Five for Friday {November 8}

It has been awhile since I've had my act together on a Friday night to link up with Kasey at Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday.

1. I had a family donate a small pumpkin for each child in the class.  I sent these pumpkins home for students to turn into turkeys.  They are starting to come back in; so creative!  These were the first few returned.  We are hoping the last until our Thanksgiving feast to decorate our tables.

2.  This week we read our first issue of National Geographic Young Explorer.  Thanks to DonorsChoose.org, I have a year subscription for my students.  They were IN LOVE with these magazines.  I have 2 more issues sitting in my room because we got our back issues.  I can't wait to share these with my kiddos!

3. We've been working hard on our writing.  We just had a DonorsChoose.org project funded to get new journals.  My little authors will be excited to see these come.

4. This week was our second week of learning about food groups, healthy and unhealthy foods and "My Plate".  We completed Project-Based Learning this week.  Advanced students made their own breakfast, lunch and dinner menus as well as a "My Plate".  All other students worked in groups of 3 to create their menus and plates.  Check back this weekend because I plan to do a more in-depth post on this project.

5.  Our first night of Parent-Teacher conferences is complete!  My conferences went well last night; I'm looking forward to finishing up with the other half of my families next week.

How was your week?

Candy Corn Math

We've been working on Candy Corn Math over the last week or so.  My preclinical (she will student teach with me next semester) has been working with students in small groups to complete my Candy Corn Math packet.  The addition has been a bit of a struggle as was greater than and less than.  We just introduced the concept of addition the week prior (formally), and we have not discussed the greater than and less than signs (though students do understand the words).

Measuring with candy corn

Graphing with candy corn

Adding with candy corn (yes, I ran the books upside down when I double-sided them.)

Starburst candy corn are great too!  I am not normally a huge fan of candy corn, but these are very fruity- consistency of candy corn, flavor of a Starburst.

My students enjoyed these activities, and I'm excited to watch them grow as we use my conversation hearts and jelly bean packets, which follow the same format.

Halloween...Check!

Our Halloween party was actually last Friday (10/25).  We had an Early Dismissal day thanks to it being the last day of our first nine weeks.  We like to take advantage of Early Dismissal days for parties (there just so happens to be one on Valentine's Day too).

We start the day with a parade.  All the classes sit around the gym and watch as each class parades by, one at a time.  After all classes have paraded around, we go through the atrium where parents are waiting to see the parade.  Once the parade is over, we head back to our own classrooms for parties. Our party was set up in 5 "centers".

1: Gummy Worm Hunt:  3 gummy worms were placed on a paper plate.  Using only their mouths, students had to find the gummy worms, which were hidden under a pile of Reddi Whip.  It is a messy activity, but the kids LOVE it, and it is nothing baby wipes can't clean up.

2: Mummies: Students were partnered up.  Each partnership received 2 rolls of toilet paper (cheap is good).  Their job was to wrap one another as mummies.  I learned that having multiple adults here to keep order was necessary!  This group got a little out of hand if the adults weren't firm about the rules.

3: Don't Eat Jack!: I'm not sure where I got this (somewhere on Pinterest, but I didn't pin it:(.  The game board is covered with food (we used M & Ms).  One player is "it" and leaves the group while the others talk.  The group chooses a "Jack".  "It" comes back and begins to eat one M & M at a time.  Just before "it" eats the M & M on "Jack", the group yells "Don't Eat Jack!".  The parent that I had running this game did a great job, and my students liked that they were allowed to yell in the room.

4: Crafts: Students had 2 crafts to choose from.  There were foam masks to make and bracelets (using pipe cleaners, foam monster beads and pony beads).  Most students had time to make both.

5: Cookie Decorating: Our school provides each student with a cut out cookie.  Each classroom gets a can of icing and some sprinkles.  Children decorated their cookies and enjoyed them with either juice or milk.

I hope this gives you some ideas for next year!  Does your school/classroom celebrate Halloween?

Silent Reading Smiles

I decided to give "silent" reading a try.  If you teach kindergarten, you know that reading at the beginning of the second nine weeks of kindergarten is far from silent!  We've been talking about saying those sounds, spelling that word aloud, looking at sounds we know, etc.

I know it is the first week of the 2nd quarter of kindergarten, but some of my kiddos are beginning to read and excitement is building.  Our day is very tightly scheduled, so I thought "why not?!"

We started yesterday, and it was a bit rough, but we made it through.  Today I told students I was going to read while they read.  This was in hopes that they would not be wanting to talk to me during that time.

We were about 30 seconds into our reading when (from across the room) I heard "Miss Hennon, what's the word on page 6."  After a little laugh out loud, I reminded my friend that we are all reading SILENTLY (or in a quiet whisper) and that I am not sure what his word on page 6 is.

This silent reading time ended with a little reminder of things we might do if we don't know a word. :)  I asked students to share something they read about with a partner and many were able to do this, so I'm feeling pretty good about day 2.  Going to be working on building stamina for some time I believe.

How is your week going?

Self-Evaluation (Coloring)

I've noticed that my students' coloring is less than desirable sometimes.  I have also seen that many of my students have the ability to color well, but they are in a hurry to move onto the next thing (even if they don't know what the next thing is!).

While scouring Pinterest, I've seen some great self-evaluation rubrics, but decided to take some different ideas and combine them to make something my students could follow.  You can download a copy here.

I hung these (with the rubric attached) for students to refer to when they are coloring.  They should look at areas where they gave themselves 1 or 2 stars to see the areas they need to work on.  I'm hoping this helps their coloring and will also help with illustrating their pictures!

Fall Fun

October seems like it is becoming as crazy as May!  I can't believe we are more than halfway through October, and the end of the first nine weeks is this Friday.  Our current unit of study is "Cornucopia", which is our fall unit.  This year, it hit at the perfect time as the leaves are turning and falling, the weather is starting to get cooler, and pumpkins are out in full force.

At the writing center, students are writing shape books about pumpkins and apples.  There are 3 pages in each book and a list of words at the writing center.  Students then have the opportunity to read their books to the class at the end of centers, which is their favorite part!

At the science center, students are coloring a tree for all seasons.  Each line separates the tree into a different season.  Students then create buds and leaves to show the correct season.

At the dramatic play center, we've been raking leaves for our babies to jump in.  Love 50 leaves in a pack from the Dollar Tree!  There are also pumpkins and apples for students to play with.

We are the proud authors of a book available for free in the iTunes store!  We walked around the school and took pictures of numbers we spotted with our iPad.  After taking pictures, each student chose a picture and wrote a sentence about it.  My university student and I wrote the sentences out on a dry erase board, and students did the typing on the iPad.  Finally, we recorded students reading their sentence. You can get the book by clicking here.  We love to see people downloading our book from all over the place.  My kiddos are SO PROUD of being authors!

This week is Grandparents Day (Thursday) and our Halloween Party (Friday).  Any suggestions for a Grandparents Day activity for 50+ people (23 kids and their grandparents) in my classroom?

Wednesday WOW {October 16}

I'm linking up with Curious Firsties for their Wednesday WOW linky party.

My celebration this week is quick.  I had all my kids complete their homework last night!  This is the first time it has happened all year. :)  It's the little things that make me smile!

What are you celebrating today?