Daily 5 Dreaming :)

Hi All! We're almost to the end of our pre-spring break journey. Whew, was today exhausting! I guess we're all a little revved up for break to be here! It was just a little crazy with some of the babes needing to get evaluated for first grade, some leaving early for trips, etc but all in all, another GREAT day!

The reasoning behind my blog title is because the kiddos are doing an AMAZING job during Daily 5 time. I'm just excited that they are making such good choices for THEMSELVES! They aren't deciding to do what their friends are doing, or going back to the same old thing everyday...they are doing EXACTLY what I want them to do! Amazing.. Here are a few choices they made today! :

:SPELLING/WORD WORK:  Simple as pie. I printed a copy of the alphabet letters in capitals with boxes directly next to it and these little cherubs had to stamp the matching lower case letter in the box. They did so well!

:READ TO SOMEONE: Some friends playing POP! Working on my home computer so I don't have the name of the blog I downloaded this from but TAKE CREDIT!! I'm so sorry! Great game though! Students pick a card from the container. If they can read it, they keep it. If they can't, they put it back. If they get the POP! card, all of their cards go back in the container. (I know WOMP WOMP)..believe me, we've had some meltdowns but they're doing alright now :)

: WORK ON WRITING:  These lovely ladies decided to work on writing which was marvelous. I give them choices of what to do and they wanted to do a journal entry. UNREAL. Some days, doing journal is pulling teeth but apparently they enjoy it more than they let on ;)

:READ TO SOMEONE:  These little gents are enjoying some Sight Word Readers together. I love when reading can bring them together like this. TOO CUTE.
---> All in all, a great Daily 5 session today :)

SIDE NOTE !!

I got this GIANT PAPERCLIP FRAME at Bed, Bath & Beyond for 14 bucks! Those pictures are 5x7's to give you a frame of reference!

As I'm sure some of you do, we have a BoOk HoSpiTal in our reading center. I am always always always officially devastated when I check it at the end of the day. WHY oh WHY do my books have to get torn, ruined and shredded???? The world may never know...and it pains me when I get small, individual pages that are just unsalvagable... SO HERE'S WHAT I DID:

I keep all of the old pages (this one is from Ping) and have the kids highlight our Popcorn Words, letter hunt, etc..so I don't feel so terrible about wasting my precious pages..

I hope you ALL have a wonderful break if it's coming up, or enjoyed it if yours is over :)

d.

Alrighty, it's been a while...SORRY. It's been a little nuts lately! As I'm sure you are all experiencing with Spring Break here or right around the corner. We've been working a TON on our reading/listening/retelling skills and whattheteacherwants.blogspot.com has SAVED my life. I've been able to work individually or with small groups to hear reading responses but lately, as their skills improve, I'm feeling more confident in using large group activities. Here are a few:

My hope is to get the kiddos more interested in non-fiction and this is the perfect way to get them going! They really do enjoy when I read non-fiction selections and this page was such a cute way to assess what they learned!

Again, another adorable page that asks them to remember the OH SO IMPORTANT parts of a story. We've also been working on parts of a story and parts of a book (Cover, Title, Author, Title Page, Index and Table of Contents). We talk a lot about what the setting is and how you can tell just by looking at the pictures! They are doing such an amazing job absorbing all of this info :) I hope everyone had a great Monday!

:) d.



March Madness (from a Kindergarten point of view)

So we've been spending this week working in our "St. Patrick's Day Activity Books". The kids are getting pretty pumped when we pull them out because each book has 4 pages (we're partying on Friday) and I let them choose which page they want to do. Here are the pages:

This is the cover page.  I like to leave it blank for them to decorate/design.

The favorite so far has been Shamrock rock & roll! ( I, for the life of me, can not remember where I got this so if you made it, Please comment and take credit!) I have a giant ball pit with oversized dice in it that the kids are able to use to find the sums and color their blocks in. :) It's been a huge hit.

The next two pages came from SMART CHICK over at Teacherspayteachers.com. LOVE. It is part journal entry, part awesomeness. It calls for the kids to create a leprechaun trap by using items in the classroom. My kiddos LOVED this. It gets them out of their seats creating something pretty cool. They then draw their trap in the illustration box, tell me what they used, and how it worked. Very fun :)

We are working on retelling (as is everyone else I'm sure) so the kiddos are becomming more and more familiar with "beginning, middle, end". This allows them to write a story without actually writing a full length story. I'm also able to differentiate by having some of them write and other draw pictures and explain it to me.

