A Leaf Center

Here's a picture of a Leaf Center that my boys and girls are working with in my room this week! We're making leaf rubbings.  We're observing and exploring leaves with magnifying glasses and measuring leaves with unifix cubes. We're also writing about the leaves and the leaf rubbings that we've done. Next week I'll add other non-standard measurement items for the boys and girls to use, such as paper clips and color tiles.  

The kiddies love working with leaves!  I love seeing them write and engage in math activities! 

Have fun in your centers this week!

It's Almost October! Can You BE-LEAF it?

This week in Room A-1 we're going to start our thematic unit on Leaves!  I know.  Can you BE-LEAF it?  We'll be reading lots of great fiction and non-fiction books about leaves.  Here's a little list of some the books I'm planning to use this week!

We're Going On A Leaf Hunt by Steve Metzger

Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert

Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert

Why Do Leaves Change Color?  by Betsy Maestro

I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves by Lucille Colandro

I Am A Leaf by Jean Marzollo

We're going to do a fall tree craftivity on Friday!  That will be lots of leafy fun!  We'll be doing lots of leaf exploration, leaf rubbings, leaf science experiments and we'll create some beautiful leaf people!

Last week I did begin working on pulling small groups for guided reading!  I think my boys and girls are almost ready because the kiddies are almost able to work in Centers by themselves.  It's been a little tricky because they were getting used to the idea of working in Centers, getting to know the routine and the way the class functions within our structure.  I'm happy to report that they are doing much better since Day 1.

Lots of things to do this week!  I hope you have a fun Monday!
Kimmie

I Just Gotta Tell Ya......

Mercy me!  It's been a few days since I've posted and I'm sorry about that!  Woooo-wheee.  It's been a busy start to this school year and lots and lots and lots of work.  Here are a few pictures of my classroom this year!  This is the Mailbox Spot and the Partner Reading Area. 

 

This is the view from about halfway into my room.  I use this long table for Cut and Paste Center, Create a Puppet Center, Make a Book Center and other centers that need table space to work.

 

 

This is the Calendar Corner and Whole Group Time Space.  I made that groovy Chicka Tree from the long cardboard tube that my rug came rolled up on!  I wrapped the tube in brown felt and added black marker lines to look like a trunk.  The leaves are laminated paper and the letters were precut with an adhesive backing.  The letters come off easily and I use them to teach letter identification and sight word recognition.

 

These are some of my Center shelves.  I also have another Center cabinet (in the second picture) that I use for Center activities.  You can see my Word Wall, Poetry Place and 123Math Wall. 

 

 

This is my work in progress shelf area!  It has all of my Math manipulatives and the white tubs hold my most frequently used books, materials and resources.  I have plans to add a fun, creative, colorful band/wrap around ribbon to each tub.  I do have that plan.  I do.  I just have to plan for the time to get it done!  LOL!

I hope you're having a great start to your school year!  I also hope that you're taking a little time for yourself everyday! 

Tomorrow's Friday! 
 Yahoo!
Kimmie!

One of the Most Fun Stores Around!

I just didn't know.  I saw others blogging about it but I wasn't sure.  Then, the new DOLLAR GENERAL opened in my neighborhood!  Now, I'm all about it!  What a great place to find fun, fantastic and affordable classroom stuff!  The games, the materials, the storage containers and all the other things that you can find there makes the trip worth your time! 

Look at all these great bargains that I picked up!

I'm thinking that I'll use this to track the increase in reading stamina this year!  I can also use it to show how many total minutes that we've read over the week or month!  Love it!

 

 Every year, I always buy a new set of ABC cards.  I just like to have a new set that is clean and cute and colorful!  These clothes clips are great for a sorting game or for building finger strength.  We can use them to pick up and sort foam letters or numbers.  The finger lights are very popular right now, so I know my kiddies are going to love them!

 

I was so excited to find those orange ice trays!  The label says that it's a flower, but we all know it's really a Chicka Chicka tree!  LOL!  I'm going to laminate some of the Bingo cards so that they'll last longer and then cut and laminate individual squares for the calling cards.  Those ocean stampers are going to be perfect to use during my Ocean Unit!  They'll be great story starters, begining and ending

letter activities or a middle vowel sound sorting game!  Lots of ideas keep swimming into my head!

These cute little clipboards were too sweet to resist!  I have some old clipboards like these, but they are plain white and I think it's time to update and add these cutie pie ones to my Centers!  I actually purchased 6 clipboards.  I always try to purchase Center materials in sets of 6 because then I'm sure I have enough for every kiddie to have their own item or material to work with at that time!

 

Wow!  What a fun and productive shopping trip today!  I'm getting excited to get back to school in a few weeks!  It will be here before I know it!

Have a great week!  You deserve it!
Kimmie!

One More Lucky Center Activity!

