Kindergarten: Holding Hands and Sticking Together: Five for Friday May 8

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Five for Friday May 8

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday. Thank you for hosting, Kacey!

I am presenting today at our district conference day about how I use Prezis in the classroom. I made a Prezi about it (of course...). I included videos about how to make and use different parts of the Prezi. I looked at a lot of tutorials and found the best (simplest to understand) ones for me. Here is the Prezi about Prezis if you'd like to learn a little more about them.

Prezis are a different way to present material. They're easy for older students to make and present, too.

I have been using the Prezi app on the kids' iPads. I am updating my Prezis so I will have one that I use to teach and one for the students to use on the iPad with less links and more educational videos. I'll post more on these as I complete them.

I posted before that during our technology time, my class is working on making iMovies to go along with our My Favorite Things lessons. Last week, we wrote about our favorite books.

My friend ( and tech teacher) Jen just finished working with three of the kids on their iMovies. She made QR codes for the movies so I can put them all up in the room on a book recommendation wall. The kids are having so much fun seeing each other's iMovies!

You can scan the QR code to see their little movie if you want.

I love how this little sweetie is taken with the fact that there are GRAY pictures in the book.

That really made an impression!

We are loving our Frog and Toad Unit this week. I made a Frog and Toad Prezi (free at my TPT store) that I use all the time in the spring when we are watching our eggs- if I'm lucky enough to find them, and read our stories. The Prezi has lots of videos of the stories, videos about frogs and toads, ideas, games, and charts to use if you are reading Frog and Toad, or having a science lesson about frogs and/or toads.

I posted all about frogs and frog freebies from TPT here at Pre-K and K Sharing last month. I also wrote posts about how I use and what I do for each story in Frog and Toad are Friends and Frog and Toad Together.

A List is a perfect story to introduce list writing to the children. Lists are such a great way for kids to practice writing- at any age. When I taught my own children writing, we used to always warm up by writing a list of something - even when they were in middle school. It's a great way to get your mind thinking of different ideas. In fact, I made a list of list ideas- how is that for a list! You could use this list with any age, really. Click on the picture below if you would like a copy.

My class had so much fun with this. After we read the story, I gave a topic to the kids ( like farm animals, ice cream flavors, blue things, big things, small things...the topics on the list above!). They turned and talked to a friend about all of the items they could list for that topic.

This sounds very easy, but it's actually a very good exercise for the children to have to stay on topic and only list items that would fit the category. I rang a bell after a minute or so and moved onto the next topic, so it was a fast moving activity.

After we practiced a few times, I had to kids go back to their seats to write a few lists of their own.

Some of them even illustrated their lists! Once I ooohed and aaaahed about these illustrations, guess what everyone else started to do?! It was great.

This was a big week for fitness- not for me, but for two people very special to me! First of all, my daughter, Emily, ran in her first half marathon!

I was so proud of her! She hasn't run that far since her knee surgery- and wasn't sure if she ever could. What a happy day! It was a gorgeous day, and Jeff and I cheered her in!

Next, my sweet "school daughter" won first place over all in her first fitness competition. OH MY GOODNESS- who knew that was under those "teacher clothes?" She trained and worked so hard, and is the sweetest person. I am so proud of her, too!

(That's her with her trainer.)

Me... I ate less cheese this week. That's it. That doesn't even really register as a baby step...

Anyway, I'm so proud of my girls!

This is so random, but it made me laugh, so I'm sharing it. I found this picture on Pinterest the other day- and normally I wouldn't have thought much of it...

Except that that very day, when my mother came in to work with the kids, this is what we both were wearing. When she walked in, I thought it was so funny, so I took a picture. And then when I got home, I found the picture above on Pinterest! WHAT kind of black-and-white-checked-day was it?!