Fall Fun

Wow!  It has been a long time since I have blogged!  We sure have been busy.  Here is a little bit of what's been going on in room 309 this fall!

Thanksgiving- We made pumpkin cookies for the Kindergarten Thanksgiving feast.  The class had a great time measuring and mixing.

Our Thanksgiving Feast was a great time to get with the other kindergarten classes and share what we made for the feast.  Everyone made headbands and necklaces!  We had a great time!  We feasted on turkey sandwiches, a harvest trail mix and pumpkin cookies!

We also had a kindergarten pow-wow!  We had a speaker teach us about pow-wows and he lead the classes in a pow wow!  The kids learned a lot about the music and clothes that Indians wear during pow-wows.  

What a fun Thanksgiving!

Fun Friday-We also started having Fun Fridays this fall.  I use Class Dojo for my behavior plan and the students have to earn Fun Friday.  It is a great reward for making good choices throughout the week!  The kids have been enjoying the activities.  The first Fun Friday was a painting and popcorn day.  The kids really enjoyed creating a special painting and eating popcorn.  Another Fun Friday we played with shaving cream.  Getting down the hall to wash our hands was interesting.  We made the whole hallway smell like shaving cream!  It was very messy, but boy was it fun!

Painting/Popcorn

 Shaving Cream

What will those amazing kinders do next?

Math Baskets

We have now completed our first week of Math Baskets!  What fun!  The kids are loving them.  During PWX Math the kids complete one math basket each day.  Depending on our week we will have math baskets 4 days a week.  Math baskets are a great way for students to apply the math skills we've been working on by using hands on manipulatives.  The skills we worked on this week were number recognition, counting, one to one correspondence, sorting and classifying.  

Last May I went to a Kim Adsit (from Kindergals) workshop and I loved how she did her Math Centers and how she called her groups families.  I just knew I had to do that too!  Thanks Kim!  I have 4 families that complete one basket each day for 4 days.  During this time I can call students over to work with me for individualized or small group instruction.   This is an exciting time in the classroom.  Here are some photos of our math baskets.

Math baskets and a whole group lesson on sorting!

My Amazing Kinders are doing super!  I can't wait for our Apple Math Baskets next week!

Centers

Things have really been busy in Kindergarten!  The kids are really learning the classroom routine and are getting the hang of things.  Last week we did our ABC centers.  The kids did a great job getting to their center and working the whole time.  The kids loved writing in shaving cream, painting, computers, writing the room and working on their ABC's.  Here are a few photos from our centers last week.

First week of school

Today we started week 2!  I really have to brag about my AMAZING Kinders!  Last week they all came in each day very excited and ready to go!  They worked so hard at learning the classroom rules and behavior plan.  It really showed today!  Wow!  They are doing GREAT!  

Last week we had B.E.A.R time each day after lunch.  The class did great each day getting books and looking through them.  Here are a couple of the photos I took!  It was kinda dark in there so the pictures are not the best.  We are already building that reading stamina! 

Last week we read the books The Kissing Hand and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.  The kids loved them.  Chester the raccoon ran off one day so we had to explore the building looking for him.  Chester finally ended up in our room and left us some Hershey's Kisses!   We also made some cute coconut trees!  I will post photos of their trees soon!  

This week will be busy with starting week 1 in our reading curriculum and learning about shapes and sorting in Math.  We will also be learning about centers and Math Tubs!  I can't wait to start them!

We are off to an AMAZING start!!

Classroom Photos

Here are some photos of my classroom.  I took these the day before our Meet Your Teacher Night.  So I have some tubs set on the tables for supplies.  I changed a lot in my room over the summer.  I took out my desk to allow more room for our whole group area. I will be doing more interactive activities on the promethean board this year and wanted to give us more space.  I am so happy with how everything turned out!

Summer 2014

Wow!  This summer has been a blast!  I have been so busy!  My summer has been filled with vacations, family times, painting projects at home, 3 education workshops, creating a blog, creating a TpT store, creating new products, and working on my classroom.  Wow!  Did I miss anything?  

It went fast, but boy do I feel accomplished!  That is a very good feeling.  Here are some pictures from my Pinterest class.  I got to pin things on my boards and make items I had pinned!  How fun is that?  I created new things for my classroom.  I can't wait to use them!!

This summer was also filled with 2 vacations.  First we went to Missouri.  We had a great time at Silver Dollar City and Table Rock Lake.  We also went to Eureka Springs, AR.  What a nice week relaxing with the family.  In July we went to Ohio to visit family and go to Cedar Point.  We had a blast!!  I conquered my fear and went on the Top Thrill Dragster!!  I did it!!  It was AWESOME!

Now I am busy getting ready for my new 23 amazing Kinders!  I can't wait to meet them.  We have Meet Your Teacher Night Thursday, August 7th. 

My next post will be all about my room!  I changed a lot in my room this summer!  I can't wait to take some photos and post about it!!  Posting soon!

Christy

Thanks!

Welcome to my blog!  This is my first blog post and I knew there would be no better way  to start blogging, then by saying THANKS!  I need to thank some special people in my life otherwise this blog would never of happened.  

First, a HUGE thanks goes out to my family!  My husband Matt and two daughters Lauren and Megan.  Matt has spent countless hours listening to me talk about teaching, my blog and helping me get my blog all set up.  Not to mention he bought me a brand new computer to work on at home!  What a guy! I couldn't ask for more support!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!  Also, my daughters have helped me along the way by showing me tricks to this new computer and also helping me on my web design.  They always say "Sure!" when I say, "Hey, look at this." or "What do you think about this?".  I always know they will help and give me feedback!  Thanks girls for all your help and support!

Second, I need to send a big thanks to my co-workers. Throughout my teaching career I have made many friends and worked with many wonderful teachers.  I have learned so much from so many of you.  And a special thanks goes out to my new co-worker and my first follower on TpT, Whitney!  Whitney, thanks so much for encouraging me to get my stuff on TpT and to get this going.  Your support really helped give me the confidence I needed to do this!  Thanks so much!!!  

Also, I can't do any of this without giving God the credit!  Everything I have and do is from God!  I know that God has placed me where he wants me to be and that he has a plan for me and my life! 

This blog has been in my mind and has even existed for about 3-4 years now.  It wasn't until recently that I knew I just had to do this.  So to everyone listed above I want to say THANK YOU!  THANK YOU!  THANK YOU!  THANK YOU!  THANK YOU!  THANK YOU!  

Christy