Hooray for the 100th Day!

What a lot of fun on the 100th day of kindergarten!

       Instead of making a collection of 100 items this year, we used Mrs. Miner's idea of making Superhero capes for the kids to decorate with 100 stickers. They were so excited to show them off!

    What can you make with 100 Legos?

       Or 100 blocks?

     Some were really good at this 100 piece puzzle. ( I brought it back from Germany in 1989.)

       We drew "I could eat 100..."  and "If I had $100, I would..."

One wrote, "if I had $100 I would buy chocolate for Mrs. Austin."

    She drew and labeled "Friends for 100 Days"

        We read lots of books about the 100th day.

       Searching the room for 100 hidden chocolate kisses was very fun.  We found all but one.

      Building with 100 red Solo cups was a very popular activity.

       It was great to have volunteers to help make 100 bead necklaces

       And help write 100 thankful hearts -- everyone wrote "mom" on the first one. 

   

      This mom helped them make a 100 piece snack, thanks to lots of donations from families.

       These kids were busy making 100th Day hats, thanks to Mrs. Austin for doing this!

     What a super day-- and now we only have 80 days left to get ready for first grade.

We ran out of time to make the 100 pancakes after reading "The Wolf's Chicken Stew" so we will do that tomorrow. It has been a nice change of pace, but back to work now -- more progress monitoring and assessments to do.

Awards and Tears

       Report cards went home today, and it is time for the quarterly awards.  We used to have a big assembly, inviting parents, and called the award-winners to the front to receive their new pencil and a coupon for free ice cream or whatever local businesses donated.  Then it was changed to the classroom -- the counselor brought the awards to the room and gave them out.  But today, she brought all the coupons and shiny new pencils to me and asked me to just put them in their planners to go home with no ceremony at all -- she said she just couldn't take the tears anymore. In the past, we have often had kids crying because they didn't get an award -- and I understand that she wanted to avoid that.  But I thought it would be a good experience for them, and decided to take a chance on the tears.  So I explained what the awards were, and then asked them -- "Who do you think is the best reader?  Who knows the most words?" That was easy -- Seth knows more words than anyone, and they had no problem with that.  Then I asked, "Who is really good at math?  Who always knows the answers?"  They knew that, too. Michael is always quick at raising his hand with answers to math questions, so he got the math award. As I gave out awards for writing, conduct, respect, responsibility, and good judgment, there were no tears because even a five year old knows which kids deserve the awards.  And I told them that there will be more awards at the end of the next grading period, and everyone will have a chance.  If you try hard to follow the rules and practice your words and work on improving your writing, then you can get the awards next time.  They all accepted that and we had no tears.  Sometime during the year I try to make sure everyone is recognized for something they have accomplished, but if everyone gets something every time, it is meaningless.
        As a mom, I was pleased when my kids got certificates for "Good Citizenship" or whatever, but when my little ADHD son was in kindergarten, he got an award for "Most Improved." I will have to admit it -- that really annoyed me.  I thought -- "You can't think of one thing special about my boy except he is not as bad as he used to be? What about "Most Creative" or "Most Curious" or "Best Builder"--- SOMETHING?? So, you will never see me give a "Most Improved" certificate, because I have been the mom of that child.  The child who never got in the treasure box because he interrupted or played with his yogurt or wouldn't stay in his seat --  the child who got detention because he lost his homework or stuck a grape up his nose.  The one who left the memory stick in the computer at school when all his semester work was on it and due the next day. The one who changed majors and colleges 3 times.  The one who totally drove his teachers and his parents CRAZY!  But, you know what?  He made the Dean's List last semester and is (finally) about to finish college. So when I have these kids who are about to drive me over the edge, and parents who are tired of getting time-out notes, I understand.  And I want to say,  "There is hope -- don't ever give up!"  When my boy gets that college diploma, I want to say -- "See, I knew he could do it!!"(as I do the dance of joy!!)
   

Snow Day!

