Sunday, January 27, 2013

Our Afternoon in Kinder!

I received a lot of sweet comments about my morning in kinder post so I thought there just might be some who would like to hear what we do after our busy morning.

When we come back in from recess we have a little chunk of time we use for what I like to call "theme projects".  You know those craftivities you do based on whatever you are learning about.  Here are the ones we have done recently.
Snow globes from Deanna Jump.

Winter clothes labeling from Jessica Williamson.
Then we move into our calendar/SMARTboard time.


Unfortuantely I do not have a lot of pictures of this in action....these are from several years ago.
I LOVE this time of day!  It is amazing how much they can learn in about 30 min!!!  My kids follow along in their calendar binders.  I use a combination of Growing Kinders and Kim Adsit's resources.
Renate and I have several SMARTboard monthly calendar (math & literacy) resources available in our TPT shop.  These are what we use everyday with our kids.  We think they work wonders and the kids absolutely LOVE them!  It is soooo much fun!
I then move into our math workstations.  This is based on Debbie Diller's philosophy.  I really love this! This is so much fun for the kids and they learn so much in the process.  I love listening to their "math talk" with each other during this time.
Counting/writing teen numbers

Measuring with goldfish

Putting teen numbers in order and writing them
Here we are doing our penguin math centers.  I usually use the math center activities from Julie Lee.  I love, love, love them and so do the kids.  These above are from her penguin unit.  I have 8 math centers and 1 of them is set aside for what I call workjobs.  This is based on Kim Adsit's workjobs post.
This has been wonderful.  I have done it for 2 years now and believe it works.  This is usually where I plant myself during this 30 min after I get everyone going.
We do 2 rotations (15 min each) a day. I only do workstations Monday-Thursday.  That 30 min on Friday is reserved for Fun Friday.  They get to go wherever in the room to "play" if they have finished their work and have enough gold tags. :)
Here is my rotation board.  The kids are now great at just finding their name and going to their center.  I just LOVE this time of year! :)
My kiddos then go to specials.  We have PE, Music, Art, Computers, and a tutoring based program for those who need it during this time.
When they get back we have like 10 minutes before we head home for the day.  My kids complete their math journal page and then pack up.  I use the monthly math journal prompts from the fabulous Deedee Wills.  I LOVE them!  By this time of year I have their journals laid out, their prompts on the table and they come in, grab their prompt, read it, glue it in, and complete it!  Like I said, I LOVE this time of year! ;)
And that my folks....completes our day in K!

Again....I hope you get some ideas or just like hearing about our busy day in kindergarten!
Have a great Sunday night and a great week this week!!
Heather

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Our Morning In Kinder

WOW!!  I know!  I am the WORST blogger this year!  This year has been super busy!  REMEMBER.....new principal, new curriculum, new schedule, etc........
Okay....so on to this post!  I decided I would blog about our morning routines!  Just in case any of you out there are looking for something new, or care about what I do in my classroom....ha, ha!
I am going to try to do it with pictures....depending on my sad internet speed....and such!
You can do it for a review of what you are learning about....

or for a specific skill you are working on.
So....we start our morning with "baskets".  These are basically literacy centers.  I have 4 tables so I make up 4 baskets.  They come in in the morning and they do the center that is in their basket on their table.  We do this Monday - Thursday and on Friday we do "morning work".  I usually choose 4 literacy centers from whatever Julie Lee center unit we are doing that goes along with our theme.  I didn't have any pictures of this....sorry.
Then we move right into Chit-Chat.  At this point in the year we are doing Chit-Chat Charts based on Deanna Jump's fabulous idea.  I also have both of her Chit-Chat books from TPT!  LOVE THEM!
At the beginning of the year I use this time for a different type of morning message.

I learned this from Kathy Griffin SEVERAL years ago when she presented at SPLASH....and have used it ever since.  This WORKS people!!!  There are several questions you ask each student (like an interview of whoever your leader is for the day)  You start with their name.  Then as a class, you count how many letters and how many syllables are in their name.  I write the numbers (while talking about how to write them) then I draw a shape around each one (while talking about each shape).  Then I ask the student the questions (above the questions are:  How old are you?  What is your favorite color?)  I write the answers to their questions (while talking about all the important things about sentence structure, sounding out words, etc).  Then I choose 3 students to give "happy talk".  This has to be something positive about the student.  I write their sentences and add their names.  Then I just call on kids to come up and "find" stuff in our chart.  They typically find letters and simple sight words at first...but quickly move on to find words, chunky monkeys, punctuation, spaces....etc....  We do this in rounds and I usually do 2-3 rounds before moving on to the other Chit-Chat charts.  A round is when ALL students have answered those particular questions....then I move on to new questions.  During the last round I let the students write their own "Happy Talk".  The kids love this time a day!!!

Then we move on to Word Work.  Right now we are using this book for word work:

The kids come up and "be" the letters and make themselves make words.
The other students write the words being made on their white boards.
Then we read the words we made.

At the beginning of the year we use this book for word work:


I model on my big easel and the kids write the words (changing the beginning, middle, or ending sounds) on their white boards.
I love this book!  They learn soooo much!  Next year we are going to reverse the two books and do the other one first and this one last...

Then we move on to Shared Reading.  We do a poem using our document camera that goes along with our theme for the week.  We also read our pocket chart poem for the week.

I typically use whatever poem is in Julie Lee's center unit I am doing that week.  I made this poem because she does not have one in her penguin unit and I wanted to concentrate on our sight words "said", and "play".
On Fridays they put their poems in their poetry journals and hi-light sight words and such.

Then we move on to our theme reading lesson.  This is the time I read books and conduct lessons on whatever theme we are working on for the week.  This week it is penguins.

This is when we make our charts..and write!

Then we move on to Readers Workshop and Daily 5 time!  This is also when I pull my guided reading groups.



We are using Kim Adsit's Readers Workshop resources from TPT.  Right now we are working on discovering patterns in text!  They are such little word detectives!!


For guided reading I use our leveled readers from Texas Treasures and then readers from our literacy library.  So they read 2 books every day.  I also pull in resources from Julie Lee's monthly intervention packs to use with each group.
While I am pulling my groups (15 min each) my kiddos are rotating through 4 stations:

Read to Self
Listening
Word Work
Guided Reading

Part of Listening is writing....I know strange but it works....I have computer, iPad, writing, and then listening to a theme book on CD available for them in this center.
I use the monthly writing resources from DeeDee Wills.

Then we move on to Writers Workshop.  I use the resources from Deanna Jump and Deedee Wills.

Right now we are working on persuasive writing through letters and they are having SUCH a blast with this!!!  I wish I had some pictures of some of their letters.....soooo cute!  Today one of my sweeties wrote a letter to a boy in my class asking if she could try on his glasses!!!

And.....then we go to lunch!  WHEEEWW!  What a morning....!
As you can see the blogging world has impacted my teaching drastically!  I learn so much and it is sooo fun to try new and exciting things out with my classroom!  I am so thankful that awesome teachers share their ideas and creativity with all of us!

I will try to be back and talk about our afternoon sometime soon!

Hope this helped some of y'all in some way....or at least you enjoyed reading about our morning in K!

Now....I am going to go relax!
Heather

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Pins from Pinterest

It's cold and rainy...so my outdoor projects are on hold.  I looked through my boards and found this. This year, I bought some awesome scarves, so  I needed a quick little project. At Wal-Mart,  I bought a fourth of a yard of felt in all the colors they had and made these.  Check the instructions here.
I made this brown pin to go with my $10 Old Navy jacket.  I snatched it up the day after Christmas!