Reindeer Games

I am running out of Christmas ideas and we still have 4 days of school left! :/ As I mentioned before, this week has been NUTS. Every day we have had to drop what we were working on multiple time to go jump on stage and practice our Christmas program song or go get our vision tested or take pictures with Santa. Last night we finally had our Christmas performance and, as usual, everything came together perfectly at the last minute and it was adorable and the parents loved it.

Amidst all of the madness, we were able to do a mini unit on Reindeer that I wanted to share. We started off the day by reading Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and singing his song together. (If you don't have your own copy of the book you can read it online for free on wegivebooks.com).
Then, I asked the kids to tell me what they already knew about Reindeer and we made a little chart of information.

(One of them said, "they smell better than people!!??", and, while I appreciated the Frozen reference, I told her that that was just a joke from the movie and that it is most likely not true - Sorry!)

After that we watched a video, looked at pictures, and read the information on the San Diego Zoo Kids page about Reindeer.

Then we talked about the new information that we learned about Reindeer and I passed out these All About Reindeer writing pages and told them to write me a report including everything that they knew about the animal. Some of them did a really awesome job!!

After they finished writing we did this cute little Reindeer craft to frame our writing before hanging it up for everyone to see.

The writing pages and craft template came from the Reindeer Games packet made by A Cupcake for the Teacher.

Gingerbread Day

Today in Kindergarten we celebrated Gingerbread Day. No, it's not an actual holiday (as far as I know), but I figured since we have been doing so much about Jesus and the Nativity story and Santa Clause and Winter that we should do something a little bit different today. Plus, I found some great freebies to use along with several of the gingerbread books that I already have in my classroom library. (Win, Win!) Of course, our plans for the day were interrupted by vision testing and practice for our Christmas program, but we still managed to squeeze in a good amount of gingerbread fun.

In the morning, I explained that we would be talking about Gingerbread people all day today and we talked a bit about what gingerbread is, what it tastes like, who has had it before, who hasn't had it but thinks that their mom or sister has, etc... Then, I reminded them that we have been learning to retell stories in three parts: beginning, middle, and end. I told them that we were going to read a story called Gingerbread Baby and that they needed to pay close attention so that they would be able to draw me a picture of each part of the story.

After reading the book, they completed this free worksheet from Rowdy in Room 300.

(There is a free pack of worksheets to go along with this book at homeschoolcreations.com.)

Later we read The Gingerbread Kid Goes to School and Gingerbread Pirates. Afterwards we talked about what kind of gingerbread we would want to make and they drew their own gingerbread men and women using this free template from Simply Kinder.

Then we used this cute paper from the Creative Classroom to write a Missing poster for the Gingerbread men and women that they created.

For more great Gingerbread ideas and activities check out the 2014 Gingerbread Exchange post on Simply Kinder's blog!

Save a Turkey! Eat some cockroaches?

Well, we made it! It is finally time for turkey, pie, wine, and people that I love. We survived this short week that seemed oh so long, and had some fun while we were at it.

As per every Monday ever, I was totally underprepared and spent the morning scrambling trying to plan some last minute Thanksgiving activities. Most of our morning was spent testing since we just finished another unit in Language Arts, but I needed something fun for the afternoon. First Grade W.O.W. saved my life with this cute craft and writing activity to go along with the book 'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving.

First we read the book which was super cute and the kids thought it was too funny when the students got "mysteriously fatter" on their way home from the field trip.

Then we came up with a list of things that we could eat instead of Turkey on Thanksgiving. One of my little clowns suggested cockroaches as a meal replacement and, since that was just the funniest idea ever, everyone decided to include that in their menu. So we got to work writing our lists with the sentence starter "Save the turkeys! Eat...instead" and then completed this cute craft that you can find here.

I hope you have a very Happy Thanksgiving and enjoy your family, friends, and good food! 

Counting Down

This week has been nuts. (Is there ever a week in Kindergarten that isn't?) For some reason the fact that Thanksgiving and Christmas are so close seems to make the days go by slower than ever and the kids seem to "forget how to be Kindergartners" as I like to say. We finished up our first trimester last Friday and report cards were finalized this week and will be sent home tomorrow. So, that means the past two weeks were spent testing, grading, and entering while still trying to teach.

