Holly Bloggy Christmas giveaway #2

  Have you signed up for Holly Bloggy Christmas yet? I did and I would really love for you to sign and maybe you might be my secret pal. Entries end today at midnight! Plus make sure you are on the list because Holly Bloggy Christmas is having 9 giveaways, well 8 weekly giveaways now. This next giveaway of Holly Bloggy Christmas is for handmade Christmas cards. Wouldn't that be awesome to be different than all those store bought generic ones? When your family and friends opens mail from you it will be a refreshing surprise this holiday season. So stop on over at Ms. Preppy's blog and enter to win the cards AFTER you sign up on her blog to do Holly Bloggy Christmas. You have to be a participant before you can enter the giveaways!

Blog On Fire Award

 Wow to my greatest achievement in all of my blogging was that I am nominated for the Blog On Fire Award thanks to Mrs. Bee's Kindergarten. Thank you, thank you for this award. I always thought in order to be nominated I had to be doing some spectacular stuff but in all reality I guess I was nominated for being me.

 To accept my award I need to tell you 7 things about myself and nominate 7 more blogs. That should be super hard because there are so many out there that I like. But I will give it my best shot!

1. I currently live in Virginia but I am originally from California. I know such a big west coast/east coast jump.

2. I am so in love with B & B's. If I could just go to a bed and breakfast every time I vacationed I would be set. My mother actually took me to one on our trip to Elizabeth City, NC this summer. 

3. I am a daredevil at heart. My dream is to one day go hang gliding somewhere. By myself is cool, I've already been para-sailing by myself and that was AWESOME!

4. I LOVE to write. I love writing in my blogs but my original passion is writing poetry. I was a published writer in high school. Now I just write my blogs and add to my Bucket List. 

5. I'm itching to travel the world with my first stops being Cardiff, Wales (Torchwood, anyone?), Scotland, Ireland (Killarney) and Cornwall, England (to walk on water...).

6. I love reading books on my Kindle, I can't believe I used to read paperback books before. And fight to keep them in my library, now I just build my Kindle library. 

7. And I LOVE finding new ideas and games while "blog stalking" that I can take back to my kids and make learning more fun and hands-on. 

My 7 nominated blogs for the Blog On Fire Award:
1. Definitely Confessions of a Homeschooler, she has TONS of cool stuff and the fact that she has her own Pre-K and Kindergarten curriculum with lots of fun activities has made this year so far very enjoyable for me and my kinders.
2. Annie over at The Moffatt Girls (I think I stumbled on her and I am so glad I did, make sure to check out her Ready 2 Read Units) And she is up for the Circle of Moms Top 25 Award. Check her out and vote!
3. Fran over at Kindergarten Crayons!
4. Ingles 360, offers a lot of early reader activities as well as Spanish activities. My kinders are so loving Spanish that I have tried to incorporate some into our daily activities.
5. Herding Kats in Kindergarten (another Circle of Moms Top 25 nominee)
6. Mrs. Wills Kindergarten  I love her posts, especially her Peek into her week posts where you can gather different ideas for your lesson plans for the week.
7. What's the Buzz in First?

 Wow that was definitely hard to pick 7 blogs for this award especially when I have over 200 blogs that I keep watch over. So I guess they would have to be Honorable Mentions:) Enjoy!

Pumpkin Patch

So yesterday was NOT the ideal day for our kindergartners to go to the Pumpkin Patch. All the other grade levels that went before us has BEAUTIFUL field trip days. Well we had a cold, drizzly day... First of all we had to have a consensus on our kindergarten team whether or not we were going to go when we got that squared away then we had to deal with the chaperones. Once they were on board then we could actually get on the bus and get there... I made us late too, we had trouble getting the check written, sorry team!

I don't know about anyone else but the closest pumpkin patch to us is 45-1 hour away. So the kids of course were asking about when we would get there and "are we there yet?" When we did eventually get there we noticed that there were covered hayrides... SCORE! Because at that time it was lightly raining. We got off the bus and had to split our group into two hayrides at two different locations. But that was okay because at least I had all of my students and chaperones with me. Last year I had to split my class and only go with about 9 of my students so we missed the whole class experience.