Who doesn't love a simple coloring page? I found this one at abcschoolhouse.com. I actually have the kiddos write what they found at the end of the rainbow, draw a picture, and color all of the other things. A good way to end the packet.

Just a few ideas for our St. Patrick's day party:

I have left over colored cotton candy from making the Thing 1 and Thing 2 cupcakes so we'll be using that as a rainbow snack :)

I couldn't find my photo of the leprechaun footprints but I found a similar one at http://ittybittyblogger.wordpress.com/category/married-with-children/page/2/ . Very cute! and the kids LOVE coming back to a messy, wacky room and finding clues.

 Everyone, enjoy the rest of the week! I'll try to hop back on tomorow :)

Here we are, looking completely ridiculous.

the REST of Dr. Seuss

So, as promised, here is the rest of what we completed during "Our Week with Dr. Seuss"!

This was the wall outside that I created to display the books of the week. (We had an in-service day on Wednesday so there were only 4 books)

For the writing activities, I chose a few for each book (don't worry, everyone got a sample on the wall) but I managed to squeeze all of the hot air balloons for Oh the Places You'll Go up there. (Whew, it was about 40 balloons). So here are the close ups/descriptions:

We did a mini-packet for the Foot Book but this page allowed me to focus on opposites! (courtesy Seussville.com)

For Oh the Thinks You Can Think, I put a massive amount of art supplies on the tables and my kiddos had to "Think up a..." creation and rhyme to go along with it. They were allowed to use nonsense words. (How could I not let them when Dr. Seuss himself did it all the time!)

(a bird flying of a cird) hey, I said there could be some nonsense.

For Oh the Places You'll Go, the kiddos created they're own hot air balloon, then answered two prompts: I will go to:   and When I get there I will:   

 JD wants to go to Florida to swim :)

So, this is what I did for our over the top and obnoxious Dr. Seuss wall.

Easy ideas that let the kids experience with their own imagination, HUGE goal for me in every activity.

Surviving another Seuss Day :)

Hello All! I hope you all experienced a tolerable amount of wackiness today! We had such a wonderful day today...First, my wonderful assistant and I were very typical and dressed as Thing 1 and Thing 2 for the "Big Day"!

It went over very well. The kids loved it, co-workers called us nuts (which I take to mean "Great job, ladies!") and it actually wasn't too big of a distraction for the kiddies.
       Each day this week, I've focused on a different book/activity for the day. (Seuss wall photo to follow) but today, we focused on Horton Hears a Who! This year has brought many trials regarding the kiddos and their ability to cope with problems that surmount between them so I wanted to end our unit with a story about cooperation. After reading the story, used our Bucket Filling portion of circle time to talk about ways to cooperate with one another. Thanks to, Little Miss Glamour Goes to Kindergarten (check her blog out), the kiddos were able to write how they were going to cooperate, and draw a picture to go along with it:

We used the book to talk about how to be helpful when friends need it, and how to stick up for eachother. (We've had some issues with small groups singling someone out and making them feel bad :(  )  In order to do this, my babes were going to need a good set of Horton ears to listen with. I came across the website http://www.earlymoments.com/Fun-Activities/Hortons-Fun-Activities/ , and found a good set of Horton ears to make a headband with. They were adorable.

    Then, it was TIME TO PARTY! I decorated the room with Birthday decorations, we say "Happy Birthday" to Dr. Seuss and ate delicious Thing 1 and Thing 2 cupcakes.

     THEY WERE SUCH A HIT! (thanks pinterest). Just red velvet cake, white icing, and blue cotton candy for the hair of course! The kids LOVED them, the look and the taste. WARNING: I happened to be reading more about these cupcakes while they were baking and you can't put the cotton candy on until minutes before youre going to serve them!! It melts and looks gross, just a heads up.

So, another Seuss day came and went, we all survived, we all had an amazing day, and we all learned a little and played a little. I am exhausted and plan on treating this Friday's bedtime like a school night.

:) Enjoy your weekend, all.