One of my most favorite “themes” to teach at the beginning of the year is COLORS! Not necessarily color identification…although yes, that’s VERY important…but I love teaching color WORDS. I think it’s SO important for our kids to know these words early because they’re used SO much throughout the year and we see them in print ALL.THE.TIME. When I say “theme”, I’m more or less talking about the books I read and the hands on activities I include in my station work. Here are some of my most favorite color themed books to read during our unit on color words… Throughout our study on color words, I like to keep adding to … [Read more...] about Well…Color Me Happy! And a FREEBIE!
writing
What’s the Buzz?
SO. I know I’m not the only one. Who else has their countdown on? 38 days for us. Not that I’m keeping track. But yes…38 days. I can smell summer in the air. Speaking of summer, I started a new workout program(ish). I’ve been getting up every morning and working out here at the house before school starts for a while now. I was using a few different videos, but after being inspired by my beautiful best friend {you have GOT to read her story HERE! Her progress pictures are INSANE!!!} I decided to try something new! Last week I started Les Mills Pump. I am in LOVE. I … [Read more...] about What’s the Buzz?
Hey, Little Ant!
I’ve been slacking on remembering to bring my camera to school, so I keep forgetting to snap some pics of what we’ve been up to! We’ve been goin’ buggy these last couple of weeks and I just wanted to quickly share some of our writing “ant”ics :) We started our little insect unit learning about our favorite little picnic pests. We read a few little non-fiction books about ants and then followed it up with one of the cutest fiction stories, “Hey, Little Ant” by Phillip and Hannah Hoose. LOVE this book!! We did a little response to text writing craftivity to pull it all together. Y’all…these crack me RIGHT up!!!! … [Read more...] about Hey, Little Ant!
The Plants Dance
I don’t really have a “plants dance” to share with you, but the words rhymed and I’m all about “catchy”, so I went with it. Happy Sunday, friends! Can you even believe Easter is next week?! Where’d the time go?!?! I have NO idea, but I’m not complaining! This just means we’re a little closer to summer! Woot!! Speaking of Easter, I’m home today and my laminator *might* need to be replaced after all the use it’s been getting this weekend! HA! Here’s what I’m prepping…. What do you have in store for the week?!!? This past week, we learned ALL about plants!!!!! And I don’t want to … [Read more...] about The Plants Dance
Party Rockin’ In Kindergarten
Hands down, Kindergarten writing is my favorite. I love the way the kids stretch out their sounds, and the way they organize their thinking and then translate that to writing just kills me. This *might* be my favorite writing to date!! Haha!!! “I’m so sorry Mrs. Carroll. I’m sorry for party rockin’. Do you like George Strait?” #partyrockininkindergarten #neverlaughedsohard #georgestraitismyhero In other news, I don’t get the hashtag, but all the cool kids are doing it so I thought I’d join in :) ***************************************************** For those of y’all asking about my … [Read more...] about Party Rockin’ In Kindergarten
Rewind. Just a Little.
Who else thinks Valentine’s Day rivals the craziness of Halloween?!?! The chaos would explain my absence from the blog last week. I needed a little break! Here are a few things that kept us busy last week… Y’all might remember this little probability activity I did with my firsties a couple of years ago. My kinderbabies LOVED it!!! And they loved eating the candy afterward, too! Found this PRECIOUS Valentine idea from Polka Dots & Puppies and decided it would be the perfect little *sweet treat* for my kids this year. They were SO excited! I mean seriously…who doesn’t love bubbles?!?! … [Read more...] about Rewind. Just a Little.
