December Art Projects

Our Santa wind socks

Our December quilt

Happy holidays everyone!

Smarties For Smarties

This was such a cute idea from Mrs. Bell's blog site, A Place Called Kindergarten, I just had to use it in our own classroom.  Whenever the kiddos have worked hard, done well or just because they are awesome thinkers they get a Smartie.  What fun!!!!  The boys and girls just love it!!!!!

No More Rest Time

Last week the rest mats were sent home for the rest of the school year and I am almost certain cheers were heard around the world that day. Then the question was asked "What are we going to do since we don't have rest time any more?"  Well, like I have told my boys and girls before - it is always good to have a Plan B.  I changed the structure of our Accelerated Reader and Accelerated Math time to fill in our gap in our schedule.

Our Accelerated Math or AM time is now in the afternoon.  AM is a progress monitoring software tool that monitors and manages math skills.  The program creates math assignments tailored to each students current level.  The computer automatically scores all math practices, assignments and tests. The TOPS reports are printed out and sent home with each child to keep parents updated on their child's progress.   Each skill/objective is individually paced for each child.  AM is used as a supplement to our regular math curriculum.

Our Accelerated Reader or AR time has also been moved to the afternoon.  AR is also a progress monitoring software for monitoring the practice and assessment of reading.  It is designed to increase comprehension skills and foster a love of reading.  After reading their AR book at home with parents, the boys and girls take an AR test on the computer.  Most tests are voice generated if not the teacher or classroom para  reads the test questions to the student.  There are 5 book questions on each test.  The kindergartners are responsible for answering the multiple choice questions.  The computer scores the test.  TOPS reports are printed out and sent home to keep parents appraised of their child's progress.  During our AR time there are boys and girls who are not quite ready to take their  AR test, those boys and girls are reading books from their book boxes.  They are allowed to find a comfy spot with a comfy pillow and just read , read, READ!

Confessions of a Blog Stalker

OK I admit it --- I AM A BLOG STALKER!  Who needs to eat, do laundry, or clean house when you have blogs to read!   My discovery of teacher blogs was quite by accident but it was a good accident. I knew teacher blogs existed as I have my own blog but I have discovered so many wonderful, talented, giving teachers through Blogspot ( yes,that it what I use for my blog.).  These Kindergarten teachers have posted so many fabulous  units, art work, classroom management, science, math and literacy ideas that they are willing to share.  They are also so wonderful to answer questions about their posts almost immediately.  Not only that, but much of it is free to download for your classrooms.  I am so appreciative of what they have to share.  Being a Kindergarten teacher myself, I realize how much outside school time it takes to prepare many of the lessons and units we teach.  But these gracious teachers take even more of their time to share with other teachers.  I do look forward to checking the many blogs I have found so far and expanding on their ideas so they are able to fit our classroom here in Winside.  It has been fun and exciting and I LOVE finding new ways to teach and to grow as a teacher.  I am looking forward to sharing these ideas with you as well!  I have to run...you know why...gotta check out those blogs!!!

Our Thanksgiving Feast

This one of my most favorite days of the year when the Kindergarten Pilgrims and our First grade Native American friends come together for a yummy feast.   The boys and girls had a great time as they mixed and mingled, laughed and visited and ate and ate and ATE!  Of course, none of this would have happened without our wonderful parents who prepared such yummy food like deer meatballs,  roasted deer meat, deer jerky, deer sausage, beef sticks, cranberry and blueberry muffins, corn bread, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cupcakes, popcorn, trail mix, dried fruit and apple juice.  I know I am one of the luckiest teachers around with such wonderfully supportive parents.  Thank you for all you do to enhance your child's learning experiences!!

Yep - we ate just about everything!!!!!



November Art Projects

Welcome to our gobblin' good classroom.  The boys and girls love to work on our projects.  Most of our art projects take two days to complete.  They LOVE to show off their work!

The pumpkins were "picked" and the turkeys came in to let us know turkey isn't the ONLY thing to eat on Thanksgiving!

Our turkey wind socks

This is our November quilt.  Each student did a turkey hand print and with some clever cutting and gluing a beautiful fall maple leaf.

PALS

New and exciting things are taking place in Kindergarten! I just love it!  This past week we began PALS in our classroom. PALS is a program that makes sure children are getting a solid foundation in early reading skills.  The game-like PALS activities double the amount of practice students get with phonemic awareness and alphabetic knowledge.  Students are paired for activities that teach pronunciation, letter knowledge and phonemic awareness. Our regular PALS time is scheduled for 20 minutes two or three times a week.  Each month the boys and girls will receive a new PALS partner to work with.