Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Valentine's Day is near!

Because I love Valentine's Day so much, I like to set up Valentine centers at the beginning of February. I have a housekeeping center in my room and I like to change it up every so often, so that the kids don't get bored. For the next few weeks, it is going to be a post office. The kids can write "letters" to each other and "mail" them out. Here is what it looks like:



In this center, they are sorting envelopes, writing letters to other class mates and acting out what would happen at a post office. 

I have also created some other activities for centers. Here are a few of them. The kids really enjoy these center games and I will probably keep them up from now until after Valentine's Day. 



We are also learning about dental health this week. The kids are each very eager to tell me about how many teeth they have lost and about their experiences at the dentist. Here is a chart that we made today as a class:
We discussed how some food are great to eat all of the time, and others should only be eaten sometimes, so that we can prevent cavities. Now the kids are working on making a model of teeth and they each get their own tooth brush to take home. I have shown them with my large model how to properly brush teeth and they use the toothbrush that they get to practice with this on their model.  
Tomorrow, we will practice flossing using this fantastic activity I found on pinterest!

(More on pinterest later)

Go check out some of my Valentine's activities at my teacher store located here.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Winter in Texas?

Teaching winter, well... all seasons for that matter, can be an interesting thing when you live in Texas. We try to explain to the students that winter means cold and snow, fall means the leaves change colors, etc., but in Texas, at least central Texas, this is not so. We **might** see snow once a year, but the northern states would call it a joke. We have a few flurries and the kids get so excited, everyone rushes outside and school is immediately called off. It never sticks to the ground. Oh, and our leaves stay green or turn brown but there's no in between. So, it's kind of difficult to teach these things when the kids really have no basis for background knowledge. Therefore, many Texans learn about seasons that never really exist for us.

Needless to say, we have been learning about winter and snow and this week we focused on penguins. This can be a really fun unit.

We watched clips on National Geographic Kids this week. If you haven't been on this website, it's great for young kids. There were many short video clips and pictures of all different kinds of penguins. Go check out this website. It can be great for any science unit in early childhood.

You may remember a couple of blogs ago, when I wrote about the 4-square graphic organizer. Here is a picture of how I put it into place with the penguins unit.


I begin by telling the kids that we are going to write about penguins today on our 4-square. By now, they are very familiar with this term. 
This year, we started introducing the terms noun and verb in kindergarten. We have had a lot of success with it, which came much to my surprise. 

We begin by teaching them that every sentence has a noun in it. We talk about all of the words that could be nouns.
Here are some noun posters that I have created for my classroom:


When we introduce a verb, we do a lot of acting out. "Can you act out the word 'throw'?", "Act out the word 'play'." Verbs are things that we DO. When we make a sentence we have to have a noun (person, place, or thing) and your noun has to be doing something, which is your verb. 

Anyone who has taught early childhood will know that a beginning writer will often write one word and tell you they wrote a sentence. Sometimes they will even add a period so that you really "know" it's a sentence. :)

I will often act out silly scenarios where I ask the students if it would make any sense if I went on the playground and told another student this sentence: "Dog." They often laugh and say, "Noooo! That wouldn't make sense!" Then I'll ask, "Oh, did I need to tell you what the dog did?" They'll all shout yes in unison. I'll do this many times with various nouns and then I'll ask them to give me a sentence about a dog that I could tell my friends. Students will come up with many different things. "The dog ran." "The dog ate a bone." "The dog licked me." etc. "Oh!" I'll exclaim, "It would make more sense if I told you what the dog was DOING, wouldn't it?"

When completing a 4-square, we always use blue for the noun and yellow for the verb. This is to distinguish to the students that these are two different kinds of words. Later on, in older grades, when they are adding in adjectives and adverbs, those kinds of words each have their own color as well. 

I began my lesson today by telling my students that we were going to write about penguins. I wrote the word "Penguins" in the middle of the 4-square. Then, as I was filling out each section, I would ask my students what my noun was. After they gave me the noun (Penguins), I would write it and have them come up with the verb, something that a penguin does. As you can see, they thought of many good things:

Penguins waddle.
Penguins play. 
Penguins slide.
Penguins eat fish and krill.

The 4-square graphic organizer has been great for my kindergarten classroom and it can be adapted all the way through elementary and probably further. 

I included my noun posters in my newest packet on TpT which you can purchase here:

Also, please go download my free winter math journals. And be on the lookout for my newest freebie which is coming soon, the Valentine fluency pack. 

