Friday, January 30, 2015

Five for Friday Linky: January 30th




Our 100 days have arrived and we began with this sweet story called "Mr. George Baker". It is about a friendship between a little boy and a hundred year old man. They wait for the bus to take them to school because the older gentleman is learning how to read. As a class, we then talked about the differences in ages and some things we want to do before we turn 100 years old. We generated lots of ideas and some were just darling =)

I then found this cool app on my iPhone that ages the picture you take to make you look older. I would post mine but it scared me! LOL! The kids got a huge kick out of it! After we read the story from above, we took the pictures and then made a bucket list of things we would want to do before we reached 100. You can see his says 'go to college', 'get insurance', 'get married', 'get food', 'get money', 'go to school', 'get good grades', 'get a job', 'get a  house', and my all time favorite... 'get kids'. =) My practical lil guy!



Here was another one that I thought was really good....

I wanted to make sorting mats to show ten sets of ten. I don't have any volunteers this year and I thought that it would take a very long time to cut out 180 circles. So, I decided that each student only needed one circle and then they could trace and cut their own. I actually gave each one two sheets of long paper where they made ten circles to cut out. The kids then organized same color piles on the carpet before each table was called to pick ten circles for their mats.



I then passed out the number 10 to be glued on each circle to count to 100. I have snacks that they will use in putting ten in each one =) I set up a volunteer spot requesting items that could be counted out: marshmallows, teddy grahams, m &ms, pretzels, fruit loops, cheerios, etc.

These are all of the fun things I have planned for February! Our author study this month will be Ezra Jack Keats as we read through his books that I love...."Peter's Chair", "The Snowy Day", "Goggles", and more! I feel like I try to squeeze so much in this short month! I have TONS of books I want to use too!
I love the activities I have in my packs this month and I will put them on sale for the weekend! They are absolutely no prep but yet very informative! I will start next week with my groundhog activities:
I teach the kids the facts about groundhogs and then we make a 'can', 'have', and 'are' anchor chart. We also discuss fact vs. fiction and make a mini-informational text book!  Check it out here:

Who doesn't love all of the fun in celebrating Valentine's Day? This is a great opportunity to teach the kids about writing and mailing a letter. I also incorporate the postal system! They love 'write the room' games and valentine scramblers, word searches, and decoding activities too! You can find it here:  Be My Valentine!

I made this pack because I needed non-fiction and informative text for my young learners. There are write the room activities,  Abraham Lincoln and George Washington activities with writing templates, PLUS learning about our American symbols.  You can find it here:


Has anyone ever used i-Ready? We had our grade level meeting this week and were told that we are going to pilot this with a group of kinders from each class. It is supposed to be a great diagnostic tool in showing student performance. We will see =)

Have a great weekend!





3 comments:

  1. I love the sorting mats. What a wonderful idea to have them make their own!

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  2. We started using iReady in K in December. We too have a group of kiddos in our classroom using it. Our classroom computers are too old, so we can only use it in the computer lab. I have mixed feelings about it. My kiddos did not like it, but they do like seeing their graph grow as they complete lessons. It is getting better. It does give you a lot of information, but I'm not sure I know what to do with it all in the classroom. At this point, and I'm certainly not an expert, I don't see how it necessarily relates to my classroom instruction all the time. I'd love to hear how it goes in your classroom!

    Amanda
    A Very Curious Class

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  3. Thanks for the feedback. They made it sound like a wonderful tool in our meeting so I am really anxious to be able to compare it to your results. I will let you know. Thanks!

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