Favorite Halloween Books Linky Party!

Hey! I thought it would be fun to share my favorite Halloween books....I'm joining the Linky Party at First Grade Found Me.

Here are my top picks:

My ALL TIME FAVORITE has to be Big Pumpkin....LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, the repetition of the text and the catchy tune to this one! I used the cassette with this book for years....now I finally have the digital version of the story.

My next favorite is Room on the Broom. FUN for rhyming and a good story of friendship...It's so much fun to read this one aloud...I usually read it more than once!

A great Halloween book for math is 10 Timid Ghosts. I first read this book to my son as a preschooler and now use it in my classroom.

My last pick is The Night Before Halloween. I have several of The Night Before...series and love them all.

Be sure to check out all of the other great Halloween books at the Linky Party! Thanks for checking in!

Apples!

I know I say this almost every time I post...but really...where does the time go? I cannot believe we are already in the last week of September. I am currently taking a little time off from school to help my husband recover from surgery, but  have some apple projects to share with you!

You may recognize some of these ideas from Pinterest...I have a few of them pinned on my September board. The craft project on the top left is from a book I've had for a few years...the bottom left Johnny Appleseed activity is from Musings of Me.  We did the whole scientific method process for our sink/float experiment and the graph shows the predictions of the students. You should have heard the shock and surprise when they found out apples float!!! Fun! Another reason I love kindergarten!!! Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

Bus Graph

Hello! Here's an update on our week...
We did a short unit on bus safety and made this graph:

It was our first Zero the Hero Day!

We started adding names to our word wall. As each child takes his/her turn to be calendar helper for the day, we add his/her name. I have 13 students in my class, so it will take 13 days for everyone's name to be added. Each day we spell the name, talk about how many letters there are, compare it to other names that begin with the same letter, etc.

Thanks for checking in and have a good weekend!

The first 5 days....

Good evening....I hope you are enjoying your weekend! I cannot believe it's already Sept. 8th....where have the past 2 weeks gone?? We have officially completed the first five days of kindergarten. Whew! I feel extremely overwhelmed this year...could be my unusual schedule or the heat wave we had last week or just the adjustment back to school...probably a combination of all of those things!

Here's the little "welcome to my class" kind of thing I gave my kids this year:

This is not my original idea...a fellow Kindergarten teacher shared it a few years ago. I shined  pennies with jewelry cleaner and glued one to each page.

As an introduction to science and social studies, I gave each of the children a book from our social studies/science book bin. They had a few minutes to "read" the book and then we shared what each child thought we might learn about in social studies and science this year. We made this anchor chart:

   (I am looking forward to making more anchor charts this year!! And if you're wondering...those are moose and bear shower curtain hooks holding up my chart!!! )

Thanks for checking in! Have a great weekend!

Ready for the weekend?

Hello everyone! I don't know about you, but I am ready for the weekend! It's been a busy week in my classroom, and I have to say I'm happy with my progress so far. I still have not touched my desk area and I have one table with that pile of stuff you have left over....at least I hope you have stuff left over, too, and it's not just me....Anyway, here are a few photos of my progress:

My math wall...I labeled the things that are not obvious. : )

My word wall, modeled after this one on Chalk Talk :

I downloaded the letters here.

I worked on sorting books in my classroom library. I have a few new baskets and put the reading buddies with the basket. 

Here's my version of the going home chart that's all over Pinterest! I am going to attach the children's names with the paper clips.

I also hung the Give Me Five Freebie found here...gotta love teachers who share their work!!

Before I left today, I put up the word "Welcome" using my crayon clothes pins. I found the letters here and printed them on scrapbook paper.

I plan on using these clothes pins to hang student work above their lockers. It will be so quick and easy compared to stapling or using pins!!! Ahh...simple pleasures, huh??

That covers my work this week...Monday my to-do list includes the dramatic play area, my desk, name tags, cubby and locker tags, conference prep, and oh yeah...lesson plans!! Have a great weekend and thanks for checking in!

Printing on those cute die cut papers!

Hi! I've been working in my classroom this week...not a whole lot of photos to share yet, but I thought I'd share how I use my ink jet printer to print on die cuts.

I am using these cute cupcakes I found at the Dollar Tree for my birthday board. They are pretty light weight paper, but this method also works on card stock die cuts.  First, I print whatever I want to put on the die cut onto a white sheet of paper.

Then I center the die cut on top of the paper...so the word is lined up where I'd like to be...and put a little piece of tape on the back of the die cut, so it's stuck to the paper. I run it through my printer again, with the die cut taped on, and the word prints right where it should. Once you have your template done, you can change the word (like I typed February), tape on the die cut and print again.

It's pretty quick and easy and you probably already know how to do it...but every once and a while a co worker will ask me, "How did you print on those???"  Here's a sneak peak at my birthday board:

Eventually, it's going to look similar to this:

(source)

I still have to make the candles and add a title....

Also...on a sidenote...you may have seen this on pinterest: using dollar store table cloths to as bulletin board backgrounds.

I thought I'd try using a table cloth or two to see how they work. I used a red one on my birthday board and I have to say, I like it. I thought it might be too thin or tear easily, but since I won't be changing this bulletin board all year, it should last. If you're going to pull staples or pins in and out a lot, I'd say go with fabric or paper. I also tried using a yellow table cloth for another board, but the color was too light and the cork showed through, so I took it down. I'm going to try a blue one instead.  I would suggest using bright or dark colors vs. pale. Just my opinion...

thanks for checking in and have a great day!

Space Bag!

It's been a little while since I've shared a homework/literacy bag idea with you...since I am getting my bags ready to go for the new school year, I thought you might like to see my "Space Bag."

This bag has several books about space and a few fun space themed activities.  (I'm pretty sure I originally downloaded the "Race in Space" and tic tac toe game from Musings of Me, but I don't know if her printable units are still available.) I made the memory game using planet stickers. I printed pictures of the planets and made stars to match the planet names. And, of course, I have a cute bag to keep it all together!

This is one of the few bags that does not have a writing or pencil-paper activity in it...but that makes it easy when it's returned to do a quick check and make sure all of the items are there. No paper work to replace, so it's ready to go for the next person. Have a great day and thanks for checking in!