Our Very Special Guests

I love teaching in Winside.  The parents and kids are SOOOOOOO amazing!  I found a quote on pinterest that read "Find a job that you love so you never have to go to work."  Well, I hit the jack pot with my job!  The kids are respectful, curious, and love learning.  The parents are so supportive and are more than willing to share their knowledge with our students.


In January, Mrs. Amy Topp (better known as Mason, in first grade's, mom)  came to work with the Kindergarten and first grade students through the  UNL Extension office.  The Extension office offers wonderful educational experiences at area schools.  Mrs. Topp visited with us for 4 Fridays  with "Food Fun and Reading".  She shared with the boys and girls on each visit the importance of eating healthy foods by introducing the food group via "the plate". Mrs. Topp read a story, shared food examples and prepared a healthy snack with the boys and girls with each food group.  What a wonderful way to introduce boys and girls to new foods! 



Last week, we had another special visitor, Angie Wagner (better known as Kortney's mom).  She works at Dr. Braun's office in Wayne and was able to bring some dental tools for the boys and girls to see.  Angie also demonstrated on proper brushing techniques.   Angie answered questions the boys and girls had and listened as the boys and girls shared their own special tooth stories.  Before Angie left she gave each student a new toothbrush and a coloring book from Dr. Braun's office.  My kinders were thrilled!!

A very special "THANK YOU" goes out to our very special guests for taking time to visit with the students.  We absolutely LOVED having you!!!

Kindergarten Penguin Parade

They practiced and practice and practiced and finally the day came...the day the Kindergarten would perform their penguin songs to the first graders.  We made our penguin costumes then waddled down the hallway to the first grade room.  I think I was more excited then they were!! I snapped a few pictures but I was so busy grinning from ear to ear I almost forgot to take some pictures.  I did get a few..... 

I was so proud of my little toots!!!  I all I can say is....

"And the Oscar goes to.............."  :o)



I LOVE LOVE LOVE This Idea!!!!!!!

Bucket Fillers!!!

I ran across this idea when I was checking out some of my favorite blogs and I thought  "Hmmmm - this is a cool idea!"  Then as I was on pinterest a few weeks later, I noticed how many people were also repining the idea of bucket fillers.  So I thought "HMMMMMM!!!  Maybe I need to see how I could use this in my classroom."

I revisited my favorite blogs and did a little more research and I was HOOKED!  Okay, I know what you are thinking ---  "Quit babbling Mrs. Straight, and tells us what all the fuss is about!"

Bucket fillers is an anti-bullying campaign that encourages positive behavior in children.  I introduced this concept by reading How Full is Your Bucket by Tom Rath and Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud to my kindergarten kiddos.  Through simple prose and wonderful illustrations the book stresses how rewarding it is to express daily kindness, appreciation and love. 

The books explain to children that we all carry an invisible bucket in which we keep our feeling about ourselves.  When our buckets are full, we are happy.  When our buckets are empty, we are sad.  It is important to know that we can fill our own buckets and so can others.  We fill our buckets by saying nice things and by helping out others around us.

We can also be a bucket dipper, by saying unkind things or by being mean to others.

In our classroom, the boys and girls are using pom poms as their "warm fuzzy" they give to others when they are a bucket fillers.  Students place the pom pom in their bucket if someone does something nice for them as well as the person who made them feel "warm and fuzzy".

The boys and girls LOVE it!  Are you a bucket filler?  WE ARE!!!

Dental Health Month

February is Dental Health Month.  We spend about a week learning about our teeth and why we need to take care of them. 
I started off by having the kiddos add information to our schema chart.  Schema, as I explained to the boys and girls, is information we already have about a topic that we store in our brain.  I put that information on a post-it and placed it on our chart under the heading of "Schema".  Every one's contribution to our schema chart was included.  For the next three days, I read books to the kiddos and showed a video about dental health.  After each lesson, we came together and added more information to our chart but this time under the heading of "New Learning".  Each day I used a new color of post-it.  For information we discovered wasn't correct, we moved that post-it to "Misconceptions".

Our Schema Chart

We also did a little experiment illustrating what happens to your teeth is you do not brush regularly.  I used two hard boiled eggs, each representing a tooth.  I discussed how, like the egg, a tooth is hard on the outside to protect the soft part of your tooth.  One egg was placed in vinegar.  This was to represent a tooth that was not brushed very often.  The kiddos observed how bad the vinegar smelled.  One little kiddo said, "Mrs. Straight it even smells like bad breath!"  After just one day the egg in the vinegar was discolored and soft with a yucky film on it.  (Yes, we touched the egg - then quickly washed our hands!)  The kinders agreed brushing is a MUST!!

The nice clean "tooth"

The yucky "tooth" 

It was hard to get a good picture but trust me, like the boys and girls said--- "GROSS!"

Our hallway display....

Can YOU find your child's toothy grin?



Let's Think Math!!!!!

At the beginning of the week, I display our number for our THINK MATH! time in our Math corner.  We take a little time to talk about the number and I ask the kiddos to think about the number in many different ways throughout the week.  As Friday Math time comes around, we join together and record our information on the chart writing our number in many different ways!  I get them going and let them take off.  They tell me the different combinations and how to write our number so many different ways.  The boys and girls LOVE to write the story problem.  I am so proud of my 
kinders --- they really know how to THINK MATH!

Chit Chat

As I was blog hopping late one night, I came across one of my favorite blog sites by fellow Kindergarten teacher Deanna Jump.  She had taken the concept of a morning message to another level to really challenge her kiddos.  I thought my kiddos can do that --- and they did not disappoint!

Each Friday, we do our Chit Chat chart.  I have a message printed for the kiddos to read with some letters missing.  The boys and girls need to use context clues to figure out what is missing and we fill it in our chart.  I always end each message with a questions.  My boys and girls LOVE the challenge!

I then give them a print out of our little "Chit Chat"  and they fill out the information independently and are able to take them home to read to the families.

February Math and Literacy Stations

It is a new month.  Time for new holidays, new units to study, new Kindergarten birthdays, new desk arrangements and new literacy and math stations.  I set these stations up so the boys and girls can work independently.  The activities are a review of past skills or on-going skills.  Take a look at  what February has in store for our Kindergarten friends!

Our Literacy Stations

Roll-a-sight word

Sorting word families/chunks and beginning sounds 

The art station and dot paints!!!!

Computer station - thinking skills

Listening station - listening to February themed stories

Writing more and more sentences at the writing station!

Our Math Stations

Heart measurement - using standard measurement (a ruler) and

non standard measurement (candy hearts) to measure different sized hearts and then recording the information.

Coin recognition and their value

                                                               Roll a love bug

Counting by fives to 100.  There is also counting by ones to 20 and by tens to 100.  The boys and girls also practice writing the numbers for extra reinforcement.

Broken heart addition - The kiddos roll the die and read the number word to determine how many counters are needed to do their math work.  All information is recorded on the math worksheet.

                                                    Working with patterns