It's summer, why am I thinking about school! ;0)

We are out of school and what do we think about, sitting on a beach, sipping cool drinks, or soaking up the sun? No, we are thinking about what will be happening the next year at school! Every time I go into Mardels during the summer, I find myself looking at all the new decorations, posters, banners, borders, and games in the school section! I even found a lot of cute things 1/2 off recently!

I found out this week that we'll be expanding our K a little next year. To have room for a larger class of K kiddos, my aide is now going to be a team teacher with me and we are going to be using another room for some of our work. So, now I'm thinking of ideas for this other room! I've decided to call it "the learning corral". I'm thinking that I'll put some type of fence up to give it a corral feel. My classroom has a cowboy theme, so this will go great with that. I think another trip to a few of my favorite teacher stores will be in order soon! I'll post pics as soon as I start working on the new space. I'm hoping that there will be a door installed in the wall so we can have easy access to this new room. It will be a great new adventure!!!

Hope your summer days are not flying by too quickly! ;)

It's over...

Summer is here! Hope you are enjoying your time off. My K kids ended the year with a wonderful graduation program. We shared some of our favorite poems and nursery rhymes with family and friends! One song that is a favorite to sing at the end of the year is "Leaving Kindergarten". It is sung to the tune of the Beverly Hillbillies~ "Come and listen to a story 'bout what we did this year.
We've been working very hard, and we think it's clear.
We've learned a lot of stuff, and we've made some real good friends.
Now we're leaving Kindergarten but the learning doesn't end!
First Grade,
Bigger numbers,
Bigger words,
All day!!
That's all,
Bye Folks,
See ya later!!"

I hope everyone enjoys their time off! More updates soon!

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! ;)