Anchors Away!

I like to have anchor charts made ahead, so they are ready to go. Of course we make lots of them together during Interactive Writing, and  just on the spot as we need one, but here are some of them that I have ready to use- or at least partially made, ready to finish with the children.

The first week of school, we  a Class Friends Book, where each child draws himself/herself and then writes his/her name underneath. I glue on a picture of the person by the drawing.  After we make it,  I laminate the book, and each child gets to take it home for a night to show to his/her family and tell all about the new friends in the class.

I teach the children how to draw a person before we draw our picture for the book. I show them the chart, and then we practice making our person together.

 I use this chart to introduce punctuation marks- and with our punctuation poem.

Here is a little Punctuation Poem I made up. My little actresses were very deliberate doing this because I told them they were going to teach other people how to say the poem. 



I also thought of a little song to go with Dr. Jean's Pizza Hut song!  HERE is a video of some children singing it if you don't know the tune.

So- my new lyrics (with hand motions like above) are:

Period.

Period.

Question Mark, Comma, and Quotation Marks.

Period.

Period.

Question Mark, Comma, and Quotation Marks.

Exclamation POINT, Exclamation POINT,

Question Mark, Comma, and Quotation Marks. 

(POINT is capitalized in the lyrics,  because the kids can punch that one right out.  It's just yet another way to reinforce the names of those punctuation marks that I love so much...)

Here are some charts that I use for capital letters and teaching meatball/spaghetti spaces.

This 3 Star Sentence anchor chart is from The Kindergarten Pod.  We make ours the first week of school, when we begin Writer's Workshop.  The children love making this chart, because they are such a part of it.  It's a great way to have them create an assessment for their work. We make this one together.

That is also when I remind the children to use at least as many colors in their picture as their age. This really helps them to remember to use different colors, instead of only picking one color. 

These are my charts that I use when I teach Bossy "r".  Nothing really special, just helpful! 

I like to use the "er" in last names when I teach that.  The kids really like that, too.

These are just some random sounds that we work on throughout the year, so I make this, we talk about it, and then I put it up on my white board behind my reading table.  The kids actually refer to it a lot. It's right underneath our letter/sound pictures. 

This is how I do my morning message for the first couple weeks of school.  I have one message that I use, and I substitute in the day of the week and the special.  I like this because it gets the kids used to the morning message, and used to the pattern of pointing and reading the words.  They know it will be the same words, and they gain confidence reading it with me because of that.

I found this idea from My Crazy Life in Kinder.  I just drew lots of things for the children to label.  I use Post-its for the children to write their label and stick it beside the picture they labeled.

For this anchor chart, I draw the outlines, and as we discuss each detail, I have a child come up and add the detail to the picture. They especially love how we can see where the ball bounced.  That's a fun one.

I got this idea from Classroom Freebies. 

You can get this professional looking one FREE at Classroom Freebies!

The "ou" and "ow" pictures for this chart are from Tied Up With String.  The pictures are from Boggles World ESL.

I like these little addition and subtraction guys.  I found the little pictures from Really Good Stuff, and then added eyes, arms (cotton swabs...) hands, and fancy shoes- like all good addition and subtraction people need. 

The Kinder Cupboard made these great number anchor charts! 

We are also making an "I Can Sort" anchor chart, similar to this one from First Grade Blue Skies. We do lots of sorting and classifying the first couple weeks of school.

I loved this  anchor chart idea for colors from First Grade and Fresh. We would probably glue pictures underneath the color words.  

I made this chart to go along with the "What I Am" video.  It helped me the children remember the words to the song.

 I love this song. 

We'll be needing to make this one before we know it...  This is from last year. I like to have the kids label their own new chart.  Unfortunately, we leave this one up a long time...  brrrr.

  I made this chart to go along with our bucket filling discussions.

I thought this was a great quote to go along with all the "I can" statements we live with!

Our "I can" poster is one of the first things we make in the classroom. 

I liked this "I can" poster, too:

I feel awful because I don't know where I found this. I had just saved it as a picture- with no link- and I can't find where I got it.  I'm sorry!

It would be lots of fun to make after reading Eric Carle's book From Head to Toe.

My sister's Kindergarten classroom made an adorable class book that she shared with me. I love how she made the pictures  look Eric Carl-ish!

Don't forget,if you want some FREE ELA and Math "I Can" statements to use in your classroom, I have some HERE  at my TPT store!

           

Thank you for stopping by! 

Five for Friday and Funny Kid Friday

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday and with Kidpeople Classroom for Funny Kid Friday!  My summer Fridays are really winding down,
                                        
 so I am trying to take advantage of my moments- cause this feeling will be coming soon...
                                    
I've been going into school a lot and getting ready.  I already love my class, and they are just on paper right now!  I'm excited to meet them and make us a school family.

Earlier this week I wrote a post about this book, the OK book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal.  I LOVE her books.  I also posted about some of her other books.  This one is fabulous for Writer's Workshop- similar to Ish and The Dot, with a little Beautiful Oops thrown in, too.  It just says to me, teachers, adults, kids, "Go ahead, be OK at things that you try. You don't have to be perfect!  In time you will find different things you want to do better, so you can go after them.  Meanwhile, it's great to be OK!" (That wasn't really a quote from the book- that was just me quoting AS the book...Sometimes I like to pretend I am a talking book, I guess-)

She also has a book trailer to go with it that I posted.  I cannot wait to use this book.

I made a simple writing activity that I'm going to do with my class. Click on the picture below if you would like a copy.

                               

I also included a page with just lines under the picture box, because "I am ok at" are all great words for the children to write on their own, if I decide I want them to try to write a sentence.  

I  made this little Draw and Label book to use early on for Writing. If you'd like a copy, just click the picture below.

                            

It's simple, but will give the children a chance to be creative, draw with detail, and begin to learn to label pictures.  You can print out and use only the pages that you want- you don't have to use all of them! I made quite a few- I think 19, but I'll probably choose five pages.  I made it so you can just double staple the side and cut in the middle to have two books.

I thought this was a great quote to go along with all the "I can" statements we live with!

Our "I can" poster is one of the first things we make in the classroom. 

I liked this "I can" poster, too:

I feel awful because I don't know where I found this. I had just saved it as a picture- with no link- and I can't find where I got it.  I'm sorry! If it's yours, please let me know, because I love it- and I'll put your link right in here!

It would be lots of fun to make this chart after reading Eric Carle's book From Head to Toe.

My sister's Kindergarten classroom made an adorable class book that she shared with me. I love how she made the pictures  look Eric Carl-ish!

Don't forget, if you want some FREE ELA and Math "I Can" statements to use in your classroom, I have some HERE  at my TPT store!

           

I found these fabulous things in Walmart!  They were $1.97- and will be great handy for math, high-fiving sight words,

and I love yous! Plus LOTS more fabulous things, I'm sure. I bought 2 packs, just because I knew I should.

I made some bulletin boards for the end of our hallway.  This one was my favorite.

This was my other one.

Here are some other Friday Favorites...  I LOVE this little saying. What a comfort!

I also love these guys (Paul Sirimarco and Tina Cleveland)!  I just smile when I watch them sign the songs. I think it's because I really would love to be able to sign that beautifully.  Love them! I watch every single video they make- and it makes my day.  HERE is their Youtube channel, in case you want to smile, too.

      

                                                 

      I am also linking up with Kathleen, from Kidpeople Classroom,  for Funny Kid Friday!

      Here is my Funny Kid Friday for the week.  

      This little boy will turn out to be a great negotiator of  some sort.   Three children wanted to play  with  one boy's truck.  So he said, "You can be first.  You're second. You're third."

 So the 3rd boy said, "So, I'm last?"

   

      Without missing a beat, the boy with the truck said, "No, you're THIRD. That's still a good place.  If  you were 6th- THAT would be bad." 

     Have a happy, happy weekend!

Thanks for stopping by!