Silence for Sandy Hook Elementary

Ornaments, Anyone?

It is that time of year...ornament time!  I love it (but I know that everyone does not feel the same as me...crafting can be scary!).

It is no surprise to anyone who knows me that I am not a huge fan of Oriental Trading ornaments.  Don't get me wrong...I love me some Oriental Trading for getting supplies at a reasonable price, but I don't like hearing from my kids that they have already made the ornament that we are about to complete.  So...like with most other things, I look to Pinterest for a little inspiration.  Here are the ornaments that we completed this year:

Ornament Number 1: The Grinch

This one looks tricky, but it is really quite easy.  The kiddos simply painted a light bulb green and red...yes, a light bulb. I had them use acrylic paint and it required two coats.  Once dry, we added the Grinch eyes.  How, you might ask???  With a clear return address label!  I found a picture of the Grinch, cropped it, and applied it to the label template...and presto...Grinch eyes.  The kiddos stuck them on, added a mouth with a paint pen, and glued on some fluff for the hat.  I went back with some Mod Podge to make him shiny and we were good to go.  Love!

Ornament Number 2: Snow Globe

This is the ornament that I always start off the season completing.  It is simple and the kids have a lot of say so.  I start off by cutting circles from poster board ( I used silver, but it doesn't really matter).  The kiddos glued some fluff to the circle for snow and then they started decorating.  I had several options for them: trees (painted pine cones from Micheal's dollar section- four for $1), small glitter ornaments in various colors (also from Micheal's dollar section- eight for $1), and mini presents (from the dollar store).  In the past, I was able to find mini Santas, snowmen, and "actual" mini trees...but this year, I didn't have that luck so I had to improvise.  The kids added these goodies to their snow with a little glue ( I secured with hot glue if needed).  I then glued a small, plastic cup to the poster board (this is definitely a hot glue kind of job).  After everything had a chance to dry, the kids put glue dots around the outside and sprinkled it with glitter to make it look like it is snowing.  We added a little ribbon to the top for hanging...and voila...a snow globe!

Ornament Number 3: Skiers

This little one is my absolute favorite! I bought two bags of scented pine cones from Micheal's (Are you sensing a theme here?).  With these bags, I was able to get 24 good pine cones for my kids with a few left over ($4.99 per bag).  My kiddos dabbed some white acrylic paint on the pine cone with a brush, then we rolled them in glitter for a little sparkle.  When those were dry, I hot glued a wooden craft ball (yes, Micheal's...ten for about $3) and added a little hair with yarn.  The kiddos painted two Popsicle sticks (any color) for their skies).  We attached all of these to the pine cone with two toothpicks for their poles and then we got to the fun stuff.  The hats were made by cutting the fingers off of gloves (dollar spot at Target) and the scarves were made by cutting up the palm area of the same gloves.  After that, the kids added their sweet faces using a Sharpie and their rosy cheeks using a pink crayon.  I am in love with these cuties!

Ornament Number 4: Snowman

These little darlings were a new adventure for me...but by golly they were easy...and pretty darn cute if you ask me.  Again, I went to Micheal's and purchased some clear, glass crafting ornaments.  They were on sale when I went, so I think they ended up being $2.50 for six.  Then, we added a little fake snow to the inside and glued on a pipe cleaner and some pom poms for the ear muffs.  The kids grabbed a trusty paint pen to make the face.

Coming up...gingerbread houses!  I'll post pictures when we make them.  For now...here are the fixings:

Long time, no see

I haven't posted in quite some time...and trust me, I am really mad at myself for it.  Posting more often will definitely be a goal of mine.  In my defense, I have been busy.  In addition to the normal hustle and bustle that is being a teacher, I have taken on a few additional projects.

First- The holiday spirit came upon me and my family and we thought that it would be an excellent idea to really focus on giving this year.  In order to do this, we spent our entire Thanksgiving break painting Christmas signs to sell.  What does this have to do with giving, you ask?  Well, we are not keeping a penny of what we earned.  That's right.  We are giving it all away and it feels great!  Here are some of our little creations.

Second- I started an art club at school for 4th and 5th graders.  They are awesome!  I am so used to my first grade kiddos that having an older bunch with me sent a shock through my system.  They have really jumped right in and let me tell you...I have some gifted little artists!

