Give away

Ladybug Teacher Files is having a giveaway for a premade blog template, check it out.

Word Wall linky party

Ms. M is having a linky party and I thought I would join in.

This is my favorite word wall I have ever had, I just love the bright colors and the size.

Summer to do list

I still have five days left of school but couldn't resist in joining Littlest Learners Blog linky party on my summer to do list.

1. Relax and enjoy time with my family. I will get to keep my grandson most of the summer and my granddaughter will be here for the month of July so they will keep me very busy. I also have my son who will turn 16 this summer, I have signed him up for three weeks of camp so I will be chauffeuring him back and forth. We also will be spending a lot of time in the pool to keep cool in these hot Texas summers.

2. I will be reading "Daily Five" and "Math Work Stations" to begin and see from there what else interests me.

3. I have recently found some great blogs on crafting and have already made my list of crafts I want to attempt.

4. I will be making things for my new classroom. (more on that later)

5. Exercising as much as possible.

6. I will be going to Frog Street Conference in July.

7. I have an extra bedroom and will be redoing it into a craft room/ teachers room. I am so tired of having my teacher stuff all over the house and already looked up how to make a big desk for everything to be in one room.

8. I will be taking all my classroom books and leveling them and putting stickers on all of them as to there level.

9. I of course will try to organize and declutter my house and some school supplies.

I am realizing this list is getting a bit long, hopefully I have the time.

Picnic 2010

The whole class before our picnic.

Loving the bubbles.

Ice cream at the end of a long fun day.

Lunch in the classroom.

Races

Bears

The children learned about all different types of bears this week. We started on Monday by graphing our gummy bears by color then a friend had to analyze the data of the friends graph.
On Wednesday we made a polar bear by sponge painting, I know they look more like teddy bear's but it's what I had. They had to cut the bear out and put it on a white piece of paper then paint around it. When I was modeling this for them I was asking how I could make a polar bear using green and brown paint they were stumped then surprised when I pulled back the paper to reveal that it was white. The looks on their faces were just too cute.

On Thursday they were able to bring their teddy bears and we made all different types of graphs.

On Thursday they wrote why their bear was special to them, some didn't have bears so they used mine and wrote what the bear meant to me. I then had them read their writing and tell everyone why the bear was special to them. I have been really working hard on having the children edit their writing and when they read it out loud they tend to find their own mistakes.





Thursday night the bears spent the night and the children had to write about what their bears were doing while they were away. The bears were found writing on the computer, reading books, playing teacher, doing the calendar, in the bathroom washing thier hands, and the best was the one hanging in net attached to the ceiling in the library.

Farm Unit

I just realized I didn't post any pictures of your farm unit. I spent a lot of time on this unit making workstations and math tubs and even made some of my own worksheets to match them and really wished I had gotten more pictures.

These are some of the charts we made together.




These are the math tubs. For the barn pictures they had to pick two barns and write subtraction stories on the worksheet I made. For the cows they had to pick two and make addition sentences. The had to write the amount of money on the pig cards and write the time for the barns.

Most of my ideas came from Kindergarten Hoppengings and Mrs. Lee. If you do not follow these ladies you really should they have great ideas and share with you for free. They have truly inspired me and I hope they can do the same for you.

50 Best Blogs Written by Kindergarten Teachers

WOW so cool to be featured in the "50 Best Blogs Written by Kindergarten Teachers"
online article. It feels great to know that someone actually reads my blog and that teachers are able to find helpful ideas they can use in their own class.

Thanks to Mrs. M and Donna from Kinderglynn for letting me know about the blog.

Eric Carle

During our ladybug unit I also read many other books by Eric Carle. We watched a video on how Mr. Carle makes his books and we spent two days making our own paintings. We used tissue paper and put a base color on and let it dry, next we put a second color on then we used different type of brushes to add the third color. After they were dry I put different pieces on every table and let the children cut and glue their own pictures.

Ladybugs

We started our ladybug unit this week, YEAH. I just love ladybugs and the Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle. We started out by using our schema to tell about ladybugs then I read a few books and they told me their new learning, we will use this all week.



We then labeled our ladybugs.


I read the Grouchy Ladybug in math then children made clocks. We then used the clocks to show the times of each animal as I read the story again.


Here is a picture of the folder's their making and the clock all colored.

Teacher Appreciation

I just made these cute pencil flowers for my teammates for teacher appreciation day. Thanks for the idea from WhipperBerry, she has a great site you should check it out.
I thought they were too cute I even made one for my mom for mothers day.