The Letter Cc

During the week of Cc we read:

Click on the link below for my Kindergarten Rodeo Flipchart for Active Inspire

https://www.dropbox.com/s/x9pqiz3avcj81qo/Kindergarten%20Rodeo%20Flipchart.flipchart

Students colored pictures that began with the letter Cc & pasted them on a cowboy boot outline. Students decorated their bandana (piece of white fabric) using paint. Students created a cowboy using a small paper plate, cowboy hat cut-out, & crayons. Students searched for gold (rocks spray painted gold) in the sandbox. Students played cowboys/cowgirls by riding horses & roping bulls using a hula hoop.

Students sort cowboy & Indian figures by color. Students identify pictures that begin with the letter C, cut, color, & paste the pictures to the letter C. Students create a cow using a small paper plates, large paper plate, & construction paper. Students will sort pictures that begin with the letters A-C on to a Tree Map. Students will create an A, B, C Flip Book by sorting & coloring pictures that begin with the letter A-C.

My Lesson Plan for the letter Cc 2011-2012-

https://www.dropbox.com/s/glgrmp90xlofuah/wk5_The%20letter%20C_LP_.doc

You can find Alphabet Craft ideas like the photo above at Totally Tots.

The Letter Bb

During the week of Bb we read:

Friday's Snack Center: We enjoyed blueberry bagels for our cooking center. Students got to choose butter or blueberry cream cheese to put on their blueberry bagels.

Students listen to Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? at the listening center.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b9yf330dojpysbb/ABCprintPrac-bear.gif

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nwv0n645ut2j70l/goldilocks%20color%20by%20number.docx

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e8nhf2s7ab4eob3/goldilocks-bw.pdf

You can check out Totally Tots for Alphabet Craft ideas like the photo above.

My 2011-2012 Lesson Plan for the Letter B--- https://www.dropbox.com/s/hyod30az0xynafg/wk4_The%20letter%20B_LP.doc

The Letter Aa

For the week of Aa we read:

Graphing Apples: We tasted a piece of a yellow, green & red apples. We then graphed which apple we liked best.

Friday's Snack: We make apple smiles for our cooking center using 2 apple slices for the lips, peanut butter, & mash mellows for the teeth.

We made Johnny Appleseed hats using black construction paper, a brown handle I drew on brown construction paper & apple cut-outs which the students colored yellow, green, or red. Students wore these home on Friday.

This photo I found on Pinterest reminds me on how me make our Apple Art.

For the Apple Art we create, students ball up red, green, or yellow tissue paper & paste the tissue paper onto the paper plate. The students then add a brown stem (strip of brown construction paper) to the back of the paper plate.

Click on the link below for the Letter A flipchart for Active Inspire created by Brandie Simmons:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sx7aq46t5gbdns9/letter%20a%20flipchart.flipchart

We learn about the letter Aa using Starfall.com

http://www.starfall.com/n/level-k/letter-a/load.htm?f

Check out Totally Tots for Alphabet Crafts like the photo above.

I found a few good printables for our Apple Unit on MakingLearningFun.com. Check out the links below for some of the printables.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e18nodzsx6yg8d9/ABCdottodot-A.gif

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5t226mzazjfudca/ABCprintPrac-apple.gif

https://www.dropbox.com/s/t4hengryszfztol/AppleLacingABC.gif

My 2011-2012 Lesson Plan for the letter A--- https://www.dropbox.com/s/13oxozi5dcpevm5/wk4_The%20letter%20A_LP_2011-12.doc

Inspiring Children

I absolutely love teachers who can inspire children simply by their creative classroom. I have two teacher friends who were wonderful to work with & their personalities could light up a room! Brandie brightened up her kindergarten classroom with an insect theme & bright colors. Kindergarten can be scary for many children, but I bet this room got all the children excited about the school year!

Lyanne went from teaching 4th grade to the school counselor this year & boy did she do a fabulous job basically flipping her room!!! Hot pink & lime green are my favorite colors & really liven up the room. This room just makes you feel all warm & fuzzy inside. :)

All About Me Week

Students love to express themselves, who they are and learn about classmates.

Books that we read during our All About Me Week:

The links below are flipcharts I found for Active Inspire:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6x2fxufnd7kdkfn/Chicka%20Chicka%20Boom%20Boom.flipchart

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0j33bni1r35mg9p/circle%20map%20feelings.flipchart

• After reading Chrysanthemum students can write their name on a sticky-note & we graph how may letters each child has in their name.
• After reading What Is a Family? students can draw a picture of their family in a circle map.
• After reading It's Okay to Be Different students can create an AB pattern using yellow & blue cirlce cut-outs. Students can draw a happy face on the yellow circles & a sad face on the blue circles.
• Write each student's name on paper with a white crayon & have students use water paints to paint & discover the hidden message. Students like discovering their name on the paper.