Of course...I needed to get my house ready for the holidays as well.  This is Miss Kitty anxiously awaiting Santa Claus (she's a little early...and yes, I am a crazy cat lady).

We have also been working like crazy on an awesome Christmas unit for Teachers Pay Teachers.  This thing has everything!  My favorite is a cute (yet informational) Holidays Around the World Passport.  I can't wait to use it!  Click on the picture to get yourself a copy.

Thanks and see you real soon!

Just Call Me Crazy...

Oh my, oh my...one word to describe my school year so far would be "crazy."  Not because of the kids - my kids are WONDERFUL this year - I'm serious...just call me spoiled.  It is just that I have so many of them!  I have 24 firsties this year (we usually have between 16 and 20, so this is quite the difference).  My classroom is jam-packed!  I made myself a promise at the beginning of the school year that I wouldn't let the number of students change the way that I normally teach (keep in mind that I am the "artsy," "project-oriented" teacher).  Whew!  Needless to say, I'm worn out!  Here are some pics of the craziness that is my classroom:

We start off they year by learning the seven continents, the oceans, and all of the places that we live.  As a culminating activity, we made paper mache globes.  Here we are on the first day adding paper mache to our balloons.

 

Here they are drying.

 

 After a few days of "dry time," we added the blue paint for our oceans.

We added tissue paper die-cuts of the continents with glue...labeled them...then threw on a coat of Mod Podge.  This is the finished product:

It was quite the project, but it was totally worth it!

One of the other activities that my kids absolutely adore is working on our number scrolls.  I have no idea why they love this as much as they do...but oh my word, they cannot get enough of them!  All I do is give them a blank hundred's chart wrapped around a paper towel roll.  They fill in their charts and glue more on as they go.  I have kids that have done all of their numbers 0-2000 and we are only in October!

I also have a few pictures from one of my sweet friends in the county.  Here are some of her kids working on our Pumpkin Day Activity Pack.  So cute!  Thanks for sharing!

You can check out our Pumpkin Day Activity Pack here:

We also have a brand-spanking-new Halloween unit that is fabulous (if I do say so myself).  This unit has 121 pages of reading, language arts, and math activities.  I can't wait to start them with my firsties.  Many of the activities can easily be used in kindergarten and second grade.

I hope that you are having a great year!

Keeping us on our toes...

Oh my.  That is all that I have to say.  Today was crazy...let me tell you about it.

First of all, it was the day after a holiday.  This automatically makes things hectic because you are trying to cram two days worth of stuff into one.  With that being said, my kids were fantastic.  They were working hard and getting things finished.  We were just humming right along.  I was thinking to myself, "Wow, I can't believe how great the day is going!"

Then came the intercom announcement.

I don't know how things work at your school...but someone coming over the intercom with an all call in the middle of the day is NEVER good.  Case in point-we were being evacuated.  This was not your typical "Boys and girls...this is a drill."  It was "Teachers...get your students and exit the building immediately."  That will shake things up a bit.  So Mrs. Alexander (my para) and I gathered up our 23 closest friends (one was absent) and headed out.  I'm not going to lie...I was a tad freaked out, but I'm the teacher (which also means I'm an actress) and I calmly led my kids out for what would be about 45 minutes of evacuation time.  Y'all, my kids were amazing.  They sat, waited calmly and quietly, played some Rock, Paper, Scissors, and made the best out of the situation.  I am one proud teacher.  Of course it did happen right around dismissal and it did start raining the minute we were cleared to come back in...so that added an element of fun as well.

Turns out that a construction crew hit a gas line right beside our school.  Eventually we were cleared to come back in and everyone made it home safely.  Whew...crazy.  There is no such thing as a calm Tuesday after a three day weekend.

Math, Math and More Math!

This is my first year teaching kindergarten and I am still trying to find out "what works for me." Over the summer I talked to tons of teachers, blog hopped, and spent hours on Pinterest tying to find great ways to teach math. I wanted rotations that were easy for me to plan, allowed for the kids to work independently or with a partner and also incorporated other subjects (handwriting, language arts, gross and fine motor skills science and social studies). All of the other teachers I work with in kindergarten do math tubs. Basically, they have 5 tubs that are each filled with various games that the students can work independently on. The idea is that the tubs are full enough so if the child finishes a game they can put it away and pull out another game from the tub. This is great but I really wanted MORE! Call me greedy :)

It is week 3 and here is how I'm doing...

Every morning during calendar I introduce the number of the day (the number is always the number of days we have been in school). This number is important for the math rotations!

Rotation 1 is play dough. When the kids are at this rotation they are expected to make the number of the day using play dough and use the play dough to represent the number of the day with tally marks and dots. This activity keeps them busy for a while! Once they have done this they can play with the play dough and make whatever their heart desires! Playing with play dough is a great fine motor activity, especially if you throw in cookie cutters! The kids love it! The trays are from the dollar store, great for containing play dough and it allows for easy clean up!

How great is this! It sets up the next activity perfectly!

Rotation 2 is math journals. I love having a math journal! The kids get excited about this rotation, they feel very "grown up" writing in journals! :) Gotta love kids! This is another rotation where the number of the day is very important. The kids use their math journals to represent the number of the day in as many ways as they can. I stole this fabulous idea from my sister! I love seeing how creative they get with this activity.

Rotation 3 is folder games. This summer my sister, my mom, and I spent a lot of time making folder games that related to our social studies themes. Right now, we are wrapping up our Olympics and Me theme so the kids are playing Olympic math folder games! Love it! And boy do these games get competitive in my room!

Rotation 4 is sorting. This rotation will probably change throughout the year but since it is the beginning of kindergarten sorting is a must! I found these trays at the dollar store as well! Great for a veggie tray but BETTER for sorting! I also like having books out at this rotation because some kids can sort at lightning speed and then they are bored. Having math books there and waiting for those quick kiddos is a great way to tie in literacy. My mom gave me the book idea! Thanks :) I even found some math books that had great pictures of animals (BONUS! That also incorporates science into these rotations!).

Rotation 5 is fine motor and ordinal numbers. Since it is still summer time we have been reading tons of books that relate to this time of the year. So I decided to bring in some sea shells. Oh how I wish I was still at the beach collecting these shells. I found this cup tray at target for like 2 dollars! Great deal! The students start with the shells in the first cup and then have to use the tweezers to move all of them to the second cup and then to the third. I also have math books at this rotation as well.

Off to a great start! I like these rotations because three of them will basically stay the same for the entire year. Of course I will switch out the folder games to match our theme and also change the play dough to keep the kids interested, (hmmm...maybe shaving cream or sand!) but these really are teacher friendly and EASY.

Share your fun ways to teach math here! I would love to hear them!

Please check out our store! I just added a kindergarten homework calendar for September. I will be uploading a homework calendar every month so take a look and see if it is something you would like!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/September-Homework-Calendar-A-Month-of-Homework-for-Kindergarteners

The finished product!

Here is a look at how our classroom number posters turned out!  Love them!

One week down! And many more to go.... :)

One week down (whew)...and several more to go (ahhh)! The summer may be over but the fun never stops! This is my first year teaching kindergarten and boy am I excited! Ever since I was asked to loop up with my class from last year I have heard several kindergarten teachers talk about how the number of sight words our kindergarten kiddos are expected to know at the end of year keeps increasing. Right now they are expected to know 125 words! That is a lot! Over the summer my sister, my mom and I decided that we better come up with a fun way to teach all of these words, so we made the Star Wars Sight Words Packet. Now that we are back in school and I have tried some of these activities, I can truly say that the kids LOVE this packet!

My class is very eager and energetic, like most kids! I am always looking for ways to teach that allows them to get some of their energy out while learning! This packet has a craft where you can make each student in your class their very own light saber! YES, I said it, LIGHT SABER! Don't worry, they are inexpensive light sabers! I know, I know, how do you use light sabers to teach sight words? Each morning, during calendar, I introduce a new sight word. Once I show the class the new word and we have practiced reading it several times I get out the light sabers for Jedi Training Academy. I have this awesome button that plays the Star Wars theme song, I think I got it at Hallmark. I push this button and my class has until the end of the song to get a light saber and find a place to stand in the classroom in Jedi position. Check out this cute picture of one of my Jedis!

So once the kids are ready I pull up a powerpoint I created that has the sight words that I have introduced so far this year. For example if we are practicing the word "the", we start with the first letter and point with our light sabers to the top of the "t" and trace the letter in the air and then say "t"! Then we do the same thing with the letter "h" and "e". After the class traces and spells the word I say, "What's that word?" and they point with their light sabers and say "the"! My class LOVES this activity! They look forward to it every morning and they are so well behaved during this activity because they do not want to miss out! After we have gone through the words I push the button and they know that they have until the end of the song to put their light sabers away and meet me back on the carpet. Each day, I watch during this activity and choose a Jedi of the Day! Check out this picture of my class during Jedi Training Academy! They are getting into it!!

