Celebrating Cinco de Mayo

Just wanted to share some of the fun my little friends will be doing in ELA centers this week...

We always start a new thematic unit by sorting "thematic" words by syllables and sounds (beginning sounds and vowel sounds). Introducing the words helps develop many of my language students' vocabulary and oral language skills.

In the pocket chart the students will be practicing 1-1 correspondence, finding rhyming and finding high frequency words they know with this Cinco de Mayo poem. The poems and songs in the pocket chart are always a favorite, for both the kids and me. (I love hearing them sing and read-- of course they mimic how I do it, which is always entertaining!)

At the writing center my little friends will be working on unscrambling the sentences!

You know those standards that are "hard" to get to, like CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.K.1b Use frequently occurring nouns and verbs. Well, this is one skill that we will be working on this week!

My class' favorite center is probably Read Around the Room. The kids will be on a quest this week to find the blends on the flags.

We still need lots of practice on rhyming and reading CVC words. Hopefully the Chip & Dip Rhyme Time will do the trick!

We will be making new words from the word CELEBRATING. I am amazed at how the kids have become so creative and independent at this activity! 

This week we will be reading lots of Cinco de Mayo nonfiction readers, but these are a few of my favorite picture book read alouds. 

If you are interested in any of these activities, you can find them and many more in this unit:

Corey from the Poolside Teacher...check your email! Thanks for your comment the other day, I pulled your name out of a hat and you're the luck winner! 

On a side note I am going to try something new...ooo! How daring of me! :) I don't use instagram personally, but I saw this on a blog that I adore (Mrs. Stamp's Kindergarten) and thought I'd give it try!

Join me! I am thinking it could be quite entertaining! I hope you join in too!! Go link up and share your username so that I can follow you! Click on my button or the link below to follow me on instagram!

Follow me on instagram here!

Happy Sunday!

Do I Smell Tacos?!?! Five for Friday & Friday Flashback

It is Friday, which means that my momma arrives today! Yay! :) She will be here in just a bit, so I wanted to share my week with you...take a peek!

1. After we read Jack & the Beanstalk we planted our own beanstalks. Our seeds had been in our greenhouses so we could observe them starting to come out of the seed coat and sprout. On Wednesday we took the seed and placed it in a clear cup with soil. Then we recreated the setting of Jack & the Beanstalk by placing a castle and clouds on a skewer. The castle says "___________ & the Beanstalk". The kids went BANANAS for this activity. Fe Fi Fo Fum. I found this idea from this great blogpost by Lessons from a Teacher. The plan is for the beanstalk to grow up the skewer. When it does, I will add the kids picture "climbing" up the beanstalk!

2. Not that I am counting...but... :)

29 was on Thursday when I took that picture, so really only 28 more days! I am running out of energy, I don't know about you!

3. If you know me at all, then you know that I LOVE me some tacos! Seriously folks!!! I get excited every year when May starts to roll around...yup...Cinco de Mayo!! It's the little things in life, right?!?! Well in honor of the great taco holiday my class always does some fun Cinco de Mayo activities. I get my class a piñata and we do piñata predictions. We make tacos, eat some spicy food and of course we wear some fabulous sombreros! It is a blast. The kids think it is so much fun to "speak" spanish (we learn a few words throughout the week). I love seeing my students excited about diversity. Cinco de Mayo is also a fun way to tie in a social studies lesson about geography and our continent of North America! 

I just finished up this unit and posted it to TPT. If you are celebrating Cinco de Mayo this coming week, check it out! HERE

4. So if you read my blog post last Friday, then you know that last week my little friends were not so kind and in rare form last week. This week I was on a mission to put a stop to that, because I wouldn't be able to survive 28 more days with craziness...no sir-ee! So this week I implemented "I Got My Eye On You". Here is how it works...

I had this little treasure box, and I put all my kids' numbers inside (each student has their own number- I do this for ease on my behalf for filing and bookkeeping but also for the students to have privacy for goal setting and behavior, etc) So before centers, walking in line, or anytime really- I pull out a number. The students don't know what number I have. I tell them that I will be watching the person whose number that I pulled very closely and if that person was appropriate and made good choices for the specific activity he/she earns a treat. Sometimes the treat is a skittle and sometimes it is a sticker. Other times I let them choose from things like sitting at my desk for the day, lunch with me outside at the picnic tables, no homework passes etc. All that really matters folks is that--- AHHHH! Life is so much better this week! 

5. This week I took time to relax and enjoy "the moment". I stopped by the beach this week to unwind and enjoy God's beautiful creation! It was beautiful. I have so much to be thankful for! 

If you made it all the way to the end of this long post, then I will give my Cinco de Mayo Unit away to one person. Just leave a comment below and I will choose a winner some time this weekend!

I hope you have a fantastic weekend! Go link up with Doodle Bugs and *Teaching Maddeness*!

 

Earth Day Fun

Yesterday we got together with our Third Grade Reading Buddies to celebrate Earth Day. We had so much fun doing this little activity together.

I was inspired by this PIN from pinterest. I was a little nervous about how messy my room would be after this and how the "Earths" would turn out, but folks this was EeeZee PeeZee and so pretty! :)

Materials needed: coffee filter, paper plates, blue & green markers, water in a spray bottle

Directions: I gave each group one coffee filter, one paper plate and a set of markers. I showed them an example of how I colored the "Earth" onto the coffee filters. Then I asked them to color the coffee filter ON the plate. When the students were done coloring the coffee filter, they sprayed it with water (only about 10 squirts). We did all of this in less than 15 minutes! We left the coffee filters on the plate to dry for about 1 hour, and ta-da! The kids went crazy for the "magic" of the colors running together. We added a little piece of paper that reads "_______________ & _______________ together, can make the Earth better".

