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!

Five for Fraturday and a Freebie!

Well I just have the hardest time getting it together on Friday after school to join up with Kacey at DoodleBug’s for Five for Friday.  With 3 teenage boys there always seems to be some school activity or event going on.  So I am here linkin’ up a little late, once again, with my Five for Fraturday.  I have a little freebie for you at the end as a consolation for my tardiness…haha!

 I have a new theme song this week…I’m so excited, and I just can’t hide it…I’m about to lose control and I think I like it…this is the Pointer Sisters in case you didn’t know.  I am a “music” person and songs just seem to pop into my head.  For all you from the “Y” generation I am sure you have never even heard of this song...just google it or check it out on YouTube…it’s pretty good. 

I digress…the reason for my song, and our first exciting thing of the week is the “huge” rug came from our Donor’s Choose project.  It is beautiful!  We all love it! My kiddos were so excited when they came into the room on Thursday morning.  They were tiptoeing around it like they were unsure if they should really step on it since it was so beautiful…lol…they were so darn cute.  We had the best carpet time ever.  They were sooo quiet, when they were supposed to be…it was like the new carpet put them in a trance.  Everyone had their “own” rectangle to sit on and it was so soft and comfy.  We even read an extra book so we could sit on it a little longer.  We also may or may not have squeezed in a short movie on Friday afternoon.  We have made it through 4 weeks of school now! So we got to lay out on our carpet and enjoy a little Netflix. 

The picture doesn’t even do it justice.  It is so big I had a hard time trying to even get it all in the picture…and we all know I am not a photographer! 

This was our focus wall for the week and just some of the things we are working on. 

First up, our letters of the week Circle maps.

There aren’t very many things on our Hh map we got cut short on time due to an Assembly for student council election speeches.  I am at a K-8 school and everyone attends and votes.

Our shape this week was the square and we completed this fantastic book from Angela Wargo.

It is great!  She has a pack with all of the flat 2D and 3D shapes.  First we made an Anchor chart together, we were so busy I forgot to take a picture of it…then we made the book to review all the attributes of squares.

I was so proud of my little cuties using their academic vocabulary and counting the number of vertices on the square. Angela has a FREE book about Triangles you can try here!

A few of our favorite books from the week were.

This little book was fantastic for talking about manners and what it actually means to have good manners.  It was a great discussion!

We also read these great books to kick off our study of apples

The Biggest Apple Ever

Apples By Gail Gibbons

Apples for Everyone

Our poem of the week was all about apples too! This is from Deedee Wills poetry units.

The kiddos loved it as usual, plus it introduced subtraction as we took one apple away each time as we went through our Poem on the way down to zero.

We started our writing center this week and the kiddos were super excited. 

First we completed a label it activity as a whole class.  This way I knew they would feel confident when they went to the writing center with their partners during the week. We are going to model a different activity each week for the next several so we can set the expectations of what needs to be done when they go to this center.  So at this time there will only be one choice at writing. It will be similar, but not exactly the same, as the one we do together.

Once we have covered all the different activities that will be available to them at the writing center there will be 3-4 choices each time that they can choose when they go to this center.  This center is the wonderful creation of Deedee Wills from Mrs. Wills Kindergarten.  It has everything you would need to implement a writing center in your class.  She has a theme for each month of the year, you can check it out here. It rocks!

I am so excited my kiddos are just doing awesome in the behavior department.  We use Whole Brain Teaching (WBT) in our room and one of my favorite things is our Super Improvers Wall. (Just ignore the lovely phone cord just hanging there in the pic...lol)

Each student has their own card and earns stars for positive improvement in ANY area.  This could be behavior, academic, being a good citizen.  You name it.  It is unique for each student.  It is THEIR improvement.  So our top students who are always doing well will strive to do even better to get another star on their card, while little “Johnny” who has trouble just sitting still can earn stars on his own level too.  He was able to go 5 minutes without interrupting…etc.  Once they earn 10 stars they move up to the next level.  There are 10 levels and you can even make alternate levels with their picture on it if you feel you need to stretch it out more to make it the entire year.  As you can see we are all still on the 1^st level.  I am usually pretty tough on earning stars in the beginning of the year and get a little more generous as the year goes on.  That way they push themselves to continually improve in all areas. 

This is a close up of one of my littles cards.  I love that these are in a 10 frame so it is reinforcing math skills at the same time.  They quickly learn to recognize how many more stars they need to move to the next level.  I got this cute jungle theme one for free here.  There are numerous different themes you can use.  The possibilities are endless!

Well I am a post it note girl.  I usually have them floating all over the place.  I saw this fantastic idea from my friend Amber at Mrs. Matsters' Kinder Love, she has lots of great ideas so be sure to check her out.  She had this super cute “To Do list” in a frame.  Then you can just write on it with a dry erase marker and you always know where your list is!  Genius I tell ya.  

Well, I had to have one that matched my room so I whipped up this little ditty.  If you like it you can grab it here for FREE.

If you made it all the way to the end thanks for sticking with this marathon post.  What were you up to this week.  I would love to hear all about it.  SO link up with Kacey or even better leave me a comment below.  Have a great weekend!

~Laura