them make candy corns. They drew the number bond on the top layer, then the addition and subtraction problems on the other layers. I made a mummy using toilet paper for the bulletin. To show how the activity correlates with the CCSS (which are posted in my room), I wrote the standard on a sentence strip.

I had parent volunteers which made this project easier and allowed the kids to do more than they would have done with just me. I had them fill out a fact family worksheet first, then have it looked at by me. For each correct fact family, they could make 1 candy corn. For my high kids, I assigned fact families (up to 20 and beyond). The others chose an addition fact from an addition chart (up to 10). It worked out really well for differentiating and all of my students felt successful. It also helped them on their test.

Ahoy! Treasure Ahead!

A fun way to end a social studies unit on maps! I dressed as a pirate and my principal came in as my captain. I made a treasure map of the playground and my principal led the kids on a treasure hunt. They did a great job of reading the map, finding the symbols, and knowing the 4 cardinal directions.

Welcome new year!

Made it through the first week of school (well, 1/2 week as we started on Wed). It was fun. I have a great bunch of first graders and know we will have fun. Just need to keep on top of it with planning and all. I'm hoping for a parent volunteer to help out in my room as I have lots of stuff to do. I miss having an aide (only kinder teachers get aides). I am excited for this new school year.

Shadows for Mothers

Happy Mother's Day!!

My class made larger than life silhouettes for Mother's Day. I used my projector for a light, then traced their shadows with a white crayon. My aide helped me get each student's hand prints then we used this poem: "This is to remind you When I have grown so tall, That once I was quite little And my hands were very small."

They turned out so great!

Bunnies!

This is late coming. I have been very busy lately. We did a great Easter/Spring writing project. All about bunnies. We did a plan which I got off of Teachers Pay Teachers to tell what they know about bunnies. Then they wrote a bunny paper and we put it together with bunny parts. So cute!

Flower Power!

One of the standards for kindergarten is using technology to publish and print writing. We have been learning about the parts of a flower. Each student wrote a paper based on a group plan of the parts of a flower. We then went to the computer lab where they typed up their papers. They did the typing (mostly hunt and peck) and I went in and added spacing. I left their phonemic spelling as it shows where they are (sight words and the flower parts were expected to be spelled correctly). My aide showed us how to make flowers out of tissue paper. It was a great project and they turned out great. Now they are hanging in my classroom. Something to show parents when they come for Data Night on the 25th!

It's hard to see in the pictures, but my students labeled their flowers. I attached their typed papers to their flowers.

Happy Birthday to Me!

This past Monday (March 10) was my birthday. My kids and aide are so sweet. One parent surprised me with a cupcake cake. My aide also surprised me with a Dairy Queen cake and a bag of goodies. We ended up having a nice surprise party at the end of the day. The kids did a great job keeping it secret, too. It was a good birthday.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!!

Sunday was Dr. Seuss' birthday. My kinders are celebrating this week for Read Across America. I dressed as the Cat in the Hat yesterday and taught all the lessons as the Cat. They loved it - especially my tail! Today, we made green eggs and ham for breakfast - another hit! We've been reading Dr. Seuss and watching some of the old animation movies. I love Dr. Seuss days.

From my Daddy

My Daddy is a great woodworker. This year, he made me a podium for my classroom. I don't use it too much to stand behind in kindergarten. It makes for great storage for my weekly lesson bins. He painted the front with chalkboard paint. This is great for me as I have to post my standards we are working on in the lesson plans. I can post them on the podium and the kids can see them.

Dinosaur School!

My district uses Incredible Years - Dinosaur School to teach about behavior and doing your best in school. This has helped my kinders as far as behavior. It also goes well with the Getting Along Together portion of SFA (Success for All) that is our reading program. I have dark skinned Wally and Molly puppets so I have named them Alfonso and Monique. My aide plays Alfonso while I do Monique and Dina. The kids love when the puppets come to visit.

100th Day of School!

We had so much fun this last week as we celebrated the 100th day of school. I started the day by fixing a very special 100 breakfast of sausage and pancakes. The lunch lady was wonderful in providing milk and fruit to round out our breakfast. My students were to bring in baggies of 100 items for our 100 museum. We also made posters with 100 drawings on them and did 100 exercises. It was a fun day. My aide provided the kids with 100 Day certificates, pencils, and stickers!

Busy Busy Bees

I have been busy making literacy centers for my kinders. First was a CVC word building center. I made the pictures with boxes for letter tiles. They really enjoy working with the tiles and building words. It has helped with their confidence in sounding out words and writing. You can find my CVC center on my TpT page here

My CVC word building center.

My other center I made with the help of my aide was rhyming word houses. They turned out so cute!. The kids separate pictures into houses depending on what they rhyme with. Such fun! I also have this on my TpT store. You can get it here . My aide made the houses out of milk cartons. I did have to resize the labels to make them fit the milk cartons. If you want the resized labels, let me know and I will get them to you.

Snow Globes!

We had a great time making snow globes. The kids had great ideas for living in a snow globe. Their writing is getting better.

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!