       What a crazy morning!  We started out normally, with morning message and Letterland phonics, then off to gym class. We have been studying about penguins this week, so I continued  the study by reading 2 books about penguins and letting them tell which was fiction or non-fiction, and how they could tell.  Then the principal walked in to tell me that we would let school out at 12:30 because of the snow.  I looked out the window and could barely see some tiny white flakes.  So -- flexibility is my specialty -- so I decided this would be a good time to use all those toilet paler rolls my friends donated. So my assistant -- always ready for my change in plans -- quickly assembled the materials we needed to turn the rolls into cute little penguins. She worked with about 6 at a time while I helped the others work on a writing assignment about penguins.
      The second group was working on their penguins when we got an announcement to go eat lunch because school would be dismissed in 15 minutes.  FIFTEEN MINUTES?  We had 15 minutes to finish gluing, pack up book bags, eat lunch, put on coats, and get to the bus. The snow  was coming down faster than expected and sticking to the roads, so everyone was in a big rush to get to the safety  of home. My kids have never moved that fast before -- usually it takes about 30 minutes just to eat lunch.
        Anyway, we made it. Everyone got out and there actually was some snow on my car, so I guess it was good that we sent them all home.

I think I will make a pot of chili and watch the birds at the feeder. The snow is still pouring down and I have no place to go, so LET IT SNOW!

Teaching "How-to" Writing in Kindergarten

  Writing is one of my favorite subjects to teach! And I am always on the lookout for the best way to teach my little ones to write. I have probably bought or borrowed at least 10 different books on teaching writing in kindergarten. All had good ideas, but I have finally found the one I love -- and it is written by Deanna Jump and Deedee Wills, two of my absolute favorites who have provided me with so many fabulous teaching materials. But this " Writing Through the Year" is exactly what I needed.  Right now, we are using the "How-to" unit.

  Of course, I never follow the plans exactly, so you will not find these topics in the unit, but their directions give me a plan that I can use with my own topics. Here are a couple examples.

      This was the first " how-to" we did.  I did a guided drawing activity, then the kids drew a lion. and wrote the steps.

      The next day I was sick, so I asked my assistant to use the " how-to" plan and just think of something to write about.  Since we had apples for a snack, she had them to write "How to Eat an Apple."

      Of course, every  child's paper does not look like this.  Many are still learning about capitals, spaces and all the mechanics of writing.  But the format makes it easier for the children, and I am sending a "How-to" writing assignment for homework next week.

       The kids seem to enjoy it, too -- one little boy came in this week asking, "Can we do that writing like we did yesterday?" That is what makes it worth every penny!! If it inspires my students to want to write, then I know I am on the right track.

Getting Lean in 2014

                                                                Blog Hoppin

 

 

       A linky about fitness is not one that I feel very comfortable about joining. I mean, if I resolve AGAIN  to eat right and exercise regularly -- and it is written down -- and I give up before February and start eating corn dogs and drinking sweet tea in the school lunchroom again -- it will be pretty embarrassing.  But I really, REALLY want to fit back into some of my favorite clothes. And I want to be able to walk up my driveway without gasping for breath. So maybe if I put it in writing, it will be more of an incentive to just do it this year.

       I got this cool little gadget called a fit bit for Christmas.  It's sort of an electronic pedometer that records my steps and it is linked to the computer so I can see how I am doing.  The goal is 10000 steps a day! and I haven't come close yet. But it also can magically tell when I am active -- like exercising -- and records how many minutes I was jogging or walking. How does it do that?  It makes a graph to show my progress -- I love graphs -- and I'd sure like to see the graphs show progress. It also keeps track of the food I eat if I am honest and enter it, then tells me how many calories I have left and how many pounds I still need to lose to get to my goal.

