Happy 2013

Can you believe it is 2013? We are halfway through this school year. It is crazy how fast the year is going. I have not been very good about updating my blog. My resolution is to do a better job of updating as we complete each unit. We start back to school next Monday. This month our units will be Winter, Arctic Animals, Penguins, and MLK birthday. I LOVE teaching about Penguins and Arctic Animals. The students are always excited to learn about these animals. I am off to prepare some lessons. Happy 2013!

Farm

We have been studying about farm animals for the past two weeks. Many of the ideas I used were from Alessia Albanese's Down on the Farm unit and Deanna Jump's Fun on the Farm unit.
Our kindergarten classes always visit the local county fair to see the farm animals. Since it was the first time for many of the students to ride a bus, we made these name buses. The patterns can be found in Deanna Jump's Fun With Names unit. I thought they turned out so cute. Of course, to a five year old, the bus ride is the best part of a field trip!

Colors Unit

The second week of school we learned about Colors. We read Pete the Cat, which they absolutely loved! I think we ended up reading it and listening to the CD every single day at some point. It is so exciting when they love something. We read Monster Mess from Deanna Jump's Back to School unit and made our own monster glyphs. This was fun since they all had their own unique touch to them.

The First Week of School

Well, we have been back in class for two weeks. I always forget just how hard the first few weeks are. We practice procedures so much. It really is my least favorite thing to teach, but it pays off so much if you do it.

The first week our unit was All About Me. I used Deanna Jump's Back to School unit and Kim Adsit's Family Fun unit. The children enjoyed telling about themselves and their family.

Here are a few pictures of some things we did.

The first two pictures are where we discussed our families from Kim Adsit's unit. That number anchor chart isn't really supposed to be there. It was back there for a reference while we filled out our booklets. It is from Kim Adsit's All About Numbers unit. I thought the shoes turned out so cute. They are from the Family unit as well. They enjoyed adding up the girls and boys and giving me the total number of children in their shoe. So fun! One of my FAVORITE first week activities is the All About Me book and person from Mrs. Jump's unit. The children love making them and they are so precious. I already had the letters to their name cut out in different fonts and in a ziploc for them. It was very informative to see who could put their name together without any help.

Vegas

I am back from a phenomenal conference in Las Vegas. I had hoped to post while I was there, but there just weren't enough hours in the day. My coworkers and I had so much fun and we learned so many new things that we can't wait to implement this next school year. If you ever get the chance to hear Kim Adsit, Deanna Jump, or Shari Sloane, I would highly recommend it. All three ladies were fabulous. I will post more soon, but now I have to get packed for the beach.

Tomorrow

The time to leave for the I Teach K! conference is finally here!!! My peeps and I leave tomorrow afternoon to fly to Las Vegas. We are all so excited. We have been texting each other like crazy about different things as we get ready. I am hoping to post daily with events from my day. Stay tuned......

Book Study

I am excited about the book study that Mrs. Wills is hosting this summer. Last summer, I followed along with her Math Work Stations by Debbie Diller study, but I didn't actually have the book. Her study this summer is Katie Ray Wood's, In Pictures and In Words.
She will do her first blog post on June 22. I can't wait to learn new things for my kinders!