Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns to Listen

Some of my kiddos are still struggling with good listening skills.  One of my favorite books is Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns to Listen.  If you haven't met Howard yet, check him out.  He has several other really great stories to teach our young learners.

 

After reading the story - we made our own rabbit ears to wear and remember to be good listeners.  The kids LOVE wearing hats they made:)

It's COLOR week!

So this week several of our Kindergarten classes are celebrating colors with a week long unit!!  Yesterday was Red day which was perfect as we were also celebrating Johnny Appleseed's birthday!  We learned to spell red by singing Heidisongs color words from her Sing & Spell DVD.

We also read the story Mary Wore Her Red Dress and came up with our sentences.  Unfortunately we ran out of time to do our art project - an apple mobile:(  Oh well - we made up for it today with Orange day!

We began by reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear.  We used some fun activities found in Julie Lee's Brown Bear Unit; Kreative in Kinder's Colors unit; and Made for 1st Grades's Color Day Fun.

I was so lucky that my colleague had a copy of Cat's Colors - what a fun story that I will definatley need to add to my collection.  Then students used paper plates colored orange for the cat head, added triangle ears, and colored black details for their own orange cat.  On the back they added their own sentence telling the reader about something orange (I think everyone chose the cat:) ).

For some fun science we asked what might happen if we mixed red and yellow together.  Each child was given a snack size zip lock bag.  I then gave each a dollop of shaving cream, and added yellow and red food coloring.  The kids LOVED mixing it to find ORANGE!!  This was a great lesson to begin talking about the scientific process and easy peasy as we were once again running out of time - ahhh!

Sorry I don't have pictures but I left my camera at school:(  I'll try to add some later.  Tomorrow is Yellow day and I haven't yet figured out a good story other than maybe Curious George. I have been given a few titles but I don't have those books and couldn't find them at our library either:(

Science week on TBA!!

If you have any science related fun to share or are looking for some great ideas, check out TBA's science week!

New Science Blog!!

Just tripped over to Little Miss Hypothesis and it is now a FAV!!!  Science it so much fun and the kids LOVE LOVE LOVE it!!  If you haven't had a chance to go to Steve Spangler's Science in the Rockies - it is an all time must!!  Especially if you are somewhat nervous about teaching science to little ones.  Thank you Little Miss Hypothesis - cute blog design too!!

Handwriting without Tears

When I first started teaching Kindergarten I came across a fabulous handwriting program called Handwriting Without Tears.

I have used this program with my first graders as well and now that I am back in Kinder I was excited to see what upgrades the company has to offer.  They now have it for your SMARTboard!!  Yay!!  I just tried it for the first time today and the kids loved it.  Check it out!

Oh and I need help finding a blog...
I was scanning through blogs last week and came across a teacher blog where they had read No David to the class and then created positive statements (Yes David).  I want to have the kids do the art work and combine it with the ideas shared by The First Grade Parade.  I spent hours searching my links in hopes of coming across it again but I give up:)

Another child grieves...

Yesterday I learned the new adoptive parent one of my firsties from last year was killed in Afganistan. My heart hurts for her and her family.  This is the third family in our school since we started just over two weeks ago.  Hasn't been someone I knew or met personally since 8 years ago when our teacher colleagues husband was killed.

Please keep the soldiers and their families in your hearts and prayers....

Camp Wannalearnalot - Classroom Pics

I have now met all my new kinders and I'm excited to begin our year! This week we are finishing home visits. Then next week we will have a staggered start so that we can assess each child. This is the first time our school has done this and we hope it will be super successful allowing us to do it again in the future. The most exciting news is that our Admin approved the purchase of licenses for ESGI. I learned about this program on The Polka Dot Patch and am so glad she shared. We are looking forward to using this program during our staggered start days so that we can immediately have information about our kids abilities. We don't have a math a computer based math assessment so let me know if anyone has a great one they use.

My class has finally begun to come together so I am posting pictures. Last year was the first year I used the Camping theme and I LOVED it. I loved walking into my room every day. This year I bought some more things and I have added some ideas found by blog stalking. I want to thank Clutterfree classroom for her ideas and First Grade Owls for her cutesie Color OWLS. I love DJ inkers clipart as you can see:) There is another site I purchased camping clipart from but I can't remember just now as I bought it last year.

This will be my job chart.

This is my SMARTboard with my rules above.  I use WBT and have other graphics to go with the rules as we are learning them. 

This is my science area.
Soon I will also add Camper
of the Week to the bboard.

This is as you come in the
front door. You see our new
Circle Time chart and above our
Daily Destinations with
room for our Anchor Charts.

Housekeeping 

Block Play

Art Area

Outside our classroom. This didn't come out so well in the picture.  I still need to add something....hmmm...maybe a giant rock?

This will be my Math/Literacycenters. The table needs moved over. removed the legs. The stand will also sit on the floor.

I changed my CAFE into
a FISH chart (Fluency, Improving Accuracy, Strengthening Comprehension, and Hooking New Vocabulary).  I will also have Math Meadow on this board in the opposite corner.  I plan to use this to build math concepts we are learning.  My birthday bug jars are underneath.

This is the view as you walk in the door. My dear mom made the curtains.  The "pond" carpet is our meeting area.