Sigh...

Where does the time go??  It is already Friday!!!  Not that I'm complaining but WOW!!  This week went by really fast!  We only have 15 more days of school!!!!

I have taken some pictures this week and we have been having so much fun learning about insects.  I will post them as soon as I get the energy to get them off my phone.  :)  I just wanted to let you know that I haven't  forgot about you all!!!  I hope everyone has a great weekend.  My daughter has her last dance competition tomorrow in Athens so we will be on the road all weekend!  Sigh...

Just had to share.  :)  My heart....

We have been very busy down in the Polka Dot Patch this last week!!! I hope you can follow this post - it is gonna be a little of this and a little of that... so here we go!!
INSECTS
Our insect unit is up and running and we are learning so much about our insect friends!  There was a delay in the arrival of our ladybugs but much to my surprise they were waiting for me when we got back from recess on Friday afternoon!!  I didn't tell the kids, so they will be very surprised to see this when they come into class on Monday!!

The ladybug larvae are in there...I promise!! :)

One of the activities we did this week allowed the kids to see how insects see using their compound eyes.

My dear friend across the hall found these glasses at a store and was nice enough to let us borrow them.  They each got a chance to look at a friend.  :)

They then had to draw what they saw when they looked through the glasses.  Deanna Jump has a great response sheet for this in her Insect Unit.  With all the fun, I forgot to snap a picture of one of them.  We also did some fun Ladybug addition!  I was inspired by Julie over at Mrs. Lee's Kindergarten and created an activity similar to the types of  activities she uses with her babies!!  Thanks Julie!  I love the way that these keep the kids accountable for their own work and it requires them to DO their OWN work and not copy what their neighbor is doing!


For this activity they had to find the matching colored ladybugs, color the ladybug on their paper to match, count the dots on each, write the number sentence and solve.  I ran the ladybug off on different colors of construction paper, added dots and that's it.  It was so easy to prepare I will definitely be doing more of these! If you haven't already, go check out Mrs. Lee's Kindergarten - you will not regret it!!  Get your copy of the Ladybug addition HERE.
EGG HUNT
I have a confession to make...Easter SNUCK up on me!  So much so that I really didn't do much with the whole egg/bunny thing - I can't believe it!!  My co-teacher is a book fanatic and I think she has a book for every holiday there is so she was my saving grace this week for at least talking with my children about eggs/bunnies etc... :)  She brought some bunny puppets with her on Friday and the kids were so cute with them.
I forget how much they enjoy puppets - they got so quiet when the bunnies "talked" to her - especially when they were talking about the kids - how nice they were sitting etc...  My team did manage to put together our annual Egg Hunt and the kids had BIG fun collecting, and the sorting their eggs!!

Waiting patiently for our para to get back from hiding the eggs!!

And they're off!!

See - I told you it was gonna be a little random - but they are so cute it was worth the read!!  Right?? :)  I hope you all have a wonderful Easter!  Monday will be here all to quickly!! :)

That's Nonsense!!! :)

This week we are starting our insect unit!  The kiddo's always love learning about these little creatures and little do they know that they will have live ladybugs to watch!!  I was hoping they would have come last week but ther is still no sign of them....sigh...  Maybe they will come tomorrow. :)

I will be practicing Nonsense Word Fluency this week in preparation for our last Dibels Benchmark.  Here is the activity I will be using.  

Enjoy!

Click HERE to get your own copy!!

Don't get SQUISHED!!! :)

A little Vowel Sound Sorting

Today I brought out the Flower Power Vowel Sort again for some extra practice.  My kids are really good at telling me ALL the sounds in a word, but when it come to isolating a specific sound, this is not so easy for them - so I thought a little practice on hearing the middle sound would be great!!  I used this in my small groups this week and it has worked out great!  Since we have done this before, they were familiar with how to play.

Here are the leaf pieces - I printed them on the back of some scrapbook paper/cardstock so they would have a cute design on the back.  :)

I literally opened the bag, laid out the materials and they took off.  This left me with some time so do some much needed conferencing!! :) I conferenced with one or two students and when I returned to the group to check on them they were ready for the response piece for this activity.  We did not complete the response sheet the first time I introduced this activity, so this was new for them.

