Friday, March 30, 2012

Friday Farm Frenzy Fun


Happy Friday!  Come take a photo journey of Farm Unit FUN in our classroom this week!



Down On The Farm Class Field Trip book!

A peek at the pages inside...



My students LOVE making these sight word books (pictured below) and bringing them home to read to their families!  This particular sight word book had a fun riddle and rhyming component.  


Beginning Stages Of The Book:

Ready To Cut The Book Out:

A Class Set of Finished Farm Sight Word Book Masterpieces!!!!:

Farm and science vocabulary cards were taped all over the room.  Students went on a Farm Read The Room hunt to see how many they could find! 




Labeling Farm Animals

Gotta love the adorable ear spelling!  Too cute!


Building A Farm Inside The Classroom

Birds Eye View Of The Farm In Progress

Our favorite farm stories helped give us ideas for art we created at the Friday Fun art center!

 I enjoy sitting down with my kinder cuties and working right along side them!  There is something very calming and meditative about doing art work with kids.  Here is my farm art creation!  

I hope you have a wonderful weekend.  If you are interested in any of these activities check out A Bushel Of Farm Academic Fun in my Teachers Notebook store!  ONE MORE WEEK AND I TURN 30!!!!  Oh NOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Cutie Cupcake Freebie




Hip Hip Hooray For a Cutie Cupcake Freebie Unit!  Head straight to my Teachers Notebook Store to download your freebie and have cupcake fun with your cuties!


To start off the week we read the most adorable book Camilla the Cupcake Fairy.  The pictures are bright and vibrant.  The story is filled with student's favorite things: magic, wands, cupcakes, and friendship!  And yes, the boys in my class loved the story, just as much as the girls.  Reading comprehension continues to be a target area in my kinder class.  In particular story retelling and making connections from themselves to the story.  After we read the story as a class over the course of a few days, students completed a Cupcake Connections paper.  They had to connect to the story through their own experiences.  For example one student wrote--- I have a fairy wand just like Camilla the main character.  Another student remembered the time she had cupcakes for one of her birthday parties.  

 

Students also completed a story retelling wand.  Using quick sketches they mapped out the story in order.  Some write a P next to the box where the problem occurred in the story. 


Students partner up and share their papers.  This is a great opportunity for me to walk around and monitor comprehension, vocabulary, and general understanding.  I also can guide students in successful peer interactions like staying on task, keeping the conversation going, holding the paper so your partner can see etc. 




For more cupcake fun to go along with our story we made juicy cupcake sentences! 




We have been learning about sentences.  Students are not only working on correct punctuation, spacing, sounding out words etc, but students are also learning about complete "juicy" sentences; as I like to call them.  As a class we brainstormed adjectives that would go along with the noun cupcake.  We also brainstormed prepositional phrases.  I typed the list of brainstormed words and made cards. We placed the color coded cards in the correct place on the sentence building chart.  Students came up and used post-its placed next to the words they wanted to use for the song, and then to the tune of Farmer In The Dell, we sang our sentence.  

Yummy messy cupcakes
Yummy messy cupcakes
Yummy messy cupcakes in the kitchen!


We left the chart up through out the week so we could make some juicy sentences. 


These are the Sight Word Cupcakes! After students made their Sight word cupcake they used words from our sentence chart to write adjectives around their cupcake. 


The best part was going up to the chart and pulling favorite words down.



It is hard to read but one of my little cuties on the left was VERY proud of the sentence she created: I see my yummy cupcakes in the oven.  



 I have TONS of cute scrap book paper at my house. There was a time I thought I was going to be a scrapbooker.  Well, it was a good vision that never really came to pass.  Now I have all this cute paper to use for my kindy cuties art work.  Check out the scrumptious and colorful cupcakes we designed.  Students wrote sentences using our chart and then color coded the sentence to match adjective, noun, and prepositional phrase colors.  My cuties are so proud of their hard work that they can read and sing their sentences with pride! 



 If you end up downloading my freebie please consider following me on this blog!  I would love to expand my Sprinkle Teaching Magic community!!!




Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Hi Ho Hi Ho It's Down On The Farm We Go!

Come rain or shine our kinder class was determined to visit the farm!!!  Thank goodness the skies didn't open up and pour until much later in the day.  Here is a photo journey of our day on the farm.  

I could have stayed petting the sheep and baby lambs all day.  My kinders had to drag me out.




Well hello there....watcha doin?  Yikes!  Look at that underbite.  


 CHICKEN BUTTS!!!!  Love it!

2 week old baby chickies. 


Psssssssttttt.....Hey...Hey you!  Brake me out of this place.  I got a hunkerin' to play some Keno and retire to Florida.

Such tiny stubby legs for such a big pig body.


And now fingers crossed I win the Mega Millions!



Monday, March 26, 2012

Up Up And Away In My Beautiful Balloon

After reading Dr. Seuss's,  Great Day For Up students made hot air balloons.  They had to think of at least two rhyming words to post-it on their balloon.  Throughout the week students will partner share balloons and rhyming words.  In Writer's Workshop students will write a balloon adventure.



This hot air balloon idea was inspired by the one and only Kinder By Kim.  Her website is a must see.  www.kinderbykim.com (look under the section that says March and you will find her version of the hot air balloon activity)

Tomorrow is our field trip to the farm so stay tuned....

Friday, March 23, 2012

Put Some Zing In Your Spring!


Happy Friday Friends!  I hope at some point later today you can kick up your feet and enjoy some relaxation time with maybe some vino???? and chocolate????  You know where my mind is at!  Anyways, today was a busy day in kinder!  We head to a farm field trip next week, so we loaded in our wagon dressed in overhauls for a fun day on the farm!




On Monday, I will start using the curriculum from A Bushel Of Farm Academic Fun (pictured below).  Starting day one, students will earn academic awards.  Each award is related to farm and has a picture and definition.  The hope is that students earn these for making good classroom choices, trade them like trading cards, and bring them home to show off to their parents.  I love the idea of earning knowledge instead of candy or toys etc!  I will also print out the vocabulary cards, so they are ready for the pocket chart and students can start reading the room looking for new farm vocabulary!  We will start singing The Farm Will Rock You, and Five Senses At The Farm.


We certainly put some zing in our spring today! We brainstormed words for spring.  We thought of bugs, flowers, gardens and all that blooms and buzzes in spring.  Using our spring book bin, students created a mural for our door!


Creativity thrives in chaos I am convinced.  The more paint, pens, scraps, mess... the more fun!




Viola!  This door is dressed up for Spring.  I can't wait to walk in each morning and be greeted with my student's spring art!


Up Close And Personal




I am a huge Patricia Polacco fan, and the story, Rechenka's Eggs  is one of my all time favorite children's books.  We read the story and painted our own eggs. Instead of doing the regular crayon 
water resist we did oil pastel water resists.  They turned out nice and bright.  See, I told you; I am oil pastel obsessed!