Watch Out! Kinders With A Driver’s License?!?!

I am excited to announce Sprinkle Teaching Magic’s fun in the sun summer book winners!  Congratulations Shannon, Jennifer, and Pam!  I will contact you shortly with all the details.



Mr. Winemaker and I just got back from a weeklong Oregon family vacation.  We enjoyed horse back riding, pinot noir wine tasting, family dinners, Oregon rain, bizarre ice cream flavors, and loads more.  Click on this link, She Said G Said, to see the latest post on our Oregon adventures!  Also, I put a new post up on ‘A Teacher’s Quest For Balance.’ 
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Fun Part 2:
I love kicking off the year with a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom theme.  This photo collage showcases a creative Chicka Boom Boom art project kids love.  First, students make the palm tree trunk with their footsies.  Students are shocked that they take off their shoes and socks at school!  Students use bright colored paints and fingers to make the palm tree pop off the page with alphabet fun.  Foam letters, sparkle paint, alphabet stickers… the possibilities are endless.

At the end of the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom week, students make palm tree hats.  We head out to the blacktop and write alphabet letters with chalk.  Upper grade buddies stop by to help us form our letters and remind us of tricky alphabet letters we may have forgotten. 


A Fun Way To Get Kids Walking In A Tidy Line Year Long!
I spend the first few weeks of school exposing my cuties to classroom rules, routines, and expectations.  We practice until our classroom runs like a well oiled machine.  All teachers know that little cuties tend to have a hard time walking in a straight and quiet line.  There are the wanderers, the talkers, the pokers, the drifters… you know.  I start by brainstorming with students the importance of car safety.  Then, I pass out laminated wheels to my students (I make these out of construction paper)  and I tell students that we will practice driving our cars in a straight line around the school.  While driving our cars around school in a line there is no talking.  Students must look at the head in front and keep their car driving straight.  Students receive a license when they can follow these line rules.  This is a BIG deal! Students bring in their favorite wallet and their new driver's license goes inside.  If a child breaks line rules their license is removed and must be earned back.  Students take this very seriously.  I beam as I walk the halls with my little ducklings following close behind in a nice neat line. 

     

Talking Tokens

Pablo Picasso Art Project:

Talking Tokens:

Last week was spring break and I knew my students would come to class anxious to share their spring break adventures.  Instead of the usual sit down and draw and write about your vacation...yawn... I wanted to come up with an activity that had a little more zip and incorporated more of the common core standards.  Thus, Talking Tokens was born and boy was it a huge success!  I have never seen my kinders more engaged and having such detailed conversations with each other.

First, students brainstorm events that happened to them over spring break.  Then they drew a quick picture for each event.  A picture that would serve as a symbol to remind them.  They wrote one word on the line to sum up the event.

They colored in their tokens, cut them out, and put their initials on the back of each token.  As students finished they gathered in groups on the carpet and took turns sharing their tokens.  I left the expectations for the parter sharing very loose.  I was amazed how students structured the share to meet their needs.  This group below shared and put their token events in order! 

 Each kinder in this group shared one at a time.  While a person shared, the others listened carefully and asked questions.

I constantly struggle to get my kindlers to share with each other, stay on topic, ask meaningful questions, etc!  Talking Tokens was the greatest success I have had making this expectation list happen.  Students who normally don't talk or are ELL's had  a picture to use as a starting off point.  Students who have a hard time retaining information and remembering events had a visual to jog their memory.  No joke my students sat for a good 10-15 minutes chatting with each other, and as I walked around I could see the tokens in their hands and hear them staying on topic!  Later in the day we turned our tokens in to a Spring Break Art project.  Students glued the tokens down and made a flower scene.  

I love the symbols this student used (the slide from pump it up, play date, camping tent with thunder outside, campfire and talking around the campfire, going to the park, and an Easter egg hunt)

Here are some freebies!  Click on the picture!

For more Talking Tokens and very detailed directions for implementation I made a unit for sale in my TPT and Teachers Notebook stores.  Check it out! Only $3 for a 21 page packet!  Click on the picture below.  

Non-related to school but fun nonetheless!  Have you heard of Mixbook?  It is a very fun online scrapbooking program.  2011 was a big year for me and I wanted to put all my favorite photographs in to a scrapbook.  I received my book in the mail and wanted to share with you how it turned out! 

  

My boyfriend and I met on eharmony!  It works!  Anyways, I included our profiles and all the juicy emails we sent back and forth to each other.  

This was my profile:

Our Emails

I loved experimenting with the different backgrounds and stickers.  

I was even able to use photos from my iPhone and make one big photo collage.  Drag and drop it was seriously that easy!

Mixbook has tons of layout options!

Photography is a fun hobby of mine and it was exciting to showcase some of my more prized photos as very large images. 

I did this Mixbook in a week!  Over 100 pages!  Yes, I went cross-eyed, and developed a claw hand from hours at the computer.  My goal this year is to create the scrapbook a little each month so that at the end of the year I have a gift to give myself.  I was even thinking a Mixbook could be a great end of the year gift or memory for students.... hmmm...

