100 Day Pizzas

Finally!  Here are the pizzas we made on 100th Day.  A wonderful parent volunteer helped my kiddos to make a pizza complete with 100 toppings.  Counting by tens, students added toppings to create a one of a kind pizza.  My amazing Teaching Assistant confirmed that each pizza had what the "menu" said it did, and then laminated them.  They are currently hanging in our hallway just outside our classroom door.  Soon, they will become a Math Center activity.  (Counting, comparing, tallying)  But, for now I really enjoy seeing them as I approach my room.

I love my Cricut!

Pizzas!

Each pizza has a page that tells what - and how many - toppings were used, the name of the pizza, and the chefs' names.  My students really enjoyed making these!

Skill Tubs

Skill Tubs are a much anticipated part of our 90 minute literacy block.  These tubs contain a variety of activities (many of them by Mailbox) that allow students to practice important skills with a partner or on their own.  I started using these last year in an attempt to utilize all of the wonderful activities and games I owned.  With a little training in how to work independently or with a partner my Kinders are able to use these tubs.  They love them, and are disappointed when something interrupts our schedule. 

Skills Partners pocket chart.  I use this chart to pair students for Skill Tubs and other partner work.  The duos change daily; the left side moves down, with the bottom name moving to the top, and the right side moves up, with the top name moving to the bottom.  This way the kids get a new partner each day, and by keeping the names in columns, I can keep students who can't/shouldn't work together apart.  The photos on the right side are of "Skill Spots" - spots around the room where students can go when finished with their work (or instead of their assigned Developmental Center if so desired).

I bought the wire storage unit and plastic dish tubs at Target.  Each Skill Tub holds 3 - 4 activities that students can do with a partner or alone.

Each tub is labelled with a photo and written instructions that guide student where to work.

A peek inside of one of our Skill Tubs.  This tub includes several activities from Mailbox, decodable readers from our reading series, and laminated shapes with sight words written on them.  (If something is laminated, you can write on it with a Sharpie marker.  Use rubbing alcohol to remove the ink.)

What would I do without Ziploc bags and clothespins?  I have found wooden clothespins to be a great way to keep things together.  My students are easily able to open and close them to attach bags of activity pieces to the correct work mat.

A word family activity from Mailbox.

I think this is from Carson Dellosa.

I put words from previous months into the Skill Tubs.  Students enjoy reading the seasonal words.  They also use these cards as a reference when writing.

Working on beginning sounds

Counting bugs and reading number words.

Shape sorting turkey activity from The Mailbox.

Skip Counting Freebie

Here is my first attempt to post a Freebie!  I hope it works.  Click on the link below to download this activity.   Please leave a comment if it doesn't (or if it does).  Enjoy!

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-Zg8ty5Slq9cnNBR0xsbXpUVEc2NEdiY2dXYVQtQQ

Literacy Stations for the Week of 3/5/12

I always like to get my stations materials ready before I leave school on Friday.  I think that by taking pictures of them I will be more organized - and will have a pictoral reference for up-coming years.  My awesome teaching partners and I plan our stations together during our Thursday Team Meetings.  We usually do the same activities (Sometimes we do a three week rotation on a particular skill, passing an activity along to one another.)  I can't say enough about my wonderful team!  I am lucky to work with two amazing teachers and a fantastic teaching assistant.  We have so much fun together!

Reading Station.  Students will use the Unifix cubes to spell the sight words that are written on the bags.  I am lucky to have enough letter cubes to spell all of the words in each bag.  (If you don't have Unifix cubes you can use letter tiles, magnetic letters, or even letters printed onto card stock.) I made the record sheet using Word so students can practice writing the words after spelling them with the cubes.  They will then read their list to a friend.

Literacy Station.  Students will use the oldy moldy worksheet (I think it's from the 1980s) to practice writing vowels, coloring, and cutting skills.  My Kinders love to wear hats, so I think they will be excited to make these in anticipation of St. Patrick's Day.

Writing Station.  We will use this activity from our Reading series's Work Station flip chart.  They will draw an umbrella as directed, but instead of simply writing U up over and under, they will draw a pictures of objects so their sentences are a little more interesting.

 

 Math Literacy Station.  We will continue to work with shapes with this "Math Mat" activity from Mailbox.  The green card has ideas for a variety of activites using the cards (there are six sets of the cards for small group use), including shape riddles.  The worksheet is a color coded coloring page that gives practice following directions as well as reading color words.

Cat in the Hat Craft Project

We made these cute cats today.  I think they turned out super cute! 

Don't these little guys look cute hanging on the clothesline?  Each one has his own personality!

I punched holes in the plates and inserted the pipe cleaners before passing the plates out to the kids.  This was a great listening and following directions activity. 

Birthday Glyphs

My Kinders had fun making these glyphs, and the older students in our hallway are enjoying trying to figure out what each one means.

Our latest hallway bulletin board.

How to read the glyphs.

This book has some fun glyphs that are "just right" for Kinders!  I like to keep the glyphs to put into an All About Me book for the students to take home at the end of the year.  (They glue their copy of the legend onto the back of their construction paper so their parents can figure out what each component means.)

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

We are getting ready for Dr. Seuss' birthday.  Today we made Cat in the Hat hats to wear tomorrow.  We will read lots of his books tomorrow and make a cute Cat in the Hat project.  I'll post pictures over the weekend.

We brainstormed -at family words and wrote them on our hats.