Five for Friday

Once again, I'm linking up with Doodles Bugs for a Five for Friday linky party.  

1.  Yay!  No school today!  (Don't get me wrong... I love kindergarten, but an extra day off now & then sure is nice.)  We had today off because it was one of our built-in snow days.  We only had one snow day - which was made up yesterday - so today was a day off!  The really nice thing about today was that it was really nice outside!  Not that I did any yard work or anything,  (Some of you may have read in earlier posts that I really dislike gardening:  too much dirt, too many weeds, far too many creepy crawlie critters, etc.)  I did, however, take advantage of the beautiful weather to try out my new running shoes.

2.  Yes, I now own some running shoes!  It wasn't really that long ago that I didn't own any athletic shoes of any sort.  When I taught preschool I subbed for the local elementary schools on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Once I got a call to fill in for a PE teacher, but had to turn down the opportunity because I didn't own gym shoes!  (I do, however, have a bunch of cute heels!)  Our school nurse has organized a 'couch to 5K" program for the staff.  Wish me luck!

3.  Here is my new Decomposing Dinos Number Sense game.  I made it to give my Kinders practice composing & decomposing numbers to 20 using five and ten frames.  We recently read If the Dinosaurs Came Back in our reading series, so I thought it would be fun to have a dinosaur game for our Math Station.  Of course, I had to give it a *clever* name.  (Feel free to groan!)

 PS  Be sure to have your kiddos roll a die on each turn or it will take forever to finish the game.  I forgot to mention this in the instructions.

4.  In addition to working on composing & decomposing numbers with five and ten frames, we spent time working with number bonds this week.  Here's a little freebie for you!

To help my Kinders understand "whole" we put students in Mrs. Teddy's class.  Part of them went to work with Mrs. L. and part of them went to work with Mrs. S.  This really happens - part of the kids leave to work with different people all throughout the day, but they are still included in our whole group.  We aren't done yet with the concept of part-part-whole, but they are understanding the concept!  What lil smarties I have!  :-)

5.  I just finished reading Bowled Over, a cute mystery in a new series.  The next two books I have in queue are Sleeping Arrangements  and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.  I'm not sure which to start.  I love both authors!  All three books are real books.  I have both the nook & Kindle apps on my ipad, and sometimes purchase books to "e-read."  But, my sister and I often trade books, so I am more inclined to select the real deal.  Which type of book do you prefer?

If the Dinosaurs Came Back

We recently read If the Dinosaurs Came Back by Bernard Most.  Like most Kinders, mine really enjoyed our "Dinosaur Week."  Our reading series featured this book, and we extended the theme with more dino activities.  We made these cute little dinosaurs for our classroom bulletin board.  I used my trusty Cricut to make the sign.

I used my newest Cricut cartridge, Create a Critter, to make this.

Volcano!  The kids gathered around me as I was making this.  

 

 Cute dinos.  It wasn't until I hung them that I realized that I should have given the kids another color for the bodies.  I love the fabric covering this bulletin board, but I will need to use something other than green for the projects that go onto it.  (I have covered all of my bulletin boards with inexpensive fabric from Walmart.  I like the duribility of fabric - staple holes disappear - and it doesn't fade like paper.)