Kindergarten: Holding Hands and Sticking Together: Five For Friday November 6

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

We worked on letter J last week. I always love introducing the children to Jillian Jiggs. It's such a fun book. My wonderful aunt was a school librarian and introduced me to Jillian Jiggs when I first started teaching!

http://www.amazon.com/Jillian-Jiggs-Phoebe-Gilman/dp/0590413406/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1446139959&sr=8-1&keywords=jillian+jiggs

The kids love to see that somebody else has a room that looks like it was lived in by pigs!

After we read, we draw and label a map of our own bedroom. First, I have the children write a sentence focusing on using neat printing, spaces, and hearing all the sounds. I model "My room is _________." "My" and "is" are sight words. We hear the "r" then the two "oo's" (like they've heard in BOO all last month!) and "m" at the end of the word. They can choose anything to write at the end- the color of their room, if it's clean or messy, big or small...

Sometimes I love focusing on one sentence. It is so telling for me- and a great, quick assessment to show who is taking on spacing, sight words, and hearing sounds. For the children who really aren't writing much at all, one sentence is perfect to write with me. They are so proud to accomplish it- and they really get to see how it looks when they write a sentence and read it back, pointing to each word.

We worked together on the sentence on the bottom after he write the top by himself. He kept rereading it after we were done.

"My room is clean."

By the way, I know the trend now is to NOT ever write on the children's papers to show what it says, however, after the kids are done writing, sometimes I do write on the very bottom what it says so 1. I remember when we are talking about it and 2. Parents know what it says because the kids forget more times than not.

The writing came in handy with this activity because one mom wrote and thanked me for writing what it was supposed to say, because when she first tried to read it, she thought it said, "My mom is trans." When it ACTUALLY it said, "My room is trains." So... She felt better. And we both laughed.

Next Friday (November 13) is World Kindness Day. This week, we read Kindness is Cooler, Mrs. Ruler, by Margery Cuyler.

In the book, Miss Ruler's class keeps track of kind deeds on a bulletin board. The children do so many good deeds, like clearing the table after dinner and helping other people, and soon they have 100 acts of kindness.

After we read the story, we watched Life Vest's Kindness Boomerang "One Day" video. This is always a favorite every year (for me, too).

Next week, we are going to make our Kindness Boomerang Board.The children share their acts of kindness, and we keep track on the board. It's so important to remind the children how even small acts of kindness make such a huge difference to people.

Here is our board we made in class a couple years ago. If one "act of kindness" piggybacked on another, I put them beside each other. We talked about how boomerangs come back to you when you throw them, just like the kind things you do for others comes back to you, because it makes you feel good inside!

The board is a great visual for the children, and boy, do you see some acts of kindness happening! They come in first thing in the morning with lots of good news!

I made a Power of One Prezi and put together some of my favorite sayings and pictures about what one person can do. It's free my TPT Store if you'd like it .

Do you want a magic way to have your students practice writing their name 17 or 18 times in about half an hour- and to LOVE doing it? Well, here you go!

I am not kidding. I almost felt guilty-like it wasn't school-enough- because the kids had so much fun.
Last year, I made everyone one of these ~~homemade~~ fabulous clipboards and opened some new skinny markers for the occasion. My thinking was that if they were all sad looking and homemade, there would be no arguing about who got what. They all thought these were "cool," because they didn't know any better. This year I found some more clipboards at the dollar store, and now I have enough for everyone. We use them quite a bit for write the room and other activities we do on the rug.

After we read this story about being a friend (one of my favorites...),

I explained that each person would have a clipboard, paper, and marker. Our job was to go around to each person, and ask each friend to sign our paper as we signed our friend's paper. We would only be writing our own name every time, once on each paper. We would collect all of our friends' names. I modeled this with a few children. I said, "Would you please sign my paper, and I will sign yours?" We switched boards, signed, and moved to another child.

They could write anywhere they wanted, with any color marker they chose. That was enough joy for the entire day. I wish I had taped the entire lesson. They were so sweet and polite asking each other for names. Of course they love to have your name on their paper, too. (And I sort of felt like a celebrity when they were each excited to have me write my name for them. It doesn't take much to make me happy...)

Jessica is another great story to talk about friendships, and discuss how important it is to have friends and be good friends.

http://www.amazon.com/Jessica-Kevin-Henkes/dp/0688158471/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1446142049&sr=8-2&keywords=jessica

If you want a copy of the simple "I like" sheet, just click the picture below. You can use any recording sheet for this activity.

Reading at home with children is such a huge benefit and important part of a child's reading success, but sometimes we forget that parents don't always know what we're focusing on or looking for as they read with their child. I made this handout for parents and am going to give it to them at our conferences.

I labeled the praise points, "Wonderful," and the questions for parents to ask, "Wondering." These ideas help parents remember to praise, praise, praise and encourage their child as they read together at home, as well as provide questions to help parents take their child deeper into the text and beyond the text.

I thought you might like to use it with your students' parents, too. Just click the picture below if you would like a copy! Enjoy!