Since I haven't had time to be very creative and come up with my own activities, I have been relying on some amazing Kindergarten teachers to help me out and thought I would share a few things that I have used recently.

I am all about progress monitoring! I like to test the kids on their foundational skills at least every two weeks and send home results to their parents along with resources for them to either provide extra practice or challenge their child with something new. I used these easy Kindergarten Becnhmark Assessments from Rebecca at Darlin' Little Learners this time around to help me complete report cards and have something to give parents an update on their little one's progress since our last conferences.

I also used these freebies:

I made a copy of all of the assessments to keep for my records and will be sending the whole packet home with report cards on Friday.

In other news, Thanksgiving is less than a week away! Although I am feeling quite worn out after these past few weeks, I am really looking forward to a nice, relaxing (almost) week off with my best friend down in wine country to celebrate the Holiday and, of course, my birthday.

I got this perfect little Turkey book set by Steve Metzger in my last Scholastic order and found this fabulous freebie to go along with the stories. For each book there is a different activity that reviews plot, sequencing, retelling, predicting and more. Also, the books are kind of hilarious (at least to 4-6 year olds) and my students ate up every minute of them!

We have one and a half days of school next week which sounds so nice, but will be a struggle to get through when vacation is calling my name. Wish me luck!

Behavior Rewards

Today I finally got around to rewarding my little guys and girls for their good behavior last month! I try to do this right at the end of each month, but I always end up having to push it back a day or two because of special events, days off, you name it! Anyways, they spend all month working hard to earn behavior tickets which they keep in a little pocket inside the classroom. Every time I catch one of them doing something awesome I very publicly praise them and give them a ticket to stick in their "pocket". The tickets are nothing special, I literally just printed out a ticket template and wrote "best behavior" on a bunch of them, but the prizes are what make them so exciting for the kids.

I used to give them candy, toys, pencils, stickers, etc... but after a few months of doing that I was tired of having to run out to the store the night before our trade-in day and spend my own money on these little prizes. SO, I researched some easier, cheaper, and more effective ways of handling this dilemma and found out that a lot of teachers use coupons for privileges as their rewards.

I created a set of printable coupons that I laminate and keep in a little Sterilite 5-drawer shelf that I can reuse every month. The kids trade in their tickets to buy the following privileges:

*Line leader for one day

*Eat lunch with your teacher

*Use any pencil you want for one day

*Pick a treat

*Show and Tell

*Bring your favorite book to share

*Use the iPad for 15 minutes

*Switch seats on the carpet for one day

If you are interested in doing the same thing, you can pick up your own set of coupons at my TPT store by clicking on the picture below. 

Thankful Turkeys

It's finally November! We survived conferences, Red Ribbon Week and Halloween all in one month!! What's even better is that it finally feels like "Fall" here in Southern California (although I heard it is supposed to be back up to 90 degrees by the end of the week). Either way, my class and I are loving the cooler weather and are getting ready for the exciting holidays that are coming our way!

Yesterday we welcomed the new month by reviewing the twelve months, beginning our November calendars, and making a cute little Turkey craft for our classroom door. Here's what the finished product ended up looking like:

*I let them do the cutting themselves, but I would recommend cutting the pieces out ahead of time for the younger kids because, as you can see, some are not as neat as I would have liked them to be! 

If you are interested in doing this little craft with your students, head on over to my TPT store and grab my Thankful Turkeys craft!

I put the crafts on our door, but these would also make a cute bulletin board for the month of November!

'Twas the Night Before Halloween

Ok, so, it's not exactly the night before Halloween, but it's getting close! Since my school spends all day Friday celebrating the holiday, I decided to spend Thursday doing fun Halloween activities in class with the little ones. This week has been out of control with Red Ribbon Week events, activities, dress up days and more, so I'm ready for a fun-filled day in Kindergarten.