But this year my kids quickly got off the hayride into a field of pumpkins. However right next to our field was a line of TONS of pumpkins... but we couldn't go there because they were for consumer use only. It kind of bummed us out but we got over it because there was so much to choose from in our current patch. What is it about the kids (kindergarten kids) trying to pick the biggest pumpkin but refusing to carry it? I made sure to tell my students before I let them explore that they would have to pick a pumpkin that fit into their bookbags or that they could carry in their hands. Many of my students picked the biggest one they could find then complained about it being too heavy. Most of them I was able to catch them before heading back onto the hayride so they could get something a big lighter. But I still missed some who complained the whole way back about how heavy it was, but that their mommy said that they should pick a big pumpkin. You know mommy, that is what they did! But couldn't carry it.:(

And our guide was so nice in giving us teachers a vine that hand the pumpkin life cycle on it. Of course the vine didn't make it back in tact but that is okay because I showed my students the little tiny green pumpkin, the medium green/orange pumpkin and our orange flower. Many of my students asked if the green one and the flower were going to grow into an orange pumpkin and I had to tell them that they would not because once you take them out of the ground they no longer have the food they need so they cannot grow any more. So of course they said that we should take it back so they could grow again. How cute is that?

So I learned a few things on this trip... my kids do not go anywhere long distances on a regular basis so I can't wait to we take them to the zoo! Make sure to send out a reminder to parents to please dress their child in warm clothes as we will be having an outdoor field trip. And make sure all chaperones want to attend and do all the planned activities with our group, if not they can definitely stay at school and not try to ruin the trip for the rest of the group. Oh and make sure I take my nausea pill before sitting in the front of the bus on the way back to school on windy, twisty roads... I was so sick and nauseous by the time we got back to school. Yuck! I sat in the back on the way to the patch but didn't think when I was sitting in the front how I would feel.

Overall it was a good field trip... I am exhausted though, 2 field trips in one week! See ya!

Update

 I just wanted to take a moment and say that my kids seem to really enjoy the way groups are set up now. Our 4 stations are pretty quiet and those who should be on the computers during each rotation are learning when they go. Once I start teaching station, this week we were testing for PALS, It is sure to be really quiet at the tables too.
 Do you feel as if you are in too many meetings and you have too much paperwork to do? Do you feel as if you aren't really teaching the kids, just testing them all the time? Well I definitely feel like that. Yesterday I lost my "cool" which isn't like me but I definitely lost it and of course was very apologetic to my teammates who witnessed it. But it is really frustrating to not know our boundaries with our administration and what the protocol is to report a serious incident... it changes every week. I think if I survive this year it will be an act of God because he is really helping me keep it all together, for the most part. But then I think I actually love my job of teaching my class, some of my students need A LOT of help and I just couldn't leave them in the middle of the year. But some things have to change... the first to go would have to be all these meetings. It seems as if we have a staff meeting every week or we have an all call staff meeting during/after dismissal about the minimal things.
 Well I am not going to dwell in it. I just want to get through the year with out anymore mishaps. I am thinking more on the lines of our first field trip today. We are going to the Botanical Gardens for a garden tour. I am excited because it will be our time to see how the kids do before we go to the Pumpkin Patch on Friday. I hope it will be a nice day today too.
 Oh and has everyone signed on to the Holly Bloggy Christmas, the blog world's version of secret Santa? You have until Monday October 31st to get it done. And maybe I might have you for my secret pal:) And they are having their first WEEKLY giveaway which ends Friday October 28th, so make sure you are a participant so you can win the prize! Enjoy!

Changes...

 I stayed late... I mean late on Friday so I could get my classroom moved around. I needed to change my kids' seats, BADLY. They were getting under each other's skin and every minute was spent saying "he touched me" or "move your stuff off my name", etc. I just knew we needed a change. I made sure to tell the students that when they came in on Monday that they would have new seats and even some friends would have to sit by themselves. I don't think they quite understood what I was really going to do but I think they will soon. I will make sure to post about their reactions.:)

 I also needed to change their station groups. With our reading program my kids are at 3 different stations throughout the morning. And I only had 3 groups with 6 kids in each. Last year it worked okay to have that many but this year, my younger bunch, it does not work out. So I have added a station, word work, and added on another group. I added on word work because I am definitely fascinated by Daily 5 and I wish I could incorporate that into our reading instead of our current reading program. So I've been "stalking" several blogs to get some ideas for my word work station. I am excited to try my kids out on the sentence read-trace-cut-glue that Mrs. Wills created. They are wonderful back-to-school sentences that the students read then cut and try to glue the sentence to match the one they read. My kids did pretty good with this on Friday. It was my first time trying it and I felt that it would be good to have it as my 4th station as I work with my students on cutting out their word sorts for the week. I know I can't put word sorts into the station without showing them what to do, so that is my mission this week.

