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 101^st Day of School we did everything DALMATIAN! I found a 101^st 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 101^st 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 101^st 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!