Five for Friday September 19th

I am linking up with Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday. Happy, Happy Friday!

Here are some of my favorite moments of the week.

A teacher at school shared this site of  Math Tips for Parents  for all grade levels, and I wanted to pass it on! These are great to send home so parents know what types of activities you are working on in the classroom. They go along with the modules, but are good even if you aren't following the modules, and just want to share the CCSS information.

                                                                    
We worked on sorting and classifying this week.  We made our anchor chart, and sorted all "sorts" of things.

The kids loved the tangrams.  We made puzzles and sorted them by shapes. 

I'm doing some assessments this week, and noticed that naming shapes isn't a  very strong skill for lots of my little guys.  (Well, neither are numbers, letters, sounds, fill-in-the-blank-with-any-other-skills...)  But everything will come in time! I know it will.  

I found this idea from Fran at Kindergarten Crayons.  It was a perfect quick assessment to show who knew (and didn't know) shapes.  The only thing I changed from Fran's Pete the Cat, was that I made a hexagon nose, because I wanted to get a hexagon on there somewhere.  I love how different they all came out when they all started with the same bag of shapes!  I had the bags pre-made, with all the shapes they needed.  They had to follow my directions and put Pete together like a puzzle.  We did this in a small group.  At the end, they added the black dot in the middle of the eye, whiskers, and their name.  It was also a great activity for practice using glue sticks.

I also decided we would make a Shape Town to share different objects that are different shapes. I had the children bring in different shaped items to live in our town.  I have this out at our exploration table, underneath the "I Can Sort" anchor chart, so the kids can talk about shapes, touch them, sort them, and "get to know" them.  

If you would like a copy of my Shape Town picture and the parent note that I sent home, just click the picture below.  I printed my Shape Town picture on cardstock.

I  have several children who need LOTS of help with letter recognition this year.  I am working with a small group of children on a small group of letters.  I started with four letters.  I got all sorts of magnetic letters, rubber letters, and letter squares for the four letters we worked on this week. Any chance I get, I call up my little group to sort the little letters onto the big sheets as quickly as they can.  They have to say the letter each time they put a letter on the big paper.  

They do this right before recess, too- and surprise, surprise that is the fastest sort ever because they want to get outside fast!  We have so much fun with this. As they sort and say the letter name, I say the sound each time, so now they are saying that, too.  I hope it sticks.  It's fun- and seems to be working- until one of them throws out a "P" or "W" when we have been only saying "A,B,E,G" all week.  I try to end when one of them says a correct letter- so I feel good about myself.  Because, the next letter they say, may be "seven."  They are trying SO hard and doing so well.  

Does anyone else ever feel behind already this time of year?  I sort of felt behind on Day 2.  OK- Day 1, when I of course didn't get to all I wanted to get done.  I feel like there are so many demands on these little sweethearts to pass a Level D in reading, write four different genres of books, have a voice, form those letters correctly, add more details, add, subtract, compose numbers, decompose numbers, etc. etc.  that taking time to slowly enjoy a story or song doesn't feel "schooly" enough.  I have to constantly remind myself that my children are four and five years old.  They should not rush through these wonderful experiences and moments.

 I need to let them feel calm, relaxed, unrushed, loved, and happy.  I tell them EVERY DAY, many times, that all I want is for them to do their best. I really mean it.

                                       

But inside I feel like I should always be doing more- teaching them one more thing. If I feel good about a writing lesson (well, drawing and labeling with a letter at this point) then I haven't gotten to reading yet...  

I do know children are amazing.  They grow and flourish not only with the lessons we teach- that's only a part of it, but with love, patience, and time.  Oh- and laughter and fun.  Those are the best part. 

Here was one of my FAVORITE moments this week...

Our monarch hatched RIGHT BEFORE OUR EYES!  Oh, what a miracle we got to experience.  The children were absolutely in awe.  We let his wings dry all day long, and then took him out to fly away.  You cannot put any price on the sweetness of the children spontaneously clapping as he flew away.  THAT is what they'll remember. 

The children were fascinated to learn how to tell the girl monarch from the boy monarch.  We watched all of our videos about monarchs on the Fun in Fall Prezi.

Our monarch had very distinct dots and thin lines on the back part, so we knew it was a boy.  We named him Milky, just in case you wondered...

                                           

We made some of our own monarchs to fly above the lockers.