We ended our St. Patrick's Day week with a Lucky Charms graphing activity and a delicious green and frothy fizzy drink!  Have you ever done this with your boys and girls?  They loved this so much that I created another graph and bagged up another box of cereal so that they could do it by themselves during our 123Math Center time! 

 

I'm pretty sure that my kiddies loved the graphing just as much as they loved the snacking!  They couldn't wait to get the marshmallows organized and on the graph so that they could start munching on the cereal!

I have the kiddies put the cereal they don't eat back in the baggie it came in so that they can eat it after lunch or at home.  They can share the activity at home with their parents and tell all about the marshmallow graphing!  Charming!

 

Thanks for checking out our classroom and reading about our activities!

I appreciate you!

Kim

 

February Math Fact Fluency!

We're getting ready to bring this fun Math Center to Room A-1!  Snow is falling outside and my Flaky Fluency Math Game is going to be perfect! My Kindergarten kiddies are working to learn math fact from 0-5.  Practicing with fun and interesting materials makes the work exciting and enjoyable for all the kiddies!  I'm going to introduce it as a partner game during Centers, however it will work well for a small group or even a single player! Check it out on  www.tPt.com  
Thanks for visiting my blogspot!
Kim

Flaky Fluency - A Math Addition and Subtraction Game

Here's a little peek into Room A-1!

So I thought it would be fun to show you some of the Centers and other parts of my room!  I seem to spend so much time there that I feel like I should add a pull out couch!  Do they have those at Target?

This is a photo of where I store the Writer's Workshop writing folders, paper choices and underneath there are baskets of leveled books.  My boys and girls are gaining endurance and stamina in Writer's Workshop!  They are writing for a little bit longer each week!

 

 

My leveled book baskets hold the books that I've collected over the years! The girls and boys can select books from the leveled baskets after we work together in our Guided Reading groups. 



 



 

 

 

This is my Computer Center! There are lots of great computer games that the kiddies can play in class!  We love Starfall.com, PBS Kids and Literative.com!  Check out some of these great computer websites!

 

 Writing Center!  This week we're writing numbers to practice from 1-30!  The January calendar is the perfect way to practice!  I post a model of the calendar (not in this picture) to help the kiddies that  need support.  For some of friends to modify the activity, I will use a highlighter to write the numbers in advance, then they can trace the numbers that they need to practice.

 

These baskets of sorted books are ones that the boys and girls can pick from during different units throughout the year! They love the rocking chair!  This year, the kiddies are really good about sharing time in the rocking chair!  There are years when I need to add a sign up sheet for rocking time!

 

 

Job Chart!

 

 

I love our Poem of the Week and so do the kiddies in my class!  Here's the format I follow for the poem!

Monday:  Read and/or sing the poem!

Tuesday:  Read it and find the sight words in the poem!

Wednesday:  Read it and then discuss the meaning of the poem!

Thursday:  Read it and discuss the punctuation!

Friday: Read it, put a copy into our Poetry Binder, circle the sight words and draw a picture to illustrate it!

 
Word Wall!  Read it, read it, read it, read it! Play games with the words, make sentences, discuss and compare words, find rhyming words, identify syllables in words.....the list goes on and on!

Counting the days to the 100th Day of school!  We work on numbers and number words and here's a little peek at the 123Math Center!

 

 

 

 

Gingerbread Folks Invade A-1!

We're starting our Gingerbread Folks Unit this week!  We'll be doing Gingerbread stories, Gingerbread mini-books and Gingerbread Centers!  Our Gingerbread Unit contains word work, rhyming activities, work with syllables and other phonemic awareness activities as well as stories and center activities.

Today in A-1 we created an anchor chart to tell about -at chunk and the -at word family.
From there we moved into Center activities to practice the word work and trace and write the -at chunk words. 

Here's a glimpse of my Center Activities for this week!  Enjoy! 

Week of December 10th, 2012

Writing Table      123Math      Cut and Paste         December Calendar   Dot to Dot

Puzzles         -at Word Wheel     Number Writing     Color By Words     Computers

   

Activities & Objectives for Centers:

• Writing Table: at word family trace and write

• Color by Words: Sts color by picture codes to identify color words and color a hat in a hidden picture

• December Calendar

• Dot to Dot: Gingerbread Man, front to back, 2 dot to dots

• Word Wheel: at family cat word wheel

• Number Writing: Tricky Teens Gingerbread Number Writing

• Puzzles: animal easy puzzles, knobbed puzzles, oversized & regular puzzles, (Fine Motor, Problem Solving, & co-op play.)

• 123 Math Investigations: Math Story Books, Math Number Puzzles, Math Investigations Manipulatives and Games

• Cut and Paste: Ending Sounds

• Computers: Sts work on computers to practice literacy skills on Starfall.com or Literactive.com, Kids Math (Literacy & Science Skills, Sorting, Classification, Problem Solving, Mouse Practice)

Read Alouds: Gingerbread Man Stories

Word Family Phonemic Sound Chunk: -at Chunk