Five for Friday January 16

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

We had so much fun with The Napping House by Audrey and Don Wood, this week!

First we read the story and talked about all the characters- and the different words the author used for sleepy.  It's a great book for vocabulary and synonyms.  The children were really familiar with the characters (Snoring Granny, Dreaming Child, Dozing Dog, Snoozing Cat, Slumbering Mouse, Wakeful Flea) after reading the story, because it repeats the pattern so much.  I had the class get into groups of 5 and one group of 6.  You could even have 7 in a group and have one be the bed and one be the flea.  Each child drew one character on a 3X5 card with a magnet on back.  One child was the Wakeful Flea.  I put a tiny pompom on double sided tape for the flea.  

Each group practiced their play to perform for the class.  I was the narrator, but the children said their character name as they placed it on the magnetic board when it was their turn.  They also took their character off after the Wakeful Flea woke everyone up.  They had so much fun with this!  

I videotaped each group.  As one group performed, the others were the fabulous audiences.  Here are some pictures of their characters:

That is the "Wakeful Flea"  waking up the Slumbering Mouse.  I have no idea what the red thing is beside it...

This was what happened after everyone jumped out of bed!

The next day, I read Creak, Said the Bed.  That is a fun book, too.  We compared and contrasted the books.

This The Napping House Craftivity is free from 2 Super Teachers at their TPT store!  This would be a great activity to do to reinforce and review the story.  The children could write about their favorite character to go along with it. 

We read so many books about snow this week.  One of my favorites, and a great one to get children thinking and talking about what they like to do in the snow, is Snow, by Cynthia Rylant. We read this, and then wrote about three things we like to do in the snow.  

I found this little snowflake stencil book that I had gotten years ago.  I think I got it from AC Moore, but any craft store usually has these little Dover Activity Books, very cheap.  I thought it would be a fun day to sponge paint some snowflakes.  I liked these stencils because they are a heavier, shiny card stock that worked well with paint.  The kids had so much fun.  I could even wipe them off with a baby wipe after we used them, and they looked good as new for next year. 

I had the children write "I love to play in the snow."  Then, they could paint away! 

Mrs. T's First Grade made these pretty painted snowflakes- sort of the opposite of mine. She put down a snowflake and had the children sponge paint over them, and then removed the snowflake. I love her snowflakes, too! I like the different color backgrounds.

Last year, I shared lots and lots of ideas and TPT freebies to go with Jan Brett's The Mitten, or any mitten story.  If you know me, you know I like to have everything together in one place so I can go back and know where things are. So if you are looking for mitten ideas, here you go!

Of course I found a couple new mitten ideas that I needed to share with you, too.  I thought this mitten was so cute!  I never found the actual source. It was on  funny pictures.picphotos.net... not sure why.  But we can figure out how to do it.  Isn't it sweet?

I also loved this idea from Totally Tots.  It's mitten printing with a lonely mitten who has lost its mate.  We ALL have those. The kids would get such a kick out of that.  I am going to have a mitten painting area and a glove painting area, because I always have each child write an opinion paper about which they like best- gloves or mittens, and WHY.  So, instead of illustrating this writing activity, we will be mitten/glove painting to go with the writing.   Quick and easy! 

Finally, this was on my desk Monday morning from my little character.  It's now hanging up beside my desk as one of my favorite things.  He  has come SO FAR this year, from no letters, no writing, non-stop moving- to hearing those sounds and writing that sweet note. It was definitely one of my favorite five of the week.  (Yes, he is the one in the first week of school who informed me that he had just seen his old preschool teacher at the store, and how she was the BEST TEACHER EVER, after I had to make him sit and think about something he had done to someone else in the class... so this may be a note to butter me up - but...  it totally worked.  <3 )

                                       

                    Have a happy, healthy weekend.  Thank you for stopping by! 

