50th day of school

Oh, how I LOVE the 50th day of school! It's so much fun dressing up and teaching my students about life in the '50s! The 50th day of school wouldn't be complete without a poodle skirt! 

 

Another favorite activity is making a Coke float (I'm not a fan of root beer😬.) Yum!

We also had a hula hoop contest, practiced blowing bubbles with gum, and learned the Hand Jive! What are some fun activities you do for the 50th day?

Lemonade stand tutorial

What's a lemonade themed classroom without a lemonade stand?! I knew I had to have one in there but I had to figure out how to make it useful for learning! I came up with the perfect center idea....use it as a listening center storage area!!! 

Because I was making this stand by myself (girl power!) I had to figure out the easiest way to do this with the least amount of tools! I bought a simple 3 shelve bookshelf from Walmart for $15.

Materials:

After putting the bookshelf together, I nailed a piece of beadboard paneling ($5) to the back (I had Home Depot cut it to the exact size I would need). By using this paneling, it was easy to paint cute yellow stripes. I bought a small sample of yellow paint to use (about $2).

Painting stripes: 

After nailing it to the bookshelf:

I added 2 small wooden poles to the sides to hold my cute lemonade bunting. 

The finished product:

It turned out adorable! On the backside, there are shelves to store books, CDs, and headphones. The entire project cost less than $25! 

Classroom Tour 2015-2016

This year I decided to completely change my classroom theme. It has been a lot of work, but I think I like it!!!

Here is a look at my lemonade stand themed classroom! 

From the enterance: 

Word wall, writing center, and author's chair:

Close-up:

Math word wall, tool boxes, and math storage:

Close-up:

Clip chart and classroom rules:

Cute lemons ready to hang student work:

Small group table and lemon tree:

Class library: 

Listening center lemonade stand (tutorial to come!):

Carpet/ smart board area:

Calendar math board: 

Our reading buddies:

Our classroom enterance and AR goals:

I hope you enjoyed my classroom tour!!! ❤️

Community Leader Day

We had a very successful Community Leader Day! After learning all about community helpers, our students came to school dressed as their favorite community helper! We invited leaders from our community to come and speak to the school about what they do to help our community! It was a great day of learning and community involvement! 

Our community leaders!

My adorable leaders!

Teachers Pay Teacher Sale!

Stop by Teachers Pay Teachers and be sure to take advantage of the 

"Teachers are Heroes" sale!!!! 

Presidents Day fun!

Teaching about the Presidents is always so fun in kindergarten. It is so cute to hear about how all of these babies want to be the next president and live in the White House. One of my students said that he would save a special room for me to come and visit him! How cute is that?!!!  

We made a web of what we learned about President Washington and President Lincoln. Of course we had to make a mini-craft to go along with it!!! 

Hey Y'all....it's Mardi Gras!!!

We are officially in the Mardi Gras recovering mode!!!  It has been so nice having this fabulous week off of school...yes, the WHOLE week!!!!  Heavenly!!!!  In honor of being the birthplace of Mardi Gras (look it up!), here are some pictures of the fun we have had celebrating Mardi Gras in the classroom! 

We sampled King Cake and talked about the tradition. The different colors represent different things: purple for justice, green for faith, and the gold for power. The three colors are in honor of the 3 kings who visited Jesus on Epiphany.  There is also a small plastic baby hidden in the cake, said to represent baby Jesus.  Tradition stands that whomever finds the baby has to buy the next King Cake! 

After we tasted our King Cake, we made a King Cake craft. I took a paper plate and cut out the inside. The students used their watercolor paints to paint the cake the traditional colors. Don't forget to add some glitter for the sugary sprinkles!  This activity made the perfect festive bulletin board! 

October Close Reading Packet

It has been a busy and quick start to school! My favorite time of year is here....Cool breezes, Pumpkin Spice Lattes, and football....FALL!!!!!  There is just a little something extra is the air this time of year! 

With the popularity of my September Close Reading Packet, I have finally finished one for the month of October. 

October Close Reading Packet

There are 4 passages- Pumpkins, Firefighters, Bats, and Spiders. 

