Holiday Greetings to You!

Happy "howl"idays from my little fur babies!

I have been a little busy over the last month because I got engaged to this guy!

 Our wedding will be on March 5, 2016, so we have been busy bees making tons of plans.

Sprinkles to us!

When we returned from Thanksgiving break, my littles were welcomed with a package under the tree.

  

Inside of it was our kindness reindeer named Snowflake.  Each day she delivers a letter from Santa about how we can show kindness to others at home and school.

We also learned about reindeer and had some reindeer races to see who should pull Santa's sleigh.

We raced the reindeer with balloon jets to see who could get to the finish line first. 

I love glyphs and tied reindeer fun into this little glyph.

Another polar animal we learned about were polar bears.  We learned how they stay warm with a blubber glove.  I added my fun little light ice to our freezing water.

We created dioramas of the arctic for our polar bears to live in.

One lesson we did really touched my littles.  We placed a polar bear on a block of ice in a cup and watched it throughout the day.  At the end of the day we saw the bear in a cup of water.  I explained that this is what is happening to their homes - they're melting away.  My sweeties were very upset about the truth that the polar bear's homes are melting that we wanted to make a change.

We decided to do a fund-raiser play by Heidi Songs based on the children's book, The Mitten.  We are inviting families to attend and bring any change to donate so we can make a change for the polar bears.  We are only collecting change so that we can sort it and master those coin TEKS as well.  ;)  All of our money will go to Polar Bears International.

I will be posting more about our play soon!

Next week is a Holidays Around the World week as we round up the semester and begin Christmas break.  We will be making our little suitcases tomorrow for our travels.

Snatch this freebie up from my store!

Have a merry week!

Fabulous 50th Day of School!

Wow wee wow!  Today was fabulous!!  I love the 50th day of school.  We had a blast and learned so much!

We started our day with comparing the 1950's to today with this little reader.  Then we had a sock hop.

For a little extra literacy/printing practice we played Spin the Record from Kathleen's packet.  To play the game, students spin the record and record the matching beginning sound.

One game we played that was the bee's knees was sight word bowling.  I prepared my 6 sets of pins with ten different sight words.  Then the littles bowled and recorded the pins that fell down.

We continued our day with a hula hoop contest.  Then we made "hula hoop" necklaces with Froot Loops.  To help my littles be successful in creating their necklaces, I provided them with a sorting mat with five circles.  The littles then placed 10 Froot Loops in each circle to have five sets of 10.  

We are 50 days smarter!  I can't wait until next year's 50's day!

Halloween fun with Oriental Trading!

Happy October!  It is a good feeling to be in the month of October.  The air is cooler, Kindergarteners are in their routine, and, of course, Halloween!

I was asked by Oriental Trading to review some of their fabulous goodies and picked some fun items for my Halloween party.  It is going to be a Red Carpet theme.  Take a look at this awesome stuff!

These items are the table ware.

These little stars and streamers are for decorations.

The Oscar trophies are for costume awards.

These will be used for the red carpet entrance.

If you love these items and all of the other goodies at Oriental trading, enter this spooktacular giveaway!

Visit www.spooktaculargiveaway.com today and enter to win our weekly prize -- $250 in Halloween products of your choice from Oriental Trading. Plus, we’re giving away a $25 Oriental Trading gift card every day! Contest ends October 17, 2015.

Retelling with Pete the Cat (and a Pete freebie!)

To all of my fellow school teacher peeps - Way to go on making it through the start of the year!  I am in my 12th year of teaching and I always forget how hard it is to get the year going and get into routine.

One of our first week lessons is about retelling a story - which is one of the three ways to read a book in Daily 5.  One of the ways to help littles on the third day of school understand this way to read is with our favorite feline - PETE!

We listen to the story of Pete the Cat - I Love my White Shoes and retell with my felt Pete the Cats pieces.

Then we used these buckets to walk through and kinesthetically retell the story. Students walked in a circle and stepped in each bucket then out of the bucket and onto the colored shoe.  Before students completed this activity I acted it out and changed my shoes with each bucket.

If you want the printables for this, click here.

