Five for Friday May 6

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday. Thank you for hosting, Kacey! It was a dreary week.  Hopefully, that sun is out there ready to shine!

My friend Dan (Rocking Dan Teaching Man) made our entire week this week.  He sent us the OFFICIAL, REAL, TRUE heart used in his music video "How to Make a  Heart." All the way from Australia!  We had to look that up and see just how special that was!  Well, the kids were just thrilled  to pieces.  

Here is the certificate.  AND the heart!  We feel extremely famous right about  now...  It's authentic, don't ya know! 

If you haven't seen the song, here it is. It's so awesome for How To books!



AND Rocking Dan has a brand new song, The Friends of 20. It's lots of fun.  My kids are loving The Friends of 10 right now, too!  HERE is a link to Dan's Youtube channel. The kids have so much fun with this videos and learn so much.

Not really - but I was trying to think of what to call this.

Maybe "Magical Secrets."

My sweet friend Kristin, at A Teeny Tiny Teacher, wrote a post a while ago (I read every. single. one.) that has stuck with me, and I couldn't wait to try.  But it had to be the perfect, authentic time.  The perfect moment came this week, and it was as wonderful as I thought it would be.

In the morning, one of my little girls had a secret to tell me.  We don't usually tell "secrets" (cause "Secrets don't make friends."  My kids know that...) but it was an exciting special story. (She was having a new baby brother.)   Well, once she told me, someone else had something they needed to tell- whether it was getting a new puppy or going to get ice cream with grandma after school.  I sat in front of the room while the kids did morning work, and they came up one at a time to whisper to me.

This is where Kristin's idea comes in.   I had made a list of each student, and one special trait that I love so much about each student. "I  love how you are the best cleaner ever."  "I love how you are such a math whiz."  "I love how you are the first one to help anyone who needs help."  "I love how your smile fills everyone's bucket."  "I love how dependable you are if I ever need anyone to do an errand for me."  "You are such a great thinker. "

It took about 5 minutes or so before lunch to call each of my sweeties up to my chair on the rug and tell them their  special secret before they lined up for lunch. 

Every one of them got a HUGE smile, quietly walked to line up, and did not say a peep about their special secret.  They knew it was a special gift just for them, and it just  made each of them puff up a little bit more.  It was perfect.

Happy Mother's Day!  Here were our gifts!  I made the candy bars for each mom, and then each child wrote a "My Sweet Mom" book.  

This idea and free download is from Lovely Little Snippets - and I love it with all my heart. They turned out so precious!
Stefanie was so sweet, sweet, sweet to share this!  Thank you, Stefanie!

 

Here is the front and back up close.



Each child wrote a story about his or her "sweet"' mom.

My mom goes to the gym. When she goes there I miss her.

 I love my mommy because she does do good stuff.

 I like my mom because she makes me eggs.

 I can't live without you mommy because you are so special.

 I love my mom because she goes for a walk with me.

 She makes a ham. And she makes a turkey.  She's a good cook.

These adorable MoM's are from Kinzie's Kreations .  This year I got small size M&M's and copied these so they fit. 

The finished products looked like this:

I am going to have the kids wrap them together in ribbon with their book.

Kinzie shared this sweet printable from Over the Big Moon to go with this treat. How much do you love that?!

  

Kindergarten Lifestyle shared these wonderful I Can Cards for your block center. My kids LOVE them. They get them out for free choice all the time.  Sometimes, the pictures just give them ideas to work from.  

You can do as much with this as you want.  You could take a picture of the building and have the children write about what they built or use the building as a setting for a story.  You could have the children describe how they built their building and tell what they used to build it and why.  You could make a classroom book of the buildings, even putting the picture card on one side of the book and the photograph of the children's finished product on the other side.  My classes always love looking at our classroom books.  

OR- you can have them out  by the blocks at free choice for ideas.  Simple as that!



Thank you for stopping by! Have a perfect weekend.

Five for Friday February 6

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



We had a snow day on Monday, and then two two hour delays this week.  I have to say... our schedule was messed up, but I did love it so- not so much the shoveling and snow that went with it, but I guess I'm not going to get a delay for sand and sunshine!

