Five for Fraturday Let it Snow!

Snow is so beautiful and fun and COLD, I am not a fan of cold, thus the reason I live in central Cali, where we have no snow. Don't get me wrong, I love to look out at it, I just don't want to have to shovel my driveway to leave my house. But...snow in the classroom is lots of fun! I am linking up a little late with Kacy from Doodle Bugs for her Five for Friday on Saturday! 

I am going to share just a few of the activities we did this week involving snowmen.

I must have a dozen books about snow and or snowmen, but one of my favorites is Snowmen at Night. Each day we reread the story and do a different literacy activity. This week we sorted details from the text. We completed this whole group in our pocket chart deciding if the card had a detail that was or was NOT in the text. After our whole group activity each student completed it on their own.

They cut out their picture squares, glued them on the correct side of their recording sheet and then colored the pictures.

We also did an opinion writing activity. Each student wrote whether they liked hot cocoa or chocolate milk better and why. We did a partner/group discussion first then each student wrote on their own.

These were two of my favorites. "I like hot cocoa because when I am cold I drink hot cocoa." "I like hot cocoa because when I watch a movie it is good." I am just so proud of how my kinders are using our word wall and stretching out their sounds in their writing. These activities are all from Deanna Jump and Deedee Wills Guiding Readers January pack. They are one of my favorite resources!

Another component of the Guiding Readers resource is a weekly art activity that goes with the literature that is being studied. This week we painted Snowmen at Night. My kiddos did a fantastic job and they look so cute hanging in our room. It is helping it look more like winter now.

I usually go all in with my themes, so of course our poem this week was about snowmen as well. This is from Deedee Wills January poetry. Using these poems every week has really made a huge difference in the language development of my kiddos. My class is 99% ELL and these are fantastic for learning word patterns, rhyming, phonics and so much more.

We say our poem each day and then do a different quick word activity each day. The blue spots, are plastic file dividers that I cut and we use to highlight our sight words, usually on Tuesdays. They were so excited that we knew 24 sight words this week. Deedee also has a song for each poem and we love to sing anything! It is so cute, I usually hear them singing our poems out on the playground too!

My writing center is always one of the most popular activities in our room. Each month I have new word cards. This month they are all about snow, winter and January holidays. I use mini clothespin clips to hold my cards, so it is a breeze to change them out the first of each month. These are also from Deedee Wills, she is just fantastic!

At the writing center they get to choose which kind of writing activity they want to do. They can do a label or list activity.

They can write a story or make a book. Once they have their writing done they get to use any of the tools to finish their project. I have 2 different kinds of markers, colored pencils and crayons. I think being able to use all of these is part of the reason it is so popular.

I love it because, it encourages independence in their writing, allows each child to go at their own pace and it is amazing to see how much progress each student makes during the year.

Something else we did this week, well really every week is use ESGI. It is sooo fantastic. If you teach PK, K or 1st you need to use this. It makes it possible for me to do quick assessments on my kiddos without any paper mess, and often times with no prep. Time is a precious commodity these days. For the Guiding Readers units I talked about above there is an assessment already loaded into the program. On Friday I can quickly see how each kiddo is doing on comprehension. 

Another preloaded assessment is for Ball Words. It is a sight word program from Marsha McGuire from A Differentiated Kindergarten. I have used this system for a few years and my kiddos love it. The Dolch sight word list is divided into 11 lists each on a different ball. I have these hanging in my room, see the pic below, and the kiddos have access to practice at all times. They also have their list in their homework folder. I test every Friday, and I would have to be sure I had all the lists and highlighters ready to go. This year Martha joined forces with ESGI and now it is easier than ever to assess my kiddos. The word lists are preloaded, I just pull up their name, click on the list and away we go. The kiddos are asking me all week, when are you going to test me! What a time saver.

The other great thing is that the data is now right at my finger tips the moment I finish giving the test. I can view an individual student, a small group or even the whole class. It makes it great for small group planning. I just pull up the group and I can see what words or skill we need to focus on. I can choose how I want those results displayed as well. Genius I tell you!

It also makes it easy to see what students need RTI and on what specific skills. I can do individual printouts and even letters for parents, in English or Spanish, to keep parents updated on their child.

With the click of a button I can even print out flashcards for each individual student with their name on them for the words they need to work on. I know I never want to be without ESGI. I can use preloaded assessments and make my own. If you want to give it a try in your own class you can try it out for 60 days for free by clicking on the logo on my sidebar or going to ESGIsoftware.com and using the promo code B7284. If you are already convinced that you need it, you can get a $40 discount with the same code. What have you got to lose!

I am off to enjoy the rest of my 3 day weekend! Have a great one! Be sure to check out the rest of the posts in Doodle Bugs link up!

Wordless Wednesday

Today I am linking up with Miss DeCarbo at Sugar and Spice for her Wordless Wednesday.

Today we were rockin’ our literacy centers.

I was so proud of my littles for working independently.  Do you do literacy centers? Do you do Daily 5? What do you like about what you use and what would you like to change?