•4 Close Reading Passages

•Weekly Lesson plans

•Vocabulary Cards and Black line masters

•Partner Work activities

•Weekly Questions

•Anchor charts for each close read

•Class Book Activities

•Weekly writing activity

This packet includes everything you need for a weekly close reading lesson that ties in with science and social studies! I hope you enjoy! 

Back to School Sale

Visit my Teachers Pay Teachers Store to save 28% August 4th-5th!

Enjoy!!!

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It's about that time again...

Summer...what summer?!!!

I cannot believe it's already time for school to start!!!  Summer flew by!!! We have Meet the Teacher tomorrow and I am so excited to meet my new babies!!!!  Everything is ready...including these adorable Play-Doh treats for my students!!!  Credit where credit is due: The idea and labels can be found here PlayDoh Labels by Peace, Love, Learning. PlayDoh purchased at the Dollar Tree (4 for $1)!!!  Awesome and they look soooo cute!

Also, painted this adorable Author's Chair for my classroom...I can't wait to have my sweet kinders reading their own published writing in it!!!

How cute is this chair in my writing center?!!!!

Pink Chevron Center Signs in my TPT store here.

 

More pictures of my Sweet Treat Classroom under the classroom tab!  I love looking at other teacher's classrooms so I hope you enjoy looking at mine!!

Insects, Dinosaurs, and Bears....Research Writing Report Units....Oh my!

One of the biggest new challenges of ELA Common Core this year has been the rigorous amount of writing. Don't get me wrong...I love teaching writing and I truly value writing! However, I have found myself trying to find new and exciting ways to incorporate daily writing with my students. One of my students favorite activities this year has been working on "research" reports. I have sent them home as homework, used them as part of my writing process, and used them  as a whole group demonstration on how to do research.

Here are some of the research reports that I have developed! Click on the picture to get to the link at my Teachers Pay Teachers store!!! 

 

Each report unit contains:

- Report Cover Page (colored and black and white)

- KWL Graphic Organizer

- Can-Has-Is organizer

- Research Report

- Label and draw it

- Opinion Writing organizer

- Writing template

[ELA Common Core standards: W.K.1, W.K.2, W.K.3, W.K.6, W.1.1, W.1.6, W.1.8, W.2.1, W.2.6]

* The insect report and writing is one of my best selling units!  *

 

 

I hope you find these helpful! Enjoy!

Getting ready to visit the Dairy Farm and Cows!!!

This Friday we will be taking a field trip to Middleton Farms- a real dairy farm!!!  My babies are SO excited! It's one of my favorite field trips! The students get see a cow being milked, bottle feed a baby calf, and learn how milk goes from the cow to their lunchroom!  In honor of our field trip, we will spend the week talking about cows and dairy farms!

To prepare, I created a mini-thematic unit on cows! The unit has 2 cow crafts, a poem for a pocket chart, a reader, math counting mats and some great graphic organizers!!! There is even a recipe for ice cream in a Ziploc bag! Yummmmm!

 

A final product of the cow crafts! How cute are these?!!

 

 

I'm so excited to do these fun activities with my students this week!!!

What are some of your favorite field trips?

 

Here comes.....Sneaky E!!!!

I am SO excited about this week! For the first time EVER in my teaching career, I am going to teach the Sneaky E. With the new common core standards, the CVCe pattern was moved from first grade to the kindergarten standards. At first, I was very nervous! But after plenty of research, Pinterest-ing (is that even a word), and phone calls to first grade teacher besties, I think I am FINALLY ready!!

Here is my Sneaky E poster!  I thought it turned out cute!!!

 

I also found a cute paper bag puppet Sneaky E that we are going to work on tomorrow!

I can't wait!!!!!

100th Day of School!

I know that I am a little late on this post!!!!  But, I still wanted to share some of the adorable things we did that day!!!  We began our morning with a 100th day of school parade! All kindergarten students came to school dressed up like old people! It was absolutely adorable!!!! 

My students were welcomed with a "We are 100 Days Smarter" banner!

We made a 100 snack with a Mini Twix and 2 powdered donuts!

 

We made a 100 snack mix!

 

We made portraits of what the students would look like at 100, jumped for 100 seconds, listed 100 reasons why we love our school, counted to 100 by 1s, 2s, 5s, and 10s, and so much more! 

 

For more 100th day fun, visit my 100th day of school Pinterest Board here!