I'm Still Here!

Boy!  It has been a while.  I am sure that those of you who have switched grades know that sometimes it takes a little bit to feel in control again!

I would love to post right now and share all of these wonderful and amazing ideas that I have been incorporating into my class- but, alas, right now I am just figuring things out!  I do know one thing though... I love kindergarten!

Here are my top 5 I just started teaching kindergarten must haves:

1. Dr. Jean's Tootsie Roll attention grabber.  I will be completely honest, that I probably use this one way too much during the day.  But, it is easy to remember and the kiddos are still responding to it!

Click here for Dr. Jean's Tootsie Roll! 


2. The Learning Station's You Tube channel for much needed Brain Breaks.  There are many times we just need to move.  These songs are great!  The children really enjoy them and are 100% percent engaged!  For most of my kiddos, it is just what they need to get back into learning.

Our favorite song so far is the Body Boogie song.  Especially when we get to do the air guitar!

Body Boogie

3. Google Drive.  This has been a lifesaver in sharing lesson plans with my team.  I can access our plans anywhere.  And if you know my organizational skills (ahem. lack there of), you would also know that I can never find my printed version when I need it.  So, thank you Google Drive!

4. The book, Teaching with Love and Logic.  I have read and utilized the strategies in this book before.  But I was overdue for a refresher course.  When I remember this language, my day is much smoother!

5. Puppets.  Let's be real, having a puppet teach math to you is MUCH better than having your teacher teach it.  I don't get it- but, hey, at least we all can now compare numbers!


Thanks for stopping by! 

Classroom Reveal... Finally!

Kindergarten has started!  And, on this beautiful Saturday morning I slept in a little longer than normal. (Well, actually a LOT longer.  9:00 AM.  Oops!) Now, with coffee in hand, I am bound and determined to catch up in the blogging world!  I am absolutely loved my first week as a Kinder teacher.  There are a few challenges I am figuring out in my transition from 3rd grade.  But, I cannot wait to do so!

I promised classroom pictures a few weeks ago.  And, that never happened.  But, better late than never!

My classroom library is my favorite place in our room.  I still need a wider selection of books, but for now we will be ok!  In my third grade room, I had a huge window that overlooked the playground.  My new room no longer has this luxury.  :(  Not wanting to let my curtains go to waste I created a makeshift window.  As the year progresses, I intend to change up the seasons.  Fall is coming up quick, I better get started on making leaves!

I mentioned in an earlier post that creating felt board pieces became a stress reliever in college.  This past summer, I decided that my classroom needed a felt board, too! 

Throughout the year, my students and I create the posters that go on our bulletin boards together.  That is why, so many of my boards are blank.  They will be filled in no time!

I am so thankful that my classroom has a bathroom.  This little turtle helps my students know when it is ok to enter the bathroom.  They just flip the sign to Stop or Go.  

Because I am positive that you see it, ignore the crookedness of my schedule.  I define myself as being a perfectionist, but by the time I got to posting the schedule I needed to let something go.  When I realized it was crooked, I had to force myself to be ok with it.

I have many more pictures to share, but I am going to save a few for later as they could have a whole post to themselves.  Check back soon!

Classroom Sneak Peak

The countdown to the school year has begun.  It has been a busy week!  I have spent a great deal of time in my classroom- working as fast as I can to get it done.  And it is definitely getting closer, but not enough for a big reveal.  I do not think you would want to see it quite yet anyways.  My floor is covered with border, bulletin paper, and random scraps. ;)

However, there is one area I have almost completed: my library!  I always try to make my library the focal point of the room, so I spend quite a bit of time there.  You might notice that my bookshelf looks a little bare.  I wasn't left books for a classroom library; therefore, it is going to be my first priority to buy more books once the room is done.  Hopefully, then, I will be able to put up some labels and better organize the shelves!

Ta da!  Here it is!

My room doesn't have a window this year, but I just COULD NOT let my cute curtains go to waste so I tried to "recreate" outside through a handmade window.  It is very cartoon like, but I think it works.  I am still going to add flowers and cover the brown wood door with paper.

Check back again next week for more reveal pictures!

Kindergarten froggies and Summer craziness!

Oofta!  This summer has just flown by.  And, just like every other teacher, I am getting ready for the start of the new school year.  

Like the past several years, I taught summer school again.  I have to say that I am sure blessed to be able to teach one of the incoming kindergarten classes.  I got to know several kiddos that will be in my class come fall.  It also helped me begin my transition from 3rd grade down to kindergarten.  We all had a blast this summer!

Our three week session was divided into 3 learning adventures: space, ocean, and rainforest.  We sang songs, practiced alphabet and number skills, talked about expectations, made crafts, and more importantly- got to know one another.  During our rainforest study, the favorite song was a cute song video from YouTube.  It is called Walking In the Jungle.  Check it out!  It was a great movement break.

Another favorite craft  were these cute paper plate frogs.  It took 2 days to accomplish this task.  

Day 1 we looked at tree frog pictures and learned some pretty cool facts about them.  Then the kiddos chose a paint color and painted their paper plate.  

Day 2 we added all of the important details: legs, eyes, tongue.  My students needed to match the same color body with the frog's legs.  After that, it was up to them to use crayon to add dots or other fun features that they saw in the rainforest frog images.

They turned out so incredibly cute; I just had to share!

I love the one who turned the tongue into a nose!