 After figuring out my station and all its contents, then I tried to tackle the task of forming groups. Making sure those students who couldn't get along with each other were not in a group together. I also decided to tackle the task of figuring out how to get my kids on the computers. Last week, I think my kids used the computers one time and not everyone got to use them. So I stayed up late Friday evening into Saturday (4am) to figure it out. See once I start something I have a hard time putting it down just so I could do those basic things like eat or sleep. My mind gets so focused on getting it done and figured out that I can't concentrate until I have mastered it. But I did it! I figured out how all  my students were coming to me at teaching station, how to leave enough students working together at stations AND how to make sure everyone gets a chance on the computers TWICE a week. Fridays are for free or makeup times. My hope is that as my students are able to get on the computer more that they will know what to do when they get there and especially what to do when they get to the computer lab. And of course since I made this all so super complicated that no one will understand my code, I had to make a schedule for myself just in case I forgot the method to my madness.

 I am glad that I decided to make these changes because this week my kids sort of have a "short" week of stations. I only say a "short" week of stations because 2 days out of this week we will be going on 2 field trips. So my kids will have some experience with this new setup but for a short time period, just to get them used to everything. Well I better get some sleep since I have A LOT to do in the morning before my kids come in..

Professional Development

Our district had make-up professional development yesterday and on Thursday. I say make-up because we were supposed to have professional development at the end of August but it was cancelled due to the hurricane. So we had to give up our Thursday evening (4:15-7:15) and our half day (1:00-4:00) to go to professional development workshops. I didn't so much mind the time on Friday but having to go in on a Thursday just after you finished getting the kids on the bus you have to go learn some more. Ugh!!

Well of course our team got there late, I directed them to the wrong school (my bad!) and we needed to get directions to the school. Luckily my teammate had a gps in her car... genius! So when we go there, the high school wasn't in the best of neighborhoods and we were really not feeling parking the car in the neighborhood. But I kept saying to myself this is what my students have to live everyday and it wouldn't kill us for 2 days to be there too. When we got inside the school we got our schedule of classes and rooms but the way the high school was laid out, we got so lost and confused we wondered how the new 9th graders ever figured it out on their first week of school. But we ended up splitting off so we could learn. My 2 teammates and I stopped in one that was given by our other colleagues so we knew they wouldn't mind if we came in late. It didn't apply to us, kindergartners, but like all workshops kindergarten teachers can ALWAYS figure out a way to dial the upper grades information down to our level. Plus we just wanted to get credit (sign in sheet) for being there during that session.

So 2nd session is really the reason I am writing this post. I went to a workshop called Developing Number Sense. I wanted to attend because I am doing the math lesson plan for my team this year and I want all the ideas I can get my hands on. By the way... if you have any good kindergarten ideas for math, please send them my way. Okay so the two presenters showed us the books by Kathy Richardson which most of the teachers in there said they had not seen those books, even though they are in our school library. Isn't it weird how teacher resources are never shared with the teachers?! We got a HUGE stack of blackline masters to use with the books and got hands-on experience with some of the games in one of the books. But one part of the presentation that stuck with me was called Funny Numbers. We were told to repeat each word after one of the presenters: Seize (seize), nudge (nudge), jingle (jingle), drift (drift), ramp (ramp), groan (groan), spruce (spruce). She asked us to repeat them back to our partners. Well of course we could not because we learned them pretty fast. So then she put the words into perspective. She told us to think about the words as numbers that a new kindergartener or ESL student would have to learn. Then she repeated the words using her fingers and having us repeat the words only 3 at a time and we repeated them back to our partners better because we understood what the words meant and we learned them slower. So throughout the whole presentation we had to use these "numbers" to explain our selves. So if we were counting cubes and we had only 3 cubes. She would ask us how many we had and we would have to say "jingle".
I was so floored when we had to count that way because it does make sense when we ask students to repeat after us when we are doing calendar but they really have no earthly idea how much 28 is on the calendar. They are just rote counting then we wind up frustrated when we realize that are students can't count a group of objects... well that is because we don't give them enough hands-on activities with them. I can't wait to go to my school on Monday (yes we have school unfortunately) and find these books. I even offered up one of the activities I remembered to my teammates for this week's lesson plan on sorting.

                     It's called shake and sort. 