Five for Friday January 17th

Happy Friday! I am linking up with Kacey from Doodle Bugs Teaching for her fabulous Five for Friday!  Thank you, Kacey! 

I made my floor Ten Frames this week.  We have had fun with them already.  My kids are even using them at Free Choice time and making up games with them with blocks, Legos, stuffed animals- even food. (And I don't just mean dancing-in-the-squares similar to hopscotch games... actual math games sometimes!)

 

Click on the picture below if you want to see more of my Mitten Activities Post.  

We are almost done with our letter review- and this week was Vv and Ww.  We painted like Vincent Van Gogh for Vv (which is another post for next week...) and wrote our wishes for Ww.   My wonderful mother saves the wishbones every time she gets a rotisserie chicken, and she even spray painted them gold because she is so fabulous.  Everyone got a real wishbone after they wrote their wish.  I practiced making a wish with one of my little girls to show everyone  how to use a wishbone- and even at 5 years old she was on to the trick of trying to put her thumb WAY up on the wishbone to get better leverage.  So tricky, these kids...

 (another American Girl doll)

 (and who doesn't want gum?!)

 

I wrote about our Healthy Habit Day here.  Apparently I was a little too late because I have a bad cold now.  I always get colds in my eyes so I look really pretty that way. But the kids seem to sort of pity me and act extra good because they think I am crying, so there are some pluses.

These just made me smile- so that is always a good thing. Some of their little faces... At first I thought, "Oh no- the ink is low and the kids look sick!" when I printed out the pictures.  Then I thought, "YAY- the ink is low and the kids look sick!"  because that was the look I should have been going for with this activity anyway.

Here is a copy of the little poem. I used different fonts so they could chose a favorite. Just click the picture if you would like a copy.

This silly little window shade game is one of our favorites.  When one of our window shades broke at home, I wrote all of our Kindergarten sight words in each quarter of the shade, in a different color on each quarter.  Then, I sorted our little bear counters to match those colors.  Four students play the game.  One student starts by choosing a word for everyone to find and put a bear on, in their section of the shade. Then, the next student chooses a word for everyone to find, and so on.    The kids play this so well- and it is completely independent.  I can hardly wait for another shade to break so I can make a number game! 

I found a great sight with LOTS of wonderful sightword games.  Sightwords.com is such a neat sight to explore!  Have fun!

Last week, Stephanie from Principal Principles posted that she loved the song Brave by Sara Bareilles. 

Well, I  went to Youtube and listened and listened and listened. And added it to my iPod to listen more.  (That is what I do with songs- totally over do it until I don't like them anymore.)

I like the song for a couple reasons.  First of all, I don't want to wait to say what I really want to say until I am realllllly old- and it accidentally slips out . What if I am one of those older people who just doesn't care and starts swearing? Sometimes I think maybe I will just pretend I don't know what I am saying so I can start swearing.  Not really- don't worry. But maybe sometimes really just a tiny bit.

Anyway, the song is a good reminder to not be afraid to say what I want to say (within reason... ).  I usually think nobody really cares what I have to say, so I don't say a lot or just rush through what I want to say.  That is why I love this blog.  I love that people can read it if they want, and hopefully enjoy it.  I love sharing that way. 

Secondly, I am always telling my children to BE BRAVE when they read and write. Especially with writing.  Be brave and try to hear as many sounds as you can, and get those words down on paper. Be brave and try to draw something you think you can't draw!

Here are some great books to share with your class about being BRAVE.

If you haven't seen Courage by Bernard Waber, it is such a wonderful book. It's great for conversations about being brave, and how courage is being brave for both big and small things.  Here are some pictures from the book:

I added these posters to my Primary Character Education Prezi- so that I can leave one up as a reminder when the children write.

 I also added the song so we can dance to it if we need a reminder to be brave! Or if we just need to dance.


Just click on the picture below if you would like a copy of this Prezi. 

 This is NOT how to be brave.  But how cute are those penguins? 

HAPPY WEEKEND!