We did this little "Love is"  writing activity this week. First we talked about what love is to us, and shared ideas with friends.  Then, the children wrote whatever they wanted, starting with "Love is."  I took each child's picture making "I love you" in sign language, and then they made a little frame around it.  Simple and sweet, and a good chance for the kids to remember those spaces and punctuation marks.



I also  posted about our How To Heart books here. We have lots of fun making hearts now. They are everywhere throughout the day.  Randomly. It makes me smile.

Recently, I've seen several posts on facebook asking about how people manage assessments for their students.  Since we just finished our second round of report cards, I wanted to share again how much our kindergarten team has loved using ESGI as an assessment tool. 

Here is a visual: 

Assessments before using ESGI...

And... Assessments AFTER using ESGI:

Yeah, it's pretty clear.  

I posted ALL about the benefits and some examples of what ESGI offers HERE.  If you want to learn more about ESGI and to get a  free 60 day trial of the software, click here. If you like using it and want to purchase the program, you can use my special PROMO CODE  B1119  and receive $40 off your purchase for the first year. The price is usually $199 a year, but with the promo code, it will be $159 for the first year. Check with your administration because they may be able to purchase it for you.  They can use the code and get it for $159 for the first year, too.  Enjoy!

We had so much fun playing our new "Secret Word" game!  I did this with a small group of four.  I had four bags made up with magnetic letters- each with letters for three of the same words and then one different secret word in each bag.  The children knew the three words but not their special secret word.  They had to dump the letters and quickly build the three words on the magnetic board. Then, with the left over letters, they had to figure out their secret word.  Each child tried to be the first one to discover his/her secret word, and shout it out.  They had a ball!  Finally, they had to write all of the words on their recording sheet, including their secret word. You could also have them write the words right on the dry erase board.  Here is a little sample of one group playing it.  (Except you might think this little sweetie's word is, "I won" because that might be what she says instead of her sight word...oops.  We take games seriously sometimes...)

Here's a simple little recording sheet I made to use with the game.  I just had the kids write each of their words twice.  You could also have them write right on the whiteboard. Click the picture if you'd like a copy. 

We are really working on listening to each other in our class.  I am thinking some adults may have missed this lesson when they were in school- not only listening to children, but to other adults, but that's another post I will never write.  ANYWAY...

We're having lots of fun with it, so I thought you might like it, too.

I have the kids get into Chit-Chat pairs. 

 Each person must ask their friend a question, LISTEN, and remember the answer.  Then, the other partner asks, LISTENS, and remembers.  

After a few minutes , I say, "Class, Class."  Everyone says, "Yes, Yes," and it's quiet.   No more talking.  Then, I go around and ask each person to tell me his/her partner's answer- with no help. We started off very easy with "What is your partner's favorite color?"   Then, we moved on to favorite holiday, favorite zoo animal, favorite farm animal, favorite dinner, favorite breakfast (with more details, like what KIND of cereal, what do they like on their pancakes...)   It's not as easy as it seems at the start.  They are getting great at it now.   Hopefully, it will help them in life forever, to realize  how important it is to really listen, and how much more special you feel when you think someone is truly listening to you.

Number 5 had to be this new song, Give Me Five, from Rocking Dan Teaching Man!  It's perfect for reminding the children of the combinations that make five. 

Between this and The Friends of Ten, my kids have gotten to be so good with facts to ten!

Every day during our morning meeting, we count the days we have been in school- like probably all of you do.  Last year, I started adding ten frames to our counting.

 As we get up in the number of days, we count by tens instead of ones some days using our fingers. The kids flash ten fingers for each ten that we count.  Then, when we get to the ones part, I have them show me that number with their fingers.  For example, if it is 47 days, they flash ten fingers four times as we count ten, twenty, thirty, forty, and then I say, "Show me 7 fingers."  This is fun because they can see that more than one answer is right- 3 and 4, 4 and 3, 2 and 5, 5 and 2.  Then, I will call the leader of the day up to help me show how it can also be zero and 7, 7 and zero, 1 and 6 or 6 and one.   It's such a simple, quick activity, but the kids have really loved doing it, and it reinforces those number facts. The "one" days (like 51) are fun, because it's only zero and 1, or 1 and zero.  They think that's funny.  I love how that is funny to them.  This was Wednesday- day 95.

Our amaryllis is GROWING like crazy! We're having fun with it.

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