FIrst week back- stations and organization!

Hey all- just wanted to share some pictures of what I've been up to these past few days!!! 

I changed my station tub labels finally so they match each station label on the rotation chart! Now I don't have to run around the room looking for each activity and where the kids put it! (I was originally using these tubs to differentiate seatwork station- but that  will come later!)

New tub labels!

Here are my centers for our first week back....

Work work center: rhyming words

Big book center (FREE response page found HERE)

Writing center (I still need to print off the picture cards!) I'm going to have them make a list of things they need to build a snowman! (page from packet found HERE)

Our ABC station- stamping word family words

 These are their anchor tubs- activities to do for the early finishers!

Opposites game

Color word songs and matching colors to color word activiity

Puzzles

Fine motor skills

Classification puzzles

Pocket Chart Station

Recording sheet for pocket chart center
can be found in packet HERE (TPT)

Where we keep their library books and check-out folders! This helps me see who has library books to return throughout the day!

New mailbox system!!! =)

After a hard morning- I opened up my planner to discover this scripture I had written for the New Year a while back!.... talk about a God moment =)

Finally posted the dramatic play center words I bought this summer from Growing Kinders!

And funny story- as I was cleaning and putting all their dramatic play toys into bins, I noticed the baby dolls that have been in the room since i started 4  years ago and never realized how OLD they are! hahaha- I think it's about time to get some new ones... ;)

My room - all ready for my kiddos!

New week we are beginning our unit on shapes! I made this chart (inspired by the one found on Kindergarten, Kindergarten!) to fill out as we learn about each shape! 

Here are pictures of our math stations this week:

Trace each shape with stickers

pattern block puzzles

shape puzzles- i love how these have real life objects to match!

Kids will use playdoh to make shapes (We were going to use wiki-stix, but I'm out!)

And I washed the chair pockets my mom made over break and put new name tags in them! 

 Inside their chair pocket- they keep their writing folders, math journals, poetry journals and crayon pouch!

 And on their tables, the little caddy holds extra pencils, glue bottles, and glue sticks.

Hope everyone is having a great start to 2013!!!!

Christmas fun- Wrap up!

Hey friends! So it's back to the daily grind today! (The alarm is going to go off way to early this morning, and all the sleeping in over break is going to catch up with me!) Thankfully, it's just an in-service, so I won't have to be too energetic with the kiddos just yet! They'll be back on Monday. But I wanted to share a few pictures of some more Christmas things we did! They are all pinterest-inspired!!! =)

First is our name trees! One of my colleagues found this idea on Miss Kindergarten's blog

 Here's the kiddos working hard...

I loved how these 2 added some more details... too cute!!!

We also made these ADORABLE elves... but they took us way too long, so I probably won't make them enxt year! 

On one of our last days before break, we had a lot of fun doing all the Pete the Cat Saves Christmas activities foudn on Heidisong's blog! =) One activity we did was draw their favorite part of the story after I taught them how to draw Pete! They LOOOOVED it!

And last but not least! Here is a few pics from our Polar Express Day! We had SO much fun and it was the same day as our Holiday party!!!

The room all set up the night before!

They were so excited!!! I kept it a surprise for them until that morning!!!

Hot chocolate time! Look at all of those happy faces! =)

I was bummed because I had 6 kids out that entire week. (The flu spread like wildfire in my class! So I hope the kids who had it, have kicked it to the curb so we can have a great start to our year!)

OH! And I can't forget their cute little baggies we made for the party. It's nothing fancy, but they were so excited to use a little bit of paint! I called them over during the movie one at a time to come make them! They are supposed to look like Christmas lights! hehe

And here's a HILARIOUS group pic of us wearing their Rudolph hats- one of the boys told me "Ms. G- I can't wait to wear our party hats!" (while waiting for them to dry.) It was so precious!

Prayers for Connecticut

My heart goes out to all who are affected by the loss of all the teachers and sweet babies in Connecticut. My mind cannot even fathom what is going on right now.... those poor children and teachers....

<3 Praying <3

Christmas Update!!!

Hey friends! I miss blogging so much.... But I HAD to share some of the adorable Christmas stuff we have been doing the past few weeks before we are all on break! =)

First off... Here is one of the few good pics I have of my sisters and I... with sweet baby Sonorah! (Who am I kidding...? She's already a little lady! This chick is walking people!!! What happened to my sweet girl who would lay in my arms for hours on end? Yup... no more! She's an independent woman! Only kidding folks...) =)
This was on Thanksgiving, right after we ate before we went to see Breaking Dawn, pt. 2 (AMAAAAZING!!!!)

I've had a great start to December... every December 1st, I break out THIS baby....

Then one of my besties was an elf in the local Christmas parade.... and her parents were.... THE Santa and Mrs. Claus... needless to say- I was pretty psyched... I ran up screaming "SANTA!!! I know him! I know him!!!" (Anyone else obsessed with Elf????...)

Lisa and I before the parade

Here is the whole family dressed up--- please note how adorable Lisa's daughter is... =)

After the parade, we attempted to walk down to the river and see the Christmas lights... should have known better b/c we did not even step foot in the first light tunnel before we were stopped and a line formed to get pictures with Santa and Mrs. Claus. It was so adorable!!!!

Lisa's mom is killin me in this one! =)

Dec. 1st was a blast! Here are a few other Christmas fun pictures....

My mom's big, beautiful tree- I put everything up except the lights and ribbon... =)

My cute little tree at my house!

My house with Christmas lights on it! (and I did it by myself! Single girl- WINS!) =)

I'm obsessed with Christmas... can you tell????

