Little Helpers

I wanted to get this post done before I wrote about our last games unit for those who are still going strong trying to finish out the school year.  For those who are on break, tuck this little idea away for next year.  Warning: lots of pictures coming your way!

I decided this year that I wanted my kiddos to help with the putting away of our room and maybe some prep for next year.  Then, I read a post from Mary at Sharing Kindergarten, and I was even more excited about this idea!

Mine looked like this:

Each job I came up with was on a sticky note stuck to my board.  There were multiple for each job depending on how many students I thought it would take to complete the task.  I chose students like I do for most activities in our class, "random reporter" sticks.  As I called their names, they came and chose a job.  As you'll see in the pictures, they were pumped to wear a post-it note.  #whatevermakesthejobfun   Once you finished a job, your "reward" was a new sticky note with a new job.  Once all the jobs were done, I put out odds and ends I had cleaned out of the room earlier in the week, and everyone got to choose a few things as "payment" for their hard work.

Our school requires us to label each piece of furniture with our room number.  I put the masking tape on each piece of furniture ahead of time, and this guy's job was to go around and write our room number on each one.

You can see 2 jobs here: stuffing new books in their independent book bags and cleaning to the seat sacks on the backs of chairs.  There were 2 people for each of these jobs.

This mess is labeling all the new puzzles our computer teacher passed on to us.  I color code the backs of my puzzles (same color dot on each piece of a puzzle for easy clean up).  There were 2 people at this job too.

I had about 1/2 a class worth of writing folders left over for this year, so 2 kiddos assembled them for next year.  I will make the rest when Target puts their back-to-school stuff out (though they can feel free to wait until the end of July for that!)

These 2 are making birthday bags for next year.  They LOVED their job, but I think it was mostly because they got to use my "grown up" stapler.

She is testing out all the pens at the writing center and throwing away the ones that don't work anymore.

These 2 loved their job too- sharpening pencils for next year. I never let them use the pencil sharpener, so I'm sure that had an impact on the job satisfaction.  At clean up time I heard "I hope Miss Hennon says 'remember where you were yesterday?  Go back and finish that job today.'"

These 2 took their job very seriously!  They are sorting crayons at each table by color. This was my first year doing this, and it was AMAZING.  No more "I can find my _____ crayon."  Blue & purple together, green & yellow, red/pink/orange, black/brown/gray/white.  I put 5 boxes of crayons per table.  They are sorted in yogurt containers.

Putting together all our puzzles to look for missing pieces.  This is the job everyone ended up pitching in on once the other jobs were done because there were quite a few puzzles.

Somehow I missed taking a picture of the pair organizing the classroom library.  They job was to go through the tubs of books and make sure all the books were in the right bins.  I also asked them to make sure the library looked like a place they would want to pick books from (covers facing forward, books going in the right direction, etc).

I would not hesitate to do this again next year.  It took about an hour and 15 minutes total for all jobs to be completed.  I think my kiddos saw the value of working together, and they were so excited to see my "secrets" of how I put together to get ready for the school year.  They have no idea how much it helped me out too!

Do you have your kiddos help?  What kinds of jobs do they have?

Year End Reflections

I'm linking up with Michelle from Big Time Literacy to share some reflections from the school year.  It is hard to believe another school year is over!

Best Memories
My favorite memories of this year are the "ah-ha" moment from my students.  They are a crew who just loved learning.  So many times it was "the best day ever" and in my mind, it was just a normal day.  They frequently asked for more time to read independently or more time to write.  I've never had a class like this, and I had to remind myself to slow down and enjoy it!

This was from November.  They loved reading from the moment they realized they could do it!

This is the same kiddo in May reading on the bus on the way to our field trip.

Missed Opportunities
I started math journals/notebooks at the beginning of the year.  I liked them and my kiddos were showing some good strategies.  Then, we started getting into our routine and other things took over as a priority.  Math journals never continued.  We are switching to a new math curriculum next year (for the 2nd time in 2 years) so I haven't decided whether or not I'm giving them a try again.

