Community Helpers

So last week we worked on community helpers! It is one of mine, and the kid's favorite units! So here is a little look at what we did!


I LOVE this bulletin board set! My old school had magnetic walls (awesome I know) so it was a center for my students to match the word with the worker and their equipment (a vocabulary word we learned this week!!). So I decided I would make it into a KL (I know we are missing the W) chart. On the green/yellow sticky notes we wrote what we know. Then on the orange sticky notes we wrote what we learned. There are closer up pictures below. The kids LOVED it! They have been reading the sticky notes all week! This week we will be adding more!

They loved learning about the soldiers. We learned about the US Army, US Navy, and US Air Force. We ran out of time to look at any others. The books are in our library for them to look at!

My favorite...dentists paint your teeth! The best thing was that the mobile dentist had just come to our school. So my little ELL guys were really able to understand, and make some good connections!

One of the favorites! We had so many books on police officers that I let a pair of students look at a book. They then found a picture that they liked the best. Then they discussed what the picture was about and "taught" the other students a fact about police officers. They LOVED being the teacher!

Firefighters! Another class favorite! We were just getting started with our new chart...so they didn't have much to add. They did know a lot about them though! I did the same thing with the books as we did with the police officer books.

MATH:

This week we were also working on measuring. I googled SMARTBoard Measurement and found a TON of great SMARTBoard resources. I say...why reinvent the wheel! If someone has already made a great SMARTBoard resource why make another! I can spend my energy on other quality activities for my class!

So around the room I put different lengths of tape and wrote a letter on the tape. Then the students went around with a partner and measure the tape with unifix cubes. THEY LOVED IT!!! They were so engaged and doing some GREAT problem solving. I made a simple recording sheet with the letters on it. One counted and double checked, and the other wrote the number. On the next letter they switched.

Thank goodness for a 3 day weekend!! Have a great week everyone!!

The mind of 5 year olds!

I have two classic Kindergarten stories for you today!

First I had one of my little friends come in this morning looking a little blue, but he didn't say anything. So I gave him a normal morning hug and went on. Then we were starting to get all of our snow gear off, and I looked at my sad little friend. All of a sudden he BURSTS into tears! I thought something was terribly wrong. I asked him what was wrong. He looked at me in those big brown watery eyes and he exclaimed "My fish Rufus died!!!!" Well his world has come crashing down! So we talked about being sad, and he got to draw a picture so he could remember Rufus forever!

Later I get an e-mail from his mom. She has told me that our friend really liked to take out the fish and pet him! HAHAHA too funny!



Then later today we were talking about neighborhoods. So much fun! We were drawing a "map" of our neighborhood. As we were making this map I asked the students "What are some places and things we would see in our Neighborhood?" Of course I got the normal answers school, Wal-Mart, and houses. My two favorites....Hy-vee so we can get Chinese food, and a pawn shop!


LOVE IT!!

New Year...New Me!

So I have to say, that I have been a terrible blogger! I just can't seem to get into it. I think the fact that I only have one follower is another part of it! Why write what no one is going to read! I get so jealous of all the cool blogs I read and follow. Another part is coming into a new school. I am trying to figure our curriculum and requirements. It is so hard when you have 100 people telling you 100 different things! So I have decided I am going to do what is best for me, and of course what is best for my students! So this brings me to my New Year's Resolution! If I write it....they will come!! HAHAHA So my New Year's Resolusion: At least one blog post a week! Hopefully with this, I will get a few more followers!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!

October Newsletter

October Newsletter

Spider Math

I just love themed math ideas! So for the past few weeks we have been practicing counting. We have been working with dice and counting the dots. So when it was close to Halloween we added spiders to it! The 1st player rolls the die and counts the dots. Then they pick out that many spiders. Then the second player does the same, and so on. After all the spiders are gone the students count to see who has the most. I got the spiders at Wal-Mart...I think it was a package of 100 for $2.00!
Here are some pictures:

I also love these trays! They came with our math curriculum! They help everything stay in one place!

We also added recording our numbers. After they counted out the spiders the students recorded it on a piece of paper. They could make a mark, draw a circle, whatever was easy for them. It was just another way to show how many they spiders they had. Sometimes the numbers matched and sometimes they didn't. So that was a great discussion starter.

Word Clouds

Have you ever heard of a word cloud? Have you ever made one? I just learned about these awesome little gadgets this summer! You just type in the words and press go! Then you can changed the shape, font, and colors to match whatever it is that you are making your word cloud about. Today we tried out our first one. We did a word cloud about Halloween words. Here it is:

You can't really tell but it is in the shape of a witch's hat! I can't wait to do another one!!
The websites to make these are www.tagxedo.com or www.wordle.net/

They are so much fun! I am thinking about making one with sight words to play the flyswatter game with!!

I LOVE THE DOLLAR STORE!!!

I just love going to the dollar store! You think that you could get out cheap....not when I go!! You think oh well these are all only a buck...I can get at least 3! Well that adds up...but here are some things that I have found!


Target Dollar Spot:

What can you do with these? Here is what my students did....

You can make cool patterns!!! I also had students that sorted them...but they cleaned it up before I could snap a picture!

What do you like to buy at the dollar store or Target dollar spot??