One week down. How many more to go?! Not that I am counting or anything. Never. I hope your first week back was good! It was a long week but we were busy. The kindergarten smorgasboard was rockin’ and rollin’ all week. There was no rest for the weary because we had some learnin’ to do!
A week of procedures and rules and review and fun! We laughed. We cried (I might have made them cry. We did have a come to Jesus meeting. Bullying. Ain’t happenin. Not on my watch. If you are going to bully your classmates, you have to go through me first. I might be little but I’m feisty ). We learned. We painted. We got messy! And ya know what my motto is: Messy=success!
So here’s the highlight of your week! It’s OK to admit it, I won’t let it go to my head too much. Not that I have any kind of ego or anything….well, at least pretend and make me feel better! It’s the first edition of The Saturday Kindergarten Post for 2013! YAY! Enjoy your dash through our week!
This week we practiced counting down! I was very pleased with how well we did! We count backwards from 10 every day during calendar so that was easy. The counting down from 15 and 20 was a challenge but they did so well. What I loved was seeing them figure out that they could use the numbers on their name tags to help them! Those monsters are just pure genius!
We love the 80’s. OK Mr. Greg loves the 80’s but the monsters loved my ten frame activity! I really wanted to bust out some Belinda Carlisle and Tiffany while we worked on these, but I controlled myself! And of course they loved the mini-stampers! This was a great review of numbers to 20 and is now a great center for my monsters who still need work on counting to 20. If you want your free copy, head on over to the freebies page!
We celebrated a new year by making our own party hats! I gave them the hats and supplies and said, “Have fun!” You should have heard them! They loved this. I will be doing more art projects like this (even though the school grapevine says we do too much art!) where I give them access to supplies and let them create!
This is one of my favorite activities for a new year. Every monster got to stand up and hear their classmates share nice thigns about them. The smiles could have lit up a sports arena! Who doesn’t love having people say nice things about them?! Some of our adjectives were: “thankful,” “pretty,” “cute,” “friendly,” and my favorite was that there was one person who was described as a “leader!” And it’s very true. “Oprah” is the leader in our class in a very positive way. It was nice to see her friends recognize that positive quality in her! If you haven’t done this, you should try it. If you don’t have a smart board you can use paper! And yes, they will want you to have a turn! My turn comes Monday! I can’t wait to see how they describe me!
We practiced counting to 20 a lot! We used our q-tips and paint. I still have monsters struggling with this one to one concept. Please tell me I’m not the only one. I have monsters who just count and mark and never pay attention to the counting and marking. They end up 2,456 dots of paint for number 19. I get so frustrated but then I realize I need to stop and teach them again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again.
This week we spent a lot of time reviewing rules and procedures and how to be the best. We made a promise chart. I highly recommend this! They promise to do all of these great things and then each monster signed it. And you have a new class contract. When someone makes a poor choice we refer to the contract. It’s right there. Written in blood smelly marker. And every teacher knows that smelly marker is legally binding. We also used our friend David to help us be good students. We read “David Goes To School” and mad an anchor chart about what we can do to be good students.
And obviously an artist I am not. But the kids loved our David poster!
This week we also introduced our center wheel! This is such a simple and low maintenance center management system. And it’s very kid friendly. For more on this wheel of glory, check out this post!
Of course, we had to celebrate a new year with baby new year! The kids thought this whole concept of baby new year was hilarious. And look at the one footed baby. Poor thing. Baby new year is from Peace, Love and Learning!
Funny story: During afternoon meeting on the day we made baby new year, we were sharing what we learned that day and a monster said: “I learned how to make a baby.” Yep. That’s how we roll in Monsters, Inc!
We made self portraits of ourselves celebrating new years. I think my friend on the right partied way too hard!
We wrote our New Year’s resolutions! My favorites were:
“I want to be a better singer!” So does Mr. Greg. Trust me. I am terrible.
“I want to help my friends learn.”
“I want to help my friends learn the hard numbers.” Yeah, those evil hard numbers.
“I want to listen to Mr. Greg.” Thanks. Appreciate it!
We ended our week with some super fun science! We made our very own bouncy balls! If you want directions and some recording sheets head over to the freebies page!
For our foodie Friday snack, we made these cute cupcakes found on Pinterest
She is licking her doughnut hole so the sugar will stick better. Yes, please get more sugar!
Click on the picture to see the Pinterest post!
And of course no week in the world is complete without silly hats! Thanks to my friend Maggie at Maggie’s KinderKorner for the fun hat!
Be sure to check out my shop at Teachers Notebook! All of these great ideas are on sale! And check back later tonight for my post on The Magical Product Swap!
