Five for Friday November 11

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

       

Rocket Words!

We do Rocket Words each morning after calendar time.  I choose a few sight words.  We spell them as we squat for each letter, then spring up as we say the word.   The kids love it. It's a great Brain Break anytime of the day. It's sad when I feel it in my thighs if  we do a lot of Rocket Words... I'm not gonna lie... but, no pain, no gain!

Well, the kids love it so much that they started doing it by themselves, so I took full advantage.

I made a Rocket Words sign and added the Rocket Words of the day.  When anybody finishes early, they can go to the rug and practice Rocket Words-  oh so easy and they forget they're learning!  Plus, they invented it, so that's even better.

I took a quick little video of some of my kids doing a couple words to show you. I just caught it at the end of their list.

                                       

I wrote a post STUFFED FULL of Turkey Freebies from TpT!  Enjoy!  Enjoy!  I hope you find lots you can use these next couple of weeks.

This is a fun little activity I also leave up for early finishers.  The kids also "play teacher" at free choice and do this.  We first did it together as a morning activity, so they knew what to do.  

I used Post-its, but they didn't stick that well after a while, so I stuck the Post-it to a Popsicle stick with tape. 

The red endings go with the red letters, and blue with blue.  We worked on these sight words, and then used the sight words as endings to create new words.  The kids just hold the ending behind of each single letters and read the word.  Simple!



(I taped these on to show you, but pretend someone is holding the ending.)



Here is a little trick I use to help some of my children who have a hard time with transition numbers counting to 100.  I let them use their fingers as "groups of ten" to remind them what number comes next.  When they count to ten, they hold up one finger, as they say all the teen numbers.  Then as they go from 19 to 20, they put up two fingers for "twenty,"  then 29 to 30, they add a finger so they have three fingers to remind them the next number is "30," and so on.  This really helps some of  my kids.  They see 5 fingers up and know the number will be "50."  They learn quickly this way, and then don't need those fingers any more!

When we count by 10's together during our calendar time, I have the children hold up a finger for each ten  - ( 10 (one finger), 20 ( two fingers), 30 (three fingers)...  so they see again how having six fingers up reminds them the ten is "sixty," and so on...

This is a fun little game my mother plays with the children to practice letters, sounds, numbers, sight words, shapes- in other words- ANYTHING!  The kids LOVE it. Mostly, they love it because my mother is SO enthusiastic and so much fun, the kids cannot wait to work with her.  She comes in each day during center time to work with the kids.  It is heavenly. It makes such a wonderful difference to have someone besides me work with the children and make learning so much fun!  If teacher colleges taught one skill for teaching, it would be ... BE ENTHUSIASTIC!  Act like learning is fun, and you know what????  The children will believe LEARNING IS FUN!  

This first quick video shows some of my girls playing the game with letter sounds. It's sort of like a "Letter War" game. 

This video shows  two of my girls working on letter recognition.  One really needs the practice and the other can use the reinforcement and confidence.  It's great for both of them.  

It's funny because you may think this would work only for "competitive" children.  But for some reason, every single child BECOMES competitive when they play.  I think it's because they are so proud to show what they know.  They are not really thinking about "beating" the other player as much as being proud of the cards they get.

Thank you for stopping by and sharing some moments from my week.  Have a wonderful weekend.  And... to all the Veterans on this Veterans Day...

so very much!

Five for Friday- First Week Back!

Before I get started, there's still time to enter to win a $100 Amazon card, a $50 TPT card, a $25 TPT card, or a $10 TPT card at our blog hop!  The drawing is September 12th, so hop right over to enter if you want!

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

Let's just get right to it.  Here is how my year started before it even started.  

In my head, I saw these darling hand cookies with a Hershey kiss in the middle.  I saw me taking each child's picture to add to my sweet poem after we read, "The Kissing Hand," and sending this keepsake home on the first day of school.   However, in real life, in my real kitchen, the story was not as darling. I knew I was going to have to  1) quickly write a book called "The Kissing Mitt" where a baseball player is scared to go to school, and his mom kisses his mitt- so these ridiculous cookies matched the story or 2) let my sweet family eat these because they wouldn't even complain. They would just be happy they had ugly cookies to eat, and I would do something else for that first day of school.

