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!