OKay- now onto the more interesting stuff!!!!
Here are some pictures of my classroom all "Christmas-fied!"

When the kids are working nicely, we turn the lights off and enjoy the Christmas lights! They love it!

One of my kinders made those snowflakes and colored them at home and brought them in for me! I loved them so much I had to hang them on the window! Now we have window decor all through the winter! You should have seen his face when he walked in the next day and saw them! Priceless! =)

Our cute little tree!

And here are the kids beautiful work!
We have been working on measurement standards: describing and comparing measurements...

And here are my sweeties working hard on their measurement trees!!! I even let them use the bottled glue and they did an AMAZING job... I had one little guy even make up "Just a dot! Not a lot!" I was so proud... =)

And now some Christmas pictures from the past that I thought you might like to see! =)

This was from my 2nd year of teaching (2 years ago)... the wrote about what they wanted for Christmas on the ornament shaped paper, and then they got to decorate a tree as a craft that Friday. Then we put them together to make a "quilt". I think I would have had them find a picture of what they wanted for Christmas and glue it under the tree to make it more relevant to their writing!

These were crafts we did during our Holidays around the World my 2nd year of teaching.... so cute! (We had not done Kwanzaa yet! I don't think I got a picture of it, sadly!)

The awesome Gingerbread comparison chart I made - I can't remember who's original idea it was... it's been floating around on pinterest though! This was NOT my original idea! =)

This was a cute way to retell--- I had sentence strips with the name and picture of each character from the story and the kids would help me retell by holding that sentence strip up as we read!

An adorable word work center found on makinglearningfun.com (look under gingerbread theme!)

This was a pocket chart center we had made. The kids would read "Jingle Bells" on the chart and help to put the words back in order in the pocket chart.

Thanks for being so patient with me and sticking around! I appreciate all my new followers recently! I promise I will share some stuff when I do some really AMAZING new stuff! But for now... I'm just stealing all ya'lls ideas! =) hehehe Love my blogging buddies!

I'm sure I'll post some more during break b/c not only do I have 2 weeks off from school, but my masters as well! HOOORAY! =) Freedom! 

It's so close I can taste it!

Alright- I need to get to bed. 

(Oh, in case you're wondering why I am posting at 2 am on a school night- it's b/c my internal clock is messed up from having strep for 5 days.... It literally hit me like a brick on Saturday night out of no where! I'm talking -couldn't swallow, headache, ears hurt, light headed, running a fever of 102... and NO meds. My strep test came up negative on Monday... so I went to another doc on Tuesday afternoon and that one came up positive. So I started taking meds Tuesday night and woke up feeling amazing Wednesday! So I can't wait to see my little friends in 5 hours! =) Alright, I'm off for real now!

Hope to find ya'll doing wonderful and feeling blessed this holiday season!!!!!

Love,

Gingerbread Plans

Hey all-Here is my post from last year on what I did for writing during our Gingerbread week! =)

Day 1: (Today) I baked some gingerbread cookies and brought in icing and sprinkles for the kids to decorate. I knew this would be chaotic with the whole class, so I put my kiddos in "Gingerbread Stations" this afternoon. (They were SOOOO excited when they walked in from specials. I told them it was a surprise and I gave them little hints throughout the day as to what it was! When I put on my Gingerbread apron... I think that gave most of them a good idea of what was going to happen.)

So here are the stations I used:
STATION 1: Number order puzzle

Mixed up gingerbread picture that they have to cut out and put the numbers in order to make the picture correctly. (I found this at http://kindergartenmonkeybusiness.blogspot.com as a FREE download!)

 STATION 2: Coloring

 just printed off some cute clipart I found online for the kids to color. I made the mistake of letting them use my markers... not even THINKING to remind them to put the caps back on. I am so glad I noticed before I went home today otherwise I would have had NO markers left to use for myself. (I LOVE that Gingerbread clipart!)

How cute is this gingerbread house coloring page?!

 STATION 3: Decorate a paper gingerbread man

I am a VERY crafty person (ONLY when it comes to kids) and I'm not afraid of using glitter and such with them. I showed them how to use a pinch of glitter INSTEAD of pouring it all over their paper. I still had a few who didn't listen... but whatevs! My floor gets vacuumed every night, sooo it's all good! =) They had a blast doing it too! I found the template HERE.

 STATION 4: Cookie decorating

Here is the cookie decorating station!

I made one... you know... for "an example"... haha (or just b/c I WANTED to!) 

 STATION 5: Computers

I came across this website through another teacher blog and was so excited b/c it has several different Gingerbread games for the kids to play... so no "I'm done" in the middle of decorating cookies! =) The website is: http://www.lindaslearninglinks.com/gingerbreadmansites.html

I also had other ideas that I did not use...

*Read Gingerbread books
*Use playdoh and Gingerbread cookie cutters
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So that's all I got done today for writing! OH! And I took a picture of each student with their cookie to use for Wednesday.

Day 2: (Tomorrow) We are going to review the 5 senses and talk about how the cookies looked/tasted/smelled/and felt. I will record their responses on a web (sorry- forgot to take a picture tonight! I'll try to remember tomorrow.)

Day 3: The kids are going to receive their own graphic web to choose 3-4 adjectives to write about their own cookie. (I'll let them use our web created as a class AND to look at their pictures so they remember what their cookie looked like.

Day 4: The kids will put their web into writing... My gingerbread cookie is ______. My gingerbread cookie has ______. etc.

And I created this adorable paper for their "Final copies"! ENJOY!

Day 5: Edit/revise as needed.