They did taste good and they made me laugh when I opened the oven, so ...  

Luckily, we always practice my name on the first day of school, because I tell the kids it's the hardest part of kindergarten.  I have a little picture with a Hershey Kiss (for "Kis"),  kids singing (for "la"), and someone skiing (for "ski").  If they can say my name for me, they get a Hershey kiss!  So - problem solved with the Hershey kisses.  

We then go on to say how glad we are that my name isn't "Mrs. Broccoliloski" or "Mrs. Spinachloski," so I didn't have to give them broccoli or spinach.   

At our school, the kindergarten teachers meet our classes in the gym for the first few days, and then walk together to the classroom.  I take my clipboard with a class list- to see who is packing/buying, and keep any notes.  Here were some notes I took in the first five minutes:

"I know my dad is having a great day!  He's going to rest and watch TV all day."

"I had to poop at my mom's- and I'm afraid I have to poop now. "  (He would later go on to talk about having to poop quite a bit throughout the day... poor sweetheart.)

"Guess what my favorite movie is?"  "College football."

I love this group.  At snack time, I was trying to explain why it was polite to wait for everyone to have their food before we started eating, so I asked if anyone knew why we waited.  One little girl said, "So we can say the Lord's Prayer."  And a little boy said, "We can all say it in our heads if we want."   LOVE them.


Here was one of my favorite moments that I had to capture.  You know, reading, writing, and math are important, but...  look at that sweet, loving, caring moment.  How can people NOT let children play and explore in kindergarten?  I have learned more about my students in the short amount of free choice time we've had,  than in weeks of teaching "at" them.

Here is my "secret weapon" the first few days of free choice. Ready? It's very high tech...

Crocodile Dentist!

OH my goodness.  We laugh and laugh.  It's great because anyone who wants to come over to play can play.  I just sit at a table (as the center of attention) with my crocodile, as the kids are playing. If anyone wants to, they just come over and bravely touch a tooth.  We  take turns each pushing down a tooth.  Then when it chomps down (which does NOT hurt at all, by the way), we sort of all scream and laugh.  A few of the children just like to stand and watch- and sometimes get brave and touch one tooth.  It's fun to watch and see the different personalities.    I like the kids to see me have fun and be real.  We're going to be a family for 180+ days!  Plus, I do genuinely scream every single time it chomps down on me because I can't even help it.  

I put together a lot of the ideas I like to use for teaching letters, and typed it up.  If you'd like a copy, click HERE.  Sometimes it's tricky to think of  a food idea or an activity for a certain letter! 

I also wrote ideas I have used for letter anchor charts for the classroom.  I outline the letter with glue, and glue on items that start with that letter.  It's a cute bulletin board idea and the kids love it.  

I wanted to share these ELA apps that my friend Anne, from Common Core Connections, and her son Keith made.  They are fabulous for reading comprehension.  What great practice for the kids!  I love them because they're easy to use and not too busy looking. Sometimes apps get so busy and cluttered looking that it's hard for the kids to follow.  These are perfect. The apps fit each reading level, so  you can monitor exactly what you want each student to work on. Anne is my "real life" friend who lives near me!  I'm so proud of her - and her son!  

Finally,  I got the most exciting email on my first day of school.  Emily Kate Moon, who wrote Joone, one of my all time FAVORITE books, emailed me!  

She's writing another book about... the water cycle- of all things. It's like she reads my mind. If you read my blog, you know that I'm strangely obsessed a little with the water cycle. Because, for some reason, teaching about the water cycle is one of my favorite things to do.  Not sure why.  The kids just love learning about it- and now I will have yet another reason why it will be my  all time favorite.  I can't wait for her book. I will be sure to tell you the minute it's out!  

