Five For Friday!

It is my favorite day of the week...IT IS FRIDAY! :) Yay! I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her weekly Five For Friday!

1. We had so much fun with this activity by Rachelle at Life Is Sweet...In Kindergarten! If you haven't checked her out you should...she is SUPER creative and talented. Last week she posted this FREEBIE which was perfect for our learning about 3-D shapes. My kids went crazy for this lesson! Thanks for sharing Rachelle!

2. We finished learning about living and nonliving things. I swear every day the kids are pointing out living and nonliving things to me. Some of the things they come up with are hysterical!

3. As we finished learning about living and nonliving things, we started learning about plants. The kids are so interested in plants. We created our "I wonder" chart and they have so many amazing questions! On Monday we took a "Plant Walk" and made plant observations. The kids took this assignment very serious! Love it! :)

We started creating a model of a flower today, but didn't get to finish...we will have to finish on Monday!

4. These little guys have missed me for FAR too long...every day they give me the "evil eye" telling me   to put them on and go for a jog. For the past few months I have ignored them...BUT I am happy to say the past 2 weeks we have been back in business baby! Yay! 

And since I been trying to exercise, I thought I should be eating a little healthier too. I have been loving greek yogurt. I have found so many ways to use it to replace other not so nutritious but oh so delicious foods!

5. My kids are absolutely in LOVE with fairy tales. We are right in the middle of our fairy tale unit and I wish I could video tape them...no seriously! They are too much. They reenact every fairy tale to PERFECTION! Even my little friends that are usually shy and quiet volunteer to be characters in the fairy tale. Today when we had indoor recess due to the weather I had kids fighting over who was going to the "Fairy Tale" center to act out the fairy tales. So since they are so into the fairy tales I have been working on some craftivities to go along with different characters. I hope to have them finished and posted to TPT by tomorrow!

If you are looking for activities, centers and craftivities for Earth Day, stop on over to TPT and check out my unit!

Well I am off to have dinner with my handsome man...I hope you have a wonderful weekend! Don't forget to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching! Happy Weekend!

QR Codes in Kindergarten?!?! And more!

So it is Sunday night and I should have my week all planned out...but I have been glued to E! and the Grammy's Red Carpet! :)

Just wanted to share somethings that I am looking forward to for this week...

This week my students are going to continue learning their high frequency words by using QR codes! Have you tried using QR codes yet in your classroom? Well if not you gotta give it a try! If you kids are anything like mine, than anything with technology gets and keeps their attention. So when I introduced them to this center activity they were all so excited. For this center activity the students scan the QR code and then find the matching high frequency word. Then they also scan the QR codes again on the recording sheet. To scan the QR codes all you need are old smart phones, ipod touches with a camera or ipads then find a free QR reader app.

Find QR code fun here!

We will be continuing to learn how to have healthy teeth. The students I am sure will have a blast practicing brushing their teeth by painting this fun certificate with a toothbrush!

Dental Health Mini-Unit here

To get us in the Valentine's Day spirit we of course will be doing all kinds of fun Valentine math and ELA centers. Here are some math centers that we will be doing! Make sure to go here to get your FREE copy!

I am prepared for a busy week...we have a Valentine's show and a field trip to the zoo! Oooooo fun! But I am looking forward to an extra long weekend. Is it bad that I am already thinking about the weekend?!?! 

Have a great week! 

MLK Fun Stuff and a Freebie!

Today doesn't feel like Tuesday...I am already tired! It feels more like Thursday! Good thing the rest of the week is filled with fun stuff! :)

Tomorrow my little friends will be wearing these headbands and bracelets that they made today to celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. They had so much fun with this activity! I was amazed how they got so into it and at the end of the activity could name what each color stood for! I love 'em!! :) Since we made these at the very end of the day, I didn't let them take them home so they could wear them tomorrow. They were so disappointed!

Click here to find this activity on TPT.

As I started teaching about Martin, I notice that there were quite a few students that were a little confused with the word "dream". Most of the kids only thought of the word dream as something that they do at night when they are sleeping. So I took this teachable moment to teach about multiple meaning words. {ELA L.K.4a Identify new meanings for familiar words and apply them accurately.}! Hey look at that!! I created this freebie and would love to share it with you!

Click here for your free copy! 

Well I am off...this week is "Celebrate Literacy" Week at school and I have to decide on a fun book character for my outfit tomorrow! Any suggestions?!?!

Happy Tuesday!

Julie

"WOW" moment

Today I had a WOW moment that I just had to share with you!

In math, my students are learning about the numbers 11-20. After my small group instruction I gave my students the task to independently show me what they know about the number 15. I didn't give them any specifics of what I was looking for, just to show me what they knew about the number. After math centers, my students were sharing out his/her 'Discovery of the Day'. As I was circulating, I heard a student sharing with his partner the ways he discovered to make 15. When I looked at his board this is what I saw...

