It’s Saturday. That means it’s time for The Saturday Kindergarten Post! I hope your week with your little monsters was as productive and enjoyable as mine. We worked hard, laughed a lot, learned a lot and Mr. Greg even had time to most of his report card assessments! I can’t believe it’s already time for report cards. Time flies when you’re having fun!
This week we did not focus on the letter I. Do your student’s struggle with the short I sound? It makes me crazy. They either say the short A sound or the short E sound. It’s like nails on a chalkboard after a while. I also here “itch” when I ask for the sound I makes because we use Dr. Jeans “Alphardy” song every morning and the song says I for itch. So I says itch. Appropriate when you consider there was a bed bug issue in the classroom next door! You’re scratching now aren’t ya!?! I says itch. We told ya so!
This week learned all about apples! We learned about the life cycle of apples, we learned about orchards, and all the foods we could make from apples and we learned the parts of an apple. Did you know that the inside of the apple is called “flush?” They mean flesh, but my monsters said flush. And did you know that apples are “gushy?” Juicy. Gushy. I like gushy better than juicy! To kick off our apple adventure, we made a KWL chart! They did very well with the chart. Getting them to generate questions was challenging, but we were able to persevere and come up with some great questions. And guess what? I totally forgot to take a picture of the chart. But take my word for it, we rocked the KWL chart. Have you met my class?? Those little monsters are AMAZING! We made a stained glass apple and even made apple prints! Can I just say how messy apple prints are??? It’s a good thing I have my handy dandy manly apron or I would have been in trouble with the fiancee’ for ruining my “good school clothes!” But my motto is: messy=fun and learning!
Apple printing! Seriously messy fun!
Our apple prints! And my giant foot. I am 5’6″ and wear a 11 shoes. Seriously, when will I grow into my feed?? I am still waiting on my growth spurt!
Johnny Appleseed hats! The kids CRACKED UP every time I would call someone by their name and add “Appleseed!”
Stained glass apples. I am becoming addicted to these projects. I might ahve to add “king stained glass artwork” to my title of “king of picture sorts!”
Our super cute Johnny Appleseed craftivity! A HUGE thank you to Donna at Peace, Love and Learning for sharing her awesome Johnny Appleseed craftivity! We modified it a bit by adding the googly eyes and red stickers for his apple red cheeks!
We wrapped up our apple extravaganza with apple pie and apple cider!
Look at the face in the background. He was mad at me again for ignoring him the entire 4.34 minutes he was yelling my name!
Next week we will celebrate Read Me Week and Read For The Record Day. One of our activities is a door decorating contest. Every classroom decorates their door according to our theme. Our theme this year is “Gettin Buggy With Books!” Isn’t that a great theme? I wonder who thought of such a great theme….hmmmm Our door (I am not unveiling it until Monday so you have to come back Monday to see our awesomeness!) involves writing (gotta meet standards. We can decorate and create while still meeting standards. Mr. Greg is so smart…it’s such a shame I don’t work to educate my children!) Friday we spent all afternoon working on our door!
The Berenstein Bears! I love that these are favorite books!
We also read “There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves” twice! The kids love to echo read the book so we had a blast reading it together! I am a FIRM believer in the power of echo reading. We echo read daily. It helps build fluency and basic reading skills. And it’s fun. Do you sense a theme in my teaching?? FUN! After reading the story, we did our very first flow map. We did it together but the kids did a great job re-telling the story. I am so proud of them!!
Any guesses at to what these are??? HMMMM This is good stuff people!
These are frozen cubes of paint. That’s right. Frozen paint!!! I poured tempera paint into ice trays and froze it! Can I just say how awesome my monsters think Mr. Greg is? Freeze some paint and you’re teacher of the year! We used our frozen paint to paint the letter Ii for I week! I for ice. I highly recommend you try this. The kids LOVE it! And guess what It’s SUPER SUPER SUPER messy! The more we paint, the more the ice paint melts. Messy=learning!
Teacher tip: Get your pen and paper ready! I bought these shower curtains on clearance at Wal-Mart several years ago for $1.25 each. We throw them on the table when we paint! No mess on the table. Clean up is so simple. Just fold up the shower curtains and go! You can thank me later!
They couldn’t get over the cold. Just look at that face. That’s a face that says I love school!
We also made insect hats (pay attention because these might just show up as part of our door decorating!) You know you just can’t hardly wait until the next Saturday to see me wearing my crazy hat. Well guess what? Next week, you get to see me wearing TWO hats! Can you handle the madness??
How cute is he? Nuff said.
This week we launched our shape journeys! This week was focused on learning the shapes, naming the shapes, recognizing shapes and drawing shapes. We graphed shapes, we sorted shapes, we colored shapes and we played Shape Bump It! My shape activities can be found
here! And guess what? 100% of my students showed 100% on our assessment Friday! Can you imagine what my students would achieve if I were actually working to teach them? I can’t even handle the thought…
We kicked of Working on Words this week too! I love this center! They use scrabble tiles (that I made all by myself!) to make words. Would you like the word cards?
Breakfast in the classroom kicked off this week! I was actually nauseous thinking about this and how much of a disaster it would be. Guess what? It has gone so well. I am so proud of my monsters! Here’s my secret: I set our iPad up and set the timer for 15 minutes. When it says 0 breakfast is over. Done. The kids have already gotten the hang of it! My only issue: how are chocolate chip waffles, cinnamon rolls and chocolate chip waffles considered part of a healthy breakfast? Seriously! My kids deserve better food than that. That’s all I’m sayin!
Of course we also learned sight words, did our math journals, wrote letters, read books and practiced our hallway procedures again. And again. And again.
How was your week?? What did your students do this week?
7 days. 7 days. At this time next week I will be in a Vera Wang tuxedo being photographed. At this time next week I will be 90 minutes away from my wedding. HOLY CRAP! It doesn’t even seem real. Now, visit my
TPT store and buy something. The pantry full of fun beverages wasn’t cheap!
I bought some cute candy corn clip art from
The 3am Teacher so I am off to create a fun math pack! Be on the lookout.
