Chinese New Year

My school resumes Monday from Winter Break.  I took the last week of it to get myself organized and ready for all the upcoming holidays I will include in my lessons. I just finished my Chinese New Year pack. Its is printed, cut out, and ready for laminating.

The pack includes a Chinese New Year poster with character traits of a horse person and the years of the horse. There is a coloring page to go along with it too. My students will do the coloring page during snack. It is a nice time to put on our "thinking music" (Mozart), eat, and color.

In addition, there are math and literacy themed printables (Chinese New Year Word Work, Alphabetical Order, Read and Write the Room, addition, and graphing). We will be using these in our Daily 5/Center time and during Math time. During our Social Studies/Science block, I will introduce the topic with my poster and KWL chart.

Click on the picture below to check it out :)

There Was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow

I LOVE that Scholastic has dollar books as part of their Reading Club. This month's dollar book was There Was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow by Lucille Colandro. I already had one copy of the story and audio cd from Scholastic so I purchased two more copies. I like to have 3 copies of each book for my listening centers. I created a pack to go along with it. Check out my TeachersPayTeachers store.

I use the sequencing cards and sheet as part of my listening center. Below is a picture of my student completing the same sheet but for the book There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Book by Lucille Colandro. You can find that pack in my store too.

We create a class book in our writing center. This is a big hit every month. I do not have one yet for this book.  After students finish working on their page in the class book, they put the vocabulary words from the story in alphabetical order.

During our whole class writing time we label the picture of the snowman. My students always forget to label pictures in their own writing. Afterwards they use the snowman in their writing and have to draw a picture and label it.

In the word work center, students will complete the beginning sounds, ending sounds, and syllable worksheets.

I'm back!

So bloggers I have been MIA for awhile! I switched schools in August and have been pretty busy with that. I am very blessed to be one of seven kindergarten teachers! Yup, you read that right...1 of 7! I am still shocked by it but has been an amazing experience so far. Unfortunately, I was sick with pneumonia for several weeks. That was not fun at all! Anyway, I will be back logging some of the things we have done so far this year. Keep checking back :)

Shopping for Back to School

I am sure most of you are like me and can't help yourself around Target's dollar bin. My husband knows we HAVE to look at it before we do anything else. My first find was a 2 pack of magnetic erasers. I bought 11 packs so each of my students will have one when we use the small white boards. This is a must for me because I am not a fan of using socks as erasers. I plan on putting my name on each of them and storing them in a cute dollar bin container.

Another fun find was Dr. Seuss trim for my bulletin board. I will use it this year with my "Oh, the places you will go" board. The students made hot air balloons and wrote about what they want to be when they grow up. I believe I found the idea for it on Pinterest. Below is a picture of one of my students with her writing prompt. Sorry but I do not have a picture of the actual bulletin board.

 

 

"When I grow up...I want to be a dentist. I want to save teeth"

 



The last Target find was bookmarks. I give them out with Scholastic books at Christmas and the end of year as gifts.

 

 

 

 

I just purchased something from Teachers Pay Teachers and will be heading to Dollar Tree to buy some muffin pans. I will post when I finish.

 

 

Happy shopping!

Writing Helper

This year I created and used several writing helper cards to be used in centers. These cards went with each topic and had pictures and words, like a word wall, for students to use in their writing. My students loved the cards and they started to give me their "wish list" for more cards! I finally put all the cards (and a few new ones) together to create a book that my new kiddos can use all year. I love graphics so much that I will probably add more!

Pictures of the book:

This book contains graphics for: the alphabet, colors, numbers 1-20, school supplies, family, birthday party, apples, fall, fire safety, community helpers, Halloween, space, Thanksgiving, transportation, Christmas (two pages), woodland, winter, arctic, Valentine's Day, spring, Earth Day, weather, Easter, bugs, farm, jungle, sea life, BBQ, food, beach, and pool party.

Check it out on my Teachers Pay Teachers. It will be on sale for few days!

Dolch Sight Words

I made a Dolch pre-primer and primer sight word wall to help parents who were working with their children. It helped them know which words their children were responsible for knowing during the school year. Each week I posted the words we were covering on my school blog.

Download it free on my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

The Handwriting Fairy

After Christmas, I started to notice that my students' handwriting was increasingly getting sloppier and sloppier. I started using more fine motor activities and had students slow down but it wasn't enough. During one of my late night blog/pinterest searches I stumbled upon this great handwriting pack by Rachel from whattheteacherwants.blogspot.com 

This year I used the story Rachel wrote and the "neat treat" tags. My students loved it and they all begged for pencil grips! After the first student received a "neat treat" from the handwriting fairy, all of my other students' handwriting improved! I plan on using this pack next year a long with the other components. Check it out at her store on teachers pay teachers.