Handprint pillow case and Mother's Day card

Here's our keepsake pillow case. ;) It took two days! My aide painted hands and then I got all the names on them. Whew! They turned out cute. ;) The Mother's Day card was another craft from the Mailbox big book of arts and crafts. Love that book!!

We are down to 10 days! Graduation is coming fast! Better get to work soon!

Counting down...

The end is near...

"M-A-Y, M-A-Y, This is the month we say goodbye!"

It is so hard to believe another year is almost over! Time sure flies when you are having fun! ;)

This month is another full month, what a surprise! LOL!

Beginning this week we are going to start a memory craft in K. Each child is bringing a white pillow case, and we are going to put everyone's handprints on it. What a fun keepsake! ;) I'll post pics after we make them. I found this idea in a giant book of mailbox magazine's arts and crafts.

Graduation is fast approaching for my K kiddos. We do a program with many poems and songs we've learned throughout the year. My kids have chosen some of their favorites to share with their families!

In science this month we are going to begin studying about dinosaurs. Our first project in our unit is going to be baby dinosaur footprints. I'll post pics after we make them. To make, the children will dip the side of their hands in paint and press it onto paper. Then you can use finger tips or q-tips to make three toes above it. Messy is always fun! ;) In my sand table, I'm going to put little dinosaur figures so they can have a "dino dig". Another project we are going to do this month is measure our feet and dinosaur feet around the room and in our hall. This is so we can see what dinosaur size was really like.

Hope you enjoy your ending days of this year! Happy May!

April

"Springtime blossoms in this month, A-P-R-I-L"

Wow, so many things have been happening in K lately. Our month started off, as usual, with a running start. This month we don't have one specific author of the month, we have a variey because we are studying nursery rhymes, fairy tales, and fractured tales. It's been fun reading the original stories and then reading stories that are different. It makes for lots of discussion. ;) One book that we read was "The Little Red Hen Makes A Pizza." To go along with this, we made pizzas. We used biscuit dough, pizza sauce, cheese, and pepperoni. We left off the pickled eggplant~:). It was a yummy and fun morning. One little boy said, "Miss, this is the best pizza I've ever had!"

If you are an "Okie", you know about '89er day! We celebrated on April 22nd and had tons of fun. We made butter, clothes pin dolls, learned to braid, heard a story in a log cabin, had a stick horse relay, and a relay to round up pigs in a pen. Our entire school got to join in the festivities. We even got to have some live animals visit us. "O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A, Oklahoma, Ok!!"

I can't believe this year is winding down so quickly! The K kids took their cap and gown pics just the other day. Our graduation ceremony is coming soon!

Wacky Wednesday!

What a wacky day it was! The kiddos dressed in some fun wacky clothes to celebrate Dr. Seuss's book Wacky Wednesday. Always fun to mix it up a little in the middle of the week! We also made some fun birds nests on our wacky day. I found some shredded brown paper at $ Tree and bought some malted milk ball robin's eggs. The teal construction paper is from Lakeshore. The kids put lots of glue down first to stick on the shredded paper. I love using Aleene's Tacky glue for projects! Then they glued the eggs to the paper. Last year I used yellow shredded paper, but I like the brown better.


One fun thing we did for wacky Wed. was switched up our schedule a little. They thought that was fun. Kindergarten students like the simplest things! ;)

Here's a March poem we've been learning this month.

March
"The March wind roars loudly,
Winter can't stay!
As sun warms the ground and branches sway.
Wind whispers this secret,
Springs not far away!"

We yell~ Winter can't stay and then we whisper springs not far away. Fun poem.

Enjoy the spring weather!

classroom

I don't know about other K teachers, but I've struggled some with classroom layout. This year, I moved into a new room. Last year my room had a curtain in it that divided the classroom into two parts and I was able to divide my students into two groups. This year we are all one big group! ;) I have figured out some ways to make it work, though!

