Five For Friday!

It is my favorite day of the week...IT IS FRIDAY! :) Yay! I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her weekly Five For Friday!

1. We had so much fun with this activity by Rachelle at Life Is Sweet...In Kindergarten! If you haven't checked her out you should...she is SUPER creative and talented. Last week she posted this FREEBIE which was perfect for our learning about 3-D shapes. My kids went crazy for this lesson! Thanks for sharing Rachelle!

2. We finished learning about living and nonliving things. I swear every day the kids are pointing out living and nonliving things to me. Some of the things they come up with are hysterical!

3. As we finished learning about living and nonliving things, we started learning about plants. The kids are so interested in plants. We created our "I wonder" chart and they have so many amazing questions! On Monday we took a "Plant Walk" and made plant observations. The kids took this assignment very serious! Love it! :)

We started creating a model of a flower today, but didn't get to finish...we will have to finish on Monday!

4. These little guys have missed me for FAR too long...every day they give me the "evil eye" telling me   to put them on and go for a jog. For the past few months I have ignored them...BUT I am happy to say the past 2 weeks we have been back in business baby! Yay! 

And since I been trying to exercise, I thought I should be eating a little healthier too. I have been loving greek yogurt. I have found so many ways to use it to replace other not so nutritious but oh so delicious foods!

5. My kids are absolutely in LOVE with fairy tales. We are right in the middle of our fairy tale unit and I wish I could video tape them...no seriously! They are too much. They reenact every fairy tale to PERFECTION! Even my little friends that are usually shy and quiet volunteer to be characters in the fairy tale. Today when we had indoor recess due to the weather I had kids fighting over who was going to the "Fairy Tale" center to act out the fairy tales. So since they are so into the fairy tales I have been working on some craftivities to go along with different characters. I hope to have them finished and posted to TPT by tomorrow!

If you are looking for activities, centers and craftivities for Earth Day, stop on over to TPT and check out my unit!

Well I am off to have dinner with my handsome man...I hope you have a wonderful weekend! Don't forget to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching! Happy Weekend!

Out of this World! Flash Sale!

My kids have been lovin' learning about our solar system and space! I used lots of activities from this unit...

Here are some of the activities we have enjoyed! We started with our class "I wonder" chart.

We learned about our Galaxy- The Milky Way!

We learned about our solar system and how planets and other space objects orbit the Sun.

We even wore fun solar system headbands! (Sorry the picture is kinda bad!)

We learned about the moon, and made moon craters!

You can find all these activities and more, HERE!

Since today is St. Patrick's Day I am throwing a flash sale! Everything in my TPT store is 10% off! Get some last minute St. Patrick's Day items!

Enjoy your Sunday!

Five for Friday

It is Friday, which means it is time to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday!

1. I know I already posted this week HERE about the George Washington directed drawing I found from Kindergarten Planet HERE, but I had to share how the Abe Lincolns turned out too!! How cute are they!

"If * had a tall black hat, she would put a make up kit in it because so I can put it on."

"If * had a tall black hat, he would put Blake and Jackson (his friends) in it because I can play with them."

For this activity we read the book Abe Lincoln's Hat by Martha Brenner. Find it HERE.

2. After lots of practice, sorting, writing, dancing, singing and doing whatever it takes I think I am starting to break some of my little friends of the curse of the b's and d's.

We have been doing lots of the activities found in this UNIT.

3. We used some fiction books that we read about Washington and Lincoln to learn about characters and character traits. My kids thought it was so funny that they could say that Abe Lincoln was "messy" after we read Abe Lincoln's Hat. They also learned two new words/character traits- selfish and unselfish. I heard the words used several times this week...sometimes correctly and sometimes a little confused! I nearly died when I heard two kids talking in centers about being selfish cause someone was only thinking of themselves. The other student responded that it was okay for her to be selfish, because she does like herself just the way she is.

4. We started our space unit this week. The kids are soooooooo into it! Some of them know more about   space than I do!! Stayed tuned for more pics and posts coming. Here is how we started our space unit. First we made spaceships (paper airplanes) and then blasted off into space. After all that hard work we  ate astronaut food (mint chocolate ice cream)!!! So fun!!

5. Seuss-mania starts Monday! Yay! Monday is "Hats Off to Dr. Seuss", we will be having Hat Day in class, meeting "The Dr. Seuss" and reading the Cat in the Hat! If you are still looking for activities for next week make sure you may want to check out these centers on sale this weekend! :)

I hope you join up with Doodle Bugs Teaching!!!



Have a great weekend!