Check out the rest of the Star Wars Sight Words Packet here:
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Star-Wars-Sight-Words-Teach-the-First-300-Fry-Words-and-Make-It-FUN

Has it really only been four days?

Has it really only been four days since the kids came back??? I am exhausted!  I am teaching first grade again this year (yay!), Allison looped to kindergarten with her pre-kers from last year (lucky), and my sweet mom is braving pre-k for the first time (I know I could never do it).  Needless to say, bed time has come a lot earlier than any of us would like to admit this week.

I thought I would share a few pictures from our first few days.  I wish I had more, but I am struggling to remember to get out the camera...I need to get back in the habit.

First of all, I like to start the year off with an idea from Debbie Miller's Reading with Meaning book.  My entire grade level read this book a couple of years ago and we have integrated a lot of her ideas, but this is my favorite:

We generate a list of ideas as a class and then I incorporate the list into a little promise.  The kids then make self portraits and sign their name as a way of saying that "they promise."

Next, I have some pictures of a little math activity that I do every year during the first week.  I like to start the year by building number sense and working with a number line...so why not include a little art project?!

Here we are making number posters to hang in our classroom.  You can tell, right?  Ha!  We voted as a class to make bumblebees this year (at this point they are just yellow circles with a black head).  Each kid made some and then they had to come and place them on our number cards...the "1" card has one bee, "2" has two, all of the way to "25" (this is a great way for them to see the difference in numbers and it also guarantees that we make enough).  I take the bees and glue them on white paper with the corresponding number and number word...we add a few stripes and some wings, laminate, and voila!...a beautiful kid-created number wall for your classroom (I will post pictures of the finished product asap!).

We have also been doing a little "Number of the Day" practice.  Each student has a spiral bound notebook (cut in half) that they use every morning as part of their morning work.  They have to represent "Today's Number (the number of days we have been in school) in at least five different ways.  They start off the year with the number word, dots, etc, and they end the year doing some serious algebra...I kid you not.  Here are a few of my kids sharing what they came up with.

I'll be back with more pictures soon!

And so it ends...

Well...today officially marks the last day of summer vacation.  I will miss it so.  Tomorrow morning I will be greeting 23 new little faces, unpacking supplies, running through every possible procedure I can think of, etc, etc.  The day will speed by...and on Tuesday the real fun begins!

In addition to the last day of our glorious break, it just happens to be my birthday.  So we are going to celebrate with a SALE!

Go visit our Team Fannin store and stock up!

A long time ago...in a galaxy far, far away :)

Okay - We're coming clean...we are those weird teachers that you will find camped out in the kid movies over the summer.  There...I said it.  Sad, but true.  There is a method to our madness though :)  We are firm believers that, as a teacher, you have to stay current with your books, movies, tv shows, etc so that you can completely blow your kids' minds when you can carry on an in depth conversation about Merida's archery abilities, Peter Parker's amazing transformation into Spiderman, or whatever it may be.  While these discussions are not at all academic in nature, they do begin to build a connection between you and your students (especially those students that are sometimes difficult to make a connection with)...and when you can make an academic connection to these pop culture icons...you have struck teaching gold!

With this being said...sometimes you also find yourself doing a little "research" with slightly older movies...like Star Wars for instance.  Yes, I had seen the movies years ago...and, yes, I could discuss the basics on the playground with my boys that were just waiting for Yoda to summon them to become Jedi...but that was about it.  My class last year was OBSESSED with these movies (as only a class with 12 boys out of 18 can be).  I had a little discussion with my mom and Allison and our next little packet was born.

 

This preview doesn't do it justice.  I have NEVER been so excited about teaching sight words in my life.  This packet has everything from flash cards to reader's theaters to board games to literacy centers.  My kids this year are going to be beside themselves...and I can't wait to see it!  197 pages of pure Star Wars awesomeness.  We also have a few freebies that you can check out.

Just click on the pictures and you will be able to download the freebies from our TPT store.

Well we are off to continue our "research" by re-watching the Star Wars movies.  May the Force be with you. :)