I would love to read your comments and thoughts.  Be sure to go check out all the other wordless Wednesday pics!

Five for Fraturday ~ Elf Capades and Kid Funnies!

Well in true form I am posting my Five for Friday on Saturday Fraturday.  The wonderful Kacey at Doodle Bugs is taking a break from her linky for the rest of 2014, but I love reflecting on what we did for the week and this always seems like the best way.  It is like “Our greatest hits” of the week…lol.

First I just have to say we only have 7 ½ days until Christmas break…wow, where has the time gone.  It is flying by.  We have really come a long way this year, but we still have so much to learn and it seems like such little time to do it in. 

This week was filled with learning and fun and this is how it went down.

This was our focus wall for the week.  We are continuing on with a word family, number and 2 sight words for the week.

We have finished up all the 2D shapes and have moved on to 3D shapes.  This week was all about cubes. Now that we have made it all the way through the alphabet it was time to start with digraphs and blends.  I like to start with the digraphs first I just think they are easier for the kiddos to “get”.  Of course we had to make a circle map for each of them.

They did a fantastic job coming up with words for Th and Sh.  We also watched 2 short clips on starfall to introduce the sound these digraphs make. 

 Right before we left for Thanksgiving we wrote letters to Santa asking him to send us an Elf of our own.  Well, Monday morning about 10am the office called and we had a special delivery.  I sent a student to the office to bring it back.  The first thing my student told the class was that the box was freezing.  Of course everyone had to touch the box…it may or may not have been in the freezer for the last 18 hours or so… Everyone was sooo excited.  

They were all commenting that it had to be our elf from Santa.  Well we opened the package and it was!  They were thrilled and there were screams and squeals  galore.  I had to remind them to not be so loud we might disturb the 2^nd graders next door.  The plastic was even foggy from being so cold. 

We put the box up on top of the file cabinet and I passed out our Elf journals and we got to voting on a name for our Elf. We ended up with the name Chippy.  Then we drew a picture of our new elf.

Each morning we spend a few minutes writing about Chippy.  They have never been so excited about writing. These fantastic elf letters and writing activities can be found from Kristal at Kreative in Kinder here.

The first day Chippy came out of his box we found him hiding behind a picture frame.  The next morning he was in the pen holder on the side of my file cabinet.

Then the unthinkable happened…Someone TOUCHED Chippy.  I know this because a little boy came to me to say…”See, he didn’t lose his magic, A--- and I touched him and he is fine!”  I just said…”Oh, really”…I was in disbelief!  This particular student is usually a total rule follower so I was really surprised.  But, his cohort didn’t surprise me one bit.  Well that night Chippy returned to the North Pole as a result.  The next morning the kiddos found this note.

They were devastated! They immediately kept asking who touched Chippy…of course I didn’t tattle and the two who did it were not confessing either.  In fact the one who had told on himself wouldn’t even look me in the eye all during carpet time…lol.  

So that afternoon instead of our regular writer’s workshop we wrote letters to Santa saying we were sorry and that it would never happen again.

Thankfully the next day Chippy returned.  This time way high on top of my cabinets.  He may have to stay out of reach for a few days until I feel that he will be “safe”.  However, it is a little difficult for Chippy to have “fun” if he has to sit high up out reach of little hands.  We will see how it goes.  Do you have an Elf in your room this year?  I would love to hear all about it!

For the next 2 weeks we are learning all about Gingerbread.  We will be reading many different versions of the Gingerbread man and we are making an anchor chart so that we can see all the things that are the same and different with the stories.  We recorded the Setting, Characters, Problem and Solution from each story.  I am a bad blogger and didn’t get a picture of our chart in progress. Insert sad face… I will be sure to snap a pic once it is all complete and post it next week…I promise…lol.

We started off with these 4 versions of the story.

The kiddos liked the Gingerbread Baby the best so far.  If you want to check out any of these books for yourself you can easily find them on Amazon from the widget of my fav books for December down below. 

Do you have a favorite Gingerbread story…I am always looking for more.  To finish off our Gingerbread study we will be making our own Gingerbread houses too.  It is gonna be so much fun!

I know December is usually all about Christmas.  I know some of you aren’t allowed to do “Christmas” in your rooms. I love decorating for Christmas, but how do you do that without being overt. I have a solution for you.  Sight word chains!  I have done these for several years.  The kiddos love making them.  They are totally academic.  They make cute decorations, without being too “Christmasy” (I know that isn’t an actual word), and they are super easy. 

You just cut red and green paper into 1 ½” strips.  Then each student writes sight words on them. You staple the papers into a chain. Done.

I require that they can only put words down that they can write all on their own.  No peeking at the sight word wall.  I did also limit it to 12 words per student since I knew I wanted to hang them in our windows and any longer would not fit.  We also only had fifteen minutes for this activity. 

They had a blast and I think they look fantastic hanging in our windows.