I was so impressed (Yes, I know there are backwards numbers, but I was willing to look past that...just this once!). I had been working with number bonds earlier this year when we were studying numbers 0-10...I just couldn't believe he figured this out all by himself!!! I, of course, did a crazy happy dance. As I was driving home I was thinking about how when I first read the common core math standards last year I was confused what number pairs were and the thought of teaching it and expecting my students to "get it" seemed ridiculous. I love that today my student proved me wrong...when we expect it and teach it, they will learn it and use it!!!

If you are looking for activities and assessments for teaching operations & algebraic thinking, click here.

Yummy Yummy! Gingerbread fun!

Oh my goodness! This past week has been awesome...I just had to share what has been going on! The students love learning with the gingerbread man! So much fun!

For ELA we have been reading and writing all about the Gingerbread Cookie!! We read the Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett and did this craftivity to go along with it...

Some of my favorite responses: 

"I would hide in the cave with a dragon."

"I would hide under the bed."

Probably my favorite..."I wouldn't hide. I would get my iphone and use the GPS and weather app. I can't get wet!" (What?!?! Why didn't I think of that? Amazing!!)

In math we did this activity with gumdrops. I won't lie...I had to do this activity 2 days. I was SO excited to do this math activity because I thought the kids would love it and be so engaged in the learning. So on day #1 the students were super engaged and loving it, until we came to the "take away gumdrops" part and we started to eat the gumdrops! Umm, guess who forgot to read the label and bought spiced gumdrops! Oh no! Even though I thoroughly enjoyed watching them try to eat the gumdrops and say things like "When you eat this candy is it like brushing your teeth?" (I guess cause they thought it tasted like toothpaste!), I didn't quite hit the teaching objective I was going for! However, day #2 was AMAZING!! :) The students were so engaged in making all kinds of addition and subtraction problems, they were even creating number bonds with the gumdrops on the gingerbread cookie!

During ELA centers students have been unscrambling gingerbread sentences, reading around the room with the gingerbread man, sorting with G gumdrop and G gingerbread and flipping the cookies in to the correct word family pan! 

We did lots of writing in response to our reading this week. I think I saw some of my best writing! The students loved the stories we read, and it was just as entertaining for them to write. Students responded to the question, "What would you do if you were the gingerbread cookie?" Some of my favorite responses were: 

"I would tell the teacher on the Fox." 

"I would go to the North Pole and tell Santa to put the Fox on the Naughty List."

"I would tell the police officer to arrest the Fox."

*Clever little kids!!*

We made these little friends to display our work!

Next week I start my how to unit of writing and we are going to use this gingerbread house packet from Wal-Mart 

and this book template 

to create and record how to make a gingerbread house! How fun!!! I hope the kids are as excited as I am! :)

All of these activities are in my TPT store! I would love to hear what you are doing with the Gingerbread Cookie!!! The first 2 people to comment can have my Yummy, Yummy Gingerbread in My Tummy {Craftivities} for FREE! Whoop! Whoop!

Happy Sunday!

Busy Week & Planning Calendar

What a busy time of the year! My to-do list is getting longer by the minute! :)

I have now met all my little friends. I am amazed how every year the kids are so different...and so wonderful! It is impossible not to love your job when you hear things like "I love this school!" and "This is the best day of my life!". How awesome is that! I love how in kindergarten we have the priveledge of shaping each child's learning adventure and helping to develop their love of learning! It is so great to see how excited and eager they are to learn, and it is my goal to keep them this dedicated the whole year!

So on that note I sat down to start planning. I started thinking when I want to teach what theme and what concepts in science, etc. I think that planning can be the most overwhelming part of teaching. How do you plan? Do you have a method to make it an easy process? Do you plan with your team? I am trying something a little different this year. I made a detailed calendar(scope and sequence) with what I am planning to teach when, for all subjects with standards. I hope that this tool will be useful and make planning a little less time consuming! I wanted to share this with you! Go get your copy for FREE! Please leave me some feedback or a comment!  While you are at my TPT store, make sure to follow me! If you utilize my planning calendar throughout the year I will be posting units to correlate with the calendar and you will have everything lots of resources for the year!

While at my TPT Store check out my new All About Numbers 0-10 Unit!

Calendar Fun With Songs

"Calendar Time" has become one of my class' favorite times of the day. When I create my calendar bulletin board, I make it interactive so that the students are part of reading the calendar, writing the date, and the day. I also try to incorporate a number of the day activity, the weather and some money activities. I feel like these are important life skills that the students are very interested in learning about. Doing these activities every day helps the students remember the concepts that they may have learned at the beginning of the year, because they are reviewed daily. It is so awesome after a few weeks the students are ready to be the "Teacher" and lead "Calendar Time". One of the things that the students love most about "Calendar Time" is all the songs that we sing. Click on the picture to get your copy of the songs we sing to reinforce the days of the week, telling time, counting, counting money, weather, etc..