       Another tool to help is the "couch 2 5k" app on my Kindle.  I downloaded the app last year, but didn't really get very far.  Not that I think I am going to run a 5 k -- but it is a good way to exercise when the voice says -- "now start walking" or " you are halfway" and I can listen to my playlist at the same time. I needed some really inspiring songs to keep me going, and I found some great ones.
"Every Breath You Take -- Every move you make -- I'll be watching you" is an oldie that inspires me to keep moving.
"Strong Enough" by Matthew West says "I give up too easily...I'm asking You to be strong enough for both of us."
"The Motions" also by Matthew West says "I don't want to spend my whole life asking, 'What if I had given everything?'"
"Dynamite" is a fun song I first heard at Zumba class-- another attempt at fitness that I dropped after a few weeks.  My body just will not move like that!
"Your Grace is Enough" by Chris Tomlin says "You use the weak" (that's me!) and "Great is Your faithfulness "
"Good Morning" by Mandisa says, "You give me strength" and "I can feel the hope that's rising up in me!"
     So, here it is.  I have the tools, I know what to do -- and I have lots of  teacher bloggers who are also blogging about fitness.  And now I have people to say "Put down that corn dog!" if any of my co-workers read this. (But Papa John's pizza day doesn't count -- I promise to make up for it with less supper or more exercise)

The Hat

      One of my favorite winter books is "The Hat" by Jan Brett.  And the lesson we did this week was great.  I love introducing the Jan Brett books to my kinders-- there are so many details to learn from and her illustrations are wonderful.

       The reason I chose this book was because of a super gift my class receives every year from a precious retired teacher.  Mrs. Carney, with help this year from Susan Beuclen, knits beautiful warm hats for each of my children and I let each of them choose the one they wanted.  She has been doing this for about 15 years, and has givens hundreds of these hats to the kindergarten children at Valmead.  Her hands are not so strong these days, so she had a helper this year, and we appreciate all she does for our children.

      We did a little math lesson as we counted and arranged them in groups of five. 

          The boys and girls loved their new hats.

          My assistant brought her knitting needles and demonstrated knitting, since the book was all about knitted winter scarves, socks, mittens, and hats.

           I found a free writing paper on Teachers Pay Teachers that was a perfect ending to this lesson.  The kids colored the hat in the picture just like the hat they had chosen, then they wrote a thank you and a description of their hat.  We bound these into a book to give to Mrs. Carney.

    

      I love my hat.

It will keep my head warm.

Thank you.

It looks warm.

    This is the best writing I have seen from some of my kinders this year.  I look forward to lots more growth in the second half of the year.  

     What a great Christmas gift!!

The (Christmas) Show Must Go On

 This was the night of the school Christmas program, and my kindergarten class performed "The Tale of the Gingerbread Man," a play written by Heidi Butkus of Heidisongs. I had been tempted to try it for a couple years, but this was the year I finally was brave enough to actually attempt it.
  I had lots of help with props and costumes.  My assistant painted the bridge and we propped it in front of steps borrowed from 2 other classrooms -- it was perfect.  She also made the fox tail and ears and sewed buttons and trim on the gingerbread man costume.

  My talented husband made the stove from a cardboard box.  He was sick all weekend, but pulled himself together enough to deliver it to the school this afternoon. It was way better than I expected, and I am blessed to have a husband with skills!

       We had to re-write the part with bears, since we had no costumes.  I did have a great duck costume, so our play had ducks instead of bears. One of the ducks didn't come, so we made a last minute substitution. We also had to replace the little boy, and both did a good job considering they had never practiced the role.  It was a little risky, but worked out okay. The teacher who was going to narrate the story had a sick child, so her assistant filled in and did a wonderful job.  One farmer went home from school today with an earache, and another farmer threw up at lunch so we had to have 2 replacement farmers today, as well. Can you say FLEXIBLE?

       I can't say enough about the kids, though. They learned about 7 songs with actions in less than 3 weeks, and the soloists and small groups of singers were great.  But the best example of " The show must go on..." was the fox.  She was just about to sing the last verse of her solo when she suddenly got a look of extreme distress on her face.  She had to "go" - and it was too late. She wet her pants right there. But after a brief almost panic, she looked at me and sang the last part without missing a note. Luckily, she was wearing 2 pairs of pants, so there was no puddle. I couldn't believe she was able to make a strong finish after all that, but I was so proud of her!

     I am sorry I didn't get a good picture, but I was directing and there was just no time.  But I will not soon forget this night.

