Fun Friday!

Oh my goodness, I had to join in for Fun Friday with the girls from Freebielicious.  I LOVE to have fun in the classroom.  And really... in kindergarten you have to make learning fun.  So it's a win - win.  Here are a just few fun things that we have done in my classroom:

This is one of my favorite fun things we did last spring.  We had a big unit on honeybees.  The kids each made an anatomically correct honey bee and then we used them for learning activities.  This is a photo of a few of my sweet kiddos pretending to be worker bees in the hive telling me what they are doing and what is in the cells.  Such a fun way to learn and assess.

 This is always a hit with the kids.  This is not a new idea.  I first saw it on Pinterest.  Here is a link to the blog with this idea:  Juggling with Kids.  So, I used my Sight Word Super Set to make one for my classroom.  It is well worth your time to make one of these.  I especially love to play this game right before I do sight word assessments.  Great review!

I love to do lots of arts and crafts related to learning because it is fun and it is a great way to give young children creative expression.  Melt art is just one of many fun art projects we do.  You can see the full post on it here: Melt Art Fun!

You can check out this blog post: Snow Much Fun! to see what we did with those snowballs for some winter fun in my California classroom (where it NEVER snows).  There is a link to a cute snowman list FREEBIE on that post.

We love to play games too!  Games are great for subitizing, counting, skill practice, social skills, and FUN!  This game is from my Sight Word Super Set .  I also did another post on games with a FREEBIE rhyming game.  You can go grab it by clicking on the link or the image of the game below.  It's black and white to save printer ink.

I LOVE GAMES!

 Go check out the other great blogs with fun ideas and freebies over at Freebielicious!  You can get there by clicking on the button below.

I hope you found some new ideas for having fun in your classroom.

Thanks for stopping by!

Throwback Thursday ~ Back to School Word Wall set up

Hi everyone!  I am linking up with the girls at Freebielicious again.  Today is throwback Thursday, so I am showing some ideas from two years ago.  I had needed to re-do my word wall for the new school year.  You can see the full post here: Word Wall.  It also includes my calendar set up from back then as well. 

This is what my classroom typically looks like when I am getting it set up.  There is always a huge mess everywhere and somehow magically it gets cleaned, organized, and ready for the first day.

I wish I had a before picture of the old word wall to show you.  But, honestly I would probably be too embarrassed to put it here on public display.  It was long over due for a re-model.

I must say I still love this little title poster on top.  It is holding up pretty well.  I will be going into my third year using this now.  I can't get into my classroom until about two weeks before school this year, so it is going to have to get me through one more year. 

These are the cards I used for the words.  They came from my Super Sight Words Set.  You can get that in TpT in my store.

This is what the word wall looks like when all the words are up.

OK, this is the best part.  Because my word wall is on a divider, it is at student height and the words are attached using Velcro.  So, it is interactive and when a student wants to look at the word up close, she can just take it off the wall, use it in writing, and then go put it back.  Even though I also have little word wall charts at the writing table, some students really prefer to go grab it off the wall.

 Hope this little idea is helpful to you.  If you are setting up your classroom right now, my heart goes out to you!  Best of luck!

Go check out the other great blogs on Freebielicious.  There are some great ideas and freebies to be had.  Just click on the button below to find them.

Thanks for stopping by.
Happy teaching!

St. Paddy's Day Fun!

Hope everyone had a fun St. Paddy's day!  My class sure did.  We tried our best to catch a leprechaun, but those rascally little fellows are so darn tricky!  This year my kiddos made their traps at home for a  homework project.  Wow!  They were awesome!  I think I will do it this way every year.  It gave them a over a week to think about a design and gather materials.  Doing this project in the classroom is fun, but we are limited to the resources on hand.  Here are some of the masterpieces that came in to our classroom this year...

Super cute!  The basket falls down to trap them.  Looks like he caught some gold!

Love the rainbow, the pot of gold,  and all the GLITTER!  Woo hoo!

Ahh, yes!  The ladder climbing into the hat.  And of course, those little fellows will completely ignore the sign.  They love to make mischief!

Very clever!  It almost looks like a play structure.  Down at the end of the ramp is a paper that covers the hole of the last TP tube.  I love this design!

Can you see the ring in the photo?  The leprechaun will reach up to grab it and then a fence made of sticks and string will fall down and trap him inside the box.  Got ya!

Oh my goodness!  Sparkles, shine, and glitter galore!  I love the sparkly pipe cleaner rainbow.  Don't know if you can see, but those are tiny gold coins scattered at the entrance.  Super cute!