If you haven't discovered Joone yet- well- she is just fabulous. This is from Amazon:

Joone likes the color orange, ice-cream sandwiches, and playing outside. She lives in a yurt with her grandfather and her pet turtle, Dr. Chin, who rides around on her hat. Grandpa teaches Joone something new every day. Sometimes Joone teaches him something new, too, like how to make a daisy chain. Together they enjoy life’s small joys—sunsets, tree houses, and most of all, each other.

Emily Kate Moon’s debut picture book is a charming tribute to the outdoors and a tender portrait of a grandfather and granddaughter’s loving relationship. Fans of Ladybug Girl, Freckleface Strawberry, and even Dora the Explorer will fall in love with this independent, free-spirited little girl. 

The story is so much fun for the children, because Joone shares lots of fabulous small moments about herself- which is EXACTLY what we want our children to learn to do in their writing.  What a perfect mentor text for Writer's Workshop.  The kids really "get" the small moment idea from the book, because Emily added so many wonderful little details about Joone.  The kids see that those details are exactly what makes someone special, so they start thinking of their own life details.  Perfect!

AND- this may be my favorite page of the book.  It's actually the moment I knew I was going to love the book so much.  You know how some things "speak" to you- well, this did.  I would love to spell my name with a smiley face.

                                    

Emily has a wonderful print out at her website to teach children how to make a daisy crown (one of Joone's FAVORITES!) I cannot wait to do this with my class in the spring (except we'll need to use dandelions because we have LOTS of those, but...  it will be a beautiful flower crown, nonetheless! Joone would approve, I'm sure.) You could also send this paper home with the children after you read the story, so they could try to make a crown at home. She has a sweet coloring sheet for Joone, as well.  

Emily also shows her art for Joone at her website.  The children will love this, because they can see that REAL authors/illustrators sketch and plan before they actually publish a book, just like we're teaching them to do!  How cool is that?!   

Maybe you all know about Joone, and I'm late to the party- but this book is a treasure, and I'm so glad I found it.  

For some reason I thought I had discovered Joone and was so excited to share her with people at school.  Then, when my class made favorite book iMovies in technology, guess what book our technology teacher used as her favorite for an example... YES- my (well, Emily's!) Joone!   I loved it, and  smiled just like Joone's name!  

By the way, my birthday is in June, so from now on,  it's in Joone (with a smiley face!).

Thank you so much for stopping by!

Pirate Literacy Gold & LOTS of FREEBIES!

 

We had so much fun reading Shiver Me Letters that I knew we needed something fun to go with it.  Last weekend, Jeff and I went searching for "gold."  We found it here.  You have to have "elementary teacher eyes" to see gold in some places.

 

My gold mine! 

My sweet Jeff carrying the future gold to the car. :)

Oh, I almost forgot. You must get a pizza for dinner, so that you can use the box for spray painting.  Right?  Yes.   

 

 

Before...

After!

I wrote letters on both sides of the smaller stones. gold.

The bigger gold nuggets were for the sight words.

Ta da!  New center!  The children love playing with this at free choice time.  They don't realize how many times I hear them reading words and making little sentences. They just think it is fun.  ;)  I still have a few children working on letter recognition and sounds, so this will be something different for us to use for that, too. 

I made a simple recording sheet so that I can use this as a small group literacy center.  The children find and write ten words from the pirate's treasure. Then, they each read their ten words to a friend.  If you would like a copy of my recording sheet, click on the picture below. 

 

 

OR if you are feeling clever, I found this idea from The Fickle Pickle. It would be fun to have the kids dig for the gold words!

 





I found some fun freebies to use with my gold at TPT, too! 

Amanda Plum has a cute Shiver Me Letters  ABC Activity FREE at her TPT store.

 

 

 

Melissa Freshwater has these cute Shiver Me Letters Alphabet Cards.



 

Here are some of my favorite pirate books to use  for my pirate unit.  It is fun to have these books around the treasure center for the children to pick up, read, and study the pictures. The illustrations are wonderful.