Science Journals

One of my favorite times of the day is science! My kids love science- experimenting and exploring is so fun to them. As much as I am ashamed to admit in past years,  there have been days that science got passed over! I know horrible! This past summer I decided that I really wanted to challenge myself to be more consistent with my science lessons and experiments. I have spent time "beefing up" my lessons and adding rigor AND relevance to them. With the high demands of the other subject areas and at times the lack of time, I added science journals into our activities. These are great for monitor learning, adding literacy components into science and letting the students show what they know in a creative way! My principal (love her!) always says that kids need the opportunity to talk about what they are learning, for my class our science journals are the starting point for "science conversations"! :)

Each student uses a composition book...

 At the beginning of each new unit the students add the vocabulary words for the strand. This is a great tool for vocabulary development and oral language. We also always add some reading skills when we practice reading the words- like looking for initial sounds, ending sounds, vowels, syllables, etc!

Sometimes I use the journal as a "prompt" for the students after we have read nonfiction books or had a class discussion about a topic. The science journal is also a great way to write about what you read and learn- a great prep for the PARCC!

"I am a volcanologist. I study volcanoes."

This was at the beginning of the year when we were learning about what a scientist is and what a scientist does. 

This was an entry after we explored gravity. 

Sometimes the students might complete an experiment. We may do the experiment as a whole class, small groups or individually; however, to save on time and paper instead of each student or group having a recording sheet the students use their science journals. After they are done with the lesson the students record their observations and learnings.

This was done after we complete a light and heat experiment. I know it looks like lots of arrows and letters, but to this little scientist it all meant something! And when she explained it I was in awe! I would have never known how deep of understanding she had with a simple worksheet.

This entry was done after my students made ramps. How awesome was it that he understood that when you make the blocks higher the car would go faster! Wow!!

Mostly my kids love the science journal, because after writing in the journal there is always a few moments to have "science talk" with your friends and share what you learned...and the feedback that they give each other is priceless! :)

Do you use science journals in your classroom?! I hope you feel inspired to be a bit more "science-y"!

Find all my science units here! These science units have lots of printables, vocabulary picture cards, emergent readers and more to help you teach science! Enjoy!!
What is Science?
Five Senses Mini-Unit
What's the Matter?
Full of Energy {Science Unit on Sound, Light and Heat Energy}
Movin' & Groovin' with Newton {A Science Unit to Explore Force & Motion}

Busy Week & Planning Calendar

What a busy time of the year! My to-do list is getting longer by the minute! :)

I have now met all my little friends. I am amazed how every year the kids are so different...and so wonderful! It is impossible not to love your job when you hear things like "I love this school!" and "This is the best day of my life!". How awesome is that! I love how in kindergarten we have the priveledge of shaping each child's learning adventure and helping to develop their love of learning! It is so great to see how excited and eager they are to learn, and it is my goal to keep them this dedicated the whole year!

So on that note I sat down to start planning. I started thinking when I want to teach what theme and what concepts in science, etc. I think that planning can be the most overwhelming part of teaching. How do you plan? Do you have a method to make it an easy process? Do you plan with your team? I am trying something a little different this year. I made a detailed calendar(scope and sequence) with what I am planning to teach when, for all subjects with standards. I hope that this tool will be useful and make planning a little less time consuming! I wanted to share this with you! Go get your copy for FREE! Please leave me some feedback or a comment!  While you are at my TPT store, make sure to follow me! If you utilize my planning calendar throughout the year I will be posting units to correlate with the calendar and you will have everything lots of resources for the year!

While at my TPT Store check out my new All About Numbers 0-10 Unit!

Pictures & Open House 2012

Wow! What a busy week...but it has been so fun! I have loved getting my classroom ready for my new little friends and finally meeting them today! Today was Open House, and the students got to come and explore the classroom! It is so cute to see what they are interested in and what catches their eye. Everyone is sweet and I am really looking forward to this year! It was also great to see many of my friends from last year!

I definitely felt more organized this year for Open House. I set up my stations for parents to visit just a little bit differently than I have in the past.



Having the students names pre-printed out on the Transportation List was helpful. It was also helpful to have parents respond with how their child will go home on the first day of staggered start, the first whole class day, regular schedule days and early release days all on one piece of paper!

Oooo another thing that went really well at Open House was having examples out for parents to look at of what my Take Home Folder, Dismissal Tags, Take Home Books, etc look like. When a parent asked me a question about one of these things, I could give them a very specific response and they could visually see an example!

I feel like a dork because I am so excited about this, BUT I printed on post-its for the first time...and I think it is awesome! I just hope now I don't turn into a freak and think I can only type on a post-it!

How did your Open House go?

The other week I posted "before" pictures of my classroom, and so I just wanted to give some updated pictures!

Check out my TPT store for my What is Science? Mini- Unit. It is all about science, being a scientist, the science process, science safety and science tools! This unit is a great tool to use to integrate science into reading and writing!

Have a relaxing and happy weekend!