Game Changers
I had the opportunity to modify as needed to meet my students' needs.  I put in "full-blown" guided reading (we have a "detailed lesson plan" curriculum that does not include guided reading), and it was awesome!  I read Donalyn Miller's The Book Whisperer last summer, and I think it helped me want my kiddos to be avid readers.  Their excitement to learn to read and to devour books after they learned to read was amazing to me. So, my game changer would be running with it watching/listening to what my students were interested in and needed.  I didn't really push them to be readers, they just fell in love with it.

Focus
I focused on project-based learning this year.  Throughout the year, I had to follow the themes in our curriculum, but I made adjustments and focused on different aspects of topics based on my kiddos' interests.  The last 3 weeks of school were open for us to choose our topic with the focus being on project-based learning.  My kiddos wanted to learn about games, and it was such a fun way to end the year!

I also spent some time trying to build family relationships. I did a monthly family survey via Google Forms.  I would ask questions about upcoming events, what changes parents would like to see, who was interested in volunteering, etc.  For those that didn't respond to the form within a week, I sent home a paper copy.  I really wanted parent input on things happening in our classroom.

Forgot
Some things were not necessarily "forgot" it was more along the lines of "ran out of time" or "didn't budget time well".  I had a subscription to National Geographic Young Explorer, which my kiddos loved, but time seemed to get away from me every month and magically I had a stack of magazines.  I got it together around February and started using them on "different days" (Early Dismissals, field trip days, etc).

Reflections
This year was an amazing year!  I think this happened for many reasons, one of which being that I had my smallest class ever, and with 6 less kiddos than last year, it almost seemed "easy".  I don't think it is ever easy, and I think I worked harder this year than I have in any of the other 10 years of teaching, but it was also a lot of fun and saw so much progress.  I was sad to see the year end, but look forward to summer and a great year again next year!

Five for Friday {June 5}

It's been a long time since I linked up with Kasey from Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday.

This was my first "official" week of summer, though it included 2 mandatory professional development days through our district.  The first was a county workshop on play. The second day was spent exploring our new math curriculum, EngageNY/Eureka Math.  We eventually broke into teams and began to prep materials.  Below is my table after about 5 minutes of 3 of us working together.  This is a sign of progress, right?

One of the piles created at the above work day was "laminate at home".  Our laminator at school has flimsy laminating film, and there are just some things you want thicker.  I spent a few evenings this week laminating these things.

I love trying new recipes in the summer.  I found out about 6 weeks ago that I have a what allergy, so I am not on a gluten-free diet.  Thank goodness for Pinterest and Aldi, I am enjoying food.  A bakery near work is complete gluten-free.  I picked up these pizza crusts and tried making a veggie and cheese pizza last night.  It was yummy!  If you have any favorites, please share!

I've spent a few evenings this week at "VBS work nights."  Our church has work nights to prep materials and decorate in the time leading up to VBS.  We worked on cutting and building snowflakes for our "Everest" theme this week.  

Here's another item that I found in my cleaning purge over the last weeks of school.  I have 12 or so of these and am anticipating 18-20 kiddos next year.  I am willing to pick up a few more during sales this summer if you have a good use for a class set!

My first thought was some type of math manipulative could be stored in them.  We are switching to EngageNY/Eureka Math, and the thing I've learned so far is that there is a lot of "stuff."  Do you have ideas of how to use these slider cases?  Please share!

Keeping Busy This Summer

I wanted my kiddos to keep busy while having fun this summer.  I think it is important that they work on skills that we learned throughout the year, but I also know it needs to be fun or they won't do it.

I asked for suggestions in my last family survey (I do these monthly) for things families might like to see included.  Some suggestions were: science experiments, math games, books and questions to ask, writing paper.  I set to work gathering materials.

I packed everything in these gift bags that I found 5 for $2.  I added a little tag so I knew who each bag belonged to.

My first stop was our computer lab which doubles as our book room around the perimeter.  There are a few boxes of books in there that were "discards" from an old reading series or two.  The directions on the box said to use as prizes or giveaways for students.  I considered this a prize: you made it through kindergarten and have the opportunity to read over the summer.  These books were too easy for my highest kids, so I took enough to give my other kiddos 2 books per month over the summer (6 books each in total).  For my higher kids, I ordered appropriate texts from Scholastic using my bonus points.

These are the items that went into each bag.  A packet for each month (games and books in each packet), a little tool kit, magnifying glass, Highlights magazine, small playdoh, Smarties, a set of Tangrams, 3 bookmarks (one per month) and writing paper.

