The Pout Pout Fish Deanna Jump Style!

My students and I love Deanna Jump's unit on The Pout Pout Fish! I think it is a must have for this time of year. I used it as a Sub-Tub activity last year, and it was perfect! This year I was able to do it with the kids - the have so much fun! Click on the mini picture to link to her store.

After reading the book, we watch this video from you tube - love love love the tune :) You're sure to be humming it all day.

Here are few of our Pout Pout Fish and writing responses:

                  

 We have 12 more days - how many more days do you have?

The Beach Just Opened!

Sorry for the lack of posting...I've updated my classroom blog, but I've totally neglected this one! I'm back! :)

We don't have a traditional classroom "home living/housekeeping" area and this has forced us to get pretty creative throughout the year. This semester we have set up a Pet Shop, a Garden Center, and now we have the beach! You ask...what do you do at the beach? I told my kids my favorite thing to do was to read at the beach - so of course, they all want to read at the beach too! Gotta love kindergarten students!

It's super simple, and the kids have loved it! I added a fun table cloth and grass skirt to a table and set out a few beach towels and beach chairs. The students got to choose their favorite books to go in the center. It's a great way to sneak in some more reading time in a FUN way during these last couple of weeks of school.

A peek at the beach:

To add some fun-flair, we created a mural after reading Rainbow Fish. This morning, we will complete a shared writing "chit-chat" type message about Rainbow Fish to accompany the art work.

Can you guess what these are?

More to come this evening...

Promethean Tables!

Look what we just got at our school!

We now have three Promethean Interactive Tables at our school in the technology lab. They are incredible, and I couldn't wait to take my kids to explore them! The students caught on right away, and we are excited to learn about more applications for the tables.

Do any of you have these at your school? I would love to hear how you guys use them!

On a side-note, I am a dedicated "smartboard lover" and it's been a tough tranistion to Promethean Boards. They just don't seem to be as user-friendly.  Any advice to make me love the Promethean board and forget the Smartboard? (Or, should I just be quiet and be grateful to have any interactive whiteboard? haha!)

-Alexis :)

Lakeshore Can Do! Science Kits

These are awesome!

I was so excited to see a package from Lakeshore on the front steps today when I got home. My poor husband had to sit beside me and watch me unwrap all these goodies and gush over how excited I was to get back to work to share them with my kids, haha! My kids love to go to the "science" center despite that fact that I think my science center has been SERIOUSLY awful with lots of room for improvement this year.

I think my students will really enjoy these "cans" of activities. Each can has all the materials needed, and easy-to-follow picture card directions. I think they will be able to explore them with a lot of independence. I plan on leaving them in the center, but I also want to use them as "take-home activities". The directions are clear for kids, but there is also a paper with suggestions of questions for adults to ask. It seems perfect for kids to take home to have a science family night! It may be really neat to have them share some of the activities they do at home with their friends at school  - great conversations are sure to be had about their science discoveries! Additionally, because the materials are really pretty basic, it will show parents and kids how "science" really is all around us and it doesn't have to be messy...although messy is normally fun!

I know these cans are just a small step forward in improving my science center, but I'm excited!
What do you all have in your science centers that you just love?

Valentine's Day Write the Room

I just completed my "Will You Be My Valentine?" write the room activity. My kindergarteners love write the room, and we could use some work on short vowel sounds so I really look forward to using this next week during literacy centers.

There are four picture cards for each short vowel sound, and there is a recording sheet for students.

Some ways you could use it:

•          For Write the Room: Hang the cards around the room. Students will read the picture, listen for the short vowel sound, and write the word under the correct column on the recording sheet. The cards are self-correcting – students can look at the monster on the card and the monster on the vowel on the recording sheet to check themselves.

This is part of the recording sheet.

The monster on the card matches the monster on the recording sheet.

•          If your not a fan of “write around the room,” I included sorting mats. Students can stay in one spot to sort them on the mats then complete the recording sheet.

•          This could be used as an assessment to see how students are doing with writing CVC words.

•          I included a color and black-and-white version!

Write the Room is one of my kids favorite activities - and it's just perfect for kindergarten because it gets them moving around! You can grab this one at my TpT store. What other write the room activities would you like to see created?

-Alexis :)

Can we get 100 cans by the 100th day?

If you are looking for an extra 100th day activity, you may want to do a Food Drive! Our 100th day is coming up Feb. 1.

Below is the note I sent to parents explaining the food drive - feel free to cut/paste/adjust to use it if you can.

Kindergarten is holding a canned-food drive event in our classrooms. We are CHALLENGING each class to bring in 100 cans by the 100^th day of school on Feb. 1. We want to show our children that if we all do just a little to help, it can quickly turn into A LOT! If all of us bring in 4 cans, we can easily get to 100! If each class brings in 100 cans, we will be donating 700 cans! Of course, you are welcome to bring in more J You can start sending in cans whenever you’d like.

This project will also reinforce skills we are working on in math, science and social studies! We can sort the foods by food groups. We can keep a tally mark chart of how many cans we collect. We could locate on a map where the different cans originated from. We will be able to sort our cans into groups of tens and/or fives and practice skip counting. Lots and lots of hands-on-learning fun!

I also made a graph to hang in the hall for us to keep track of the number of cans that each class has:

I'm thinking we will make tally marks to track the amount of can to show two groups of five make 10. I also want to print a map of the world so we can put stickers on the map to locate where our canned foods come from.

I love all the 100th day ideas out there! This one is new for me this year :) What new activity are trying this year on the 100th day?

-Alexis