 The gist of it is, that you have a various amount of cubes (unfix or snapping) of different colors put into a bucket, bag and they shake them up, then pour them onto the table. Students then sort out their cubes by color. Then they have to say how many they have the least of (a question we don't often ask them first) and what color has the most? which ones have the same? Then they can put their cubes back and get more cubes to sort out. But it is a good activity to get them to sort and count. 

The object is to give students the hands-on experience with objects that help them associate them with numbers not just with rote counting as we do in calendar. Tactile experiences that they can use to develop number sense. We were shown a video where 3 students were given a pile of x amount of unfix cubes and asked to count the objects, they were kindergartners. But 2 of the students would touch each object but then touch and count them over and over again. One student would touch and push out the objects once she counted them. With the two who counted over and over again, the teacher would take away some and ask how many which they would show that same strategy again. The teacher would take away more to make it less than 10 and have the students say how many there were then have them count out the cubes. If they got it wrong, she asked them to count it again. Eventually they got the number right but phew they had a lot of tries. Like some kids could look at a group of numbers and tell exactly how many there are, they of course are further along in number sense than the students who need to forever recount the objects when asked the question how many are there? We learned that was when students had difficulty remembering the number so would have to count again... we were given a term but I can't quite remember it now... haha!

But overall, I now have a new drive for math and making sure my students work in small groups rather than whole groups. I feel as if my students might actually get to do stations this year... I wasn't feeling it when I saw my group of kids but now I know that they NEED it.

Catching Up in Google Reader

As I am sitting her stuck in bed with a cold. Yeah I know it sucks! I thought I would catch up on my google reader items. I can get Google Reader on my phone but sometimes I need to use the computer so I can download items and look at all the wonderful activities up close. I LOVE Google Reader because it allows me to star items that I find that I can view over and over again. Especially if I don't want to miss out on the great things it tells me.

I found a HUGE giveaway from The Moffatt Girls. If you have never been to her blog, check it out. She is giving away her Ready2Read Units 1-8!!! I grabbed some of her color by number sight words that are in her units but I really want to win all her units.:) Each unit is sold separately over at her Teacher's Notebook page but just imagine if you could win all the units and you wouldn't have to pay for them! Giveaway ends October 2nd. Good luck!

Sunny Days in Second Grade is having a Dollar Tree: To You, From Me Giveaway which ends 9/30.

I also noticed that Johnny Appleseed's birthday is this week and while we are not officially studying apples I am going to try to fit it in. Of course you could do all kinds of things with apples but on top of all that we have to teach this week I think I will only do a little. I found from Mrs. Wills Kindergarten a FREE (Yup you read right) ABC activity. As we just finished assessing our students on their letters I know how much more practice my students need in recognizing the upper and lower case letters. I can't wait to print out the activity and let me kids have at it. And with our upcoming PALS testing in October, I would love for my kids to have as much practice as they can. And if you have never been to Mrs. Wills's blog you need to go! She offers up wonderful ideas that you can share with your students at any time. If you want to add some "spice" to your lesson plans, head on over to Mrs. Wills's blog. 

Mrs. Patton shared her post about her magnetic word wall.  I went back and forth about my word wall this year as last year it was non-existent. And I wanted to make sure I used my word wall a lot more this year. Over the summer I found some things on word wall detectives; about how students could read the room for word wall words or any word but to just get them recognizing and writing. Today I found Mrs. Patton's FREE word wall words for kindergarten and first grade.

I also found on Live, Love, Laugh Everyday in Kindergarten her October Read the Room. And I am actually motivated to try this because it seems simple enough and easy enough that even I could do it. All I need are different color pumpkins and leaves, which this reviews with my students the color words and has them looking and writing the words to match. Exciting! And I just got her new post all about ABC books and check out the FREEBIES!

Little Miss Kindergarten is having a Goodbye to Summer sale over at her TpT store. Head on over there and check her out.:)

And so show that I love shopping... Kinderpond gave a shout out to Just Love Teaching's ETSY store. So I headed on over and just fell in LOVE with the cute aprons. I so want one! But I have to think what would I really use the 6-pocket apron for and would I really use all the pockets? I like the Leap into Learning apron, it matches our classroom theme of Frogs and Monkeys. I have to slow down on my spending since I did purchase myself a kindergarten binder from zazzle.com and I've been shopping on Tpt and Teacher's Notebook. But I do love this apron. And maybe it will help me when I walk madly around my room looking for where I put my SHARPIE, when I know I just had it. I know you guys get moments like that too.

