Once Upon a Time In Science Land

Once upon a time it was my second year of teaching. It was the month of May and it was time for science. I was giving my students directions so that we could transition from math to science. That's when it happened. One of my students blurted out, "What is science?". My mouth dropped open. IT WAS MAY! What do you mean what is science? I have been teaching you science since August, and I thought I was doing a good job too! (Obviously I was mistaken!!!!) This was an ah-hah moment. We had done experiments, we had used science tools and yes we had even created a science fair project. Yes, I had taught science lessons all year long, but I had never taught my students what science actually is.  Ever since that year, I have worked hard to teach my students what science is and how to be a scientist. Teaching science has become one of my favorite things to teach, ESPECIALLY at the beginning of the school year. I teach my little ones that they are scientists, and this unit pretty much prepares my students to be scientists for the rest of the year. 

To start off I use lots of books to teach about what science is, how they are scientists every day and the scientific process. These are some of my favorites. 

I teach about the different kinds of scientists, which gets them VERY interested in science and helps them understand that they are scientists! 

We also think about how we are scientists every day.

After we understand what a scientist is and what a scientist does, we start to explore science tools. I teach the students how to use each science tool the correct way. This helps eliminate future problems such as..."Please stop using the ruler as a weapon." and "No, a dropper is not for putting water in your friends' ears." or my personal favorite "No, science tweezers are not for plucking your eyebrows." (not speaking from experience or anything!) After teaching how to use each tool I set up super simple stations to actually get our hands on the tools and to use them. Some of the stations get MESSY...like really MESSY, and well if you know me you know that me and messes don't go well together, BUT if you saw my kids using science talk and getting into it...it is worth all of the mess!

 

 

Now we are ready to dive in and really start learning about the scientific process. Of course, we HAVE to make a craftivity before the unit is over!!! After this unit every student understands what science is and even better they tell me about how they were scientists daily. When it rains they tell me how they were a meteorologist and when we are at recess they tell me about how they are entomologists or botanists...it definitely makes my heart sparkle! 

Need help with your science instruction? Here are some science resources that you may find helpful.

      

                   

      

 

And we all lived happily ever after in Science Land! ;)

Kindergarten Is Like a Box of Chocolates

Remember Forest? LOVE Forest! The other day this saying popped in my head...

Well really it was more like...

but said in my best Forest Gump voice of course!

Really this saying popped in my head because I was about to have a pity party for myself/boo hoo a bit thinking about what I "got" (if I am being honest). I stopped myself real quick...good thing I love a box of chocolates. I don't actually like to eat the chocolates, I just think it is a fun game to see what's inside each little chocolate! What a great way to look at your students...no matter the obstacles or the challenges that each one brings with them, its my job to find out the great treasure that they have just waiting to come out from within them! So that's what I have been doing...one little "chocolate" at a time! ;)

That being said, we have been working LOTS on our alphabet letter recognition and letter sounds in my classroom. We have been creating, sorting, writing, singing, dancing and anything else you can think of to learn our letters! Folks we are almost there! :) If you are having some of the same struggles with your little "chocolates" here are some of our favorite resources to use in our classroom! 

{YouTube Videos}

{Center Activities}

Kindergarten really is like a box of chocolates...and that's the best part! :) Happy Wednesday!

Printing On Post-Its

I wanted to share something that is one of my favorite things with you. If you are OCD like me and HATE handwriting on things, than this is the post for you!

Last year I saw on Pinterest {Come pin with me!} that you could print on post-its, and I did it last school year...but this school year my obsession has gone to a whole new level! I started off printing on post-its, but now I print on ANYTHING that I can figure out how to print on and NOT write on!!! {Like all those cute little tags at Michael's!!}

Here are some pictures of how I use it in my classroom and life!

Name labels at Meet the Teacher

Labels for my Wish List at Academic Focus Night!

Gift tags for presents!

If you want to print on post-its click on the picture below to get your FREE templates! I hope you become as crazy obsessed as I am! 

 

Beginning of the Year Recap!

As always the first few weeks of school have been a whirlwind! I wanted to share some pictures of some of our favorite activities!

On our first day of school we read the Kissing Hand and did this Chester craftivity! I love how they all turned out!