So fun...and EASY! Not nearly as messy as I imagined, with 34 kids in the room doing this activity we only had 3 "uh-oh" moments! 

On a side note, yesterday was my practicum student's last visit to our class. She is fabulous and going to make an amazing teacher. I will miss her MUCHO...I mean how will I get through my Mondays without her?!?! :) Anyhow she gave me these little goodies- how cute is she?? 

I hope you are off to a great start of your week. I am guest blogging today with Kourtney at Mrs. Payton's Kindergarteners...head over and check out her blog. She is fabulous!

And if you haven't already, don't forget to enter Kinder Krazy's Giveaway!

Fairy Tale Fun!

The past few weeks we have been enjoying our fairy tale unit. My kids especially love The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks and the Three Bears and Little Red Riding Hood. We have read many different versions of each story, and the kids never get tired of hearing the stories! They are so cute too because during centers they act out the story, they even change their voice for each character. It is amazing! Over the past week we have made some of our favorite characters, and used them in the retelling of the stories. We also did some writing activities to go along with our little crafts. Check them out!

We did Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The students chose one character from the story, created the character and then wrote a letter to them. On this day I was thrilled because one of my students who is reluctant to do any writing or crafts, was so excited about this activity and was motivated the WHOLE time! Yay!!

We worked on Little Red Riding Hood on Friday, the Big Bad Wolves finished but the Little Red Riding Hoods still have to add a bit more on Monday.

We also did the 3 Little Pigs earlier in the week...I forgot to take a picture. The kids wrote an opinion piece about who they really believed the Pigs' story or the Big Bad Wolf. 

Here is a picture of all the writing pieces together, it is a little messy for my taste, but the kids INSISTED I hang them up! :)

Here are some of my favorite writing pieces...

Top piece says, "Dear Goldilocks, I hope you don't go in strangers houses because they can get you." 

Bottom piece says, "Dear Big Bad Wolf, Next time stay up and get the hunter too. Then you will not die. He can be desert."

If you would like to get your own copy check out my TPT store!

Huff & Puff {Writing Craftivities for the Three Little Pigs}

Over the River & Through the Woods {Little Red Riding Hood Craftivities}

Someone's Been Sleeping In My Bed {Writing Craftivities for the 3 Bears}

 Have a great rest of your weekend!

Five for Friday!

So I am just unwinding from my day...and I can take a deep breath...it is Friday! Yay! It has been one of those weeks! My little darlings showed new colors this week, and well- this afternoon we had to have  a mini "pep talk" about coming back a new person on Monday! NO FUN! :( Can anyone say "Spring Fever"?!?!

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs to share 5 random things from my week...

1.

That is the number of days till I see my mom! :) Love her...and can't wait! It is also the number of Friday's left in this school year! Can I get a whoop whoop!?! :)

2. This week we made our Earth Day Pledges. I love all the kid's ideas and how they are taking care of the Earth so seriously. What I am not loving is how they are picking up trash on the way to lunch right after we got our hands clean to eat! Oh geez! 

3. We learned all about trees this week. We went for a tree walk and did a leaf rubbing. The kids thought the leaf rubbing was crazy magic and LOVED it! We also did an super easy, super fast tree painting and writing activity!

4. I treated myself to something special this week...a laminator! And folks, I don't know why it took me sooooo long! Seriously, I wish I had made this purchase long ago!

5. This morning I woke up to an email from my student loan holder informing me that my Teacher Loan Forgiveness Application has been finally processed and a portion of my loan has been forgiven! Yes, you read that correctly! Happy DaNCinG!!!!! I applied 9 months ago and have been waiting patiently. If you have a loan, check out the link so that you can read about Teacher Loan Forgiveness, the requirements and how to apply! 

So I know I am WAY behind...last week I said that I was going to be posting fairy tale craftivities and I have had a few people ask about them. I am sorry I have not been so productive the past week. I promise I will have them posted tomorrow! Have a great night folks...thanks for taking time to read about my 5 random things----go link up too!!

Don't forget about Kinder Krazy's Giveaway!

Plants and Earth Day...a Giveaway Too!

This week is FCAT testing for grades 3-5, so there are lots of schedule changes this week...which is great because I have extra time with my little friends to do some extra fun activities!

We are loving studying plants. We have learned all about flowers and the parts of a flower.  We finished up our models of a flower yesterday and started learning that trees are a kind of plant too. It is perfect timing for Earth Day! We read lots of nonfiction books about trees today and tomorrow we are going on a tree walk and will do a leaf rubbing! Maybe we will even get to do a fun painting activity to learn about the parts of a tree...we will see how much time we have! :)

We have been reading all about taking care of our Earth for Earth Day. The kids have so many questions, especially about recycling. I even had to look up the answers to three of their questions today! I love how curious they are...at least I know they are listening! Yay!

During ELA centers we are having fun with Earth Day too!

The kids will be responsible for making this little craftivity at the writing center tomorrow too! I showed them an example today and they came up with amazing ideas! 

Oh my I almost forgot...how could I forget the BEST part...I am so excited to help Regina at Kinder Krazy celebrate 100 followers! Yay!! Head on over to her blog and join her giveaway...you could win so many great prizes from lots of talented teachers! 

I hope that you are having a fantastic week!