Five for Friday- March 28th

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

 It actually seems like spring this week.  (Well, the last part of this week, at least- the beginning was in the teens.  BRRR. )

I finally finished my Bird Nest Prezi.  I have wanted to make this for a while, because I love teaching the children about birds.  I put together all of my favorite pictures and links.  I like using Prezis, because any time I have a few minutes, I can refer to it, and we can learn a little something.  The kids LOVED seeing what birds used to make their nests- and learning about the different types of nests. 

If you would like a copy of my Prezi, just click on the picture below. It's FREE at my TPT store this week.

We made bird nest kits, and wrote about what we would use to make our nest if we were birds.



 HERE is my post alllll about Birds and Bird Nests- with LOTS of TPT Freebies!

I had the children each bring in a favorite thing this week to write about.  They could write a story telling about their favorite thing or a fiction story with their favorite thing as the main character.  I took a picture of each child with his/her favorite thing for the cover. 

This one just made me smile.

 ("My hat is the greatest thing ever. I like my hat.")

He went on to say how his mom made it, and he loved the tassles.

I brought in my favorite thing- my dog Floppy.  I got him when I was one.  I showed the kids this picture and how new he was, and explained that I loved him so much, took him everywhere, slept with him all the time, told him all my stories, and took him on vacations with me. 

Then- I showed them Floppy now.  They were sort of speechless.  (I suppose I do see him through "Velveteen Rabbit eyes..." and he does look really bad...)

We talk about how some of our most loved things get worn out- and to other people look old and raggedy, but to us become more and more special.  I tell them how each patch is from a special 5th grade dress or 3rd grade coat.  I love sharing this, because lots of the children's special animals are very worn and old looking, too, so they "get" it, and feel a little more proud of their well-loved stuffed animals. 

I also share two stories that I wrote about Floppy to show them examples of what we will be writing.

We  learned the song, My Favorite Things this week.  Yes- I made a Prezi to go with it...   If you would like a copy of it, it is free at my TPT store.  Just click HERE.

Here is my post about it from last year.  I have Youtube videos all around the edge of the Prezi of different people singing the song.  The kids always love listening to the different versions.  Every year I get at least one "keeper" comment.  This year- when they watched Vanessa Williams, Placido Domingo, and Tony Bennett singing, one little boy said, "I liked the part where George Washington sang."  (AKA Tony Bennett...) Last year someone said I sounded like Julie Andrews.  THIS year, one little darling said that Vanessa Williams had the same voice as me.  Yes.  I am that needy that those comments made my day.  Yes. I do realize that children often suck up to the teacher.  Still.  Knowing how I sing- and knowing that Vanessa and I, in fact, do NOT have the same voice, that little darling scored some points. 

Inside the Prezi are pictures to illustrate the words in the song.  You can just click through the arrows at the bottom of the Prezi to go through the pictures as fast or as slowly as you sing it. 

We usually learn this song and sing it with some other songs for the grandparents on Grandparents' Day in May. 

I am ready for some summer activities. But NOT camping in a tent.  I am not good at camping- except when Jeff put our tent in our living room when the kids were little.  Our living room was HUGE, and that was fabulous. We did camp in a tent with the kids, and I have happy memories doing it- but hotel rooms still win for me. This description of camping made me smile. 

This little guy was my writing challenge in the beginning of the year. (And the one who was afraid he may be flushed by that automatic flusher.) He used a fist grip until we switched to using golf pencils. That was his magic trick. 

I  loved this post and wanted to share it.  I could read it every day, just as a reminder. 

30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself by Marc and Angel

The post has a great write up about each thing, but here were some of my favorites, with just the message that I put with the picture.

 (Sometimes I have a hard time forgetting when someone is mean...)

Luckily, I don't really worry about competing against anyone else (or I just gave up- haha), and I feel so blessed with my life that I am not jealous. But these pictures were awesome.

Stop trying to compete against everyone else.

Stop being jealous of others.

(Oh my gosh, I LOVED that dog's face!)

There were SO many that I really, really loved.  Which ones are your favorites?

OK- here is my number five.  Just to make you all feel better about yourselves.  My friend Shelley, (from The Write Stuff Teaching) did this celebrity look alike app, and came up with these lovely matches- PROBABLY because she, herself, is lovely.  So I thought that looked like fun.  Right?! 

