Meaningful morning messages

I’ve decided that this is the year I want to work on making my morning messages more meaningful each day. I’ve been working different skills into my morning messages so that it helps me and the children focus in on what our target skill will be for that day/week. This week, we have been focusing [...]

Anchor charts

One thing I have promised myself that I would do more of this year is to create anchor charts. I’ve been creating them for our reading, writing, and literacy work station times/areas. Here are some examples I’ve found that not only do these charts help the students remember what to do, they cut down on [...]

Interactive Writing

Just curious to know how many of you out there have read Interactive Writing by McCarrier, Pinnell and Fountas. I’ve started reading it now that grad classes are over for 3 weeks.  What are your favorite ideas that you use from it in your kindergarten classroom?  I can’t wait to try the names chart–that’s a [...]

September’s Limbo!

Okay, so we really haven’t been doing the limbo in my class room in September, but it sure feels like it to me!  I was able to teach my kids for the first 2 1/2 weeks of school, and ever since then, my student teacher has been teaching full time, so I feel like I’m [...]

Classroom Photos 2009-2010, Long Post! :)

I charged my batteries in the camera and took some pictures.  I’ll take you on a tour and you can also check out my photos from last year here to see the differences. Everything is mostly in the same place, but a few things were changed.  First, I’ll start with some general views: This is [...]

LWS Check Sheet

Hi Everyone! Only 4 1/2 more days of school left!   I’ll actually be really sad when the last day arrives, but it feels nice to say it now, being on this side of it! I’ve been working on planning my workshop this summer.  We’ve decided to call it, “The Farmer’s Market; Inquiry Based Science [...]

Monkeys

Hi Everyone! I’ve been too busy to post regularly, what with the end of the school year and the start of the summer of learning for me!   Here’s what June looks like for me (already–and it’s not even here yet!!)  June 1-5 and 10-12 Science Academy (I’m returning for a 3rd year) June 8th [...]

The Grouchy Ladybug

We began our study of insects/bugs by reading The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle.  After taking a picture walk and reading it aloud to the children, we discussed the clocks that are pictured on most of the pages.  The children learned that we would be learning about telling time and addition (with ladybug spots) this [...]

Seeds

We are reading a big book this week titled “Seeds”. Because there are a few students who will be leaving early this week to head out on Spring Break, we did not do a Predictable Chart, however we did do several neat Inquiry Based things in Science.  I like to begin almost all my themes/units [...]

Growing Vegetable Soup

I’m tired of the cold weather, so I decided to get everyone excited about Spring and do some planting!  But plant what?? That’s when I chose our Big Book for this week: Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert.   We also started a new Predictable Chart: (Sorry the computer is being funky here–I’ll try to [...]