Five for Friday: We've almost made it!

It's been a turkey of a week! We started with our anchor chart after reading fictional and informative texts. We also labeled the parts in helping my lil kinders do their activities. Our anchor wall is becoming so colorful =)

These books took a bit of a turn when I started designing them. I started with focusing on the words 'do', 'you', and 'see' because these are the ones we are studying right now. I then changed the theme to match Thanksgiving to make it more relatives to our lives right now. The kiddos are really getting much better at following the prompts independently. I am so proud of them! They are differentiated to meet the needs of all of my class and interactive too!

Interactive & Differentiated High Frequency Books *Thanksgiving Theme

"A Plump and Perky Turkey" is my absolute favorite Thanksgiving book! I love every bit of the book. The class then made their own 'WANTED' posters similar to those in the stories using different mediums. They had a blast!

I found these cute templates on Pinterest and printed them in black and white so the kids could match the shapes and then color them accordingly. They were a major hit with everyone!

We did a little craft with Pilgrims and writing about things that we are thankful for in our lives. I was impressed with some of the thought that was put into them....thankful for freedom, army, mom & dad, teacher, cat, etc. If you haven't read the Junie B. Jones book related to her Thanksgiving celebration then you must. The list they comprise in the story is hilarious. We just finished the book this week and the kids are begging for a Christmas one.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Five for Friday the 13th! Oh my!

 

I just had to post this as it was a recent discussion with my principal. I don't know why we are evaluated on items that are out of our control. I need to learn to just let some things go but it's oh so hard for my personality. Here was our busy week in Kindergarten!

I ordered dice in dice for the very first time after seeing them on a blog and we LOVED them! I thought we would call them "Peek-a-boo" dice since the name is so fitting in finding the little dice inside. I made some differentiated activities for the kids to do in adding the dice together and they did WAY better than I thought they would. Some were even coming back asking for the harder activity. WIN! We even added a little fun to some Veteran's Day activities with them.

Another differentiated lesson we did was learning about turkeys. I made some illustrations at the top with the words in a key to help with the reading passage. This still was a bit challenging for some but we did them together so it was good practice.

My other readers, however, flew through their reading, writing, and personal connections portions! I might have to make these ones a bit more challenging for them next time.

We celebrated Veteran's Day by reading a few books. One that I particularly like is "Sweet Land of Liberty". We discussed the aspects of our freedom and those that make it possible. As a class, we generated some ideas as to what we would tell a soldier and then they wrote them on their letters after making a craftivity to go along with it.

 

You would have thought Christmas had arrived when our Curriculum Director walked in with this beautiful box of interactive science materials for me to check out! The box alone says it all....INTERACTIVE. We are in the process of adopting a new science program this year and I am on the committee. I also did our literacy adoption and it was really an eye opener for me so I quickly volunteered to do this one as well. I am curious as to the programs used by other districts. I really would like to see an interactive one with kits for experiments like this one. There are four different companies we are looking at so I am anxious to dive in =)

 

We were able to escape for 24 hours and attend a football game at my alma mater. I haven't been to one in a very long time and the memories quickly came back as we entered Ohio Stadium. We went to the Skull Session (a pep rally with the band) before the game. I don't know how I earned two degrees at OSU, went to every home football game, and managed to never go hear the band prior to the game. Seriously...must have been tailgating or something. We went and visited all of my favorite spots and had a blast! It was a quick getaway but well worth it =)

 

Have a great weekend!

Five for Friday: It's been a week!

 

I loved this cartoon. It was so appropriate for this past week for me. I had two conference nights, a book study club for school, and an evaluation!!! Did I mention my husband was out of town too? Craziness!

 

 Well, we were a little surprised to walk in Monday morning to find that our pumpkins had decomposed so quickly since Friday. The shrieks could have filled an entire haunted house. LOL! It was a great learning opportunity and we finished journaling about their characteristics.  

I absolutely love Fall. I might quite possibly love it more than Summer. Here are some of my favorite books we will read over the next several weeks.

We have been learning about text evidence in class quite a bit as I have noticed that my kinders have difficulty recalling events in a story. In our Wonders Reading program, the kiddos have leveled readers that we use everyday. I made some activities for them to use where they had to use their books in order to answer the questions. We practiced finding the words and copying them onto our paper to match the illustration. They did a great job...and it was during my evaluation. BONUS! =)

 

We made our very own turkey glyphs this week after reading "Thanksgiving is Here!". We discussed traditions that families may share and then the parts of a turkey before we began. Once completed, I hung them in our hall for parents to enjoy as they wait for conferences. The kids were shouting, "We are famous!" It was a riot! I put all of our fun into this little pack that you can grab for FREE out of my shop =) I have quite a few things that you can take a peak at if you are in need of some Thanksgiving printables for your classroom.

 

 Turkey Glyph Freebie!

Pilgrims & Indians: Non-Fiction Activities for Young Learners 

 It's Turkey Time

 

It was time to take our sweet Jack-O-Lanterns down and put something more festive up as we prepare for the next holiday. This is one of my favorite activities because I love hearing the "oooohs" and "aaaahs" as we make them. I only tell the kids that we are making a turkey and we complete the entire front side. Just when they think we are done, I have them flip it over and then we begin the Indian. They are perfect for the classroom because it doesn't matter which way they are turned. LOL! As promised, I took a picture of my anchor charts that continue to add some detail to our room. Next up, can you guess? =)

 

       

 

 We are off to watch the Ohio State Buckeyes play Saturday night. Can't wait!! 

Have a great weekend!