I did one online.  Picture #1...  My closest match was Tara Reid.  Next- Queen Latifah. OK. Not what I had expected, but then- the third one was... wait for it...

Really?  How LOW in the celebrity files did they have to scrape to match me up with BORIS BECKER?!

So then I figured it must have been a "bad" picture.  Let's try again.   Always the optimist.  The next one HAS to be better. 

Picture #2... FIRST match... Michael Keaton. 

I quit.  Maybe I should have taken the advice from #4 and STOPPED comparing myself to others.  duh.

Have a wonderful weekend! It really feels like SPRING!  YA-HOO!





First Few Days of Fun- and a FREEBIE!

I am always amazed how quickly learning happens in Kindergarten.  It is sort of like you can't even slow it down. The children are so ready to absorb what you say when the year is so new and fresh.  I have introduced 5 sight words- I, a, can, like, and look.  They can't get enough. Once I mistake them for possibly being second graders because they read so well already, they just want MORE!

I am using the same simple morning message format for these first couple weeks.  I am only changing the day and special, because I want us to get in the habit of reading it each day together, noticing the capital letters, spaces, and punctuation.  

Some days I will put in a sentence strip with something else to do, like this:

Here are our Rug Rules.  I have mentioned that they are a variation of WBT rules.  I love watching the children do #5. We do "safe" like someone is safe at home  plate, "kind" like giving ourselves a big hug, and "honest" with our hands over our heart.  So sweet.  The smile face is "secret rule six"- Make your dear teacher happy!  They love that it is our secret rule.  OK- I  love it, too!  ;)

 They are already in the habit of telling me, "An author writes the words." or "An illustrator draws the pictures."  After I introduce a book and say the author's name, I say, "Tell me in a complete sentence what an author does."   I started doing this because I like them to answer me in complete sentences.

I introduced Eagle Eyes- sort of by accident, when we were reading Llama, Llama Misses Mama.

At the end, when Llama is so happy to see Mama, and runs to her, my one little sweetie said, "UT OH- He threw those crayons!"  She zoomed right in on that! So of course, that opened up the praises for her "eagle eyes!" And so the reading strategies began... I love when teaching happens like that!

Today, one of our Literacy Centers was reading "I Spy" books to help us sharpen our eagle eyes!

I also want to show you how my golf pencil worked for my little guy's grip- ready?

Day 1- regular pencil:

Today- golf pencil:  Oh. my. gosh!  I love it!  He was just adamant that he had a pencil with an eraser- and I slapped one on so fast!  :)  (By the way, after we read In My New Yellow Shirt, he decided he would be a yellow 'rig.'  That is what that means written on there! :)

Am I the only one who can't just let snack be snack? I have to turn it into yet another "hands on" activity- like sorting.  

 (Poor thing is like just let me EAT my snack!!!)

Heaven forbid they have pretzel sticks- we make every shape and letter under the sun!  Snack takes for. ever.

I love my Common Core Math Standard I Can Statements from Erin Dowling!  I also got her Writer's Workshop Procedures.  We are working on shapes this week in our math centers. 

This was a little Hexagon City the kids made after they sorted.  

I also wanted to let you know that my Pre-K, K, 1st Grade Character Education Prezi is free at my TPT store. 

I posted a sad little post yesterday (that I took off)- because someone left bad feedback for this Prezi, and it just said, "to small."  It ruined my day  I thought about it all day a few times throughout the day. First of all, the feedback lady seems to teach 3rd-5th grade- so I don't know if "to small" meant that the Prezi was too small, it was too small for her grade (which it would be because it is for Pre-K to 1st) or if it wasn't zoomed out and was actually too small size-wise... oh dear. If she had EMAILED me, I would have made it all better for her and given her money back and been nice.  :(  It is a smaller size Prezi- but has some great Character Education videos on it  as well as some class rules posters and all of the WBT rules and explanations from Chris Biffle. I made it just to have my videos together when I wanted a quick Character Education fix in the class!  I hope you enjoy it and can use it.  PLEASE leave me some loving feedback because apparently I am a huge baby not very thick skinned and words of affirmation must be one of my love languages- or maybe I just am not really good at handling whatever the opposite of words of affirmation are. Either way, thank you, my sweet, sweet, blog buddies.  Thank you to my sweet friend Leslie from Color, Cut, and Glue actually caught my little  post yesterday for the short while it was up there... and made me feel so much better.  Have a great night!