Superkids ideas...

Hi! This is our first year using the Superkids reading program by Rowland Reading. I love it! I really feel like I am teaching my kiddos the skills they need to become successful readers. I thought I'd share just a couple of things I've done to accompany the program. Let me say, this program is very structured and there is not much wiggle room! But I do still like to use literacy centers and have adapted activities to correlate with Superkids. For example, we've been working with Alf, and the sound of short a...so we learned a lot about apples the same week.

The children labeled the parts of an apple in their journals. We also practiced capital and lowercase letter recognition by coloring capital letters green and lowercase letters green. I used just the letters we have covered so far: c, o, g, and a.

The children also practiced writing the letters we've learned by spinning a paperclip, then writing the letter it lands on.

This week we worked on reading words using the letter sound the children have learned. They used this activity to practice:

The children cut out the letters at the bottom of the page and use them to build and read the words in the box.

Thanks for checking in and have a super evening!

We're well underway!

Hello! School started Aug. 25...we've hit the ground running! Here are a few pics of my classroom before the first day...

We've been busy learning classroom routines and procedures. I really love our Superkids reading program and will post a little more on that later....

Here's a quick idea for birthday hats I am doing this year.  You just need die cuts (Dollar Tree)....

...construction paper strips....

....and a printer....

I printed "Happy Birthday ___" on the balloons, stapled strips of paper to each side, and presto! Birthday hat complete!

Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

Quick and Easy Shelf Covering

Hello! The first day of school is less than a week away! I often put curtains on the shelves in my room to cover items for storage. I tell the children that anything behind the curtain is not usable right now, but will be rotated out over the next few months. Here is a quick and easy curtain I made using a Dollar Tree table cloth.

When I bought it, I thought the whole things was polka dotted...turns our that's just a border and the center is white...but that's ok, it still looks cute.  I used a tension rod on the shelf and set it to the correct size. Then I stapled a rod pocket and slid the rod through. Once I had that done, I measured the length from the shelf to the floor and cut off the extra. (I kept the width the same, because it was perfect.) Pretty quick and easy and pleasing to the eye...rather than a shelf full of stuff. ; )

I made new labels for my math shelf...needed them desperately.  The top empty space will be for math centers...once I get them sorted and ready.

Lastly, here is my birthday display...hanging above my calendar area. I explained how I printed the months on the cupcakes here.

Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

Intro to Superkids

We are  using the Superkids Reading Series by Rowland Reading for the first time this year.  I organized my focus wall today.

 I have all of the consonants to the right of my smart board.

On the left, I have the vowels, the Superkids poster, and the "Superkid of the Week." Our first unit will focus on Cass and the /c/ sound. 

I am still going to have my word wall, but moved it to a different spot in my room. The letters that came with the series are quite large and I don't have enough space to words with them.

I haven't found a lot of visuals online for the Superkids materials, so I thought I'd share what I'm doing. I've started a Pinterest board also...

Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

Heading back...day 1

Time to head back and get my classroom ready for a new year.

Progress today: Calendar Corner, class library, and helpers chart.

 (That blank black space is for numbers I still have to laminate...out of laminating film at school.)

Class books

Thought I'd share a few of the class books we wrote this year...

We did Deanna Jump's Wheels on the Bus phonemic awareness activity using names.

We do an ABC book early in the year...the children each color a letter of the alphabet...an easy one for them to read and sing. (This idea came from Shari Sloane.)

We read the book Mary Wore Her Red Dress... each child created a page based on the pattern of the song.

This one is based on the book Big and Little. Each child wrote a page to complete the sentence: A ___ is big. A ___ is little.

Each child has a turn to take home our Rhyming Bag. One of the activities is to complete a page for our We Can Rhyme book.

Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

May

Isn't this a fun end of the year keepsake? I used festisite to create the word art of all the names in our class. The children water colored over them to make a flower. This is going in the May pocket of our Kindergarten Keepsakes book. We are winding down the year....

We planted morning glories and they have sprouted!

