Teacher Gifts

SO, my boys are finishing out the year and we have been getting their gifts together that they will give to their teachers.  We have been so blessed this year with a group of great teachers for both my boys.  The first picture is photo albums that my son signed on the inside and we put a gift card in the front part where a picture would go and wrote, " Thank you for a picture perfect year!"  The second picture is a picture frame that I picked up @ Kohl's.  For those of you that don't know, in the back of Kohl's they have a clearance section around the rugs, and I picked up that cute frame for $3.99.  We will put a Target gift card in there and write, " Thanks for a picture perfect year.  You have gotten Ganon on Target for 1st grade."  We then took pictures of the boys holding a thank you sign and wrote on the back for thank you cards.  

Memorial Day!

WOW!  What a great long weekend and we had such beautiful weather to help celebrate Memorial Day!  This week we are continuing to POP our balloons and have fun inside and outside of the classroom.  Today we watched a short video on United Streaming about the holiday and read a book titled Memorial Day.  We completed a worksheet outlineing some events that people attend during the holiday.  The class also did some partner writing.  They were to write about what Memorial Day means to them.  They had to illustrate and write 3 sentences.  They did a great job!  I will post some of their writings.  We are also making American Flags.  Pictures to come also.  We continue to have our count down on, 8 and counting here!

Kindergarten Fun Continues

Kindergarten Fun Continues...yesterday we POPPed another balloon and we got to write with a pen or marker all day long for ALL assignments.  That was lots of fun for the class.  I didn't see one pencil even on standby yesterday, LOL!  Today they POPPED a purple balloon and got sit anywhere you want day.  Well, since I have told them where to sit all year long including during circle time and math corner time, this was a REAL treat for them.  They have done well considering they are all sitting by their "best" friends.  Stay tuned for more.....

End of Kindergarten Fun

One of my besties, who teaches first next door, found this really cute idea on Pintrest and we have adapted it for our classes.  Each day for the remaining 10 FULL days, we have a balloon hanging somewhere in the classroom.  Inside the balloon is a piece of paper with something fun for us to do throughout the day.  The paper allows the students to do something that they would not normally get to do.  They LOVED it.  They called it their fortune telling balloon and are so excited to see what tomorrow brings.  Today was NO SHOES day.......can you tell????????  We had a blast.  Come back each day to see what fun we had!

We also made a paper chain and are taking one off a day.  The students decorated their chain and when it is their day to take it off, they have to tell us about 2 things they learned this year and share their favorite thing about this year....talk about some funny stories!

Measuring Fun

In VA, we only teach non-standard forms of measurement in Kindergarten.  So we use lots of different things to measure with; our feet, paper clips, beans, bears, pencils, crayons, you get it!  This year, for some reason, I have an abundance of large chart paper left.  Today we each got a piece of the paper and drew LARGE pictures of ourselves.  Tomorrow we will use those pictures to practice measuring.  They did a really cute job on the pictures.  I am attaching my data recording sheet for you and some of our LARGER than life pictures! 

Here is the measuring sheet:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bypec1TEM6FNb2RUdldpcWw3TDg/edit

Butterflies and Caterpillars

Here are some of the books we will be reading this week.  The first picture shows the circle map/caterpillar we made to help us genterate some ideas of what we could do if we were a caterpillar.  My class is really work hard on story writing, with a B, M and E so they came up with some fun ideas to make their stories fantasy.  I am also attaching the writing sheet we will use for our good copies. 



https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bypec1TEM6FNbzdVY0xLUGVqWk0/edit?pli=1

Caterpillars to Butterflies

This week we will be working on the life cycle of a butterfly.  We have already begun our caterpillar garden.  We watch each day for changes and are recording them in our butterfly journals.  Here is a list of some activities we will be doing this week:  

1.  Reading books about butterflies and their life cycles.
2.  Creating our own small book using familiar sight words.
3.  Creating a diagram of the butterfly life cycle using noodles.
4.  Write about what we would do if we were caterpillars and butterflies. ( we will create circle/bubble maps to help us with this ) 
5.  Make our own butterflies using construction paper and paint ( the students will add paint one day and cut out their butterfly the next day )  
6.  Continue to monitor and record what we see in our butterfly garden

Pictures to follow!!!

This is the little book I am having my students read and illustrate.


https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bypec1TEM6FNOXpUMnZFTW90N2s/edit

As my second year of teaching Kindergarten comes to an end, I find myself constantly searching blogs and wanting to create my own.  My goal for this blog is not only to share with other teachers in the teaching community but to also have this blog as a place of reference for my upcoming Kinders!  I would love to  post things that are going on in the classroom for parents to see and for others to get ideas.  I am also going to use this as place of reference for parents to use throughout the year.  I will work diligently this summer to get this up and running for the upcoming year.  So stop by, get some ideas, and enjoy!