Five for Friday: It has been too long!

Every.Single.Day....LOL!

I have revised this post four times now because I add items to my drafts but then never have enough time to finish them. Seriously, this has been going on for four weeks but I am sitting down to finish it now. It has been crazy with the Indians in the World Series, Halloween, elections, colds, assessments, conference nights (three of them!), hubby traveling... BUT this is getting done. Woot woot!

We finished our units on spiders and bats before Halloween but I wanted to share how cute these little things came out after reading "Stellaluna" to the class. We compared events in the story from what happened in the beginning, middle, and end. 

Fast forward over Halloween to the present in prepping for Thanksgiving already. We learn and review many concepts in kindergarten but I love doing auditory skills with the kids. It requires a lot of understanding and concentration. I pulled this picture up on our interwrite board and then we review the words 'beside' and 'between'. I call on kids to go up to the board to show their level of understanding. For instance,  "color the body of the turkey between the pilgrim and the indian brown". It is great in reviewing as well as refining those listening skills for test preparation =) Plus, they love using the dry erase markers on the front board as if they are the teacher!

We read so many books in learning about the presidency and elections. Two of my favorites were "Duck for President" and "Grace for President" (which ironically is about a girl becoming president). We compared and contrasted both stories and set up a mini voting booth in the classroom. The kids made their own voting cards with pictures from picture day as their ID and then presented that before voting for Duck or Grace. They each received a voting sticker before we tallied the final votes. It was a lot of fun!

I have major mom working guilt ....all of the time. I really have difficulty during these conference weeks when I have to work late. I try to squeeze in every minute with the boys. They love breakfast foods that I really don't have a lot of time to do in the morning so I made some time for pancakes, bacon, and waffles for all of them! Kyle celebrates WIG Wednesdays in his class. It serves as an acronym for reaching their goals. 

This is what it looks like in getting ready for one conference night. Tons of prep!

You know what keeps me sane? Running and working out! My miles have gotten to 7-8 before school but it helps with my stress level. I ordered these cute running pants to help celebrate our 'Believeland'. So very proud of our Indians and Cavs teams this year!

I finally finished this CVC pack now that my kinders are getting better at blending sounds. I differentiated it so that it can help the high, on track, and struggling readers. We have used it quite a bit and the kids really like it. Each letter of the alphabet is on a pumpkin seed. The picture goes in the box in the upper right and then the kids use the letter seeds to complete the words. I'm working on one for December too! Check it out!

CVC Differentiated Activities

Have a great weekend!