It's Apple Week!

It's Apple Week!! So this week we have spent time in reading, writing, science, and math to learn about apples! I actually took some pictures from this week so her goes! We started out with a KWL... the L (green apple) we're going on Friday!

KWL

On Monday, in Math we had an apple tasting of red, yellow, and green apples and we then made a pictograph of the apples we liked the best! On Tuesday, we used our pictograph to make a tally chart and a bar graph on our ELMO. I don't have a picture but they turned out really well! On Wednesday, in Math we had an apple product tasting. We graphed our results and then on Thursday turned the data into a tally chart and bar graph again!

We tasted Apple Sauce..

Apple Chips

Apple Cider

And apple butter!! This little one even decided
to eat it with his spoon instead of on the crackers!

As you can see I had some happy kinders!

And one of the girls went to the apple orchard and she brought us the cutest apple cupcakes!

Tomorrow we're going to make Apple Man and torn paper a's.
Idea from Pinterest!

Inside my school bag

I'm linking up with The Inspired Apple to see what's inside my school bag!

The evolution of my teacher bag over 10 years! It's funny how times change...

I began my teaching in 4th grade, I started with the textbook Lands End monogrammed bag (a gift from my parents for my undergraduate graduation). I only taught 4th grade for one year.

My second year I switched grades and moved to second grade and I used the black bag above and my Aunt gave me this enormous white monogrammed bag for Christmas. in second grade I used to carry all the kids work home to grade the big bag came in handy. This bag is now only used to carry large quantities of books I find at yard sales and book sales.

At some point over my six years in second grade I down sized to this "normal sized" tote.

Then three years ago I moved to kindergarten and I feel like I wised up. I stopped carrying home all of the kids work and decided well if it didn't fit in my bag I couldn't take it home and I had to get it done at school. So now I find myself taking home much smaller things and less of it! This bag lasted two years and as youc an see by then handle at the bottom lived a good life. I used it as my pool bag this summer and it may have found a second life with my sun block!

And now we're up to date with my most current bag my little brother bought for me for my birthday this summer! It's the same Vera Bradley: Vera Bag as the brown and green one above but it's new and amazing! I love this bag because it has six pockets inside to hold and organize everything!

Now the question is what's inside?

My Vera lunch bag. Do you see a theme?

My new turkey hat! Target Dollar Bins I'm so in love!!

Scholastic catalogs, new carpet seating chart, and Activity Sticks (Pinterest Inspired)

Grade book, lamination (for Rosie's Walk) and Gallon Size Bags to label for book clubs.

And last but not least my newly made sand paper letters to help some of my low kids with letter identification!

Also my Math Work Stations book is usually in my bag but I just realize I left it on my desk at school. :-) - Lindsey

Target Dollar Deals

I ran by Target tonight and found some cute things in the Dollar Deals section. My favorite purchase is the Turkey Hat for Thanksgiving! I can see the kids faces now, "Ms. W, Is that a turkey on your head?" "Turkey?? What are you talking about?" they had containers of 150 little pumpkins (table scatter) I'm thinking about putting letters on the bottom to make an upper lowercase matching. Hope everyone's start of the year has gone well!!



- Lindsey

A crazy first three weeks!

Wow it's been a crazy first 3 weeks!  Earthquake, Hurricane, Flooding, and my 23 munchkins have been running me into the ground! So I haven't taken many pictures so far this year because well I haven't had any time but I thought I'd share a few of our little projects I had on my phone.
During the first week we have our Kissing Hand project. After reading the story we spend time retelling the story as a class. We had the Hershey kiss pre-cut and gave the kids the 3 sequencing pictures and a sheet of foil.  This one wasn't the best but I snapped a picture for a friend so it's what I've got! I also use a red marker and draw a heart in all students hands and send them off with a Hershey kiss. I got lots of emails that night from parents who loved the heart and the kiss their child brought home. :-)

Last week we explored the alphabet and made our Chicka Chicka Boom Boom trees!  They turned out great! We gave the kids 5 pre-cut leaves and coconuts. The kids then used tear art to make the tree trunk from brown paper. They then found the letters in their name from an alphabet sheet and made their name going up the coconut tree.

This week our focus was on Bears so we read Corduroy and made our own bears. We gave the kids pre-cut bears and taught the kids how to use a tracer and trace the overalls. This was a great test to see who can trace and cut. Of course we had to glue a button on to make it Corduroy! I have a huge box of buttons we use for math at the start of the year to practice sorting and the kids love playing with them. But to top off the end of this week, one of my more difficult children today, found a button on the floor during our reading lesson and then proceeded to stick it up his nose. Awesome.  I'm ready for the weekend is anyone with me?

Teaching my kids to use glue

I survived the first day and realize that this group of kindergartners needs lots of practice cutting and instruction on how to use glue to start the year.  I know a few weeks back I ran across a gluing activity that got kids to make a dab instead of a lake on a picture of Chester raccoon from the Kissing Hand. I've always used the saying  "A Dab will do" with my kids but I'd love a fun way to practice it. Now here's the problem, I can't remember where I saw it these activities? Or even if they were downloadable activities. I saved the Top Secret Gluing Secrets from Kindergartenmonkeybusiness.blogspot.com but that's not quite what I was thinking of. Can anyone point me in the right direction or point me to a similar activity to teach my babies how to use glue?

Hurricane Irene: First Day Delayed!

Tree down in the community.

Hurricane Irene spent the weekend tearing up the east coast. Now on a positive note she did manage to delay my school an 6 other county schools from starting our first day because there was no power at school. Thankfully no one was badly injured in the DC area and seeing pictures of huge trees down it's amazing that really more people weren't hurt.  So it's now 9pm and we are the last school left without power in the county. I feel it's very ironic because we're the school that never closes early or for any reason (even when we have lost power for most of the day). So in theory I am starting tomorrow with my Kinders, I'll find out at 6 am and I'm excited to start with a 4- day week instead of a 5-day week thanks to mother nature! Happy first week to everyone in the blogging world!


- Lindsey

Classroom Pictures!

So I wanted to post a guided tour of my classroom before the first day tomorrow!

I have 23 little monkeys this year!

Looking across the room from my classroom door.

Looking in to the left from my door.

Looking across the room.

Green Center

Orange Center Area

Reading and Math Group Table. Word Wall Behind.

Our class library area.
The white book case and green shelf behind hold some of our free choice activities.

On the right is the red center table. In the corner is housekeeping.
On the left with blue chairs is our Blue center area.

Morning meeting and calendar area.

Our yellow center table and Math bulletin board.

Looking across the room from the windows.

Looking across the room from the windows.

Calendar Area

Thematic Book Stand & Clip Boards

Materials on my tables.

Our two computers.

Class stop light for behavior management. 

Math Vocab, Rotation, and Zone area.

Class Data Center

Pictures of all my years of babies!