Since I am a pennant loving gal {if you don't believe me check out my room decor}, of course I had to have my students help decorate our classroom with this class pennant and fun pencil keepsake.

Some of my other favorite activities that I do at the beginning of the year come from this unit. One of my favorite includes marshmallows! If you are looking for great ideas, this product is a MUST!

Surprisingly my students this year are AMAZING at cutting! Wow! I am beyond impressed. What we have had to work on is letter formation and handwriting. I work on handwriting during my letter sound focus time. I have really enjoyed using Alphabet Directed Drawing by From the Pond. I focus on one letter a day, and review the already learned letters daily. To start the lesson, the whole class does a hands on letter sound activity which could include a sorting activity, bean bags, fly swatters, bowling, etc. After this short little lesson and review, we practice writing the new letter. After I see the students are forming the letter correctly, we complete the directed drawing and think of other words that start with the letter that we have been working on that day! I love how excited my kids get when they realize by following the picture cues and directions they created a really cool illustration! Even though we have been doing it every day for a few weeks now, it still surprises them every time! :) The best part is that during writing workshop I see my students trying to  remember some of the directed drawings we have done, and they are using them in their illustrations! LOVE IT!

Due to all of the testing that is required at the beginning of the year, we jumped right into math and reading centers. This year's bunch of students were really quick learners of how to have appropriate behavior in centers and how to work independently. I am so grateful! These are some of the centers they were working in the past few weeks!

I have been using The Moffat Girls No Prep pack for all kinds of things! It is jam packed with goodies! I use this for math extension activities and ELA practice. 

In preparation for Academic Focus Night, we have completed our Kindergarten Goal Books for August. I know that keeping portfolios on each student is quite the task, but for me and my students seeing their growth in such a simple way is AWESOME! I love sharing it with parents at the end of the year. The hardwork is worth it!

Making my students feel like our classroom is their second home is so important to me, and having them feel like their peers are their second family is even MORE important! I think that learning each others names is the first step to making a classroom family. So in the past few weeks we have done several activities with our names and also have done a study all about being friends, what makes our family special and the most important all about ME! 

If you are interested in any of the activities shown just CLICK the picture below!

        

           

       

I hope your year is off to a great start!

Say It Ain't So...Back to School!?! The Kissing Hand too!

I'm not sure how this happened...but it is August and I'm already back in school! How is this possible?! I usually spend lots of time during the summer creating and redecorating my classroom, but I LOVED what I had done with my room last year and I didn't want to change anything! So I didn't...until I felt like such a slacker for not changing anything! :) So I just did a few little things around my room! Take a peak!

Bulletin Board Outside my Classroom

This was super easy to create! I got a large bottle of bubbles and cut it in half. {Okay, so I didn't cut it...the Mister did. I don't know why he doesn't trust me with a power tool!?} I modged podged my own little sign on to the bottle. Then I just hot glued it to the board. I used sticker letters from Michaels and typed my students' names on "bubbles"...aka circles!

 One of the things that I love about my classroom is that I get TONS of natural light, and I really like to keep my blinds open all the time. However, there are times in the morning that I have to close the blinds because it gets TOO bright. So I came up with this little idea to keep the blinds "open" and "closed" at the same time, while keeping things looking cute! I just made bows out of black ribbon, then hot glued the bows to clothespins, and clipped the blinds together! Perfect!

I got a new rug at IKEA! Love it!

Kindergarten Squared posted a picture on instagram that was my inspiration for this little number. Some of the quotes came from this FREEBIE by The Bender Bunch. This bulletin board is at a random spot in my classroom and was not really able to be seen by students, so this idea was perfect! I got the frames on sale at Michael's for 25 cents. Then I just printed the quotes that I liked and added some ribbon!

These are my new birthday pennants. All that is missing are the candles with my students' names and birth dates on them! This comes from my EDITABLE chevron decor pack.

I also got this hanging thing {sorry I don't know what I should call it!} from IKEA! I love that it takes up way less space for my writing center! 

Okay so I am super excited to share the last picture with you, because it came out just so darn cute! Today was our first day of school, and I always love to start the year with the book The Kissing Hand.

Am I the only one who gets a little choked up EVERY single time I read this book!?! Anyhow we made a little Chester to help us remember our first day of school!

Heading back to school soon? Check out all these FREEBIES in my store!

XOXO