Five for Fraturday!

I guess the first 3 weeks of school finally caught up with me.  I came home after helping my husband deliver some vehicles to customers for his autobody repair shop and was in bed by 9pm and didn’t wake up until 7am.  Then this morning I had an exciting outing, you can read more about that below, so I am just sitting down to write about some of the things we did this week.

 I’m linking up a ‘lil late with Kacey from Doodle bugs for Five for Friday Fraturday. 

Here is our focus wall for this week.

 My pictures on our circle maps for this week were a little embarrassing with my lack of artistic ability.  I almost didn’t post them, but I felt it was important for everyone to know we aren’t all perfect and the kids love them no matter what. So just try not to laugh too hard.

 We are working hard on learning all our letters and sounds.  One thing I love using to do that are these ancient, and I mean ancient…I am not even sure how long they have been around, “trinket” cups.  I have one for each letter of the alphabet and they all contain at least 6 items that begin with that letter. 

 Yes, the “Dd” cup is held together with masking tape…lol. I told you they were old.  However, they are fantastic for helping my ESL students work on vocabulary and reinforce beginning sounds.  I review one a day and keep rotating them until everyone knows their letters and sounds.  I use them during my guided reading time and it only takes literally 2-3 minutes and that way those groups that need more practice keep using them each week and my high groups see them once and move on to other activities.  The kiddos love them and I do too. I didn't even know if they still made them...but they do.  I found some nice pretty new ones from Lakeshore that you can get if you like them too!

We are continuing to work on our names.  We just finished up our 3^rd week and I think all but 2 of my TK kiddos can now recognize their names.

 We use this check in system every morning.  I change the letter they are looking for in their name.  The cards all start in the middle pocket chart and as the students come in they move their card to yes or no.  It also acts as a super quick way to take roll.  Once we finish the alphabet we will look for number of letters in our names, then number of syllables, etc. The possibilities are endless.  Kim Adsit from Kindergals spoke about this at I teach K this summer.  She said just take pics and copy hers…but why reinvent the wheel I figure.  So I got her pack and pressed print.  You can check it out here.

We are also working hard on writing our names.  My friend Irene Leeby from Learning with Mrs. Leeby has a fantastic editable name pack.

My kiddos loved their name worksheets and I could differentiate them with just first names or first and last and there are several different versions to choose from.  

You make it, save it, print it, and you can use it again and again. She even has a great tutorial video on customizing your worksheets.  You rock Irene!

Do you use videos with your kiddos?  I thought I would share some of our favorites that we used this week. Harry Kindergarten is a definite winner. His videos are fun, get the kids moving and teach too! My kiddos also think it is really cool that I actually met Mr. Harry this summer at the I Teach K conference. 

You can get these and all of his great videos at his website Harry Kindergarten Music!

We learned all about circles this week.  We used our Whole Brain Teaching Power Pix.

My students know not just what a circle is, but they will tell you that “A circle is a round shape” using their gestures too.  I just love WBT it is fun and learning at the same time.  It activates the kinesthetic, auditory and visual cortex of the brain simultaneously as well as the limbic system so that your students learn while having fun. You can learn more about WBT here.

We also made our “circle man” craftivity from Vickie Plant. These just came out adorable.

Now to my exciting excursion from this morning…I got to go to a SPA…courtesy of one of my students.  I received a gift card for a massage and a facial from one of the sweeties who was in my class last year. 

Let me tell you this place was fantastic.  Like those fancy places you see on TV.  I am a true country girl and don’t get to the “big” city too often. 

They give you a fancy robe and offer you champagne and mimosas, herbal teas, snacks a soothing lounge with sounds of crashing waves playing.  All I can say is WOW.  I have had a massage before, but not ever in a place like this.  The facial was a first for me and it was heavenly.  It was a well deserved treat for this long weekend.  The best part, I get to have another child from this fabulous family next year.  So, I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for another spa day.

Did you have a great week??  Do you have some great plans for the long weekend?? I’d love to hear all about it!  Be sure to check out the link up and see what everyone else was up to this week.

~Laura