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Sound Mapping

In my classroom, to teach the letters and sounds, we do something called sound mapping. It is a research-based way to teach the alphabet (letters/ sounds) and basic writing skills. 
Single Line Write & Wipe Board
I start each morning with 30 minutes of this. I have a class set of these whiteboards in my room from Lakeshore Learning. I LOVE them! They are perfect for the kids and just their size!

You can purchase these white boards here at Lakeshore:

This is the basic breakdown of how I teach sound mapping each day:

1.   Introduce new sound. Have students listen and try to repeat. Show children your mouth formation and talk about placement of teeth, tongue and lips. Use mirror if needed.
2.   Have students listen for the sound. Students will clap when they hear the sound. Say various alphabet sounds and the new sound mixed in. Remind students to look at your mouth formation to give them clues about the sound. This can also be done with words that begin with the sound.
3.   Show the students how to record the sound on the board. Make sure to focus on the starting point and then the direction of the correct formation. Have the students look at your letter on the board and trace it in the air with their pointer finger.
4.   Students will write the letter in the air, on the carpet, on each other’s backs, and on their hands. This is before the white boards come out. Ask the students many times while they are doing this what sound they are recording.
5.  Show the students several times on the board how to record the sound.
6.  Pass out white boards and have the students try to record the sound with markers. Walk around and assess the students, as they record the sound. Some students may need you to hold their hand with the marker and help them the first few times. Correct any errors you may see.
7.   After a few minutes of practice, erase the white board and tell the students that they now must do it from memory. Students will repeat the sound that they are recording as they record it on their white boards.
8.   Follow up with additional practice in small group.

I also created a poster for my classroom to teach basic writing skills. It's similar to CAPS which I'm sure many of you have heard of, but I felt it was more kinder-friendly. This year, my whole school has adopted the High Five Model and I'm working on a version for older grades as well!

I also have this hands-on poster that I made to go with it, that stays out all year long in my classroom. 
The pieces are velcro-ed on and as I introduce each piece of the high five, I add the new piece to the poster. I begin the year by stressing the "teacher" handwriting, which all goes back to the sound mapping. Sound mapping, after all, is creating a map in one's brain of the letter and the sound. If the students are using their "teacher" handwriting, they will create a better "map" in their brain. 

I have had great success with this in my classroom! I've been teaching letters and sounds this way for 3 years now and my students are becoming amazing writers!

Please go check out my new packets in my TpT store!








Go check out these and download my Winter Math Journal FREEBIE. 
All of these and more are located at my teacher store:



Friday, January 6, 2012

Versatile Blogger Award!

I was really excited when a fellow blogger, Sharon Dudley, gave me The Versatile Blogger award! You can view her blog here:
Teaching With Sight


I've only been blogging for a short time, but really love to share my ideas!

Here are the blog award rules:




1. Thank the person that nominated you with a link back to them.

2. Tell 7 things about yourself. (see below)

3. Pass this award on to 15 newly discovered blogs and let them know that they’ve received an award.

Seven things about myself:

1. I began college by majoring in art, but changed about halfway through to become a teacher. I am certified to teach art though!

2. I have a 10 month old!

3. I love to read, paint and do other crafty things.

4. My husband is a coach and coaches football, basketball and track, so he's VERY busy!

5. I've been teaching for 5 years.

6. I played clarinet in high school, and wish I still did!

7. I love teaching Kindergarten and would not want to teach any other grade!

I am now searching for 5 other blogs to give the award to. If you have a blog, link it to me, so I can take a look!

Back Again!

Well, amongst all of the holiday madness... I didn't find much time to post. The holiday flew by and I have to say, I had a great Christmas! It was our first Christmas with our little one, who is now TEN months old! I can't believe how this first year has flown by with him! 
Here are some pictures of his first Christmas:



My husband and I also celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary!
In my absence from blogging, we did many really fun things. 
If you have a Mac, like I do, and haven't used ComicLife, YOU NEED TO!
It's so fun, and can be used for all grades.
Here is an example of some that we did. The kids made a list of 4 things that they wanted for Christmas and we found clipart online to complete them. 



Here is the template that I used. 

I've been racking my brain, thinking about all of the ways that these can be done. We used the "four-square" template as the graphic organizer which is a new style of graphic organizer that my school has recently been pushing. It's really kinder-friendly and can be adapted for any grade level. 
For more information about the "four-square" writing method, I clicked here:

Check out some new stuff posted at my teacher store: