Five for Fraturday!

I try and I try and I can never make it happen on a Friday! 

What's that saying…"There's no tired like teacher tired on a Friday"

That rings very true for this preggo teacher. :)

Here's what we've been up to.

We have been working hard on our reading stamina as we prepare to implement the Daily Five {it will really only be 3 rotations a day} in our classroom.  I have used the Daily Five method for the past five years and will always use it. I love the 'Sisters' and what they have taught me!

Also..don't mind the extension cord that this poor sweet boy is laying on. We have yet to get our technology pieces mounted, so taped extension wire it is! :)

Zero the Hero visited our room this week! We learned all about the number zero. We started by reading the book, then watched a quick clip on teachertube, and made these adorable little zero the hero masks while we searched for the numbers with zeros on the end {when we count by 10's}. 

They were too cute! 

Here's the book we read:

Click to check it out

The activity we completed with our Zero the Hero masks:

Click to check it out…it's a freebie!

We've been practicing our colors and color words all week with a little help from Frog Street Press and my corresponding Rainbow of Colors book!

We first learn the adorable song that goes with each color word, brainstorm a list of items that are that specific color, and then complete our pages in our book.  We are doing really great with spelling color words.

You can check out my Rainbow of Colors book by clicking the image below.

Click HERE for the Canadian version.

I must say…I am in love with this adorable little craft and bulletin board idea from Jennifer from First Grade Blue Skies.  It's perfect for beginning of the school year and Open House on Monday! :)

I will say, I did have everything already pre-cut for them. It was more of a 'following directions' and 'working on gluing' project. From previous experience, I wasn't ready to let them cut, glue, and follow multi-step directions during the second week of kindergarten. lol

You can find this adorable craft along with other great beginning of the year activities HERE

Another great resource we've been using this year comes from non-other than Cara Carroll. She literally is my 'go-to' girl! 

We are working on numbers 1-5 (with a splash of zero) and really 'digging deep' with number sense. Her Don't Forget my Number packet is perfect for any primary class! She has number anchors 1-20, multiple recording sheets to extend students learning, multiple hands-on and engaging activities to be placed in math tubs, used as whole group lesson, or small group games, and SO, SO, much more!

Check it out HERE!

What a busy and exciting week for us in kinderland!

Now onto getting lesson plans done for week four. :)

Happy weekend, friends!

Five for…well...

I have a problem.  I am a procrastinator. 

So, without further ado (or procrastinating) here's what we've been up to.

This past week we learned all about frogs!  We had so much comparing frogs and toads. Living in FL, near lots of body of water, we have lots of frogs readily available to us. So… we went hunting for frogs one day! Of course, I did not have my phone on my to snag a shot of the kiddos but it was a BLAST.

The above two pictures are activities from Deanna's Frog Frenzy pack. 

The frog activity was changed a little.  In the pack she provides a template for writing about frogs, however, I wanted my kiddos to apply the life cycle in a fun way. :)  

Our monarch caterpillars from Insect Lore also arrived mid-week and we are all anxiously awaiting for them to form their pupa. We have been charting each day since they've arrived. Being able to show kiddos a life cycle in action is one of my favorite things! :)

I am so excited about my kiddos writing. More importantly their sentence structure!  We have been working daily in our Super Sentences Book to write sentences with proper sentence structure (capitals only at the beginning, spaces between our words, punctuation, and neat handwriting). My kids are doing so well and I am so excited to show our first grade teachers! 

The left picture is an example of a student who missed two key pieces of proper sentence structure (yes, that's Moby from BrainPop in his picture..love) and the right picture is an example of one of my 'super writers' as we are calling ourselves! :)

You can check out more on my packet and all of its contents by clicking the picture below.

So we just started our unit of study on 2D shapes this past week. I knew that the majority of my class already knew all their 2D shapes, so I wanted to make reviewing them a little more fun so I purchased Vickie's You Better Shape Up pack and I am so glad that I did!!! 

After identifying and sorting each shape, we created a 'shape man' as I have been calling them.  Look how stinkin cute they are:

His adorable little sign he is showing says:

I have 0 sides.

I have 0 vertices.

Next week we will be focusing on rectangles and triangles! Can't wait!

You can check out her pack below:

I know a lot of school who made their kindergarten classes give up 'fun centers' but thankfully we have not had to…yet.  

With that, I like to change my housekeeping area up throughout the year. I have a post office, doctor's office, vet office, and a pizzeria.

Here's a look at our pizzeria:

The kids absolutely love it!

You can check out more pictures of my center HERE.

Are you allowed to have 'fun centers' in your class?

I'll leave you with this:

Five for 'Fraturday'

I attempted to begin this post last night after school but…well…I just didn't. 

You'll understand why in a sec! 

Since I have been horrible about posting lately, I'm going to start off by taking you back  a little bit to last Friday, Valentine's Day. 

