Valentine Freebie

Hello! I saw this bulletin board on Pinterest....loved it!! (I couldn't find the exact source; it said uploaded by user and did not link to the actual website. Sorry!) For those of us in Christian schools, it's so neat to find ideas like this! I decided to make a smaller version for my prayer table February. I used clip art from DJ Inkers and a DJ Inkers font: Fiddlesticks

Click on the link to download! Feel free to comment if you use this in your classroom! : ) Thanks for checking in!

Sign Language Sight Words

Are you familiar with this font?

It's called Gallaudet and it is the letters of the alphabet in sign language. I printed out sight word cards with this font and had the children use a large sign language poster to help them figure out the word. Just another fun way to practice words! I let them do this with a partner.

They could also use the process of elimination...if the first two letters of the word were "th" they would know the word was "the" because that's the only word wall word that starts with those two letters. : )
Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

Our Hot Chocolate Day!

Whew! We made it to Friday! We had another fun and busy week. Today was our "Hot Chocolate Day." I like to do this the last Friday in January to bring closure to our winter activities. We answer the question: Do you like marshmallows in your hot chocolate? Yes or No. Last year I did a graph; this year the children just wrote their names on the appropriate side.

I saw this idea on pinterest and made my own version

(Clip art by DJ Inkers)

The children glued small white squares on the page instead of real marshmallows. Then we had hot chocolate to drink, with or without marshmallows...

...in REAL mugs! No plastic or paper here (except for the spoons!!). Yum! Yum! It was a lot of fun! Now I have 18 mugs sitting on my table to wash, but that's ok. : ) I borrowed them from the lunch room in case you are wondering.

I had a slight case of laryngitis this week...that always makes for interesting days, doesn't it??? Tuesday morning I told the class I needed to get a drink of water (we were at the circle doing calendar). I stepped over to my desk and could hear conversation going on...when I got back, the children had decided I should probably get my tonsils out. That would help my throat and it doesn't even hurt! You  get "sleeping gas" and then your tonsils just disappear! Ha! Too cute! That's why I love kindergarten!! Thanks for checking in! Enjoy your day!

Counting by 10's Snowflakes

Hi! Just a quick little post today to share our "Counting by 10's" snowflake activity....another center inspired by Mrs. Lee. The children put the snowflakes in order from 10-100, then colored and wrote the numbers in the correct order.

(Snowflake clip art by DJ Inkers)

Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

A few pics from the week...

Hello! It's been a busy week for us; we are the end of our semester...that means lots of assessments, report cards, and DIBELS coming next week.  Here is a class book we did as part of our MLK activities this week. Each child traced and cut out a hand so we had a few of each color.

The title is Hand in Had with Martin Luther King. Blue is for loyalty, yellow is for peace, orange is for trust, brown is for brotherhood, white is for friendship, and red is for love.

We also did these coffee filter snowflakes to hang up in our classroom.

Thanks for checking in...hope you had a good weekend!

Mitten Glyph

Hello! As promised, I have a picture of the mitten glyph we did this past week. I had a parent volunteer come in and she did this with the children. It's pretty simple; I photocopied  a mitten on green and blue paper.

Here are the questions they answered for the glyph:

We practiced sight words with a roll and color game. I printed a snowman with sight words in each space (not my original idea!!) and the children had to read the word they rolled and color in the correct space. They did this with partners.

Did you know Kohls has these???

Have a great day! Thanks for checking today!

Snowman Measurement

Hello! We've been working on measurement in math. We completed a couple of projects/centers I found online this week. I've always done a snowman, painted white on blue construction paper; this year I added the measuring component...I found this on Pinterest from Mrs. Lee's website: click here to visit her website and view the original project.

Here is my version...

I love how these turned out; they are hanging in the hall outside of our classroom door.

We did the farm measurement center activity (our story for reading this week was about a farm) from Mrs. Kilburn's Kiddos. I tried to find the exact link to the printable, and couldn't find it! Sorry! If I find it, I will add it. The children used unifix cubes to measure the animals. We also used marshmallows to measure mittens...this activity is from Musings of Me. (I'm not sure if she is still posting her printables or not. I printed this one last winter.) I love being able to print items like this and have them all ready to use!! 

We did our mitten glyphs today; tomorrow we are going to analyze the data. I will post pictures then, but this is the glyph:

It's pretty simple and easy; I had a parent volunteer come in and she did this with the class today. Thanks for checking in and have a good evening!

Snowflake Art

Hello! I have a cute art idea to share with you....we did these last Friday...today we had record highs in MN in the 50's!!! I can't believe it! But, the forecast says changes are coming and cold weather is heading our way, so I am enjoying it while I can.  I gave the children 3 strips of white paper and some (they chose how many they wanted to use) white squares. They could design a snowflake using the shapes, any way they wanted. (I've seen pictures of snowflakes made using pattern block shapes, similar to this on pinterest.)

As you can see, some designs were very simple; others a little more intricate. I thought they all turned out unique...just like real snowflakes!

(The blue paper is 12 x 12.)

Tomorrow we will be working on a mitten glyph. We painted snowmen and measured them...a Pinterest inspired project...I will share photos tomorrow. Thanks for checking in!

Thank You and Snowflake Writing...

Hello! I hope everyone who is back at school this week is having a good one! It can always be a little challenging to get back into the swing of things after Christmas break! Before I tell you about our SNOWFLAKE writing center, I want to say a big thank you to everyone who started following my blog! I realize there are so many great teaching blogs out there...I am grateful to everyone who checks in just to see what's happening in my little corner of the kindergarten world. : ) My goal has been to post and share ideas that work for me, or share other great ideas/links I see online. I do not have a TpT store or sell items, but hopefully you still can find something here you can use!! We are all in this together and I believe the more we share and learn from each other, the more we can help our kids. Anyway...thanks again!

Onto our writing center...I die cut the word SNOWFLAKE and made an activity sheet for the children to write all of the words they could make out of the letters. When I introduced this activity, some of them immediately said, "I see 'no!' They also came up with "we, so, snow, and of."  Here's a picture of the center:

I like the big letters because they can move them around and manipulate them to come up with words. I also set up a sight word play dough center. There are quite a few pics of centers like this on Pinterest. Here is my version:

I put letter cookie cutters in the basket with the activity sheet and a set of colored pencils for them to record the words they made. I also hung up two word lists for them to use. They are not limited to these words, but it is helpful for those who need it.

They can use the cookie cutters to cut out the words, or just stamp them into the play dough.  Thanks for checking in and have a great evening!