      I am so grateful for the encouragement from Heidi to put on her play. It was perfect for kindergarten age children.  The songs were easy to learn, and every rehearsal was fun for the kids. And the audience loved it!

      Now I can concentrate on getting through this last crazy full moon week of school before Christmas.  We still have ornaments to make, assessments to complete, and too much to do. But I loved doing this, and appreciate all the support from co-workers, family, and parents of my kindergarten kids, and Heidisongs! It was definitely a group effort, and a joy! Thank you, thank you, and to all a good night!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from Growing My Kindergarten! We love when Santa comes to visit!

Meeting Deanna Jump!

      I got up at 5:30 this morning and drove in the rain for 2 hours to go to the North Carolina Kindergarten Teachers Conference in Greensboro. And it was so worth it! One of the superstars of Teachers Pay Teachers, Deanna Jump, was one of the presenters, and I signed up for all 4 of her classes. I sat the front row, taking notes and snapping pictures with my IPad -- what a wonderful invention! I took pictures of everything Deanna brought to share with us.  She was so generous with her creative ideas.  -- and I was especially excited when she drew my name out for a free download from her store!  I love everything she has ever made to sell or give away, so I don't know how I will ever choose.

                            Mrs. Deanna Jump, kindergarten teacher extraordinaire 

     Besides all the ideas about reading, math, science, social studies, and the common core, I needed to hear her presentation about organization. This is my 10th year teaching kindergarten at Valmead, and I have collected so much junk that there is hardly an inch of counter or cabinet space anywhere. Last week I sent out an email request for toilet paper tubes, and my generous friends have sent bags full. I even got a box of tubes in the mail today!

           And then here's this slide in Deanna's talk... 

        Obviously I don't need to waste space on these items that "can easily be replaced."

I am determined to start getting rid of the things I don't need. And when we finish using all the toilet paper tubes we need for Christmas projects, I am going to TRY to turn loose of them instead of keeping them until next Christmas!

          Meeting Deanna Jump was one of the highlights of this year.  She was so kind and patient and enthusiastic -- no one would guess that she had made a MILLION dollars selling teaching resources. But it is no wonder her creations are always top sellers -- my brain -- and iPad -- are full of her ideas.

I know what I want for Christmas-- gift cards for TPT and Amazon!!

A Visit from Mrs. Claus

          It's been a busy week, full of gingerbread stories and Christmas crafts and practicing for our first ever Christmas play, "The Gingerbread Man."  The play was written by Heidi Butkus, a kindergarten teacher, and it is so much fun for the kids.  I don't know how they will do when they are actually on stage, but they are really getting in to the songs and learning quickly.
          We had a surprise visitor today -- Mrs. Santa Claus paid a visit to our class.

           It was so exciting -- like we need any more excitement at this time of year -- and I just wanted to share a few pictures.  I asked the kids to raise their hands if they had been good -- all but 2 hands went up.  I appreciated their honesty, but I wondered if they were worried at all that they might just get a lump of coal...

 

    And a picture with my assistant, "Mrs. Awesome"-- a well-deserved name given to her by one of our former students.  

            Thank you, Mrs. Claus ( when not busy taking care of Santa and his elves, she also serves on our school board.). 

           

Thanks for Thanksgiving

      We just got the call that we have a 3 hour delay tomorrow because of expected ice in the morning.  
The kids have been excited this week -- kind of like the day before Christmas or the day after Halloween --  and personally I am ready for a break.  So, a short day tomorrow is good news.  Luckily we kind of expected the bad weather, so we did most of our Thanksgiving activities already.

     I love the little Pilgrim hats!

         Then on Friday we made turkeys with Oreos and candy corn.  A little messy, but yummy.

      Today we made turkey hats.  I saw these on Pinterest -- I love Pinterest -- and they turned out so cute! 

        

         At the end of the day -- out of time and trying to do too much at once -- I asked them to write "I am thankful for my mom -- or grandma -- or family --".  After the children were all gone and the room was quiet, look what I found stuck on the board!  (I think "tich" means teacher.)  Aww -- how sweet!

