Ash Wednesday

Today we spent some time talking about why and how we observe the 40 days of Lent. We focused on three main vocabulary words: Pray, Fast, and Give. We talked about how we can make a resolution (just like new year's!) to pray more often, give alms, and fast or give up something that we don't really need.
We're going to be collecting money for Catholic Relief Services using the rice bowls this year, so a lot of kids said that they would make the resolution to give all of their money to the poor (I told them that it would be OK to give some money to the poor and keep some for themselves - didn't want any parents getting upset).
After brainstorming a long list of things that we can work on during lent, I had each of them write down their lenten resolutions on this paper: (grab it for free on TPT!)

Then, they cut out purple crosses to glue their writing paper onto:

Here are some of their finished products!

"For Lent I will give the toys I don't play and give clothes what do not fit me and pray every day and night."

 "For Lent I will give my toys to the people who don't have toys and the people that are poor. Also pray for the people that are poor."

"For Lent I will pray for people. I will try to be good. I will give ip taking baths (?!?!?!) when I am clean. I am going to pray for Jesus."

February

Wow, I know I am beginning to sound a little bit repetitive but where is the time going?! Seriously. We are halfway through February and I haven't had any time to sit down and post anything that we've been doing because it's been so busy! Well, here you go - I'll do my best to recap an entire month today.

Groundhog Day

I'm guessing most people don't really celebrate Groundhog day since it is such an odd "holiday", however, I have a special place in my heart for this day since the groundhog is the "unofficial mascot" of my college. I actually managed to squeeze in a quick trip to Dallas to celebrate with my friends and family and made it back in time to celebrate with my class on Monday! 

First we read this book:

Then they all made predictions about whether the groundhog would see his shadow or not:

Then we made these cute little groundhogs from A Cupcake For the Teacher:

Valentine's Day

I let my room mom take the lead for our class Valentine's day party and craft this year. She did a fantastic job and came up with a really cute gift for the kids to make for their parents, provided me with the instructions and all of the materials, and helped out with gluing, taking pictures, etc...she's awesome. We did a few other valentine activities throughout the week that you can see below :)

The kids had a free dress day and this was by far the best outfit in my class:

Here's a little rhyming worksheet that we got (for free!) here.

We did a little letter sound matchup game that we also got for free from Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten here.

I loved this writing activity from Crazy for First Grade:

I'll save President's day/Ash Wednesday/Lent/etc... for another day!

Back to School, Back to School...

I'm finding it a little bit hard to believe that we are already almost done with our second week back to school. We really hit the ground running (literally - I landed at LAX at about 10:00 p.m. and was up and on my way to school by 5:30 a.m. the next morning...clearly I like to live on the edge). We have been busy in Kindergarten since 2015 started! I don't have time to catch you up on everything, but I did want to share just a little bit.

PENGUINS

Even though it is just starting to get a little chilly here in L.A., I figured we could at least pretend it's winter and learn about cold weather through our unit on penguins. Plus penguins are pretty cute and the little ones loved learning about them!

I don't have many penguin books in my library, so I used one of my favorite sites, www.wegivebooks.com, to read See How They Grow: Penguins, Baby Penguins Everywhere, and DK Readers: Emperor Penguins.

*www.wegivebooks.com is an awesome non-profit social enterprise that provides free books for low-income communities, schools, and homes. You can help out just by signing up (for free) and reading children's books on their site! Learn more here.

After reading these two informational texts and a lit text for fun about penguins, we discussed all of the new information that we had learned. Then we put it down in writing and made little penguins to crafts and booklets to decorate the room.

I got the template for the "All About Penguins" booklet from Miss Kindergarten here. I hope all of these amazing Kindergarten teachers who put up free resources for all of us know how much we appreciate them! I would be lost without their last minute lifesavers.

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!