I have been super busy getting my classroom ready.  Cross your fingers that I can finish this week because, I bought a house this week!  I want to make sure that I can get things fixed up in there before the start of the school year!

Wish me luck!

Back to School Sale

I'm having a SALE!

All of my products will be 20% off!  Please take a look around and enjoy.  

I also linked up with Blog Hoppin!  Hop on over to their page for many more wonderful products, blogs, and teachers!

Felt characters and Word Wall Heading FREEBIE!

Well, hello!  It has been a long time since I have posted, I guess summer festivities have been getting in the way.  My summer has been busy with tutoring the sweetest girl.  Working with her has been perfect as she has just ended kindergarten and is getting ready for first grade.  Let me tell you, there are some amazing products and ideas for teaching this age group on Teachers Pay Teachers!  I have to use great restraint to not purchase everything I see.

We have had many rainy days and super, intense storms here in my neck of the woods which have led to many days spent indoors.  And, while that is a bummer, it is allowed me to be super productive in getting ready for my first year teaching kindergarten.  But before I show you what I have been working on, take a look at these spectacular clouds left over from one of our last storms.

In college, I relaxed by making felt board characters for retelling stories.  So, these rainy days have allowed me to make many more characters.  I just realized my camera is not working, so I will have to post more pictures of the complete sets- but here you go!  

Pinkalicious

If you Give a Mouse a Cookie

I also am working on a Pete the Cat set.  I am having way too much fun!

In addition to my felt board craftivities, I have also been working on my classroom decorations.  I am absolutely in love with my classroom alphabet posters.  Here is a sneak peak- as they will be available on TPT in the upcoming weeks.

For this project I played with some of my own clip art and borders, as well as using borders, clip art, and font from mycutegraphics.com, Rowdy In Room 300, and Ms. Fultz's Corner.  Check out what they have!

When I am done creating my classroom decoration sets, it will all be available on my TPT store.  It will have pretty much everything you need to get a good start in your classroom!  (Name plates, number cards, the above alphabet posters, etc!)  

But, what I do have for you today is a FREEBIE!  I finished my word wall headings last night and am just too excited about them to wait.  I received quite a bit of help from my boyfriend in figuring out Adobe Illustrator so that I could create my own borders.  You will see them in these headings.  Please note that I did not create the page sized borders.  My borders are the polka dot circle borders that are used for the actual headings!  Click on the picture to get your free download!

Enjoy!

-Heidi

Last Day of Third Grade

    Friday was our last day of school, and it also marked my last day as a third grade teacher.  It was very much bitter sweet.  I shed a few tears as we all waved the kids goodbye, and a few more were shed as I walked away from my completely packed up and empty classroom.  As much as I will miss my third graders, I am looking forward to my new position as a kindergarten teacher.  My new team and I have already started talking about next year's plans, and my head has been spinning with new classroom arrangements and themes.  But before I get too far ahead, I wanted to share with you what my class has been up to.

    The study of folktales was our last reading unit of the year.  The kiddos, and myself, greatly enjoyed these stories.  We spent a couple of weeks learning about the different types of folktales- how to recognize them and what specific elements would be included within the stories.  We even tried writing our own adaptations of fairy tales.  Those stories were so fun!  My kiddos did a great job.  The students' final project was to create a brochure on a folktale of choice that included lessons learned, character traits, discussion questions (with an answer key), important events, and pictures.  Each student did such a great job with this project.  They worked hard and the final projects were breathtaking.

   I was really impressed with how hard my students worked.  This particular student, took a lot of time coming up with a lesson that could be learned from Cinderella.  She came up with the conclusion that "we need to be nice to people or we will get our revenge."  She even had lots of proof from the text to support her lesson!

   

   Our final big project of the year was a thank you gift to our parents.  I always struggle with how to handle Mother's Day and Father's Day.  My district's students are never in school during Father's Day, so usually Mother's Day is celebrated but then Father's day is not.  This year I decided to try something new.  The kids and I talked about how to handle this situation, and it was decided that we would try to do a combination gift for our parents.  I loved how they turned out!

  We spent a couple days talking about how important our parents are and all of the wonderful things they do for us: cooking, cleaning, driving us places, etc.  It was then mentioned, by a student, that parents do all of these things because they love us! I think this is a lesson that most of us learn after high school, and honestly, for most of these kiddos maybe it won't even stick or make an impression of just how lucky we all are to have someone that supports us.  But, it is never a bad thing to remind them of that.  

    After brainstorming ideas, the kiddos wrote a letter to their parents thanking them for specifics to their lives.  I had so much fun reading these letters.  They were heart-felt and honest. One of my favorite lines from a letter said "Thank you for always putting me first even when you could have done other things like becoming the president!"  AAA!!!  Isn't that sweet?  

   These letters were handwritten, decorated, and then laminated.  We didn't stop there!  Students decorated mini flower pots, planted a flower and put together a bookmark for their parents.  It was so fun, and the students were so excited to bring these home and give them as a gift.  Take a look at how nice these parent projects turned out!

One of the decorated pots.  Unfortunately, I was not on top of things,
and the flowers were not growing yet when the kiddos brought them home.  

Student thank you letter and poem bookmark.  We included
a student photo on the back of the book mark.

    The poem bookmarks are available in my TPT store.  They are a FREEBIE!  I did spend a lot of time writing this poem, so please don't take credit for yourself.  Thank you!

Have a wonderful summer!

-Heidi