Students can cut/paste pictures of things they like from a magazine onto a circle map.

Students listen to Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom at the listening center. Students make their name with letters that they can connect using string. Students identify letters and build their friends' name using letter tiles.

Friday's Cooking Center: We decorated a cookie that looks like "me". We used an oatmeal cookie for the face, raisins for the eyes, and a red Twizzler for the smile.

We practice learning how to spell our names by pasting snips of construction paper to our name that is written on poster board. The top, right photo is from http://kinderbykim.com/. Students create their name using foam letters on a coconut tree made from construction paper and record the number of letters in their name. My students loved this! Check out her website for tons of amazing ideas. The bottom, left photo is from http://elainengfriis.blogspot.ca/. Students like searching and creating their name using magnets. The bottom, right photo is from the blog, Teaching My Daughter With Down Syndrome. This is a great way to allow students to identify and match letters with magnets to a cooking pan.

I found a picture of our Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Name Tree that my students made in class.

The image above is a great idea from Growing Kinders. She has students fill in "is for ______" with their name and decorate the beginning letter of their name. See Growing Kinders for other great ideas.

Click on the link below for the chameleon image-

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wazr17yhf8d5df6/wk3_chameleon_art_sht.doc
Students can color their chameleon & then used tissue paper to decorate him.

I saw this great idea on Pinterest that allow students to practice building their name & identifying letters on Kate's blog, Fun In ECSE. You can check out her blog for other great ideas!

Looking for a Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom Unit full of assessments for the beginning of school....
I found this great Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom Unit on TPT & check out her blog:
http://doodlebugsteaching.blogspot.ca/2012/05/chicka-chicka-boom-boom.html
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Chicka-Chicka-BOOM-BOOM-Mini-Unit-Math-Alphabet-Centers

All About Me 2011-2012 Lesson Plan- https://www.dropbox.com/s/ikev3dy4ykgh1us/wk3_All_About_Me_LP2011-12.doc

First Days of School

The first few days of school can be pretty scary for little ones, especially kindergartners. The first few weeks are usually spent getting to know each other, getting to know the school, and learning all the new procedures. At my school we spent the first week of school focusing on all the procedures and school rules that are new to the students. We do this by participating in activities that focus around our main literature that week, which includes The Kissing Hand, The Day the Monster Came to School, and the different versions of The Gingerbread Man. We read The Gingerbread Man, The Gingerbread Baby, The Gingerbread Cowboy, The Gingerbread Girl, and The Gingerbread Man, Loose in the School. If we have time we also may read The Stinky Cheese Man. After we have read and discussed all the different books we compare & contrast the characters from the books.

While reading the The Gingerbread Man on the first day a note left by the Gingerbread Man falls out of the book! The kids get so excited. The note tells us that he has escaped & that we have to find him. This is a great way to take a tour of the school & allows students to become familiar with the main office, the nurse's office, the cafeteria, the gym, and the library. As we go on our search a faculty member from each location reads the students a note left by the Gingerbread Man that gives them a clue as to where they should look next. In the end he leads the students back to the classroom where a Gingerbread cookie is waiting on each child's desk. They just love this!!! As they take their first bite into the cookie we take a note of which body part they bit first to graph. What a fun first day already!

The photos above show the students listening to The Gingerbread Cowboy at the listening center, making a Gingerbread Man using chalk, sequins, & red squiggly strips, reading their Run, Run phonics book, making a Gingerbread Man using brown snips, and matching numbers with the correct number of dots on the Gingerbread Men.
Click on the link below for a baking cookies sequencing sheet:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dxi7yxnatfk48sh/wk2_cookies_sequencing_sht.docx
Click on the link below for our Gingerbread Man class book:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/hr9vkbxhiv4u6w6/wk2_my_gingerbread_man_bk.doc

The link to a Lunch Number Practice flipchart for Active Inspire created by Brandie Simmons

https://www.dropbox.com/s/c4vykh14yrg7h21/Lunch%20Number%20Practice.flipchart

Do your students have to learn their lunch numbers?

A kindergarten teacher at B.V.E., Brandie came up with a neat way to help students identify numbers and create their lunch number. You may be thinking "How are students suppose to remember a lunch number if they can not even identify numbers?". We think the same thing! Brandie created a template that looks like the key pad in the lunch room where students punch in their lunch number. Students place the numbers under the key pad creating their lunch number. Velcro allows the numbers to stick. We alo practiced our lunch numbers by writing them on dry-erase boards & typing in the numbers on jumbo calculators purchased from the Dollar Store. 

 

On the first day of school students can find a Welcome Bag on their desk filled with goodies. Click on the link for a copy of our welcome note- Welcome Bag Note

 

I found this cute Gingerbread Man puppet idea when I googled images for puppet ideas on Google.

 

Click on the link to view my 2011-2012 Lesson Plan: Gingerbread ManLP2011-12.docx