At the beginning of the year, I still divided my 23 kids into two groups~ Cowboys and Ranchers. I always have them line up in two lines and they sat at different tables. We have a small library, so they go to two different library times too. I even started the year with my tables in two different areas of the room. I soon found that this wasn't the best idea. So, I moved the tables together. The only pics I have are some from a day that we spread out blankets and wore out p.j.s. ;)

Another important area is rug time. I have a large rug in front of my calendar. I found the rug at Hatch an early childhood company. It's really my favorite! I just love The Very Hungry Caterpillar! I also Love my calendar! I had a similar one when I taught first, but it had too many things for K kiddos. I found this one at Lakeshore and it has just enough. When I was in college, we did the Math Their Way calendar and this reminds me of that. We have a song for each month that I got from a book Count and Rhyme at Calendar Time. It teaches the kiddos how to spell each month through song. Really a must have!! I got it at an SDE conference through Crystal Books. It's by Donna VanderWeide. I've used SO many of her songs during calendar time! The other fun fact, they still sing them in 1st and use the months as spelling bonus words. Sing it you'll never forget it!! :)

My centers are spread out around the rug and on the other side of the room. I have two dramatic play centers, housekeeping and dress-up/puppets. At the beginning of the year, I only opened one at a time. Now they are both open. I have a writing center with a monthly journal, listening center with various books usually seasonal, blocks/legos/lincoln logs in the block center and we rotate what we use weekly, sand table/playdough, which we rotate use, table toys at work tables, reading center, and computer. I make a center page for the week in my lesson plans with what we'll be doing for that week. I make notes on the page so that I'll know how it worked from year to year. Sometimes things work and sometimes they don't.

As teachers we're always looking for new ideas that will work for us, so if you have any of your own, post it! ;)

It's starting to look like spring...

Our hall is beginning to look like spring! We did 3 leaf clovers in honor of St. Pat's Day and cupcake liner flowers with Easter grass. My K kids have been telling me all about the spring changes they are observing at home. Aren't we glad that the earth wakes up in spring?!

3 Leaf Clovers

We had a clover pattern that the kiddos traced on green cardstock.
They used the paint roller again to put on glitter green paint from Lakeshore. Love the glitter!! ;)

Cupcake Liner Flowers

I had to hunt for pastel liners! Finally found them in the wedding/party section at Walmart. I had a copy of the stems and leaves. Just glue the liners and Easter grass on. Last year I used paper grass, but found the slick grass at $ Tree. It worked too.

The picture of all the cute little sock feet is from Footloose and Fancy Free Friday! We had a lot of fun running around in our fun socks. ;) Just another nod to Dr. Seuss!


Happy spring!

Spring Cleaning

With Dr. Jean's help, I've found some great ways to organize papers and hang all my poems and songs!

To organize your pages and curriculum I do a days of the week drawer. My aide tears out the papers for the week and puts them in the drawer for the day we will do them. You can also put teaching tools in them. It is a great help, especially when you have a sub. ;)

Another sub idea, burn several daily songs on one c.d. Dr. Jean tells you to do that on her website. I have it marked sub c.d. and put it in my sub folder. That way they don't have to go through all my various c.d.s to find certain songs. This is also a good idea for each month. I started the year with an Aug./Sept. c.d. I had all the beginning of school songs together. You could do that with all your holiday and seasonal songs for the year. I have yet to do the spring songs, but plan on it this summer! ;)


If you are like me, you have LOTS of poems and songs on chart paper. Last year I had trouble finding a way to hang all these and organize them. Dr. Jean to the rescue again!! On her website she said to hang posters and charts from clothes hangers. I bought a large hook and I can hang all my charts for the month from it. After I'm done, I hang them in the closet with a wreath hanger. They stay nice and smooth and organized!!

I think I've mentioned my "clothes line" on the chalk board before, but here it is again. It's so great for drying pictures we've painted and other crafts. I found it at Lakeshore. I don't have tons of table top space for drying so this helps so much! It's also another good way to hang charts on the board for teaching.

I'm into saving space! When you have 22 K kids it's important! I found the wire curtain hanger on my memo board at IKEA. I use small clips to hang notes and updates for the parents outside my door. It's cute and useful!;)


Well, here are just a few of my organizational things! If you have any organizing ideas leave a comment!:)

Happy spring cleaning!!