Most, if not all, of what we will be doing I got for free, so I'll include links to everything in case you are interested in using it yourself! Here is our plan for tomorrow:

Math

Count to 100 Every Day

(we literally do this every day and they still love it)

After this quick warm up we will be doing some Halloween hundreds chart pictures:

Next, we will review patterns (which we have been working on for a while now) and complete this Halloween pattern worksheet: 

Reading & Writing

Next, we will be reading Aaaargghh, Spider! (if you don't have this book there are plenty of read-aloud videos on youtube of the book) and completing a graphing and writing activity from this mini unit created by Miss Kindergarten.

Art Project

Just for Fun

Happy Halloween!

PALS

I recently earned a Master's degree in Reading Instruction which has been so, incredibly useful for me as a Kindergarten teacher! In one of my classes, we were introduced to a strategy called PALS that I want to share with you today.

PALS = Peer Assisted Learning Strategies - a.k.a. students helping each other to learn.

I never thought that I would allow Kindergartners to play teacher and help each other learn before I learned about and tried out PALS, but now it is one of my favorite ways to work on reading skills. 

Before giving my students an activity to work on together, I model how PALS is going to work. I ask a volunteer to be my partner and I have him or her read aloud to me (they could be reading letters of the alphabet, simple sentences containing sight words, or more advanced text depending on grade level and reading ability of the students). While he or she is reading I say "great job!" at the end of each sentence. If he or she makes a mistake I say "Stop! Try Again". Then, I ask the student volunteer to listen while I read and give me feedback. He or she tells me that I am doing a great job and corrects my mistakes by telling me to stop and try again (which they all find hilarious for some reason). After modeling the voice level (WHISPER) that I would like them to use, I assign pals and pass out the reading passage for the day. 

Today we did a fun Halloween reading passage that began with very simple sentences such as, "P is for Pirate". Once they showed me that they could handle that, I let them do the next page with passages that were a bit longer and said things like, "P is for Pumpkin. I see 5 pumpkins". They spent about ten minutes taking turns reading these to their pals and all really enjoyed not only getting to read, but also having the chance to correct and give feedback to their partners. 

I got today's reading passages from this awesome Freebie made by Common Core Connection.

Pumpkins

Tomorrow we are going on our first field trip of the year to a pumpkin patch with First Grade! 

For the past few weeks we have been studying plant life cycles and what living things need to grow. Today, we took what we learned from that unit and applied it to our new unit on pumpkins.

We started out by reading this short and sweet informational text, Pumpkins, that came in my Scholastic Welcome Fall book packet (which I highly recommend purchasing by the way).

Then we put these Pumpkin Life Cycle picture cards in order and discussed how a pumpkin grows just like other plants that we have studied. 

Finally, the students completed their own pumpkin life cycle worksheet by coloring, cutting, and gluing the pictures in the correct order. 

Here's the finished product :)

The life cycle picture cards and worksheets came from the fantastic, free Pumpkins Unit by Nicole Ricca that you can pick up here.

Beginning Sounds

As I have mentioned before and will probably mention again many times, I am loving interactive notebooks this year. I am working on a science interactive notebook post and freebie for you, but in the meantime I wanted to share an English/Language Arts interactive notebook page that my kids did today. We have been drilling beginning sounds using songs, music and movement, games, worksheets, homework, decodable readers, etc...etc...etc...

I was getting a little bit bored with that (as were my little learners), so I decided to change things up and purchased this awesome interactive alphabet journal from Miss Kindergarten.

I really love this product, and my students love cutting, coloring, and gluing anything so it makes the tedious and repetitive process of learning the letter sounds a little bit more engaging. Before working on each letter sound individually, I had them complete this page about beginning sounds.

I, of course, had to do the whole thing first under my document camera to make sure that they all understood what to do. 

Then, I passed out the page and told them to cut only the dotted lines, not the fat lines and they did a great job with that!

(he felt the need to use all of his body weight to make the glue really stick) :)

Next, I asked them to fold their little pieces along the fat lines and show me where they were supposed to glue before I gave them their sheet to glue onto and allowed them to get started. The kids seemed to really enjoy this activity and most of them did a fantastic job!

Of course, there were some that ended up looking like this:

but, hey, they did their best and that's what counts...right?