And here is another FREEBIE to close out my post. Miss Kindergarten has posted her pumpkin math center.

I am so excited about October. All the wonderful things I have been finding on my Google Reader from all the bloggers I subscribe to. Thank you all so much for all your posts and ideas. I now need to go out and get me more printer ink and cardstock to make sure I print up all that I've found.:) Enjoy!

Pete the Cat Giveaway

I was in the Barnes and Noble bookstore the other day and I ran across one of the Pete the Cat books. It wasn't the original but it was PETE THE CAT. I have been hearing about Pete all summer and I still don't know who he is yet. I wanted to order the first book to see if I could read it to my class but I haven't done that yet. But if you head over to Lesson Plan SOS they are having a giveaway for an autographed copy of Pete the Cat! Giveaway ends Saturday so hurry over.

Some Reflections

Oh yes, my kindergartners have stepped on the block and they are fierce. With each year comes a new group of students from different backgrounds trying to interact with each other. Then you have students who have never interacted with kids their own age. So they you work on those communication and socializing skills while also trying to teach the curriculum.
I have found myself so worn out that I didn't even feel like sharing it with you all. I bet you all have been going through the same thing. And to top off my first month of school, my beloved uncle was in a fatal racing crash. So last week was just a LOOOOOONG week. And this week I spent most of it playing catch up. Because as I was at work and teaching my students last week, I don't quite remember it all. I guess I was in a fog because of my uncle.
But today I have gotten some renewed strength. I was at a faculty meeting with a wonderful speaker who got me excited about teaching and made me want to share all of what I learned with my colleagues and especially with my students. As the beginning of the month was a rough start I am determined to finish the month better than when I first came in. You know that saying "in like a lion, out like a lamb."
And who knew you could get tired of practicing for the fire drill...

Happy Labor Day!

 Today I am going to try to take it easy and relax... well I did say try. Tomorrow will be the FIRST day for my new kinders and I don't even know how many are on my roll yet. The first time I saw my roll I had 9 (and I only sent 9 letters out) but then I got a chance to peek at my roll and I had 13... so I guess I will find out how many are there tomorrow.
 I know I said I would try to take pictures of my classroom when I was finished but of course I am still not done. I know, they come tomorrow but the building is open early in the morning. So I will get myself to bed early and then get up early to prepare my room for my class. The only thing really that is left is to find places for all my containers and put them out of sight/ out of mind. But I do have some teasers, things that add color to my room and that are complete enough to show to others. I do apologize in advance for the poor lighting.

Bulletin Board says "Leap and Swing into Room 105!" I don't know if I should add my frogs in there for leap too. But the monkeys are holding up the letters for "Swing"

We are doing Student of the Month in our school and since we also talk about citizenship in social studies I thought to maybe display the students who earn student of the month here at our front door. 

Our reading board which will have the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom letters that we study. And a listing of other words we learn. The cards at the bottom are our station cards which will be located on the wall next to this board. 

This is our Math Work Stations board. I feel as if I am missing so much more on this board. After this picture was taken I did staple a number line at the bottom. What else should go there besides the station cards and students (those are coming)?

These are my helpers (sorry for the lighting). I have one helper for each student up to 20 jobs. I got the jungle background for another teacher blog, if this is yours please let me know so I can give you credit. If you click on the picture you can get a better view of the classroom jobs as well as the monkey magnets. I found a guy, Dereck West, earlier in the summer who makes inexpensive ($12) number magnets  up to 36 which you can tell him what you want on them. I got a set of jungle numbers, monkeys, colored bears, black/red bears. You can email him (located on his page) and tell him what you were thinking of and he will send you back an example until you are completely satisfied with them. I bought a few sets so I could have my kids use them in patterning and number order.

I gave these cute bags to my team. I got the template from Mrs. Gilchrist's Class, check out her post and she was even willing to give me the not flipped version so I could do it on dark fabric. Inside the bags I made sure to include printed and laminated ideas/activities that I found from other teacher bloggers. So THANK YOU teacher bloggers for creating and posting your wonderful ideas!! My team greatly appreciated them!

So after all the craziness of the first week passes me by hopefully I will be back on here like regular. I hope everyone who will be starting tomorrow has a WONDERFUL first day. And for those who have been going strong for a while, I hope you have a GREAT day tomorrow. And to everyone have a AWESOME week!:)