After my littles understood retelling the story, they worked as a table to make a poster of each of the items Pete stepped in.  I love seeing my cuties work hard together, especially on the third day of school!

 

 

I also found this awesome Pete retelling activity but could not, for the life of me, print it off.  If you figure it out, please let me know.

Blessings to you this year!

A stampede of fun with back to school time!

It's almost time for the first day of school and I feel like I am anticipating Christmas!  I love, love, love the excitement of a new year and meeting all of my sweet, new kiddos and seeing their smiling faces, well, hopefully they're smiling. 

This year I moved back home to the Ft. Worth, TX, area and was blessed to get hired in Aledo ISD teaching kindergarten.  Before this new adventure of setting up a new classroom started, I went to Zambia (Africa) to work on a medical mission trip.  There were over 250 members on our team from Zambia and the US combined.  Together we served over 14,000 Zambian people in medical care in the areas of dental, optometry, lab testing, wound care, gynecology, and diagnosing illnesses and proving medicine. Our team also enjoyed a safari on one of our last two days in Africa.  Look how close I got to the elelphants and giraffes!

Victoria Falls was another site we were able to enjoy!

As soon as I returned from Africa, I immediately started working on my classroom for my new busy bees.  Buzz on in and check it out!

 The view from the front of the classroom

 Our turn-in basket with some literacy friends

This is our "Happy BEE-day!" wall.  I created little cupcakes for each month.  The students' pictures go under their cupcake month.

 My  document camera and laptop are housed here so I added a little Coder Elementary spirit.

 Our little tables are color coded.  This is the red table all set for Meet the Teacher.

Each table has a bee basket for materials with a matching color bow, a trash bucket that matches, and I include scissors of the same color.  I hot glue google eyes onto the scissors so that students learn how to cut correctly.  The eyes should always be looking at you if they're being help the correct way.

 For Meet the Teacher, I place an information sheet, our class handbook, the ABC's of Kindergarten, a parent check-list to make sure they see everything they need to see or fill out all that needs to be filled out, and a bag of pretzels that say "Thanks for "bee"ing here!"

  

Here is where our Math Tubs materials are stored.

I love these cabinets!  I store all of my literacy materials in them and below are my cuties' cubbies, backpack hooks, and book boxes for Daily Five.

I love my little Beanie Baby strategies.  Last year's class really embraced these strategies so I am definitely using them again.  These are in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

 This is an art area with our art supplies, marker caddy, and paint drying rack.  To the right is the writing area where Writer's Workshop materials are stored and Daily Five Work on Writing materials are stored.  I love, love, love, Daily Five and Writer's Workshop.  I have written many posts about each of these.  Click below to learn more!

Writer's Workshop

Daily Five

Balanced Literacy

 This is my small group area.  I teach reading, math, and writing in a small group setting.  It makes me more aware of what each student knows and allows me to differentiate my instruction for them.  I got this awesome tabletop easel funded through Donors Choose.  I have had over 30 projects funded through them.  My stools open up for storage.  They're from IKEA.  

Behind my table you can find all of the organization for my small group instruction.  I keep my group's materials stored in the drawers numbered 1-6.

I collect data in my Student Data binder and write my plans for small groups in there.  My Lesson Plans are kept in this binder.  I keep supplies in this little organized drawer shelf.

This shelf holds my guided reading books that I use for reading groups, my Sub Tub for emergency plans, and my baskets to hold assessment paper work for reading, math, and report cards.

I stay organized for each day with my daily cart.  At the end of each week I place all of the materials needed for the next week in the correct drawer.

My Word Wall ~ I use Phonics Dance to learn letters and these are the matching signs for each letter's dance.

My whole group area

My Math Stations check in area ~ You can find these for free on my website.

My library area

 My Listen to Reading area for Daily Five includes a CD player in the bee hive for two children to listen to and the little baskets will store my TAG readers that were funded through Donors Choose. 

Our picture books are sorted by theme and labeled in baskets that have matching stickers that are on the back of each book for that basket.

I also have leveled readers in our library.

 Puppies and kittens!

My Working on Words cart for Daily Five

Our Smart Board

Thanks for taking a look!  Buzz back soon!!