You can pick up your own copy of this page at my TPT store by clicking on the picture below. 

Parent Teacher Conferences Part 2

Today we finally begin parent teacher conferences! Woohoo! - As much as I dislike feeling like I am speed-dating and having to meet with 10 sets of parents in a row for fifteen minutes each, I really do think that this is a valuable time to get them on board with helping their child at home. There is only so much differentiation/intervention/one-on-one help we can provide within the classroom so it is extremely important that parents understand a) what their child can do to improve in school and b) how they can help. 

As I mentioned in my last post, I spend the week before conferences testing the little ones to see how many more letters and numbers they recognize, whether they can count syllables, whether they can isolate beginning sounds, identify parts of a book, count to 20, count objects up to 20 etc... All the foundational skills that they will need in order to be successful throughout the rest of the year. 

Now that I have all of that data ready to share with their parents, I am prepared to sit down with each of them and tell them how much their child has already improved since day 1 of Kindergarten and what I would like to see them work harder on. I have found that the best way to do this is to give the parents a little bit of extra homework. So, in case you would like to do the same thing, here is a list of the areas for improvement that I suggest and materials that I will provide for parents to help their child. 

1) Fine Motor Skills: Hand-eye coordination, efficient use of fingers, hands and wrists, etc... Without these skills children have a very hard time writing, cutting, gluing, turning the pages of books and more. Basically everything that they need to be able to do in Kindergarten and beyond relies on these skills being well developed. Here is a handout that you can grab to encourage parents to work on these at home! 

2) Letter Recognition: If students are still struggling with letter naming fluency, I send home a set of uppercase and lowercase letter flashcards and this handout listing different activities that they can do to practice at home. 

3) B&D Confusion: A lot of Kindergarten students have a hard time differentiating between lowercase b & d. There are a lot of great handouts in this packet from Classroom Freebies. I won't use all of them because all of the different strategies together might confuse the student. I'll pick one or two like the "bed" pictures and remind them that "the Bb's are walking and the Dd's are talking". 

4) Numbers: If students are struggling with counting objects, recognizing numerals, or number names, I give them a set of flashcards to work on.

5) Writing: I show parents samples of student writing and use this amazing writing portfolio and rubric with samples from Heidisongs.com.

Parent Teacher Conferences

This week I am running around like a crazy person with a million things to do which isn't too different from any other week, but it feels like a lot - we've got student council stuff going on almost every day, I'm leaving my class with a sub so I can attend a conference for the first time this year, progress reports go home on Friday, and we have parent teacher conferences next week. Ok, that is more than usual so I guess I am justified in feeling a little bit stressed but I can't complain because I am really looking forward to getting a little bit of extra sleep on my "day off" and I am excited about the training that I will be attending!

About those conferences...

I usually keep all of my student's assessments that I use to monitor their progress in binders for each subject meaning all reading assessments go in the reading binder, math in the math binder, writing in the writing binder, etc... This way I can easily take out one binder at a time to give new tests, check out a students progress in a specific subject area, and enter grades for that subject. However, this is not the most convenient method when it comes to preparing for parent teacher conferences. I think it would look silly if I sat down with parents and had a stack of binders on the table that I had to flip through to find their student's information. So, instead, this year I will be using this three page progress report that you can pick up at my TPT store here.

  

What's Included?

1. A Reading Progress sheet: this can be used to test students on letter recognition, recognizing and producing rhymes, counting syllables, isolating beginning sounds, and identifying the parts of a book. 
2. A Math Progress sheet: this can be used to assess number recognition, ability to count to 20, one-to-one correspondence up to 20, ability to write numerals 0-20, recognition of basic shapes, and knowledge of the days of the week and months of the year.
3. A Checklist of important Kindergarten motor skills, work habits, and behavior for success!

This little packet is what I will use to let each parent know how their child is doing in Kindergarten so far, the areas of strength that I have already observed, and the skills or subject matter with which their child may be struggling. I will also show them writing samples from the first day of school and from this week so that they can see how much their child has already improved!

I hope you can put this to use and save yourself some time and stress while preparing for conferences!