What I changed to make my first week a success

Last week was probably the best first week of school I've ever had! My new friends are a sweet little group, and I think we're going to have a great year together!

I tweaked some things this year that helped me have first week success. I used to plan out every minute of the day with story time and coloring sheets and art projects and school tours. None of those things are bad, but I was constantly "on" and by the end of the day, I was exhausted! Plus, I had to endure these questions all day:

"Can I play with the playdough?"

"Can I play with the Legos?"

"Can I play on the computer?"

That's when I realized that all my kids really wanted to do was PLAY! So this year, I LET THEM!! I changed my lesson plans and let go of some of the cutesy activities (not all, but some). Instead, I put in a lot of free play. Each afternoon, I pulled out some super easy activities for my kids to do:

• unifix cubes
• links
• pattern blocks
• 3D blocks
• Legos
• playdough
• art (markers and paper)
• toys (old princesses and dinosaurs)
• computers

Let me back up...Before we started stations each day, we practiced our 4 station rules:

     1. Stay in your spot

     2. Use an inside voice

     3. Share the toys

     4. Work the whole time.

These are the same rules we use for math stations and reading stations, so now the students are already familiar with them.

Then, I split the kids into 5 groups of 4-5 students, and they had about 10-15 minutes to play at each station before we rotated. This was FABULOUS!!!! It gave them time to explore the materials in the classroom, get to know their classmates, and practice their station behavior. Plus, this was a time when all eyes weren't on me. I could breathe. I could double check how everyone was going home. I could give baseline tests. I could sit at a table and just enjoy my students.

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to use many of these same stations, but I'll replace one or two each week with more academic activities (handwriting, letter puzzles, spelling color words, rolling dice and counting...that kind of thing). This gradual approach will hopefully set us up for station success this year!

By the way, here are some cute videos we used this week to introduce station rules:

Inside voice...


Sharing...


Whether or not you've started back yet, I hope some of these ideas help you with your first weeks of school!

The Sunday Scoop! (8/16/15)

I believe this is my first time linking up with The Teaching Trio for the Sunday Scoop to share a little bit about my plans for the day. Here goes!

Five for Friday, June 26

Ahhh! This week has been the PERFECT combination of doing stuff and doing nothing!

 

I {HEART} summer break!!!!

 

 

Summer reading

 

I heard about these books on NPR and thought, "Asian billionaires...that sounds like a totally different world. Sure! Why not?" I never expected them to be so good! I'm talking, I have DEVOURED these books over the last week or so. 

 

Tip: Don't read the second book (China Rich Girlfriend) first. You won't be totally lost, but you'll wonder why the author doesn't stop to explain more of the characters. I may or may not know this from personal experiences (oops!)  =)

 

All people who live in or near Atlanta: YOU MUST GO TO THE HIGH MUSEUM!!!! They have a Mo Willems exhibit right now with all of his super lovable characters! I was in heaven.

 

 

My niece spent the night with me this week and we toiled at the pool. Obvious torture.

 

 

Look who's been married for 3 years?! My hubby and I celebrated at one of those super nice restaurant where you take a bite of food and have to resist the urge to close your eyes and moan because IT. IS. SO. GOOD!

 

 

 Next week is VBS week. We're going to Journey off the Map!

 

 

That's all for now. Hope you're all have a wonderful summer, too! Until next time!

 

Play in Kindergarten: We want our blocks back!!! (PLUS FREEBIES)

I have read a bunch of articles (like this one and this one) posted by wonderful kindergarten bloggers about the importance of bringing play back to kindergarten, and I want to say I whole-heartedly agree!

The funny thing about this whole controversy is I think everyone wants the same thing: kids who are independent problem solvers, persevering scholars, challenged and engaged learners, and kind human beings. Our jobs is to remind our lovely administrators and the powers-that-be that PLAY strengthens these characteristics, it doesn't diminish them.

So today, let's talk about blocks

Wooden blocks, Legos, pattern blocks...we have so many blocks in our classroom. How do blocks compliment rigor? Well...how do they not?!

• Blocks help students learn spatial reasoning (Which block would be best to put in that spot? Why does it fit the best?) as well as hand-eye coordination.
• Blocks bring out imaginative play where students tell their own stories using their block creations.
• Blocks give students practice working together and sharing.
• Blocks help students problem solve and figure out ways to make their creations bigger and better.
• Blocks are fun! Students will be engaged and associate school with a place that they want to be.

Blocks also teach content. Here in Georgia we have scientific habits of mind as part of our science standards. Every one of these standards can be taught through the use of blocks:

And that's just science (and not even the content science)! How else can we use blocks in the classroom???

Math:

• Building number sense (Show me 7 blocks. How many more do you need to get to 10?)
• Composing simple shapes to form larger shapes (What happens if I put these two triangles together?)
• Adding and subtracting (You have 4 blocks and I give you 3 more. How many do you have now?)
• Not to mention the sorting and measuring already mentioned above!)

Reading/Writing:

• Building letters out of blocks (click {HERE} for printable lego letter cards)
• Building a setting for a story (Where did this story take place? Let's build a model of it.)
• Retelling a story or nursery rhyme (Let's build Humpty Dumpty's wall and reenact the story.)
• Using vocabulary and oral language (Tell me about what you built.)
• Writing about our block creations

SS/Science (content standard):

• Building maps of towns and classrooms
• Building places for community helpers to work
• Showing gravity (Why does this block fall on the ground instead of floating to the ceiling? What will happen if we put this big block on top...why?)
• Showing motion (What can I do so this car rolls faster down the block?)