We took this picture after they opened their gift from me.  Of course, I used one of Rachelle's awesome non-candy gift tags.

Go HERE to save it for next year (it's worth it)!

Then, this week we moved on to presidents.  First, we learned about Mr. George Washington.  My kiddos absolutely love Maria's Sight Word Readers!!  I love how she ties the sight words to a theme!! Some we use as a review, some we use as an introduction.  Whatever way, we love them!

We then spent a couple days learning all about my favorite president, Abraham Lincoln.  Of course, I completely forgot to take pictures of the fun things we made with Abe, but I do want to share with you my favorite resources I used:

Hands down, by far, my *favorite* little unit to accompany Mr. Abe!

Discovery Education has the perfect little video about Abraham Lincoln and his life and accomplishments! I used it as an introduction.

Do you know Kristen from A Day in First Grade?  She's incredible. 
She has a great post on President's Day in her room that is a must read.  I used several of her ideas!

Yesterday, our Kindergarten team held a mini Olympics for our kinder kiddos. We first did a little review of how the Olympics were started, learned some fun facts, and took a peak at different winter and summer games.

Then, we made patriotic hats (thanks to Maria, click HERE to get your freebie) to use as our USA uniform and made our very own torches (seen above). For the torches, we just wrapped toilet paper rolls with aluminum foil and then had the kiddos glue on red, orange, and yellow streamers to the top.  Worked like a charm!

Here's a sweet friend getting ready for his javelin throw (a straw).

Victory for one friend after his relay race.
We also had a discus throw but I was in charge of that and was too busy to take a photo.  We used American-themed mini paper plates!
We also had a closing ceremony and awarded each kiddo with a 'gold medal'

If I were an Olympic Athlete

Here's a fun little freebie for you.  I'll add a picture of these completed later. I was too tired after all the fun and forgot to take a pic!

After nothing but rain for the past couple days, I'm heading outside to spend this gorgeous Florida day (sunny and 70) with my sweet pups!
Happy Saturday!!

5 for 'Fraturday' & a Quick GIVEAWAY!

PHEW! Anybody else have the longest, shortest week?  

I always forget how much review we need when we come back after two weeks off!  My kiddos were like a roller coaster   One minute they were well behaved and on-task, the next minute they were wild animals. It could have been that we were stuck inside all four days due to frigid weather and then rain (oh the joys of 'bipolar' Florida).  Either way, it was eventful and I am still tired.

 

National Champions!

I bet you can figure out what I did Monday night! :)  Living in a college town is an experience to begin with, but living in a college town when you're national champs…a whole new ball game!  I did not go to bed Monday night until after 2am!!!!  Between the fireworks that went off all over town all night and the ridiculous amount of hype and excitement, there was nothing I could do.  I knew I was going to need lots of coffee the next day.  It was beyond worth it! :)

On Tuesday, we celebrated the new year with Katie Mense's help!

Her New Year's packet was perfect for my kinders. How cute is our "Toast on Toast" craftivity?! swoon

The picture above says "Here's to my mom. May she always love me." double swoon

My Pete the Cat is in need of a diet, but here's my first ever door decoration. Notice the bricks?  Having a door that is outside and easily gets soaked due to rain, I don't like putting time and effort into something that has a good chance of getting destroyed.  HOWEVER, this year our administration firmly encouraged everyone to decorate their doors for Celebrate Literacy Week. 

My kiddos voted on Pete, so here he is…after preparing for hibernation apparently! :p

How cute are my little doctors?!  I like to change our housekeeping area every couple months/weeks into something different.  This month, we're at the Doctor's Office! 

Notice the patient on the chair?  That's a wheelchair! :) I looked over at the center and saw my sweet little girl pushing him around.  I watched closely (I thought they were just goofing off at first) and heard her saying "I need a doctor, this man has a broken leg!"  How stinkin' cute!!

You can check out my Yummy Pizzeria packet that I created to decorate my housekeeping area.  I'm in the process of finishing up my Doctor's Office pack. Stay tuned! 

On Tuesday, we started our unit on Penguins!!! I love this time of year.  Maybe even more than Fall {gasp}.  Teaching non-fiction is my favorite!  Not sure why I didn't get a pic of the inside of our book…next week.  

Since we didn't have a full week, we haven't really dived too deep yet.  We started by beginning with our schema file {what we do every time we start learning about nonfiction}.  They love using the word 'schema!'  

We only spent this week learning some of the basics of all penguins.  Next week, we will be diving really deep into nonfiction text and research to learn more about different types of penguins.  Lots of experiments, quick videos of real penguins, hands-on learning, and fun to come! yay!

Since I love penguins and nonfiction so much, I wanted to throw a quick giveaway to share my latest packet!

{click pic to read more about what's inside}

I will pick a winner tomorrow night at some point! :) 

*****Congratulations Cassie Thompson*****  

Check your email! :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

On to my Sons of Anarchy marathon! I just can't get enough!

Happy Saturday friends!!