                           

                                                                    

Finally, here are a few more fun things we did with colors this week.  Of course Pete the Cat was Blue Day, and our monarchs were Orange Day.  (The chrysalis even turned BLACK on black day- right on cue!)

Ten Apples Up on Top for Red Day was a perfect introduction to 10 frames.  We had lots of fun counting and making different amounts on our magnetic ten frame.  We even did some adding and subtracting.

Look what wonderful Mrs. Leeby shared at her blog this week!  A perfect freebie to go with 10 Apples Up On Top.  I'm going to make this when we work on Aa and do some more activities with apples.  Thank you, Irene!  You can get your freebie HERE!

For Yellow Day, I had the children draw what they would like to be if they had a magic new yellow shirt after we read this story.  This was a great way to see where the kids were with drawing and writing.  Lots of the children know what they want to write, and some know the letter they want to write, but they just don't know how.  That's exactly what I wanted to see.  This one wasn't the norm... Honestly.  

Green Day is always my favorite.  I love reading Go Away Big Green Monster, and having he children draw their monster as I read, without seeing the pictures.  Then, I read the story (usually over and over and over) on the rug so they can see the pictures.   Finally, the children do their first sharing time, showing the monster they drew.  The great thing about this share is that there is always at least one fabulous part of each drawing- the big yellow eyes or the long bluish, greenish nose...  It's a great way to have the children start noticing good things about each other's work- (and not saying, "HE SCRIBBLED!")

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Little Blue and Little Yellow. 

We always start with mixing water after I read the story.

I love this idea from my sweet friend  Sandy at Kinder-Gardening.  I think I actually gasped when I saw this idea on her blog!  

 (I found it worked better for the mixing to make Little Blue a little smaller-otherwise the blue sort of dominated.)

This is what happened when they hugged



I put these right in Ziplock baggies and into the mailboxes so they made it home!

And of course, you can do  color mixing with paint!  Suzi has this  FREEBIE at her TPT store ready to go for mixing colors! I use cotton swabs and the kids have a ball.  We didn't do the paint mixing this year. 

I always make these great necklaces for the kids, because they love them. 

Finally, what would Purple Day be without Harold?  After we read some Harold stories, I have the children draw their own Purple Adventure.  I had them try to label some of the things they drew, or write about it - just to get them thinking about using letters.

Each day, I take a picture of us all dressed in our color.  I put these up beside our door in the hall.  I also make a Colorful Class Book- and a CRAZY Colorful Class Book with our silly face pictures. These are always favorites.

I hope you all had a colorful week of your own! Have a wonderful weekend!

Our Colorful Week!

I always look forward to our first two weeks of school.  We review a color each day while I take pictures to make our Colorful Class and Crazy Colorful Class books. This gets us feeling like a class family and off to a great start.  We spend a lot of time these first two weeks , like you all do, establishing classroom routines and rules, writing names correctly, working on being kind friends, reviewing letters and sounds, learning our computer/lunch number, and singing and dancing, of course! I have already introduced many sight words, and this group just seems excited to learn. 

We were drawing and "writing" ideas about being kind friends yesterday,  and one little boy came up to me as they were drawing and said, "I really hope you know- I can't spell ANYTHING!"   (This is when that fabulous word 'YET' comes in, right?)  

This made me think of another sweet thing today.  One of my little guys came up to me with bright red, chapped lips,  and said, "Can you help me?  My lips are slowly burning off."   Poor thing.  As someone who is totally addicted to Blistex- I completely got that ever-so-accurate description!

Here is a glimpse of our colorful days!

Red Day:

After we read Ten Apples Up on Top, I had the children put ten apple stickers up on their heads.  This was a quick little activity to show me who could count to ten with one to one correspondence. 

Then we used Rebecca Stone's Apple Picking Emergent Reader on the Elmo to count how many apples we saw on the different pages.  This is a great activity- free at her store! 

We  also made our Number 5 bracelets.  I had the children put 5 red beads on a pipe cleaner which I turned into a  bracelet.  We counted them and even added and subtracted with them.  This was a good introduction to our 10 bead counter bracelet we make later.  The children had lots of fun making and playing with these, and then by the time we make our 10 bracelet, they are more ready to use it for our adding and subtracting questions.

 This is my extra red day bonus: 

YELLOW DAY:

The class loved reading How Will I Get to School This Year?