I saved the best for last.  Maybe you noticed something a bit different when you arrived here today??  I got a fabulous blog makeover from Designs by Kassie!  I just love it!  I will say, being on the waiting list was totally worth the wait.  She was great to work with and I highly recommend her if you’re thinking about a custom blog design. Thanks Kassie! You rock!

I am also linking up with Kathleen at KidPeople Classroom for Funny Kid Friday. 

This time I don’t have a story but rather some funny one liners I heard this week…

At guided reading I was instructing a student to …come on get your name on your paper so we can get started.  The student next to him says…” Ya, Come on Fool!” including attitude with it too! Not a typical 5 year old.

We were working on a project whole class. I had one student that is super quick who kept  wandering the room in between the steps of our assignment.  I had several times asked this student to find their seat and be patient while the rest of the class catches up. Finally one of my little angels, (lol…one that is usually a handful himself), says to this student…”How many times does she have to tell you”  It was all I could do to keep from busting up laughing.

Finally, I learned once again how careful we have to be about what we say around our students.  As we were waiting on several students to return from specials I had a few students who were being a little “wild” on the carpet dancing around…what can I say it is December…anywho, One of my sweeties looks at them and in a very firm tone says…”Now is that an appropriate thing to do?”  I know I say that quite often I guess it is rubbing off…lol.

Hope you had a great week.  Did you have any kid funnies?  Why not link up with Kathleen and be sure to check out all the other posts.  Have a great week friends!

Five for Fraturday! Loads of Apples!

Well it was another fantastic week in Kindergarten.  Just love my kiddos.  It is so exciting to see that many of them are really making fantastic progress. Once again I am linking up a little late with Kacey at Doodle Bugs for Five for Friday.

Our focus wall this week.

Again we competed our circle maps for the letters of the week.

Our Poem this week focused on environmental print, thank you Deedee Wills for such fantastic poetry units. 

 The kiddos all brought in words that they could read without help. 

Then they each got to put their name, beginning letter of their name, the card that started with the same beginning letter as their name and then the piece of environmental print that they had brought.  Each child “read” the poem by themselves.  They loved it and were so proud of themselves that they could read it without help.  Their little faces were just beaming. We have been working hard on teaching tracking, one word one point, and they were demonstrating this perfectly as they read.  They were begging to read it again and again.

 This week we, like every other week, were working on our sight words.  We use many different activities to work on these throughout the year.  One of our favorites is using our sight word songs from Heidi Songs.

Her videos are fantastic.  They are fun and engaging and the kiddos really learn from them.  They are perfect as a brain break too.  Also, they work great when you have just a few minutes to fill before your next activity.  Like if we have just 3 minutes until we leave for lunch we will do 1 or 2. My kiddos actually ask to practice their sight words, how great is that!

This is a sample of one of her videos from YouTube.  We have the DVD’s which are so convenient, you just click on the exact song you want and you’re ready to go.  I just keep the disc in my computer so we can practice at a moment’s notice. Easy peasy!

This week we were finishing up our unit all about apples.  So we did several apple investigations.  On Friday we did our ELA block then the rest of the day was apple day.  The kiddos had a blast.  I was a little disappointed that I had 5 kiddos out sick so they missed all the fun, but it was still great.  First up was to get our applesauce going in the crockpot so that we could eat it after PE in the afternoon. 

Each student got to help put one of the ingredients into the crockpot.  We turned it on and let it go.  By lunch you could really smell the cinnamon.

The finished product!  We used quite a bit of cinnamon, that is why it is brown…lol.  The kiddos all loved it!

We also did a prediction on what the inside of the apple would look like.  However, I cut it crosswise instead of length wise like you normally would.  This creates a star in the center and the kiddos thought I was magic.  They were asking if I used a special knife and how I did that, it was so cute.  Then we recorded our observation.

The next investigation was to predict if an apple would sink or float.  After we gathered around the table and put the apples in the water we all went back to our tables to again record our observations.  We went over that it didn’t matter if you were right or wrong in your prediction, that is what scientists do.  They test things out to see what really happens.

Next up was our apple taste test.  We had red, green and yellow apples cut up.  They each tested all three apples and had to record if they liked them or not by coloring in the happy or sad face on their recording sheet.  Then they had to choose their favorite, write that down and draw a picture of it.

Then we made a bar graph of our favorite apples to see which apple had the most votes and which one had the least.

All of these super cute observation and recording sheets can be found here from Wild about teaching .

To finish out our week we did this super cute apple craft to celebrate Johnny Appleseed.  We had watched a video on Brainpop Jr. and read a book all about Johnny Appleseed as part of our study. So this was the perfect way to end our unit.  I am a little bit, ok maybe a lot, of a control freak so we cut, glue, color etc, each piece together and go slow so that everyone can follow the directions correctly.

I think they just turned out adorable! If you want to do this craft you can get the pattern for FREE here, thanks to The Bubbly Blonde Teacher! 

So how was your week?  I would love to hear. Leave me a comment and let me know all about it.  Don’t forget to check out Doodle Bugs teaching to see what everyone else did this week.

~Laura