High Five for Friday! September 20th

This was a BUSY week- and I have a back-to-school cold. boo.  Usually I am tougher than this, and I am always surprised that I don't get sick. Well, this year, I am not surprised- cause I am sick.  ANYWAY...

Did any of you notice this?

It was gorgeous.  At night. In the sky.  I bet we could paint different "full moon" pictures of our classrooms.  AND - I don't mean when my little guy pulled his pants all the way  down to "check things out" on Thursday during free choice time.  That is an entirely different picture...

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday. Thank you so much for hosting this linky party!

This week we finished up our Color Weeks.  I introduced our tens frames, and we used them a lot for black and white.  We read Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews.

 

This book is such a great introduction for so many activities.  We used the magnetic pom-poms and drew pictures around them on the white board. I did not have my camera. :(    The children loved making spiders and adding 8 legs.  Trucks were another favorite.



 I cut dots of all sizes- from hole punch dots (perfect for ladybug spots and antenna toppers) to BIG dots (perfect for monster truck wheels).  The children could be creative and use as many dots as they wanted to make anything at all.  They had to write how many dots they used, and I had them try to hear the beginning sound of the word and write that.

Monster truck!

Heidi Songs  has a great Tens Frame Flash Cards freebie at TPT.

 



 These Tens Frames Playing Cards are a freebie from Erin Sample's TPT store.

 

KTP on TPT offers a great freebie for tens frame practice.  This would be fun to use with Oreo cereal. (My first thought was mini oreos, but this may be less sugary.)

 

 I loved Katie Hess's I Can Make Ten book freebie.  I am going to have the children make this using sticker dots next week.

Here is the sample of my Kindergarten Math Common Core Prezi Bundle that includes the Base 10 CCSS activities.  We used the tens frames quick  images video and played a few games before lunchtime.  Dreambox Learning has some great tens frames and mathrack activities. This link is on my Prezi right under the truck.   Great site. 

This little figure reminds me that I had TWO "accidents" on Wednesday. Doesn't he just look like he is rushing to the bathroom- or is it just me?!  Anyway...the nurse said that wetting pants was the "flavor of the day."  She is wonderful and has everything to make the children feel better- including lots of patience.  I am sending a reminder note to parents to send in that extra set of clothes for their children.  It makes all the difference in the world when the child can change into his/her own clothes. It is so much less stressful.  I tell parents that I have an extra set at school, too- ever since the show and tell incident where one little sweetie was so nervous she sat on my lap and peed... It can be a spill, a mud puddle, any number of interesting things that require a new set of clothes.  You all know that!

On a related note, I panicked more than a little when I left the cafeteria Thursday realizing that I had scheduled White Day on Pasta Day... but all was well.  Phew!

We moved from Black Day to White Day but kept the dots theme.  For White Day, we spent a lot of time on clouds.  We read these books:

We painted white paint on light blue paper, and made fork marks through it.  Then, we cut shapes out of the paper to make "Eric Carle clouds" for our project.

For my small group math center, I had the children draw a number card and then complete their tens frame with "clouds."  (Not to be mistaken for the marshmallows they will become in hot chocolate in the winter...)

The plan was to go outside to see our own shapes in the clouds in the afternoon.  Here is a picture of our day. It was the most gorgeous, cloud-free day ever. Not a hint of a cloud in that sky. I am NOT complaining -I'll take it! It was just really so ironic, because it NEVER looks like that!

Instead, we watched some clouds on the smartboard- PRETENDING we were lying out in the grass.  This is the sample of my Eric Carle Prezi- where I have activities and links to 21 of Eric Carle's books.  (I kind of love using Eric Carle's books. My kids know that already...)
We watched some of the videos on here about clouds.

My other focus has been NAMES NAMES NAMES- learning friends' names, recognizing their own names, and writing those names correctly!

Here are my favorite name books to use:

As you may remember, I sent home laminated names , a dry erase marker, and an eraser at the Kindergarten Picnic to practice.  Well...

I tried.    Anyway- job security.  I told you I would let you know if it worked.  Some of the children did say they practiced, but...    They need help writing those names! 

Most of my children can spell their names this year, which is great.  A few need more practice than others, so I have magnetic letters in a bag with a magnetic name to practice on the whiteboard.

Today we read a little name poem, and on the back, the children cut apart the letters in their names from two colors of names I had printed ( I made four colors for each child.) and then made two AB pattern names. 



We also made Chicka Chicka Boom Boom name trees.

It's still early- those names will come, I know it! :)

I will leave you with this because it just made me SMILE!  I loved it!

HAPPY WEEKEND!



Five for Friday- September 6th!

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs for Five for Friday! 

First three days of school... Always the longest shortest week.  My class is sweet and excited- a perfect combination.  Here is a sample of what I have in store this year. This conversation happened at 9:03 on the first day of school.  "When I say your name I want to call you Christmas Kisloski."  (Which, by the way, does sound a lot like 'Mrs. Kisloski' I did realize.)  So I said, "Oh- well, just don't call me Santa Claus!" To which she replied, "Could I call you Mrs. Claus?"  

