I have been taking pictures left and right but haven't had the energy or time to blog about anything we have been doing.  I have finally found some energy so here it goes!  In September we had an Open House for the parents, only 5 parents out of 22 parents showed up.  I was very disappointed that not many parents came to this night.  I think it is because the students get dismissed so early and they would've had to come back two hours later.  Next year I am going to suggest that we go back to having it right at dismissal time that way most parents that do pick up will stay.  

Here are the items that were displayed for the parents.  It included the cute note of them being their child's teacher, a pamphlet of all the common core standards that should be mastered by the end of kindergarten.  I also included a rubric of the writing stages and some helpful little charts with numbers, color words, and shapes.  The parents also received a list of the pre-primer and primer words to keep at home.  Although I didn't have many parents it did give me an opportunity to have intimate conversations with the parents that did show and I was able to give them helpful hints of how to help their child at home!

Here are the open house invitation that students created and brought home the day before!

So we have been working really hard in writing.
I use the anchor chart from first grade garden and
I rate the students are on their drawings 4 being a wow.
I will post a picture of the chart I made soon.  However this
particular child had a great illustration.  When
I went to conference with her I could
instantly tell that who the people in the picture
were.  It was the little girl and me and Jami.  This
little girl had a us down to the color clothes we were
wearing and even our glasses.  

                                 

Here is a picture of us on that day!  She was so excited to share her
picture with all of us!  

  littlemissglamourgoestokindergarten.blogspot.com                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Over the past week we have been learning about all about what good writers do starting with telling their story, and then illustrating with details all about their story.  We then started talking about labels and you can see in the background the anchor chart that I use in order to teach labels.  Now in the past I have let the children label all parts of me, however while starting to label myself, I thought why not label different parts of the children.  Oh you would have thought that this was the best thing ever!  They absolutely loved it and I have to say that they generated more important things than I would have thought.  They came up with body parts but also so accessories that people were wearing and names of children.  This lesson ended up being so much more meaningful for them.  They began to take over the lesson.  I LOVED EVERY MINUTE!  I am loving writing at this current time.  Notice that I used kindergarten spelling because at this point that is what I am expecting them to be able to do.  When the lesson was complete students went back to their seats and took out a drawing that they had already finished and began labeling their pictures.  I have never gotten so many labels written on papers the first time around.  I can't wait to see what we do in the end.  Do any of you use certain lessons that you absolutely love?

She was sounding out her label!

Here I am pointing something out so that I can begin labeling another student!

Well thats all I have for today.   I hope you enjoy your time in our class.

M is for Mustache

So before I could post my students photos I had to get permission from parents.  And until last week I had lost the thumb drive that had all of my forms on, luckily I happened upon it so now I can post some more pictures.

A few weeks ago we began learning letter names and sounds.  So for the letter Mm we made mustaches and placed them into our ABC journals, but not before taking the super cute pictures enjoy!

So the beginning of the school has been a bit hectic!  But I am finally getting the hang of the routine and life in general.  I am finally updating some of my finished classroom products!  Enjoy

Trash can for a holding homework folders.  Such a simple idea  thank you pinterest for giving me this idea!

I wrote all the students names on index cards, highlighting the first letter in a different color.  Every more since day 2 I have flashed the students names in our cubby area before entering the classroom.  This had greatly increased awareness of name recognition, every student can recognize their own name and they also are aware of the other student names and are beginning to recognize all their classmate names.  

Entering the classroom,  my desk that is rarely used!

Here is the cubby area, where we use the name recognition cards.

Here are our honey combs.  This is part of our school wide positive behavior support system.  Student can earn check, stamps for demonstrating the different aspects of HONEY.

This is where I house the centers.  There are there different spots the blue for literacy centers, red for afternoon theme centers and the clear buckets for math centers.

I found these great schedule cards on pinterest, through the First Grade Parade blog.  I placed them on ribbon and attached them to velcro pieces so that I can change the pieces when needed.

You are looking at our thinking spot (ALASKA) and our two laptops that will be implemented into center time.

Calendar area

Here I just highlighted how I let students use the block area during afternoon center.  I have all  the students names on index cards and I choose four students at the end of every day so that the students know that they will be able in the block center and I also do this for dramatic play.  I created these so not all the same students are always in these areas.  I also use it as an incentive since they know their name is there, they know that they can not have more than one time out to use these areas as well.  I don't need to use that for many however it does seems to work for the students that need a little incentive to work harder.

This is how I display my daily objectives.

A whole classroom view.

This is my listening center.  Students may listen to a story and then they have a sheet to complete to draw a picture of their favorite part of the story.

My library 

Our ongoing writing portfolios of their best work.  I also add photos to each of the portfolios.

One of the writing lessons that I did involved showing the students the different ways we can write, with different lines and such.  

This is our incentive board once the students have mastered one of these skills their name goes on the wall.

This is more of organized library.

computer centers

Sensory bucket, students have to find letters in the bucket and then trace the letter they find on an additional sheet.

My word wall.  I read somewhere that sectioning the letters allows the students to access the wordwall easier.

When teaching a specific number this is the number chart that I created last year and use .

Here are our clickers for the mimio, we haven't used them yet but it is one of my personal goals to implement using multiple choice questions with my students.

These are my writing buckets for writers workshop.    Each bucket belongs to a specific table and each student has a designated table.

This is the anchor chart that I have used for the past two years.  I never knew the strength in anchor charts until last year.  LOVE MY ANCHOR CHARTS!