Oh my goodness...I'm sure these ideas only scrape the iceberg of block ideas. With a little creativity, we can use blocks to teach almost anything! Here are some freebies from TPT to go in your block station.

Click {HERE}



Click {HERE}

Click {HERE}



Click {HERE}

I hope these help bring blocks back into your classroom!!

 

How do you use blocks in your class???

Five for Friday, May 8: New Listening Station Ideas

Happy Friday! I don't know about you, but we are in the home stretch of the year...only 10 more days of school! WHAT!!??

 

We had a great week that I'll share via Five For Friday. As always, thanks a lot for hosting, Kacey!

 

 

Old iPods + lots of books on tapes = our great new listening station!

I've had this idea for a while...ever since my super bulky tape player kept taking up valuable classroom space (I'm talking 1980s technology here). I tried using the iPods once, but my kids couldn't find the right book. Then a brilliant blogger (I wish I could remember who so I could give them credit!) suggested numbering the books. 

And then numbering the books on iTunes. 

 

And then putting them in the spiffy pink basket with the extremely fancy label. 

 

My kids pick a book and scroll to that number on the iPod. Most got it pretty quickly. When they clean up, they put up the book in number order. Now it's not only a listening activity, but a great counting/ordering activity, too! 

We reviewed authors and illustrators this week. We wrote about our favorite animal and then illustrated with water colors.

  

 

The key to water color is outlining! Students draw their picture with a black crayon, and then fill in with the water colors (like coloring in a coloring book). Their paintings come out super cute!

Happy Mother's Day!!! Here was our super quick craft with a super sappy poem. Moms, get ready to cry!

Get the poem {HERE}

This week I tried GoNoodle for the first time. Can we say AMAZING!!! If you've never tried this, go sign up for a free account today and try it with your kids!! They will LOVE IT!

 

There are so many ways to get your kids up and moving. We haven't nearly done them all yet! If you use GoNoodle, what are you and your kid's favorite activities???

We celebrated my mom's birthday this week! Happy Birthday to the greatest mommy in the world!!!

 

Math Monday--Missing Addends and a FREEBIE!

This week I have been introducing missing addends to my kindergarten kiddos. I'd like to think I've done some sneaky teaching...you know, playing games and having fun so that students don't even realize they're learning! 

One of our games is called Piggy Bank. The object is to make 5 using 2 numbers. Each student gets a piggy bank and a stack of cards with 0-5 pennies on it. 

 

I flipped over a card...let's say it had 3 pennies. Then students tried to flip over a card with 2 pennies. When they did so, they "banked" the cards (put the cards on their piggy bank).

 

 

The kids LOVED it! And they started getting faster and faster at recognizing what number they needed to make 5. 

We also used these cards to play a matching game. Students turned over a card and then had to say what they needed to make 5 (and match it, of course!). 

 

Click {HERE} for this FREEBIE!

My para played a board game to make 5. Kids rolled the dice, but didn't move the number shown. Instead they moved the number needed to make 5. So if they rolled a 3, then they moved 2 spaces. If they rolled a 6, they had to move backwards a space. Whoa, right?! It was tricky at first, but they got the hang of it. I wish I had gotten some pictures!  

With all of our games, I don't think my kids even realized they've been learning this week. Bwahaha!

Plant Time!

Plants, plants, plants! This week has been all about plants in Room 104. We started with this schema chart (the cute design was stolen borrowed from the amazing Cara at First Grade Parade)

I love how schema charts show our learning is always
growing and changing!

 

If you haven't seen these schema charts yet, they are an awesome activity similar to KWL charts. We start a unit with kids telling their schema--what they think they know about the topic. I include everything the kids say, even if I know it isn't right. As we learn about the topic and find out some part of our schema is wrong, we move that post-it to the misconceptions area. Anything new that we learn goes in the new learning area.

 

We read Seed to Plant...a very kinder-friendly non-fiction book. We added our new learning to our schema chart. The next day we read Jack and the Beanstalk and compared the 2 types of books.

 

 

 

Beep, beep, beep! Email alert! Jack emailed us! He had a question about how to plant his magic beans and needed our help!

 

 

That prompted these "how-to" writings explaining how to plant a seed.

 

 

 

 

Then we used our writing to plant our own beans. The boys planted lima beans that had been soaked in water for a couple of hours and the girls planted dry lima beans. The kids unanimously predicted the wet beans would grow faster and taller. We're going to chart their growth over the next few weeks.

 

 

Today was cactus day. We read a few pages from a non-fiction book about desert plants and the kids talked about what they saw. Then we watched READING RAINBOW!!!! WHO DOESN'T LOVE READING RAINBOW?!?! Anyway, they have a VERY informative episode about the desert and the Saguaro cactus.

 

 

We then worked on retelling the main idea and details with this super-simple circle map.

 

 

The kiddos used this circle map to write information about the cactus. To add a little artsy-ness to it, we glued rice to the cactus to show its spines.

 

 

Here are some examples of the finished project. Cute, huh? (I found this template somewhere on the web for free, but now I can't find it again!)

 

Tomorrow is tree day and next week is fruits and veggies. I think that will tie in well with Earth Day next Wednesday.