The day ended when we were sharing some of our first day favorites, and another little girl said, "I was SO excited for this, I woked up at 20!"  (I think I woked up at 20, too, and never went back to sleep!)  So sweet!

Today another little girl came into the room and said, "It is SO good to be back here!"  So- we are off to a good start, I think. 

Here are my FAVORITE FIVE for the week!

I was so honored that the WONDERFUL Debbie Clement asked me to post at her Pre-K + K Sharing Blog. Please stop by if you can and leave me a comment!  :)

I will be posting on the 6th of the month. My first post is sort of a random sampling of my favorites. It worked out well, because my brain has been going in a million directions this week trying to remember to say this and not forget to do that- very random.  You know how it is!  I will start next month with some different topics. 

Debbie has a new Pattern Song that is so much fun! I can't wait to use it with my new class!

Here is her post about Patterning. You can get the song here, too.  We cannot figure out why Patterning is not in the Common Core Standards.  It is so important. Remember when it was such a great base skill for Algebra?  What happened to that?  How about those A and B Level books which are ... patterns! Anyway, I love my patterns.  I do. I do. I do. 

Speaking of Common Core leads me to ...

I am not exactly sure what CCSS it is where a student finally realizes that he will NOT be flushed by the automatic toilet flushers,

but, let me just say that as of today- day 3- we are all on board as a success with that one.  It was touch and go for those first two days, but with lots of coaxing, encouraging, and persuading- it's a done deal.  There was only one little guy who was pretty sure he was going down, but this got a spot on my five because it seemed to consume quite a bit of my beginning school routine!

I started introducing some Whole Brain Teaching yesterday.  They LOVE "Class, Yes."  Love it.  I posted about WBT here.  Here is my Prezi I made about the WBT Class Rules and explanations of each from Chris Biffle. The videos on the bottom are some of my favorite samples of teachers using WBT in their classrooms. 

 My rules are similar- but not exactly like these.  The ones I use in my class are

1.  Follow directions quickly.

2.  Raise your hand for permission to speak.

3. Make smart choices.

4.  Hands in your lap. Eyes on your teacher.

5.  Be safe, be kind, be honest

Then- I just have a big smile face on the end of the poster with no writing. I tell the kids that is 'Secret Six'- Make your dear teacher happy!  They love that it is 'secret.'

(This picture is a little disturbing- yeah- ...but I am leaving it just because- it's a 4.)

Next week we start our color weeks! We review a color each day for two weeks.  We do activities with each color, learn the words, and take class pictures for our Color Books.



I got out my Ten Black Dots book and wondered if when  Donald Crews wrote the book, he had any idea we would be so into tens frames?

 I made a bundle of  Kindergarten Math Common Core Prezi Bundle which includes  the best links and videos I found for each of the 22 CCSS for K Math.  (Actually 25 because there are 3- sub standards.) OK- that doesn't sound right calling them "sub standards." But-

One activity I did for 10 Black Dots was hot-gluing  magnets to the back of  ten black pompoms so we can use them on the magnetic white board to show ten.  I will probably work mostly with five of the dots since it is so early in the year.

I will also use the dots on the whiteboard to show how I can turn the dots into different things by adding details to them- like four for the wheels of a truck, two for eyes of a ghost, one for a spider in a web, six dots on a ladybug...  This is the activity I have the children do after we read the story. I have all sizes of black dots cut out of construction paper so the children can chose how many and what size they want to use- and then create whatever they want.  

Donald Crews is one of my featured authors on my Author Prezi at my TPT store.  I love his books. They are so good for teaching so many literacy concepts. 

He is also featured in my Writing Prompts and QR Codes for Authors packet!  I love this packet. There are over 100 books by 8 featured authors.  I use it the prompts and QR codes all. the. time!

 My Author Prezi is part of this packet, too!

The last thing I am going to do with my 10 Black Dots is to use mini oreos on a tens frame  as my 10 black dots.  Again, I may just use five- since we are really going to be working with five at this point in the year. 

The last thing I have to share is my "I can" interactive writing chart that we did.  This was about all we accomplished writing so far... We have some work to do on letter formation, but I always love the idea of this.

 I also make these very non-technical- homemade things for my kids to practice their ID numbers.  Each of our students need to punch in their own ID number when they buy lunch or log into the computers.  SO- it is important that they know their numbers ASAP.  I make these because they look just like the little pad that they use in the cafeteria when they buy their lunch.  After morning work, they practice saying and punching in their numbers  on this fabulous cardstock replica.   Just so you know- my class was the ONLY one who had children know their numbers at lunch today- so... it worked.  :)    Already!  They are five digit numbers- not easy to remember!

Have a wonderful weekend!  I am going to sleep so well....  How about you?!