Down on the Farm!

HOWDY YA'LL! My favorite unit so far this year was our farm unit! The kids absolutely LOVED learning about all of the animals and about what farmers do. Our school is located in Floyds Knobs, Indiana and it is surrounded by a lot of land and some farms. I really think it would be neat to go to a dairy farm and let the kids see all of the hard work that farmers put in (maybe next year!). I used Deanna Jump's Farm Fun Mega Unit and lots of ideas from Pinterest. You can check out my farm unit board HERE. Both are the perfect resources to add to the activities that we did in class. Deanna's provides nonfiction books to use for various farm animals. We learned about pigs, cows, chickens, and sheep. I definitely recommend using her unit! You can purchase it HERE! I will warn you that teaching about cows, chicken, and pigs may rock some of your kids worlds! Ha! I had a few that didn't know we eat these animals! Uh oh! That made for some interesting conversations! :)


























Nonfiction and Fiction Frog Unit!

Just now getting around to posting all of our hard work on our Frog Unit! We worked on frogs for two weeks! We started with learning all about real frogs. We learned what nonfiction means and we researched information about real frogs. We also learned about the life cycle of frogs and we compared them with toads. We made the life cycle seen below modeled after Kim Adsit's in her Frogs and Butterflies Unit on TPT. I also used some of the graphic organizers from Deanna Jump's Frog Frenzy Unit on TPT. The kids LOVED learning all sorts of information about frogs and Herpetologists!

     The next week we focused on a fiction week of frogs. We read several of the Froggy books and did a character analysis on Froggy. We have been working on the parts of a story and this really helped us focus on the what a character is. We used Deanna Jump's Froggy Math and Literacy Fun Unit! It includes a lot of fun little comprehension and math activities. Deanna makes my life so much easier! :-) We read "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Frog" and making the cute little old lady craft. I found the idea on Pinterest and made a little sketch on paper. It was super easy and turned out really cute! The kids thought the book and craft was hilarious! I would definitely have swallowed a doughnut also! Hehe! We ended our fiction frog unit by reading "Prince of a Frog". It is a cute little story about a Frog wanting to be a Prince and in the end his friends show him they love him for who he is! We painted a frog and then--the BEST part--bedazzled a crown for him. I thought they turned out so cute! So much fun!

  







               

                            

           


           

           



Math Workshop!

We love math workshop! I am very lucky to work at a school that is very flexible with what we can choose to teach with. Last year was my first year so I used Envision because that is what the previous teacher used. I like the idea of Envision but I feel like in kindergarten, it was missing a lot of standards, and it wasn't really capturing the attention of my students..or me to be honest! I decided that this year we needed a change. After researching for a few weeks I decided to go with Deedee Wills and Deanna Jump's Math Workshop Units. So far I am loving them! I truly feel like the kids are getting something out of learning and enjoying themselves! I also love the workshop model. Each lesson starts with a fluency review on the carpet, I introduce a new topic, the kids work with a partner, and then they work at their desk by themselves (to check individual understanding). I could not be more happy about the results! :)









                                  



                                

Living and Non Living Fun!

    We had so much fun last week learning about living and nonliving things! I used a mini unit on living and non living things made by Nancy VandenBerge that I got on TPT. It was perfect for our gummy worm and real worm experiment on Friday. Sidenote: I HATE worms! Ha! The things we do for our kiddos. :)



I was so proud of how they did. We had so much fun and we learned a whole lot too! 

FIRST FIVE DAYS OF SCHOOL...CHECK!

Well everyone....I MADE it through the first five days of school and through parent night! I am so excited for this school year! I only have thirteen babes this year! Crazy!!! I wanted to share a few things (tips and tricks) from my parent night that I really loved doing this year (AND that made a huge difference)!

1. Make a power point presentation!-- This really helps you stay on track of what you want to talk about! We only have twenty-five minutes to meet with our parents. We usually do two sessions so that parents with multiple children can get to both classrooms. Anyway, with only twenty-five minutes time FLIES by! AND if you're like me-- you may get off subject and talk talk talk! Ha!

2. Make colored copies!-- this is HUGE! Not only does paper just look more interesting/pretty when its on neon paper, parents are more likely to read what it says. When the non-OCD people go home white papers sort of just get lost. I am guilty of just setting stacks of paper down and then not ever going through them! You want parents to LOOK at what you gave them! I also find that the more "cute" you make something- the more it draws parents in! :)

3. Make a gift for your parents!-- Sure, maybe you are sucking up just a little..but do it! The parents ranted and raved over the little water bottles I gave them. It does not have to be anything expensive or big, but parents like that you took the time to think about them! After all you want to establish a good relationship with your parents right away! It not only reflects positively on you--it shows what kind of person you are! At the end of the day we are in this together! We want the same things for our school babies that they want.

4. Tidy up your classroom!-- Yes, you would think that everyone does this! But it is really important to make sure your room is presentable! Everything in my classroom is not exactly how I want it yet but that is okay! I could probably work on my room for two more years before I thought it was perfect! Ha! But anyway, parents notice how organized/clean your room is. If you have stacks of papers everywhere...hide them! You want to make a positive first impression on parents!

AND last but definitely not least......


5. BE YOURSELF!-- Be confident in your ability as a teacher! After all we didn't go to school to return to school for fun! The best part of being a teacher is that most of us LOVE our job! Unless you are a teacher you will never understand the love we have for our job. We develop little people's (some big) minds!


Classroom Reveal 2015

     

Hello friends! I can finally say that I AM FINISHED with my classroom for school next week! As most of you know this is my second year teaching! Whew! I am so happy to have everything ready to go without feeling like I was going to lose my mind! It is crazy how much difference a year makes. I am so excited to get started with my kinder babies! I have big plans this year for my blog! Stay tuned! Thanks so much for stopping by to see all of the hard work that I have put in! :)



Happy Learning!

What Summer?

So I know that I have been M.I.A. this summer! I have been tutoring five kiddos this summer and working on making my classroom perfect for my second year teaching! I cannot believe that I not only made it through my first year, but it is already time to start a new one! OMG! Anyway I cannot wait to really get more into blogging this year! Here is a before picture of my classroom this summer....stay tuned to see my classroom reveal!