We had so much fun reading books and talking about leprechauns!  We did a few other fun projects too.  I had seen this idea on Pinterest, of course, here is the pin: sight word rainbow.  This was actually a little tedious for some of my students.  So, after all the hard work, I thought we should use them for an art project.  They are really sweet:

And of course we did lots of writing!

(I would make him take me to his pot of gold!)

(I will keep him forever.)

(They are real.  They left coins at my house.)

(Yes, they are real because they left green glitter.)

All my students believed in leprechauns this year.  Not a skeptic in the bunch.  I was a little disappointed by that, but I shouldn't be surprised.   I love this writing prompt, though, because it is one they are passionate about and I always make sure there is evidence for them to  use in their thinking!  

Do you need some sweet practice pages to supplement your St. Patrick's Day activities in your classroom?  Look no further.  These pages are perfect for March in a kindergarten classroom and they have cute St. Paddy's graphics.  You can find it here: Print and Go! St. Patrick's Day Math and Literacy (NO PREP). Here's a little preview:

OK, here is your freebie.  If you would like to have your class make leprechaun traps for a homework project, this is what I sent home to families.  I wrote in the due date and signed it at the bottom before I made copies.  Have fun!

And this is the writing page that the kiddos complete to show their thinking:

Just click on either image above to get them for FREE!  May the luck o' the Irish be with you!
Happy Teaching!

Word Wall

 This post is really about my word wall, but most of my classroom still looks like this:

 Does your classroom have a huge explosion each year before you start and then it gets put back together?  Seems like that happens a lot to me.  This year it especially needed to happen.  I have the luxury of working in a classroom that is not used during the summer, so I can leave my bulletin boards up each year.  Boy, I feel so lucky about that.  But is was sure time for a re-model!

I am pretty happy with how my new word wall came out.   It is on a small standing divider next to the table where sight word instruction, word wall games,  and most writing happens in the classroom. 

I cut and glued these at home one night while watching one of my guilty pleasure shows, What Not to Wear.  I have to say I am so sad that this is the last season.

This is for a kindergarten classroom, so there are not as many words as for a first grade class.  Thankfully it all works in my room like this.    Ii doesn't quite have enough space, but it still works.  Oh well!  I like the colors and the black background.

This is the part I like best about my word wall.  It is at student height and the words are attached using velcro, so it is interactive for the kiddos. If a child needs to go get a word off the wall when writing, he/she can grab it and bring it back to his/her seat.  I also have printed versions of the word wall at the table for students to use when writing.  That is a super helpful tool!

Where did I get my sight word cards?  I made a big comprehensive sight word set filled with two sets of cards and lots of fun games and activities for word work.  This set really helps my students with sight word fluency.  You can check it out in my TpT shop right here: Sight Word Super Set #1  You can also click on the image below.

I managed to get a few other things done last week as well.  This is my daily calendar set up and a peek at my new alphabet.  I am in love with the Boho Birds borders and other coordinating items I got for my room this year.  Too cute, right?  Birds for Mrs. Byrd's class:)  My calendar  is very simple, but I often add little mini lessons in math to go along with it, like the equations of the day.  You can see that on this post: Mrs Byrd's Learning Tree: Math Fluency  I really like how the numbers also have a transparent color and shape pattern each month that I can design with a variety of choices.

OK, I am off to get a few more things done.
Happy teaching!

Miss C's Class

I went to visit my friend Kristie today.  She is a Kindergarten teacher at Bonny Doon Elementary school.  It is one of my "sister" schools in the county.   It is a small single school AND district,  just like mine.  Because I don't have a group of fellow kindergarten teachers at my school, it is very important for teachers at our small schools to reach out and connect.  So, I am very grateful that my administrator gave me a day to go observe Kristie and learn from all her wonderful ideas. Yea!
I was so impressed by the many great things going on in her class!  I just had to share some of them on the blog and also process what I saw so I can incorporate it all into my own teaching.

There were some great, things in the room environment that I just loved!  The first thing I noticed was this COOL tree in the middle of the room.  I think it is such a fun idea! 

I also loved her cutie patootie number line.  A big theme for the year is the butterfly life cycle.  It is a metaphor for the kids and the changes through the year in the classroom.  She calls her kiddos caterpillars.  They will soon turn into butterflies at the end of the year. 

And this sun on the back wall.  Yes, shine, little caterpillars.  Shine bright every day at school!  (and you too, Miss C!)

