I can’t believe the summer is over and we are ready to begin a
new school year! This is my fourth year teaching kindergarten. J I love my home away from home! Check it out!!!
LAST Day of Kindergarten!
I can’t believe we have reached the end of the school year! I am so
proud of each one of my babies for all of their hard work this year! Everything
about the end of the year is so bittersweet! We have spent 180 days together,
learning, laughing, and maybe even sharing a few tears! We have grown close and
have become a part of each other. I will always hold a special place in my
heart for your child! And next year I will hold it together when your baby
walks past my room to meet their new “favorite teacher”. I am a little sad,
mostly happy, feeling blessed to have the best job!
Kinder at the Zoo!
We love learning all about the Zoo! For the past two weeks we have
worked hard on our Zoo Animal Research Unit! This is one of my favorite units
to teach because the kiddos really love learning all about the different
animals! It is also a great way to integrate several science and social studies
standards! We started our unit by introducing seven different animals. I love to
use National Geographic kids to learn some fun/fast facts about each animal. Then
we charted facts for each animal. Each child picked one of the animals we
learned about and made an animal research report. The kids LOVED it! Every day
they were begging to work on their report. J I used several pages and ideas from Creekside
Teacher Tales! You can find the unit HERE!
101 Days Smarter!
HAPPY 101st DAY! I
cannot believe that it has actually been 101 days of school. This year will be
my third year teaching and I feel like each year goes faster and faster! My
class this year is too sweet--I mean I love love love my other groups I've had,
but this one is full of the sweetest babies ever! They are just a very
emotional lovey group! I just love them! We had so much fun on our 101st day.
Usually we celebrate the 100th day but this
year I decided this idea was too cute to pass up! I don't think I will ever go
back! We decided to have each child bring in a white tshirt and on our 101st
Day of School we did everything DALMATIAN! I found a 101st Day of
School Unit already made on TPT so I did not have to put in any extra prep. You
can find the unit I used HERE. Below I will share some tips for making the Dalmatian
tshirts! J
1. Send home a note for each child to bring in
a PLAIN white tshirt. This will save you from having to buy 20+ tshirts
yourself. J
2. Buy sponges from the dollar tree! I bought
some sponges and cut them into different size circles. Make sure you have paper
plates and black paint!
3. I put down large sheets of butcher paper on
the table and laid the tshirts right down! We stamped 10 spots on their shirt
at a time. We discussed counting to ten quietly to ourselves while we stamped.
Although, in kindergarten you know we get distracted easily—so some of our friends lost count a few
times! HA!
4. We continued to stamp by tens until we got
to 100 and then stamped 1 more!
5. After we were finished stamping, we hung
our shirts to dry. I brought in 21 hangers and we used them to hang on our wire
in my classroom. If you don’t have a wire, you may want to do one side of the
shirt at a time!
The shirts took a
while to dry depending on how much paint the kiddo used on their shirt. I am
thinking we may prep our shirts the day before or a few days before our 101st
day so we can wear them ALL day at school instead of having to wait for them to
dry.
We had so much fun
on our 101st Day of Kindergarten! Enjoy our hard work!
I LOVE literacy!
I love teaching literacy! If you are a teacher needing
some AMAZING ideas to spruce up your reading instruction check out Jan
Richarson’s “The Next Step in Guided
Reading”. I had a teacher friend of mine recommend it and it was so
insightful! You can find her book HERE.
I am going to share with you the tools I love using to
deliver the best reading instruction for my kinder babies. Along with Jan’s
book I also LOVE to use anything made by Deanna Jump and DeeDee Wills. These
ladies have been teaching for a long time and make units that give ANY textbook
program a run for their money! I have purchased their Guiding Readers Bundle as well as their Guided Reading Bundle Leveled Readers AA-G. You can find both of
these units in their TPT store HERE. The Guiding
Readers Units are a great resource for teaching whole group reading. Each month
comes with several different read alouds, phonics instruction, and word work
for both kindergarten and grade 1. The Guided
Reading Leveled Readers has specific
lesson ideas for individual reading level needs. I promise that they are well
worth the money!
This school year I have also integrated Michelle
Hudgedeons “Phonics Friends” FIND ME HERE. I am
telling you this has CHANGED our phonics skill level so much! The kids have
really enjoyed meeting a new phonics friend each week and it has seriously
helped with our decoding skills! She not only offers a phonics friend to anchor
our learning, but several crafts, interactive journal activities, and more!
These are just a few of my must haves for amazing
literacy instruction! I hope you found something new to integrate into your
classroom! Happy learning!
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