We did a little picture to cover the milk cartons with a morning glory and the verse "To God be the glory!" I thought that might help the children remember the name of the flowers. ; )

Spring has finally arrived in full....my lilies of the valley are in full bloom! Love this little flower!

Thought I'd end with this photo today...a sign of the times...my little guys were working on writing google today during their free time...

Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

Munchers big, small, and in-between!

Hi! Using "Munchers" in the classroom is not a new idea...I've had mine for several years. Just thought I'd share how I use them and why I have a variety of sizes...

These are my original munchers...large garbage cans originally purchased at Walmart several years ago.

I use these for large/whole group activities to munch the alphabet. Early in the school year we use "Who Let the Letters Out" by Dr. Jean. I pass out alphabet cards around the circle and each child munches his/her letter as we sing it in the song. The bottom picture is another one we use for whole group activities, like munching rhyming words. 

I also have a set of medium munchers. I bought these at the Dollar Tree, a few years ago as well.

As you can see, they are not decorated as elaborately as the bigger munchers. I just cut eyes out of paper and taped them on! But, hey, it works! I use these for small group/partner work. The children can munch word families, color words, or science concepts like living or non living pictures. 

Finally, here's the newest member of my muncher family:

It is more of a "personal muncher" I would say! I glued some large wiggly eyes on with E6000. I plan on having students use this muncher to practice skills like sight words (printed on cookies),  counting tally marks, etc. The possibilities are endless and the munchers make practicing skills fun. ; ) This one is only about 10 or 12 inches tall. It was too cute to pass up at the Dollar Tree the other day! There are a ton of other muncher ideas out there for you to explore! Have fun and thanks for checking in!

A little word work/write the room idea....

Hello! I hope you all had a Happy Easter! Here's a quick little write the room/word work idea for you...
In September, each of my students colors a person with his/her name on it. I hang these from the ceiling to display art work. Last month, I hung sight words from each student's name. 

For the write the room activity, the students used pages I made for the writing center earlier in the year.

Originally, these were used to practice writing friends' names. Now they had to read the word and write it by the correct picture...for example if "like" was hanging from Johnny's name, they would write it by his picture.

Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

Addition Quilts

We've been working on addition in math... so thought I'd share a little activity we did to incorporate addition along with letter "Qq." 

I found this on Make Learning Fun (under the theme 'quilts'). The children added the numbers and colored accordingly.  

Here is the final product...hanging on our bulletin board.  Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

Lent begins tomorrow!

Tomorrow we will begin Lent by attending Ash Wednesday Mass. We practiced today! I used this awesome lesson from Faith Filled Freebies.  Here are our Ash Wednesday pictures:

I also wanted to share a picture of our prayer table for Lent. This picture of Jesus was on a calendar. I put it in a frame and use it every year. I love how it shows that Jesus was worried or maybe sad, reminding the children of His great love for us as we prepare for Easter. It is a sharp contrast to the other pictures I have for our prayer table.

Thanks for checking in and have a great evening!

Jello Play dough....giving it a try!

Hello! We are working on decomposing numbers in the teens....I saw this idea on A Differentiated Kindergarten (so many great ideas on her blog!) and loved the idea of  the children using play dough and ten frames to make groups of 10's and 1's. I made some work mats and tonight I made the play dough to go along with them. 

I tried the Jello play dough recipe found here. 

(I added yellow food coloring because it was a little pale...but it smells great! )

I also made the lime version.


Here it is, in use by the students:

They also completed these 10 frame activities:

 I believe I've written about these in previous posts...dot the shamrock that matches the 10 frame and "Tennis Shoe 10 Frames."

Thanks for checking in and have a great evening!

Looks like a snowflake

Wanna try making this beauty?? Follow this link for the chart. I used size 10 thread....I think...I get a lot of crochet thread at the thrift store that doesn't have labels, so I'm not 100% sure... So fun to see the pattern come to life after a few rounds. This one is mostly double and triple crochet with chains in between. Enjoy!

More snow...

We are getting more snow today...so I am doing this:

You can find this sweet little pattern here. Enjoy!