This was a wonderful book to introduce the word "illustrator" because the illustrations are so vibrant and fun.  The children are already used to saying, "The author writes the words.  The illustrator draws the pictures."    We had a great discussion about different ways to really  get to school-and the different ways she thought of to get to school.

Next we made our buses to put over our lockers in the hall- with our bus numbers on them.

We read In My New Yellow Shirt, and each child drew a picture of what he/she would pretend to be in a yellow shirt.

(This example is NOT the norm in my class, by the way, with all that detail and color- I felt I needed to add that disclaimer.  I would like you all to just imagine that I had them all this far along in these 6 days, but ... nope. NOPE.  ;) 

Kristin, at A Teeny Tiny Teacher, mentioned using a music box to get the children's attention.  I have this bus that I got at a garage sale a few years ago. It is a Little People bus, and plays "The Wheels on the Bus"  if you touch a button on the top.  It stops the kids cold for some reason when it starts to play.  Last year, however, it would just play randomly, out of the blue, any time it felt like it.  It was so creepy.  I thought the batteries were getting low and changed them, but it still did it.  It has since gotten its act together and is playing only when I tell it to. I am sure it was a little wire that was off or something, but there is something very eerie about "The Wheels on the Bus" starting to play when you are in line to go to lunch and that bus is on the other side of the room.  The first time is funny. Then it gets real.  Real creepy. 

The Haunted Bus

Since it is YELLOW DAY, I have to share this beautiful clipboard my friend Leslie from Color, Cut and Glue made for me.  We drew each other's names for the Back to School Blog Exchange, and I couldn't be happier that I did, because I got to meet such a sweet person!  She made me this clipboard which is just perfect of my bus rosters that I use each day. It makes me happy every time I use it!

I love using the things I buy from your TPT stores, and the ideas I borrow from all of you.  I see your names or think of the blog post where you shared an idea, and it just makes me happy to think of you! 

BLUE DAY:

(This is a scene from our CRAZY COLORFUL CLASS book... They are really good at these.)

Cookie Monster returned with some Cookie Crisp cereal for some math work. 

We read Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons.  Then, we watched a couple Pete the Cat stories.

These are all on my Character Education Prezi, which is FREE at my TPT store.

We made our own Pete the Cat to hang up in the hall.  I found the pattern on April's Chalk Talk blog, and she got it from Hooray for Kindergarten.  The pattern is here.

 I hung them up outside my door.  We aren't allowed to put ANYTHING on our door- inside our outside, so they are hanging around outside.

 

Green Day:

Green Day  is always one of my favorites, because I absolutely LOVE this book:

There are SO many activities to do with this book.  I made these necklaces for each of the children:

Someone had put out their old calendar pattern pieces on the "give away" table at the end of the year- and I snatched them up!  I have also made these by cutting cellophane circles.  The children love to hold these up to the light and look at everything blue, then yellow, then green. 

We also mix the colors with water.

I had the children mix the colors.  It is fun to do this on the Elmo,  too- and see it on the big screen.

This was my all time favorite, though- from my sweet friend Sandy at Kinder-Gardening.  I think I actually gasped when I saw this idea on her blog! 

 (I found it worked better for the mixing to make Little Blue a little smaller-otherwise the blue sort of dominated.)

This is what happened when they hugged.



I put these right in Ziplock baggies and into the mailboxes so they made it home!

And of course, color mixing with paint!  Suzi has this  FREEBIE at her TPT store ready to go for mixing colors! I use cotton swabs and the kids have a ball.

Of course my other favorite for Green Day is this book!

I gave each child a paper and the crayon colors of the monster before I read the story.  They had to listen and draw the monster as  I read- but NOT see the pictures. 

After we did this, I reread the story and showed them the pictures.  Then, we shared our monsters. 

Cathy Stoecker has a cute Go Away Big Green Monster Take Home Bag FREEBIE at her TPT store with lots of different activities to go with this book.  Here are the activities-

And I can't wait to use my Monster Manners FREEBIE from Growing Kinders tomorrow. We ran out of time today. This  is a great activity for the beginning of the year!

Tomorrow is PURPLE DAY.   I love sharing Harold and the Purple Crayon with the children.  I have the treasury book with lots of stories in it.  I have both pre-made, stapled, blank books and big paper folded in half that the children may choose to use to write (draw) their own purple crayon stories.  We have fun with this, and it is actually their very first "book" they write.

I hope you all had a colorful week  ( with all the very BEST colors!)