"I'm done, now what?" Baskets

 "I'm done! What do I do now???" Ever heard that question?? There are a lot of great ideas floating around out there to help answer it, but here's my solution: I decided to put baskets on each of the tables with activities for the children to do when they are done with their work early or need to fill a few minutes between class activities.

Each basket has a variety of math and literacy items...some of them are the same for each table, some of them are different. For example, there are 6 children at each table, so each basket has 6 sets of sight words for them to practice. I also have 6 "smart pals" in each basket and a set of dry erase markers for them to practice sight word tic-tac-toe, nonsense words, number writing, math skills, etc.

Each basket also has items that I rotate at the end of the week, like beginning/ending sound practice or number activities.

So far, this has worked well. I have not heard, "I'm done, now what???" in a few weeks! The children have gotten into the routine of choosing something to work on until they hear differently.  I fill the basket with activities, then rotate them at the end of the week to the next table, so I only need to change the materials every 3 weeks. I am updating the baskets for March tomorrow. Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

Our 100th Day...in review

Hi! Seems to be the trend for me lately...posting about events after they happen!! Sorry about that...I had planned to let you in on our 100th day activities before the actual day, but that just didn't happen! It was a fun day, though! I found a few new ideas online this year, which is always exciting! Here's a recap of our day: We made hats that said "100 days smarter!" The children brought in their collection of 100 items and we wrote about what we'd want 100 of and what we would not want 100 of. We ate 100 items for snack (10 marshmallows, 10 pretzels, 10 gold fish....etc.) We read Miss Bindergarten Celebrates the 100th Day of Kindergarten. We estimated if there were 100 items in containers and then counted to check. We completed our Zero the Hero book and the children took them home. Here's a few pics:

100 Day hats and collections...

Using our 100 counting mats to check if there were 100 items in the container.

This was the recording sheet...the children estimated if there were 100 items in the container (yes or no), counted, and wrote the actual number.

 And...if you look closely in this picture, you can see my AWESOME (if I do say so myself!) 100 Day shirt!! I ironed on some bling to celebrate the day! I got the shirt and iron-ons at Hobby Lobby. I will try to take a better pic of the shirt some day...but I loved it!!

Items I had planned but didn't have time for: Decorating Psalm 100 from the Bible and coloring the 100 mystery picture using the hundred chart. Hope you had a great weekend! Thanks for checking in!

Happy Valentine's Day....a day late!

Where does the time go??? This is a busy week for us with Valentine's Day Tuesday and our 100th day this coming Friday! I have a few Valentine pictures to share with you...I had each child make their own valentine mailbox as a family project. I love the creativity of all of the different boxes. Here's just a small sample of what the children brought in:

(This little girl loves dalmations!!)

Aren't they awesome??!! We had a really nice day; Valentine's Day is one of may favorite days of the school year. Such a nice way to celebrate friendship. : )  Thanks for checking in; hope your day was sweet!

Quiet dice games

Have you seen these at your local Dollar Tree??? They are erasers...but oh my, do they make dice games a lot more quiet!!! They are bright and colorful and the kids love 'em.

Valentine's Day

February 14 is just a few days away! We made these tissue paper hearts with glue and water. They are decorating our classroom door.

We also made these cute sweetheart trees...another pinterest find

 Next week will be busy for us....Valentine's Day and our 100th Day of Kindergarten in the same week!
Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

February Stamping Center

It's hard to believe Valentine's Day is just around the corner! I put together this math center for February. I put an activity page, a red ink pad, and a couple of heart stamps into a container ( BTW...I bought 2 of these rectangular storage containers at a Dollar Tree this summer when we were on vacation. I wish I had bought more; they fit 8.5 x 11 paper perfectly. We never did get them at the Dollar Tree where I live.) The goal is to stamp and count hearts on the page, then write how many they stamped and counted. Simple but cute and fun.

Thanks for checking in! Have a super day!

More or fewer snowman project...

Hello! Catching up on sharing one more winter activity we did last week. We made snowmen; each snowball had a letter of the children's name...(there are a few examples out there on pinterest of this project). Since we were working with more/fewer in math, the children compared their snowman to someone's who had more or fewer snowballs.

It was fun to see the different sizes of snowmen!