A Little Of This And A Little Of That

Today was filled with a little of this and a little of that.  Here is a photo journey through some of our recent classroom hippity hoppenings. 

Our bunny bags turned out pretty dang cute.  The kids are excited to fill them up tomorrow with the jelly beans from jelly bean graphing AND the eggs from the sight word egg hunt.  

These cute books can be found in my Teachers Notebook and TPT store just click HERE!

Every year when the Farm Unit rolls around I melt for the story Mrs. Wishy-Washy.  I don't know who gets a bigger kick out of saying, "wishy-washy, wishy-washy"  me or the kids!?!?!  For the activity below students picked any animal they would like to bathe.  Wow, we had some pretty funny animals to wash in the bathtub, a giraffe, stingray, electric eel, even my cat LuLu was chosen to be thrown in the bath.  Mewowzers!  Students wrote the steps they would take to wash their animal.  (The How To Wash An Animal sheet is in my Farm Unit on TPT and Teacher's Notebook)  Once students were done writing their steps; I cut each step and staple the pages in order to the front of the bathtub.

Up close and personal.  Check out those little fingers holding on to the side of the tub.  Precious.

I took dictation for this little friend.  I think her idea is brilliant and quite necessary.  Does anyone else check their toilette before going to the bathroom to see if there is a snake or is it just me?  I saw some creepy Animal Planet clip of a snake getting loose and then coming up someone's plumbing system and I just about lost it!!!  Now I check every. single. time!  Luckily, this snake looks cute and non-threatening.

Peek-a-boo; I see you little beaver.

While I was typing this post, I looked at my little cute Easter decorations I have set up on my kitchen table.  I just had to snap a pic and share.  My little cottage may be small but there is always room for table decorations to spruce a place up.  Believe it or not most of these finds were from TJ Maxx HomeGoods (that store is lethal for a budget) and GOODWILL!  The Easter basket is for my honey bunny boyfriend... let's call him for blog purposes Mr. Wine Maker (yes, he is a wine maker, and yes, if you ever need tips on the perfect wine to pair with anything OR you need the ULTIMATE California Wine Country itinerary never hesitate to shoot me an email and I will consult with him!)  Anyways... we are in a long distance relationship, and I miss him greatly during the week. He is driving up tonight for my BIRTHDAY weekend.  Tomorrow he will head to kindergarten, KB classroom with me for kindy shenanigans.  Stay tuned.........

Kindergarten Teamwork

After a fun field trip to the farm, lots of farm stories and songs, exposure to farm vocabulary with a special farm read the room,  and MUCH more my kindy cuties were ready for a farm challenge.  Today they worked in teams to create farm animal posters.  Students had to take turns drawing and outlining their farm animal.  The sheep group worked together to glue on cotton balls.  The cow group worked together to trace hand print cow spots.  The chicken group cut out eggs.  The pig group used paint and fingers to make a very muddy pig!  Next, students labeled parts of the farm animal and traced words in marker.  Finally, each child wrote a one sentence fact.  When the poster was complete team members proudly signed their name and gave hi-fives!  I was lucky and had one parent facilitate each group.   I walked around coaching students on team work skills (taking turns, using words to solve problems, cooperating, brainstorming, giving each other praise and compliments etc)  Each group is now an expert on their specific farm animal and will teach facts to classmates.  Classmates will fill in the Down On  The Farm graphic organizer with the facts they learn. (The graphic organizer can be found in my Farm Unit on Teachers Pay Teachers or Teachers Notebook) 

In progress...

The final product!!!!  

I had no idea that pigs go CRAZY for apples!  There is always something new to learn in kinder!

Earth Day Visors

This song comes to mind when I think of Earth Day...

Oh, mercy mercy me
Oh, things ain't what they used to be
No, no
Where did all the blue sky go?
Poison is the wind that blows
From the north, east, south, and sea
Oh, mercy mercy me
Oh, things ain't what they used to be
No, no
Oil wasted on the oceans and upon our seas
Fish full of mercury
Oh, mercy mercy me
Oh, things ain't what they used to be
No, no
Radiation in the ground and in the sky
Animals and birds who live nearby are dying
Oh, mercy mercy me
Oh, things ain't what they used to be
What about this overcrowded land?
How much more abuse from man can you stand?

Marvin Gaye

_____  _____  _____  _____  _____  _____  _____  _____  _____  

My kindy cuties have become quite the tree, wood/paper,  and animal experts.  Thank you FOSS science!  There is no doubt they are very passionate about everything and anything that has to do with the Earth and keeping her a clean, green, beautiful, fighting machine!  Today we made our  'I Am A Friend of the Earth' visors.  Students will proudly wear these visors throughout the month of April as we garden, recycle, pick up trash around the school, and walk in the Walk-A-Thon.

You can find this visor reproducible and more Earth Day activities in my Teachers Pay Teachers Shop! Just click on the image above! 

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!!!