And, you just have to love this built in bench in a nook perfect for gathering the group.  She has books, anchor charts, and other goodies posted around the space.  It is the heart of the classroom.
LOVE it!

I was so glad I got to see Kristie's morning centers in action.  They had three activities and then another special activity for the TK kiddos.  (for those of you reading not from California, TK stands for transitional kindergarten.  These are pre-kinder kids that are just not quite old enough for kinder, or those needing more time to mature, that are receiving a pre-school curriculum in a kindergarten class.  Yes, you heard right.  She is teaching a double grade with pre-school and kinder students!)

I love her anchor chart on behavior expectations for centers...

and her centers chart, too.  She changes the top three cards when it is time to switch centers.  Then the little caterpillars come look to see where they each need to go. 

They had a sight word job with the instructional aide,  a writing activity with Miss C, and Life lab.  For those of you not familiar with the life lab program, it is a garden based environmental education curriculum that was developed at UC Santa Cruz.  If you want to know more, you can check it out here: http://www.lifelab.org.  Kristie's school had a life lab teacher to do the center outside with the kids. Each center lasted for about 30 minutes.   These are some shots of the sweet learning garden at Bonny Doon:

At the sight word table, they were doing a trash or treasure word sort with sight words(treasure) and nonsense words(trash).  Kids had to read the word on the paper and decide which it was, and record it correctly on their paper.  If it was trash it went into a little trash bin.  FUN!  I saw this idea on Pinterest.  I bet Kristie did too.  TK kids had another sight word activity:  building words with linker cubes.  I think the kinder kids got to do this too, when they were done with the sorting.

The TK kiddos also had another task to do after building the words- a letter/sound match activity.

The two boys that I worked with for a bit, both seemed like they had some knowledge of the sight words AND knew lots of sounds.  They are ready for Kindergarten next year!

Kristie's writing center was great!  The kids have been studying South America, and the rain forest.  Today they were writing about the sloth:

They developed the sentences as a group.  Miss C modeled the correct writing on the board. Then, students wrote them in the book they were making.  Next,  Miss C took the kiddos through a step by step drawing of a cool sloth (or they could draw their own version if they liked).   TK kids had a different book, and just copied the word sloth under the picture space.  I liked this because the group had a good discussion about the main idea, with a fact, and added more detail.  It is explicit instruction to help expand their thinking and writing.  And, for those of you who use Step Up to Writing in your school, you will notice the colors are aligned. Great!

She also had a great writers anchor chart with a similar idea on expanding sentences.

For math, later in the day, the little caterpillars did some Marcy Cook tile boards.  I helped out, so I didn't take pictures.  If you don't use Marcy Cook math materials in your classroom, you really should check them out.  If you ever get a chance to go to a training with her, GO!  You can check out the materials here: http://www.marcycookmath.com

As I was wandering around Kristie's HUGE classroom, I also noticed so many signs of creative activities happening.

And other evidence of powerful teaching and learning!

The thing that I think Kristie has done an exceptional job with is social-emotional development and behavior expectations for students at school.  I saw so many signs that respect, kindness, and good manners are the norm.   Reminders for all these are woven throughout the day and the year.  She was ever vigilant, modeling perfect behavior, gently reminding, and holding expectations high for appropriate behavior at all times from students.  What a lovely community of young learners I saw today!  They were polite, respectful, and on, what I would consider, best behavior ALL day.  This is no doubt due to Kristie's incredible work all year long.  At this time of year, when most classrooms are getting loud and bouncy, the kids in Miss C's class were doing business as usual and it was BEAUTIFUL!

Some examples of the great things I saw:

And a voice meter (that's what I call the one in my classroom):

And this is something that I really liked a lot.  These tally marks are a record of all the times the little caterpillars give Miss C "goosebumps" for their good behavior - kindness, great transitions, whatever.  But this is the best part- there is NO REWARD!!!!!!  They are just doing it to feel good about themselves, and receive the intrinsic motivation they should for behaving well.   (And learn days of the week, tally marks, and practice counting by 5s as well.)  This is genius!  Kudos, Kristie!

What a wonderful day of learning for teachers (me!) and students at Bonny Doon!  This has become a huge post, so I will stop here.   But, be on the lookout for my next post about the student art show I got to see later in the day.  It was spectacular!  I will do that post soon.  There are many more photos to edit...

Thank you to my friend, Kristie Carruthers, and Stephanie Siddens, principal of Bonny Doon School!  You made me feel so welcome and I appreciate your time with me today.  You must be very proud of the wonderful school community you have.

Happy Teaching!