And he even started with a capital and ended with a big fat period!  

   I am thankful for all the hugs I get from this class, all the progress they have made -- and especially for enough energy to keep up with them.  And, thank you, God, that the Pilgrims had that feast in November so we can have a break before we jump in to the Christmas season!

Lemons? Make Lemonade!

  Our school participates in a Fruit and Vegetable program, and the children get a nutritious snack 3 days a week. Some have been a big hit -- like grapes and watermelon. Some have been a little strange -- jicama was a mystery to all of us. And the pomegranate was the biggest mess I have ever seen.  We had purple stickiness EVERYWHERE!  But today was the craziest.  They gave us a bag of lemon halves to feed the children. Lemons.  Who eats a lemon for a snack? So, not one to waste food -- I made a quick trip to Wal-mart and bought a container of sugar.  I gave them a cup and half a lemon, and they squeezed out the juice. Then I gave them a spoonful of sugar to stir in before filling the  cup with water. It was great fun--and pretty messy -- and they enjoyed drinking the lemonade. Most thought lemonade came from a powder, so fresh-squeezed lemonade was a new experience.

                                                            NEEDS MORE SUGAR!

                              THUMBS UP FOR FRESH SQUEEZED LEMONADE!

  We started a new writing unit today -- "How-to Writng" by Deanna Jump.  It wasn't in the lesson plans, but we will be writing about how to make lemonade tomorrow.  So, the crazy snack I was complaining about turned out to be a great topic for writing.  I hope I will always try to make lemonade when life gives me lemons!

Sight Words. Part 2

   Last week I wrote about putting all my sight words on pocket charts after school on Friday.  On Monday morning, this is the scene when the kids came in the room.

     Five little boys, gathered around the pocket chart, finding their own current list and reading the words!  This is even better than I hoped -- they were drawn to it like a magnet.  Quite a few passed another list this week.  One of my boys is on the last set, and 2 more are competing to be the next to master all those words.  They were both on the same list, and when the first one passed his list on 

Friday, he did the happy dance around the room, singing, "I am ahead of you!"  The celebration didn't last too long, because the second boy passed, too, and he was singing and dancing around, too. We sang the "Teach Me How to Read" chant and I thought again how blessed I am to have the opportunity to teach kids how to read.

     We read "Owl Babies,"one of my favorite books last week and Mrs. "Awesome", my assistant helped the kids paint these owls and put up a new bulletin board -- so cute!

      We learned about Veterans Day on Friday with a visit from my own veteran, Mr. Spencer.  He was in the Army for 25 years and he was glad to come to our class.  I forgot to take a picture, but I think the children will remember now that we need to honor the brave men and women who have served our country in the military services.

Sight words

   In our county, kindergarteners are only required to know 30 sight words by the end of the year.  But every year I have children who learn well over 100 -- even 200 words. And the more words they know instantly, without trying to "sound out," the more fluently they will be reading . So this year I made sets of words on pretty cards and they learn the Yellow Words then the Green Words and so on. Today I had an idea -- I put the cards in rows on my pocket charts. Then I put name cards at the top of each row so I can see at a glance who is working on each list.  It will be a quicker way for me to assess their progress, but it will also be a way for them to see who they can ask to help them practice their words. The other advantage to this display is that they can easily see the words on their list to practice Word Work for Daily 5. They can use stamps or tiles or Wikki Stix or any of our Word Work supplies to practice spelling out their own words. I can also zip through them for a review with the whole group.

    Some of my boys are especially motivated to master each new list.  One comes in every morning saying, "Can I say my words?"  Another child has a sibling in a higher grade, and they are both working on the same words. I asked him if his brother knew the words. He shook his head no, and said,
" He gets yelled at, but I get candy."  No wonder he is motivated, but I feel sorry for the one who is having trouble keeping up. In our class we celebrate every time a child masters a new list. They get a certificate to take home and admiration from the teacher and class. I am eager to see how this moveable word wall will work.  I think it will be great for making sentences, too -- and easy to see where the cards go when it is time to replace them. 

      I'm expecting some really good readers this year!