I next started scouring Pinterest for math games and science experiments that were easy to prep and did not involve a lot of materials.  The majority of our kiddos struggle financially, so I tried to find ideas using materials mostly found around the house.  If something was included that most people would not have, I generally included this material in the kit.

This is 1 month of activities for a student.  Tan are science experiments and purple are math games.

Finally, I added some writing paper, a box of crayons, a mechanical pencil, 2 dice and some counters.

Once I had everything gathered, I set up a little assembly line around a table to make the bags for each student. Their bag "name tags" are spread out on a table behind the table I took a picture of.  I then lined the completed bags up along the back wall of our room.  I did these the day before our last day so they weren't stored in an assembled form too long.

You can see the pile of books, envelopes for each month (they are already stuffed) and the various other materials for their bags.

This kind of doubled as their end of the year gift (in addition to the memory books we created together).  I hope that they will find some fun-filled ways to keep learning this summer.  Do you create summer packets for your students?  What do you include?

Graduation

My kiddos graduated from Kindergarten last Wednesday.  It was a bittersweet day for me as I loved this class!  Our graduation ceremony was on the kids' last day.

Our kiddos wear caps for graduation.  They are felt, and we purchase them through Oriental Trading.  Our school colors are red and blue so we have the choice for our team.  Below my kiddos are singing HeidiSongs while I did some last minute things before we headed to the ceremony.

Our ceremony takes place in the gym with 4 classes at a time.  Students enter and exit 2x2 to Pomp and Circumstance.  They sing a few songs and each child receives a diploma.  After the ceremony, parents are invited for a reception in another room.  Below you will see my kiddos looking at their memory books while waiting for families to come.

This year, because our graduation was on the last day of school, many of my students were heading home with their families to celebrate.  One of my friends was not ready to let kindergarten go, so she decided to hang out with her teacher for the day.  We got a lot of work done and had some fun too!

She made my cubby tags for next year.  The Ellison was her favorite.  

We had a picnic lunch complete with a selfie (taken by her).  It was a great last day!

I'll be back over the next couple weeks to share some things from our last few weeks of school.  This is a little backwards, but it is going to take me a little longer to get those posts together.

Find a Purpose Friday

I did a major purge in my classroom over the past week or so.  I'm not sure what brought it on, but oh so much clutter I'm sure had something to do with it!

I found some things that there has to be a good use for, so I'm starting a little mini series on Fridays sharing the items that need a project to go with them.  I'd love for you to share your ideas on how to use these things!  If there is interest, I think it would be fun to do a linky once a week throughout the month of June of things that you need to find a purpose for!  Please comment below if this is something you'd be interested in!

Here is my first item:

I found this bag of marbles in the depths of my closet, and other than marble painting, I don't know what do with them.  I teach full day kindergarten.  Any ideas?

On the Map

One of the topics my kiddos wanted to learn about in the month of May was maps.  They mentioned countries, states and maps and general.  Our music teacher taught them the 50 Nifty States song.  If you've been reading along for a while, you know that many of my kiddos are readers, and after learning this song, they found great joy in reading and finding the states they sang about on the map.  Thanks Mr. Smith!

I focused more on maps and why we need them.  We also did quite a bit with cardinal directions.  This tied in perfectly as we had 2 walking field trips during this time and talked about using a map to help us find our way.

We started off day 1 making a paper compass from Mrs. Payton's Map Skills pack.  We then took our compasses out on the playground and lined up facing North.  I called out directions such as "take 3 steps to the South" or "hop 5 hops to the East".  Students learned to turn and use their compasses quite quickly through this activity.  We smiled as we were talking to the library and a couple students yelled "We are walking East right now." and would alert us to the direction we were going as we made turns. Glad to see this lesson sunk in!

Students also worked in groups to create mazes, which tied beautifully into our next unit on games.  The mazes represented trying to get somewhere without a map.  It can be a 'maze' trying to find your way from one place to another, but maps are here to help us.  Thanks to my friend Em from Curious Firsties for picking up the straws for our mazes at IKEA!

We added a magnetic marble and a magnet to play with each group's maze.  This was a center activity that they loved!

Here are some of the books I found at the library and on Amazon for this unit: