Spring has Sprung in Room 24!

The month of March has been pretty busy for us in Kindergarten.  I've been procrastinating spending my time trying to think of a good idea for a hall display.  Initially I wanted to do something with shamrocks but decided that wouldn't last very long.  I went with a spring theme. 

We read a couple books about spring to spark interest and start our discussion:

My kiddos LOVE to write lately.  Their confidence is growing and I love it!  We decided to write about what we are GOING to do in spring, what we CAN do in spring, or what we LIKE to do in spring.  I like giving my students a prompt for writing but this allowed them to have some options still.  Here is the final product for our hallway!

"In the Spring we like to..."

"In the spring I like to play with my sistr"

The close-up is from one of my lowest writers, I'm so proud!!!  Check out those lowercase letters, finger spaces and word wall words!

Also, while doing assessments, I got this from one of my first graders.  The paper is supposed to say "The boy is riding his bike.  He can go very fast on it."  Too funny!

New Literacy Centers!

Lately, I've been bored with my centers.  I have quite a few in my rotation, but I really wanted to mix it up more.  After making some new purchases thanks to PTO money, I was more motivated to actually come up with something!

The first center is definitely not something I created....all I had to do was order it!  I plan on integrating something else into the center later, but for now, my kiddos are just getting used to taking care of these plastic pieces!

I also purchased a pocket chart with my PTO money.  I had one pocket chart but it was being used as my center work board.  A while ago, I inherited a free pocket chart stand so I don't know why I waited so long to actually buy a pocket chart!  Each week, I put in a new song for our letter of the week.  My kids LOVE singing.  At pocket chart center, my kiddos get to use these "star pointers" and sing the song!  This helps build fluency.

This last center was inspired by some free ABC stencils that my mother-in-law gave me.  I wasn't sure how I wanted to use them so I decided to create a center.  I made a worksheet with 3 columns: word wall word, stencil, magnet letters.  My students pick a word wall word card out of our ABC pockets (interactive word wall) and record the word.  Next, they "write" the word with the ABC stencils.  Last, they build the word with magnetic letters.  The kids love the multiple steps and manipulatives! 

Teaching Character Traits

Some of my third grade reading intervention kiddos were having some difficulty with character traits.  They were having a hard time describing familiar characters (orally and in writing).  Since I only have 30 minutes a day with them, I came up with a few quick, small activities. 

First, we revisited a few Amelia Bedelia books we had read earlier in the year.  After revisiting the texts, we made two webs.  One web described what Amelia Bedelia IS and one described what she is NOT.

After this, we decided to conquer a chapter book.  (So exciting, but also difficult for my students!)  We chose a book with a familiar character, Arthur! 

Each day we got through about 1-2 chapters.  After each chapter, we did a brief summary of the important event that ocurred in that chapter using a simple chapter grid that I designed.  At the end of the book, we talked about Arthur.  We discussed how he was in this story compared to other stories, how he was in the beginning versus the end, etc.  After our discussion, we filled out individual character traits worksheets.  I used this worksheet from Scholastic because I liked how it gave a list of traits to choose from (my kids added their own as well).  The next day, we took turns adding character traits to a large web for Arthur.  Here are the webs we made for familiar characters:

Now that my students had the hang of describing familiar characters, I decided we should do something fun for Friday.  We made our own personal "character" trait webs!  The kids LOVED this and their traits cracked me up (handsome, moody...haha)!

My idea origianlly stemmed from this pin on Pinterest!

Source: adventuresofroom129.blogspot.com via Emily on Pinterest

How do you teach character traits?

New Pet Accessory and Anticipation Guides...

Good news: I found out today that I have another 1-year contract for my current position!  I am so relieved AND excited that I can still apply for other opportunities.  My current position is Title Reading but it's only a 50% position so I'm hoping I'll be able to find a FT position and transfer BUT I'm happy just to have a job!

About a week or two ago, Dixie decided to chew through her harness.  I usually don't leave it on her, but I was planning on going for a walk when the rain died down (as any of you Ohioans know, the rain NEVER died down).  Anyway, this was the third harness Dixie has chewed through.  The old harnesses were AKC brand that I found at Target.  I'm not sure why I kept buying them, they were hard to take on and off and our groomer could never figure them out!  After Dixie chewed through her third harness, I decided it was time to find something new.  I found the Puppia Soft Dog Harness on Amazon.  They came in the mail today and they're great!  Very easy to take on and off and a size small fit Chip & Dixie perfectly!  We haven't been on a walk yet so they don't understand what the harnesses are.  I'm pretty sure Chip thought it was an outfit, he wasn't thrilled.

If you're looking for a harness, I definitely would recommend this brand!

Note: I was not in any way recruited by Puppia to promote their product!

While browsing Mrs. Lochridge's blog, First Grade Factory, I found this fun anticipation guide.  I've been wanting to use an anticipation guide with my kids for a while so this gave me the incentive to go ahead and try it out!  I meant to email her design to my school email (I don't get on blogs at school), but I forgot so I had to create my own from memory!  I created one very similar to her design (thanks for the idea, Mrs. Lochridge!) and used it today with some Scholastic Science Vocabulary Readers that I bought during the Scholastic Dollar Deals sale (read more about that here).  Here is a picture of my version of the anticipation guide and a few student work samples.  I had them record the page # where they found the "proof" of true/false.  Next time I think I may add a column for the page #.

P.S. I know I haven't been doing 'What I'm Wearing Wednesday' lately.  I'm bored with it and don't want to post the same outfits since I wear the same things a lot so I decided it shall be no more.  I may still post fun new outfits every now and then though.....


Last, but not least, there is a fun giveaway going on over at Mrs. Patton's Patch!  Check it out here!  FOUR people have the chance to win!! 

Lately in Room 46....

I don't have a ton of updates, but I wanted to share a few....

As far as Easter, I plan on doing a quick activity Monday since we had a short week last week.... I bought plastic eggs at Target in the dollar spot.  I'm going to put a small object in each egg and hide them around our classroom.  The students will have a quick "easter egg hunt".  After finding their egg, they will fill out this sheet (I'm so sorry I still don't use Google Docs....I need to upgrade my version of Word so I can save to pdf!):

One of my reading groups has been working on comparing and contrasting (in general).  We've compared books by the same author (pictured), characters in different books, different books in general, etc.  Here is an example we did recently:

We also have been working on adjectives.  For this activity, students chose an adjective out of a cup and had to create an interesting sentence along with a [matching] illustration.

Lastly, make sure to check out this awesome giveaway over at Teacher 2 Mom.  They're giving away a Phonics Dance CD (love that program)!!  Click the button below to check out their blog....

Fill in the _________ Friday and Earth Day!

I haven't been around in a while - sorry!  But I'm back now so be excited!

Happy Earth Day and Good Friday!  Today I'm having my wonderful hubby do my fill in the blank Friday :)  He's SUPER excited!  [sarcasm]  I added a few comments of my own in red....

1.   Fridays are     the last day of the last day of the work week....great days to come home from work and relax with Emmy.

2.   My wife   makes me terribly happy.  Suck up!

3.  Something that inspires me is     people who work hard to achieve their goals...like the contestants on Biggest Loser.

4.  If I had the day off today I would     (I do have the day off!) relax in bed, take a nap, be lazy with my wife.  Notice his love of chores!

5.  If I had to put a label on my home decor style, I would say my style is   (laughing) ummm...contemporary.

6.  Concerning politics I would say I'm     moderate conservative.

7.  I'd like to go to    Hawaii   so I could    snorkel or scuba dive.

Now onto Earth Day!  We had late arrival Thursday and no school today so I had to do my Earth Day activities on Wednesday.  We read Earth Day by Margaret McNamara and then made some words using the letters from EARTH DAY and PLANET EARTH.  We split into two groups and made it into a little competition to see which group could think of more words.

Adjectives, Contractions, and Dollar Deals, Oh My!

Nerd alert on the title of my post!

I just wanted to give everyone a quick school update for Market Yourself Monday!


I want to thank Ms. Durning of Second Grade is Splendid for this next idea!  I saw it on her blog and thought it was too cute.  I love that she borrowed this idea from another teacher and now it's being borrowed again!  Isn't that what teaching is all about?!  Anyway, my kids loved this activity and it was a great way to reinforce our knowledge of contractions.  "Apostrophe showers bring contraction flowers!" 

Earlier this week we read Mouse Island during our Eve Bunting "author study" for Read and Vote.  (Note: The illustrator of this book, Dominic Catalano, lives in Bexley, OH...a suburb of Columbus!  My kids thought this was so cool.  However, after checking his website it looks like he'll be moving to China soon...)
Anyway, we have been learning about adjectives lately and how they can make your writing sound more interesting and exciting and how they can help the reader to create mental images.  We read Mouse Island and then searched for adjectives on specific pages.  (I know it's probably not "legal" to copy the pages of a book but it was the easiest solution since I only have one copy of the book.)  The kids highlighted the adjective(s) and then found a sentence where they could add an adjective to "fluff up" the sentence.  We also made a large web of adjectives that describe our classroom.  Tonight I am going to fill some plastic easter eggs with various adjectives.  The kids will have to choose an egg and three adjectives and think of a noun to match those adjectives.  Does that make sense?  Ex: I choose 3 adjectives from my egg: furry, soft, cuddly.  I could match those adjectives with teddy bear.  After they think of a noun, they will write 3 sentences about their match!
Does anyone have any fun adjective activities to share?

Does anyone else love buying books for your classroom?!  I get so excited when the package arrives!  The other day when I got to school, I had a package waiting for me from Scholastic!  I bought a bunch of books during their "Dollar Days" special (is it dollar days or dollar deals?).   I'm still trying to build my classroom library so I bought some holiday books, season books, vocabulary readers (my kids love these for NF text conventions!) and a few randoms....

 I got 4 science vocabulary readers....

• Tree Homes
• Cave Homes
• Powerful Polar Bears
• Remarkable Reindeer

 I also bought a bunch of holiday books...

• The Day it Rained Hearts by Felicia Bond
• The Best Thing About Valentines by Eleanor Hudson
• If You'll Be My Valentine by Cynthia Rylant
• Martin's Dream by Jane Kurtz
• Young Martin Luther King, Jr. (First-Start Biography)
• My First Kwanzaa by Karen Katz
• On the First Night of Chanukah by Cecily Kaiser
• Jingle Bells by Iza Trapani
• Corduroy's Christmas Surprise 
• The Best Halloween Hunt Ever by John Speirs
• The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin by Joe Troiano
• The Littlest Pumpkin by R.A. Herman
• Halloween Mice by Bethany Roberts

 A few seasonal books....

• Picking Apples and Pumpkins (Clifford)
• Autumn is for Apples by Michelle Knudsen
• The Little Snowflake by Steve Metzger
• Flip and Flop by Dawn Apperley (penguins)

I also got a few randoms just for fun....

• I Lost My Tooth by Hans Wilhelm (Noodles)
• First Day Jitters by Julie Danneberg

Now I'm in the mood to search for some "book lots" on eBay .....this could be trouble! :)

Catching up after Spring Break!

I know I haven't posted for a while...I'm still trying to get into the swing of things after spring break!  We had a few flight delays coming home so we got home a day and a half later than expected which caused some stress!  We also had a painter coming Monday to paint a few areas in our house (pics to come soon)!

Now, onto regularly scheduled programming (nerd alert!)....

What I'm wearing Wednesday.  (I'm actually depressed about this because last Wednesday I was in a bikini on the beach) and now it is SNOWING here at home.  Thanks a lot, Ohio.  I'm more than ready for Spring/Summer!!

Coral 3/4 sweater from Macy's, black pants.  (This was before I added accessories.)  Somewhat boring, sorry!

When I got back from vacation, I was overly ready for Spring.  (I have actually been ready since September...)
Anyway, I decided to make a quick, little spring craft.  I've seen rag wreaths on tons of blogs and they look super easy.  I headed to JoAnn's and bought a few fabrics and a sytrofoam wreath form.  I think it turned out cute, but it's really too small for the front door (I bought the biggest size they had, maybe I needed to check somewhere else)!  I decided to go with a yellow theme to create a "sunshine" wreath!

The finished product.  I moved it inside to our coat closet door.

These fabric squares were $1 each!

After reading my Classroom Tour post from last week, Hadar from OUTfitted and INspired asked how I use my "I See" chart.  Here's your answer, Hadar!
 My chart is actually a larger version of a book from Hubbard's Cupboard.  I love this sight and get a lot of materials from it for my K/1 kiddos.  I print the color teacher book to use for predictions and inferring.  Next, we use the chart I create for shared reading.  I print keep books for the students to practice reading at home.  For this book, I covered up some of the words and we talked about what we can do to figure out those words (look at the picture, notice patterns in reading, etc.)  The kids were so excited when they guessed the hidden text!  I also usually do a writing response related to the short story.  This week our prompt was "I see" and the students had to write what they saw.  In our writing, we are working on starting sentences with capital letters and ending with periods.  We also talk about how our illustration should match our writing.

I See chart

Writing prompt page.

Green Outfits, Shamrock Writing & More!

First, I must finish up my What I Wore Week of Green.  You can see what I wore M/T/W in this post.

Thursday Outfit #1: green 3/4 sleeve top from Target, AE jeans.  This was taken at the mall BEFORE hair cut.

Thursday Outfit #2: Irish t from Marshall's, AE jeans.  This was taken AFTER hair cut (just a trim!)

Friday: light green polo from Kohls, Refuge jeans.

Did anyone else wear all green this week?  My kids LOVED it!  :)

I mentioned my [school] St. Patrick's Day plans in this post.  I used the same book, but changed the writing assignment a bit to better align with my students' needs.  Instead of making predictions about the story, I had my students retell the story in their own words.  Our focus was to retell the story in 4 parts using the words First, Next, Then, Last.  We talked about including only important details!  Here is what we ended up with:

We leave tomorrow for Florida!!  I might post a bit but I'm not promising anything. :) I'm super excited to get away from Ohio (even though the weather has been reallllly nice lately).  I'm having a mini panic attack though because I haven't started to pack!  Can't wait to be here:

our view from the beach one evening a few years ago