Heading Back to the World of K!

Here we are almost ready to head back to school! I've had a very busy summer this year!  I decided this was the summer to downsize all my junk!  The Mr. and I spent about a month working to get rid of more than about 35 years of stuff we've accumulated, saved and stored.  Almost 4 truckloads later, I'm beginning to think I could get rid of 4 more!  Where does all this stuff come from?
Oh yeah, not just me but also a couple of sweet girls!

The last few days I've been back to my classroom, trying to get things out, set up and ready to go.  Here's a little peek into the beginnings of my 2015-2016 classroom!

I'll be headed over to continue set up on Tuesday!  Hopefully the final touches will be put into place by Wednesday or Thursday! I'll share some additional photos as I go!

Have a great day!

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!

Teacher Week '13 - Wednesday Organizing!

 

Hey Y'all! 

It has been a busy week!  I'm still in the middle of rearranging organizing my classroom.  If you stopped by yesterday, you read about how I had gotten my room ready and then changed my mind and decided to twirl things around!  So now, I'm digging out!  I worked all day and I'll work all day tomorrow too!  Maybe, just maybe, I'll have it all put back together by tomorrow afternoon!

 

I've had a couple of things slow me down.  Two of the plastic supports for my wooden shelves broke apart and now I'll have to go to Home Depot or Lowe's on the way to school in the morning.  Uggg. 

 

 

This is a picture of leveled book shelves in my room.  I have a LOT of books!  There are lots of ways that you can organize leveled books but because we use the Guided Reading Letter Leveling, I have my books organized in that way.  

 

Scholastic.com has a great link to help level books!  Here's a link from their website that shows a comparison for the leveling system.

 

 

Scholastic Guided Reading Leveling Chart

 

 

And here's a helpful link to the Scholastic Book Wizard!

You can plug in a book and find out the reading level! It makes quick work of finding out the reading level of the books in the classroom!  I hope you love it as much as I do!

 

 

 

 

Scholastic Book Wizard

 

 

 Thanks to Blog Hoppin' for this fun Teacher Week Linky Party!

 Blog Hoppin'

 I hope you're having a great week!  Thanks for stopping by to check out the Wednesday Organizing for Instruction Post!

See you for tomorrow's post!
 Kimmie

Teacher Week '13! Tuesday Classroom Digs!



Thanks for stopping by to check out Tuesday Classroom Digs!

I'M NOT READY.

Why not?

We don't start school until Monday and I'm still working on it! Hard!

Today I decided to rearrange.  It was already arranged, but I decided to make some BIG changes!

I pulled out the long shelves and stacked them, one on top of the other.  I pulled out all the

Reading/Lang. Arts, Math and Science activities and reorganized them and then put them away. (Almost.)

So, I'll show you the mess I made!  And then next week I'll show you the finished room!

 

 

Here's how my room looked this morning!

 

One of my former Kindergarten kiddies and her friend stopped by to help me for a little while! 

So sweet!  I always appreciate a few extra hands to help!

 

So, tomorrow I'm working all day and also on Thursday!  I think I'll be able to get that room ready by Thursday!  That's my goal!

Wish me luck! 

 

 

Thanks for taking the time to read this post and thanks to Blog Hoppin' for putting it out there!  I'm always glad to have new friends follow my blog!
Take care and have a fun and productive week!

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!

Look What Else Is Hopping Around In Room A-1

Great news!  This week in Room A-1 we're learning about frogs, toads and tadpoles!  We still have our sweet little chicks, but we're adding these to the mix of animals in our classroom!

Aren't these just so beautiful?  They are, it's true!!  Thanks to Mr. S. at the High School for sending them over to us!  The kiddies are already so excited to see these!  If they start croaking in the room, I'll have to figure out a way to keep the kiddies on track and try to help them to not be distracted by them!  Any suggestions?


We will follow the frogs and our bullfrog tadpoles so that they kiddies can learn about and enjoy these sweet little frogs!

Here's a picture of our other fishy friend, Ernest Ray, the Beta fish.  He's pretty quiet, just likes to go along swimmingly. 

                                                               Ernest Ray, our fish

Spring is a busy time in our Kindergarten classroom!  Have a great week in yours!
Thanks for visiting!
Kim

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!

 

 

 

 

New Adventure!

It's time to explore blogging!  Watch for upcoming posts all about our Kindergarten world in Room A-1!