Why I LOVE This Time of Year in Kindergarten {Writing}
I LOVE this time of year for SO many reasons, but one of my **favorite** things to reflect on this time of year is my kids’ writing and all the progress they’ve made since the beginning. I know that writing is an area I’d LOVE to improve…I hope that as long as I’m teaching, I’ll want to improve the way I’m doing things to make them better for the kids. I’ve taken bits and pieces of writing training I’ve had over the past 10 years and combined them altogether into how I teach writing today. In my classroom, we write EVERY.SINGLE.DAY. We write in response to our guided readers {this is during small group…4-5 kids at a … [Read more...] about Why I LOVE This Time of Year in Kindergarten {Writing}
Mailbox Math
Hi friends! Are y’all enjoying summer as much as I am?!?! I’m *trying* to savor every little second before I have to head back to set up my NEW classroom!! Eeeek! I think I’ve said it before, but I LOVE teaching math. I wasn’t always a fan, but over the last couple of years, it’s become one of my favorite things to teach. I like math even more when I can integrate literacy into it. During my 2nd year of teaching, I had this little mailbox in my classroom. Book characters would write to my kids asking them to help solve a problem. This was my little way to try and incorporate math & … [Read more...] about Mailbox Math
Writer’s Workshop Anchor Charts
I’ve always been a big fan of writing. I love to see the progress my kids make throughout the year…it’s always so remarkable!! No matter what stage they’re at when I get them, they always grow. Even a *little* growth is A LOT! I was excited to start Writer’s Workshop this week. Even though I love teaching writing, I always feel like this is an area where I can improve. I mapped out this week’s writing plans to a T and so far, we’re off to a great start! My littles were excited to get their draft books on Monday. I had some advanced writers, a few reluctant writers, and everything in … [Read more...] about Writer’s Workshop Anchor Charts
On A Roll
After reading this post, you *might* think I’m a little obsessed with dice activities :) Not true…however, my kids totally are!!! And I know that when they’re excited, I might as well milk it for all it’s worth! HA! One of my firsties told me today, “You know what’s weird?! I feel like I’m having a lot of fun, but really I’m learning!” Oops…guess the cat’s outta the bag ;) I’m LOVING this little activity…and so are the kids!! This activity focuses on ADJECTIVES. Now, I might be obsessed with that!! HA!! I prepared 7 envelopes. 6 envelopes contained 4-5 different adjectives. 1 envelope contained 12-15 different sentence strips. … [Read more...] about On A Roll
Tooth Fairies, Teeth, & Money/Coins
Have you ever wondered what the Tooth Fairy does with all those teeth?!?! We asked ourselves that same question and the kids came up with some pretty clever answers! First, we read a little book… And for a little reader’s response, the kids wrote about what they thought the tooth fairies did with their teeth! And they made some cute little scrapbook tooth fairies to go along with their writing. This is probably my favorite thing we’ve done to date! I LOVE how they turned out! The kids did pretty much ALL of the work themselves. I showed them an example, but told them they could make their fairies look … [Read more...] about Tooth Fairies, Teeth, & Money/Coins
Place Value, MLK, and Snowmen!
Here's a fun little place value activity I made for my kids to do in their math tubs last week. It’s a snowman place value spinner! Graphics courtesy of Digi Web Studio Last week we were working on place value with teen numbers, so that’s what this particular activity reinforces. The kids spin the spinner on the middle portion of the snowman and collect that amount of ones cubes...or whatever kind of counter you want! Then they spin the spinner on the bottom portion of the snowman and collect the same amount of ones cubes as well. Then they count their cubes and see if they can make a set of ten. I always tell them, “If you can … [Read more...] about Place Value, MLK, and Snowmen!
If Take A Mouse To The Movies
One of my favorite holiday books… And there’s SO much you can do with it! We had a little “If You Take A Mouse To The Movies” day the other day and the kids had so much fun!! Of course, we started out reading the book. After reading, we talked about cause & effect and made a diagram to show the chain of reaction. I also assigned each kiddo to a story event and had them illustrate it. Then we came together as a whole group and I had the kids work together to sequence the events on a giant filmstrip! I really wanted a text to self writing activity, so I gave them the prompt, “If you take me to the movies, I will ask you for some…”. … [Read more...] about If Take A Mouse To The Movies
If You Sailed On The Mayflower…
Today we celebrated “Mayflower Day”!! Okay…so I made that up…but I thought that sounded pretty fitting for our day today :) We started by reading a non-fiction book about the Mayflower. I can’t remember which one, but I checked it out from our school library and it was really good!! It was a great book to review Table of Contents also :) Each “chapter” was only a page or two long. After each page, we stopped to jot. During our stop to jot time, the kids gave me a few facts they learned from that chapter. We learned a lot of really cool facts!! Did you know that the water was so unsafe to drink that everyone on the Mayflower…children … [Read more...] about If You Sailed On The Mayflower…
Spidey Writing
We started out our spider themed week reading a few non-fiction books and filling out a KWL. Not gonna lie…I learned A LOT of things about spiders this week! It was amazing to hear my kids recalling facts of everything they had learned, too! They were SO into it! I set up a labeling activity for the kids to visit during transition time or when they were finished with their other station activities. They also labeled a spider template I found on abcteach.com. This little labeling activity includes a lot more words to use for labeling…not sure what happened to them?! At the end of the week, we talked … [Read more...] about Spidey Writing
The Very Busy Spider
I love starting the month of October learning about spiders. We read several non-fiction books that the kids adored, but they also LOVED this Eric Carle classic…The Very Busy Spider. After we read the story, I gave the kids a writing prompt to complete… “I am very busy____________________________________ in First Grade!” Their responses were cute and some of them were downright hilarious!! Apparently we spend our time running away from girls and coloring all day?! Hmmmm… I cut out a class set of large black circles and a class set of smaller white circles to fit on top of the black {for a spider body}. I also … [Read more...] about The Very Busy Spider
Draft Book Publishing
My kids write in their draft books almost every day during our Writer’s Workshop block. Every Tuesday, I have publishing moms that come in and take the kids one-by-one to help them publish one of their writing pieces into a little book they can keep in their book baskets to read at different times. Hopefully by the end of the year the kids will have quite a collection of published books to take home and read to their families. The kids look forward to Tuesday because they absolutely LOVE having their hard work published! The publishing basket contains pencils, markers, a stapler, plain white paper {cut}, construction paper … [Read more...] about Draft Book Publishing
