CORN! I am in the process of whipping up a corn costume! For our church’s trunk-or-treat tomorrow the Mr. is a scarecrow and I am a corn stalk! Cute huh?! I will post pictures for sure!
Well, another week of Kindergarten has come and gone. Another week of cutting and pasting. Nose picking. Standing on toilet seats. Rainy field trips. Crying. Tattling. Angry parent. Learning, laughter, fun and light bulb moments! Ahhh, a week in the life of a kindergartener.
Here is your Saturday dose of Mr. Greg’s classroom craziness! I know you’ve been waiting to see what kind of hilarity ensued this week at Monsters, Inc! Well, you’re desires are about to be met! Enjoy. And leave a comment or snide remark! I love comments!
This week we worked on counting on! My monsters ROCKED it! I was so impressed. Every day we used the “mental math” portion of our math block to practice. We use the balanced math approach which requires mental math practice each day. I would say a number and the class would count on from that number. After we practiced whole group, we did it individually so I was able to differentiate our counting. Yeah…I know…differentiating whenever you can! We used this cute activity to introduce counting on. I made the little monster game pieces by gluing cut outs to paper clips. Each student received a number line and some dot stickers. We placed the dot stickers on the lines and wrote our numbers (number writing? check. number order? check.). We used our SmartBoard spinner to find out starting number and place our monster. After everyone placed the monster on the correct number we counted on. So much fun and a very concrete, hands on way to introduce a challenging concept!
AH, yes it is time for Mr. Greg in a fun hat! Ya know you love it! Ya know you wait all work for it! Here it is! I am an octopus!
This week we did not focus on the letter O! We did picture sorts because I am “The King of Picture Sorts!” and I just think that picture sorts make a huge difference in how well my monsters read and write. We made octopus hats and O watches from the Moffiat Girls!
As part of our pumpkin celebrations, we finger painted pumpkins! And by finger paint, I mean two hands, flat out painting! We talked about mixing colors and and what would happen if we mixed red and yellow and then we got messy! My motto is this: the messier we are, the more we’re learning!
We measured how many pumpkins tall we were. We made a chart to keep track of our data. First we talked about what an estimate was (a smart guess or a good guess and not a silly guess) and we estimated how many pumpkins tall we might be. Then we measured ourselves! This monster is the tallest Kindergartener ever. He’s also smart and sweet and loves to laugh! He was 14 pumpkins tall and most of us were 10 or 11 pumpkins tall.
Pasta pumpkins!
Pumpkin KWL! Notice…as I did…that my pumpkins aren’t straight. I am working on cute charts! Working hard…
Our pumpkin wall! Friday morning when my friend “Whishle” arrived, she said: “OOOOO Did you that for us?” I said yes and she said, “It’s so pretty. I love it. Thank you so much for doing that for us. I love you!” What does criticism from administration matter when you have that moment?! Close the door and teach on!
Our door for red ribbon week. I got this cute idea from Mrs. Sauod at Primary Graffiti. I used some clip art from The School Supply Addict (I LOVE ASHLEY HUGHES CLIP ART!) and used our bug pictures! iTune Out Drugs! Thanks Mrs. Saoud for the inspiration!
I love the self portrait feature of my iPhone!
As part of red ribbon week, we had hat day! I love my new hat that I bought in Key West! And my friend “Whishle” loves it too! She loves everything about Mr. Greg and everything about Kindergarten! She’s a hot little mess and I love her!
We also had silly sock day! So I wore my crab sucks! We had rainbows, polka dots, and stripes and hot pink!! Super fun day!
This week we introduced the last two centers at Monsters, Inc. These are the two that make me crazy and drive me to…well, you know…listening means batteries dropped CD players, chewed up headphones (yes, they eat them!) and buttons we shouldn’t push. And big books means big books that we refuse are unable to put back in the right place without tearing them to pieces. With lots of modeling and practice, the new centers went smoothly! The monsters LOVE listening to stories so much I might need to add another CD player (I have a secret stash of 4 new ones hidden in my black mold infested cabinet!)
This week was all about Pumpkins! Pumpkin week always culminates in a field trip to the pumpkin patch. After nearly having our trip cancelled due to a new district funding decision, we were saved by some generous donors including my friend Jennifer by
On the way to the pumpkin patch my ELL friend tossed her cookies all over the place, including my leg. Yeah, that’s a sign. After just an hour on the farm, the rains came. We rushed to the pumpkin patch, gathered our pumpkins and bolted. So disappointed that we didn’t get to enjoy the farm more but the kids had fun for the little time we were there!
My ELL friend picking up her pumpkins! She didn’t under 1 pumpkin, she thought it meant 1 bag full of pumpkins! She was so cute all day! Click here to read a very inspiring story about her huge breakthroughs on Friday!
Look at those faces!!!!
This is a Mr. Greg classroom tradition for 7 years of teaching! After we gather our pumpkins, we come back to the classroom and Mr. Greg uses the big knife to cut open the pumpkin and we get messy (ya know Mr. Greg loves messy learning!) and clean out the “plop”! After we get all messy (amid the shrieks and eeeewwws and laughter!) we fill our pumpkin with soil and plant a flower! I love this activity and look forward to it every year!
And here is a little of the fun we had this week! Don’t be jealous of the Barbie bling! And don’t be jealous that this was the police activity right outside of my classroom window (plus cops all over and cop cars circling the block searching for….???). So you probably are guessing we were on lockdown for a while? Yeah, no. The principal said she was “aware” of the situation. Umm there is a police search outside my window and that doesn’t warrant a lockdown? Oh well. And if you want a copy of my snarky (yes, it is meant to be snarky and cranky!) then let me know!
And that’s another week at Monsters, Inc! How was your week? What did you teach? I hope you find some ideas or inspiration from my week! Check back tomorrow for my plans for the next week!!
Close the door and teach on!
I am having a BOO! sale this weekend at my TPT store! Check it out! Tell your friends! Blog about it! Tweet about it!