Sorry for the bad picture... :)  I had my main lights off and just had lamp light in the room - I do this alot... it's a wonder my eyes aren't worse then they already are!! :)

I did this response sheet a few different ways to differentiate for my groups.  For my highest group, I told them that I wanted 4 words in each box and that they could use 1 of my pictures they sorted - the rest they had to come up with on their own - and then I had them pick a word from each box and use it in a sentence.  For my middle group, I gave them basically the same directions except they could use 2 of my words and they had to come up with 2 of their own (no sentences).  And for my lowest group - I only required 2 PICTURES in each box - one could be mine but 1 had to be their own - this was a little difficult for some, but others surprised me!! :)

I sometimes forget to go back and revisit some of the activities we have done in the past.  When I do bring something old back out, it is amazing to see how excited they get.  It is also fun to see their confidence go up and to see them be successful!!

CRCT Helpers

I don't know about your school, but this time of year is always a little stressful and crazy at our school.  It is that dreaded time of year... time for Standardized Testing!!

As a kindergarten teacher, I don't feel quite the stress that my colleagues do, but you can't help to get wound up in the craziness when you are around it!!  A few years ago we started something at our school to help include our youngest learners in this important time of year.

Each kindergarten class adopts a grade level during the test.  Each morning during the duration of the test, our kindergarteners deliver a special message to their adopted grade level about what good test takers do.  The older kids love seeing our smiling faces each day and hearing that last piece of advice before taking the test can't hurt either.  :)

This year we have a western theme throughout our school, so our darlings are deputies!!   Here is my posse I had with me today - The lead deputy is behind the camera :)

Here is an example of the messages we bring every morning.  The teachers post these in their classrooms or outside on their doors and they serve as a visual reminder for their students.

My kids always have such a good time helping their older friends in the school....and it can't hurt to start hearing and talking about good test taking habits right now - hopefully it will help them when they are ready to take the test next year... :)

 

It's about time!

YAY!!!!!!!!!!  My site is finally back to normal!!!!  Photobucket was conducting "maintenance" on my account where I hold ALL my images for this site!!!  

Thank you all soo much for your patience during this time!  

Teaching Blog Addict

It has been a very long week!!!!!!!!  Yes, it was Spring Break but do you know how hard it is to be home all week with NO internet access????  Yep, NONE!!  Ugh!  It is horrible!  I am having a love hate relationship with AT&T at this moment...leaning more towards hate at this moment!!!  I still don't have internet and I am currently hijacking my neighbors internet! SHHHHH.... don't tell them!! :)   I just couldn't stand it any longer.  Gosh... what did we do before we had the internet??????????  :)  

Anyway, while I have been disconnected, a wonderful new blog has popped up that I am so excited to be a part of!!!!!

This is a wonderful resource right at our fingertips!  I have already gotten "lost" a few time today!! :)  Happy reading!!!

Ladybugs Ladybugs!!

This time of year I always like to do the Butterfly life cycle with my kinders - where we get to see the whole thing in real life!!

I decided to change it up a little this year, so I was so excited when this little surprise was delivered to my room on Friday!!

I sent off for our new friends and they should be here a week after we get back from Spring Break!!  That will give us plenty of time to finish up our Dinosaur Unit and get ready for LADYBUGS!!!  In preparation for this fun unit, I made a new game for my TpT store.  This time of year I also like to teach addition and finding the pairs of 10.  This game will help you little ones practice finding those numbers that add up to 10!

Click HERE to get your copy!

More Ladybug Fun to come!!

Triceratops

My kids are having such a good time learning about Dinosaurs - especially the Triceratops!  Here are the cutest Triceratops' you have seen in a long time! Thanks Deanna Jump!!

I attached the writing they did about Triceratops under these cuties!! We did a rough draft first and then did the final copy on the Triceratops writing paper I posted last week.

Most of my children were able to complete this writing task independently but I do have a group that needed a little more support.  For them, I prepared sentences for them to cut and past, and then copy.

Up next....T. REX!  (After Spring Break!!)

Fun Friday

What does this look like to you???

A big mess...??? Yes (you can't see the floor) but NOPE!

If you said creativity in action... YES!! My kiddo's don't get near enough time to just be creative!  I try and keep any big scraps of paper that may be able to be used for something else - so, on Friday I pulled it down and set out scissors and glue and let them go to town.

I was so impressed with what they came up with I had to find a bulletin board to display them.  They were so proud of their creations.  The only thing I required of them to be able to display their creation was they had to write about it!  I never saw pencils move so fast!!! :)

"The earrings are so cute."

"My ant is looking for food."

I can't read this one but she is one of my better writers so I know it is cute.  :)

I will have to do this more often with them.  You can really see that they used some of the techniques I have taught them during our guided art lessons.  :)