Photos from Valentines Day and 100th Day

Last year my son's teacher sent these home with the kids (thank you Mrs. O'Leary).  I thought they were the cutest thing ever so I saved his and told my students this year all about them and they said they too wanted to make them for their parents.  The center was super easy oak tag cut out for each student and precut tag for (I Love You), and then tin foil.  So cute and not teacher directed either.

Students had precut hearts and they placed them into the top of a copy paper box cover, they picked two colors of paint and then they shook the boxes to roll marbles around to create fun looking hearts.  Students added glitter to the paint before it dried.  Below is the finished product!

Students had precut hearts made from coffee filters.  They used markers to color the hearts and then they used eye droppers to watch the water absorb into the coffee filter and mix all the colors together.

Idea originated from:  http://www.meaningfulmama.com/2013/01/tie-dye-coffee-filter-valentine-heart.html

Here are the finished products:

At the end of the day we also celebrated with goodies but I was way too busy at the moment to capture any photos.  What do you all do for this day?

Valentine Day

This has been one of the craziest weeks.  We had a snow day on Monday and then we hit the ground in a full on sprint starting on Tuesday.  Side note:  I also run the PTO at my school as well and it was the week our fundraiser roses were due, so I did many things with that as well as my normal teaching and celebrating of the 100th day and Valentine day (which were back to back days) ughh.  I am so glad to be on vacation!!!


I am  hoping to add photos today but seem to be experiencing difficulty at this time!  More to follow

Thankful!

Today I am thankful for many things!  I am thankful for this snow day because it is a much needed one after all the assessments I have been doing with my babies.  I am also thankful to have a nice warm house with plenty of food in it, to hold us over for the duration of this blizzard.  I am catching up on emails and inputting data in to the Gold Teaching Strategies.  Is anyone else doing the Gold as a way to collect data and assessment?  What are your thoughts on it?

I am sharing some of the winter activities that we have tried this year!  Most ideas were found on pinterest some changes were made with some.

Above students counted out the letters in their name and then added one more for the face, which is one of the common core standards.  Students wrote one letter on each snowball.

Here is a winter hat activity!  Students used crayons, cray pas, and cotton balls.  Super easy and cute.  The children loved this activity.

I modeled how to draw a side profile of a snowman.  Children used blue paper and cray pas.  They did a great job!

This area is in the back of the classroom next to the cubbies.  We created pictures of bears hibernating and we created winter trees.  Before we did these activities we learned about how plants and animals change in the winter.

When we learned about Martin Luther King JR.  I modeled how to draw MLK with Mrs. Miners Lets Draw.  It can be found here.  Thank you for you freebie.  FREE-Martin-Luther-King-Directed-Drawing

Coloring Outside The Lines  inspired this bulletin board.  Thank you for your creative idea.

As I was picking my son up from basketball practice, I noticed they had created addition equations with chain links.  I thought this was cute and brought it back to my own classroom.  The students created their own equations.

 

These next pictures are of the students with their book exchange book.  Students came to school with a gently used or new book in wrapping paper and then they picked a number out of a hat and got to choose a book (like a Yankee Swap).  There was only one little one that was a little upset, it broke my heart too.  Can you tell which one?

Here's Mrs. Twomey in her ornament costume for our holiday show!  She is so festive~

                                         Getting ready to sing on stage to all of our guests!

Photos of all the students ready for the big show.  These hats were inspired by a pinterest find with a little change.  Slide1.JPG.  These hats were a cute idea however they didn't stay on very well and we had to bring the stapler with us to the auditorium.  BOO!

http://mathcoachscorner.blogspot.com/2012/08/easy-graphing-ideas.html 

Here is another pinterest idea I created to ask daily questions.  However it is more like weekly questions.

  

Here students are acting out the five little monkeys.  They are so cute notice that they are using the phrase broke his head. LOL!

In our district we have the FOSS Science Curriculum.  Here the students are building the understanding the wood can change shapes.  They are using sandpaper.

 When we began our unit on subtraction, we started with the songs (five green speckled frogs, five little monkeys, and 5 little ducks).  This is a product of one of our math center activities.  The children loved reciting and acting out the story.

Here the students are using the five little monkeys stick puppets to act out the song.  Little did they know that they were practicing subtraction.

Here students are divided into groups based on their answer from a math questions.  This was a great moment prior to this day students were just picking an answer because they liked the answer and they couldn't give a real reason why they choose the answer.  However on this particular day only four students choose the incorrect answer and three of them afterwards changed their minds after listening to the others discuss why they chose a their answer.

Finally

I am not sure how all these wonderful bloggers keep up with everything they have going on in their life.  I am finally able to say that I am caught up.  All of my parents have finally signed the waiver either giving permission or not to have them on the blog.  I will finally be posting pictures of things that have been going on in my classroom.

Over the past few months, I have become more familiar with the common core and have decided that I like that we are expecting our students to become masters as opposed to just being exposed to different concepts.

Our district is also going through the new evaluation process and it is not that great.  Administration can come in on any day without any warning,  which is great, however I swear it is always on the day that I am having a bad lol!  I have now been evaluated 6 times and that was before the vacation break.  Are any of you going through the evaluation process like our district?  Let me know what you think.

Also we are about to go to extended days next year and I am a bit scared as to what the future holds for us.

Hollie

          Let's just say life has been a little hectic lately since the beginning of school! We started school on the 23 so I have been in school for a full two weeks.  My students started after kindergarten screening on the 4th. I have 25 new cherubs in my classroom with numbers still growing. I have 17 girls and 8 boys is anyone else having a girl year!  Please tell me how many students you have and is it full day or 1/2 day kindergarten.  This is true across all 3 kindergartens in the building. 

I just wanted to share a little with you and leave you with some before pictures of my classroom and promise to update with the finished classroom soon!  

Oh yeah, note to self I have to remember to take pictures before beginning a project I had already worked in my room for an hour before I remembered to take pictures.

Classroom setup

Ok so I have been in school the last two days setting up my classroom, boy am I exhausted!  I am also weeding through my belongings and getting rid of materials I haven't used in years.  This is a year of new beginnings as my district keeps informing us!  I will have pictures to follow once I have figured out how to add pictures to my blog.  Do you have a theme in your classroom, if so what it is?  I would love to see pictures as well, if you haven't already posted them.  Thanks Hollie

Assessments Ughhh!

     So today I had to go to a training on a new assessment that I will be using next year.  The program is called Teaching Strategies with Creative Curriculum.  Has anyone else used this program to assess their children?  This is a pilot year and we received grant money to do this program.  The one perk that I have actually noticed is that we will be getting a scanner, digital camera, and a notebook computer.  However, that clearly means that we will be documenting, documenting, all the time. I suggested that we get IPAD's because it can do all those things, but they weren't having it, now we have to have more pieces to make it work.  

     Upon entering Kindergarten we will be using the Dial 4 (speed) with no training we were told to get the manual and read up on it. (BOOO) I am curious as to what others use for an assessment in Kindergarten?  Have anyone used either of these programs and what are the pros and cons?

Also I am looking to build up my network so please follow my blog, even if you do not teach kindergarten we can still share ideas.  I also will have ideas on first and fifth grade since those are the grades my children will be entering in September.

TTYS

Hollie