 

(I never read this book, but my daughter did a summer reading program last year in Niagara Falls at all the libraries in the area, and said that this was one of the children's favorites!)

 

If you want to make your pirate theme to be extra delicious, here are some great pirate food ideas! Some are really simple and would be a great little snack.  I actually found a Pirate Party Food Linky Party site at Top Party Ideas.   I KNOW!  :)

 

Cool Ideas BlogSpot had some fun pirate activities- AND this idea that shows that any time a pirate flag is added to a fun food- a pirate snack is born!  So cute.



 

Here are some of the games they suggested. I thought the Shark Attack game would be fun using sight words written on papers as the safe land!



Walk the plank

• Set up a plank or balancing beam for the pirates to walk along. Use pillows or gym mats to break the fall. Award prizes for the pirates who make it across.

 

Shark attack

• Place 7 pieces of newspaper in the backyard to represent dry land. The guests walk around the newspaper until “shark attack” is called, at which point the pirates run to the safety of the newspaper island. As each round progresses the newspaper is removed and then torn into smaller pieces until only one pirate remains. In the final rounds, pirates can hold onto each other and are still ‘in', as long at least one foot is on the newspaper, and no other parts are touching the ground.

Pin the patch on the pirate

• Create a pirate face or use a “Pirates of the Caribbean” poster to pin on the missing patch.

 

Here are some more fabulous piarate freebies from TPT!

 



Melissa also shared a great Pirate Adventure Freebie math and literacy activity!

AND she shared her Pirate I Have, Who Has Sightword Game!  Thank you, Melissa! 

 



  

JK Curriculum Connection has a free Pirate Game.  The cards are blank so you can use them any way you want.  I like this because I am going to make lots of specific cards for my kids who need extra help with certain numbers and letters for RTI. They can match the letter with the "gold."

 

Look at Fredia Shumway's AWESOME Pirate Themed Wordwall Words! Oh the fun I can have with these! This will be perfect for matching the word on the treasure chest to the word on the gold.

 

 

Laura Sosa also shared her cute Pirate First Grade Sight Words.

 

Emily Ames shared a fun Short Vowel Pirate Game.

Sped Ventures has a cute Pirate Themed Positional Words and Phrases Book.

 

Look at these cute Pirate Punctuation Marks from Mrs. Seymour's Superstars!  It's always fun to review punctuation marks a different way.

Ready for some math freebies?  Here you go!

My friend Susanna just shared this fabulous song with me.  So- it looks like I am going to turn my "extra gold" into a math center.  I still have some children who need work recognizing numbers 10-20 (a couple even 5-10!) and everyone can use some fun addition and subtraction problem gold nuggets, right? 

While I was finding that one, I found this silly  Jack Hartman song.  They will love this one, too...

Or... how about talking like a pirate!

Sid the Science song has a fun little measuring Pirate song.

 

How about these wonderful Pirate Story Math Problems from The Very Busy Kindergarten. Some are money themed, some are not.  These would be fun with a pirate unit!

 

A Special Kind of Class has these Pirate Math Work Station Activities with gold to cut out and use as counters.  You could also use the spray painted rock "gold" as counters!

 

Jennifer Oyler shared her Pirate Themed Number Posters , numbers 1-30. You could fill up ten frames with gold nuggets, too!

 

 

Anna Watson made a cute activity called Pirate Math Using Addends 0-10.  My kids would love the number cards to practice number recognition or as a matching game, too.

 

Look at Jessica Miller's cute Parrot Roll and Cover Game.  These are always great for a math center.  might have the kids count gold nuggets to match the number for something different first.  Then, they could play the Roll and Cover Game.

Schoolhouse Talk shared a fun Pirate Roll and Color Pack. My class will love these!

I love this Pirate Addition Math Workstation from Jessica at Littlest Scholars.

 

 

Lisa Richling has a great Pirate Number Sense Activity-up to 50.



 

 I hope you found some teaching gold to use.   Have a wonderful week!