Currently for May

I know May is half over, but it still is May, so I'm linking up with Farley for her May Currently.

I am so happy that the weather is finally warmer, but I'm not too thrilled by the tree pollen. Hopefully those pesky allergens will be gone soon so I can get some serious porch sitting done.  (Well, the pollen isn't the only thing keeping me from my porch - we still have ten days of school.)  I think I'll wear a dress I bought from Banana Republic Factory last spring.  (I guess I should add THE OUTLET MALL to my "loving!")  OK, OK, I am going to grade papers now...

Five for Friday - Busy Week Edition

Whew - this has been a busy week!  (And, it's not over yet...)  It's funny how the weeks that are packed with activities seem to fly by, but also seem incredibly l-o-n-g.  Here's a recap of my week thus far:  Monday - continue quarterly assessments (one kinder at a time), stay after school until 6:30 working on prom decorations, Tuesday - continue quarterly assessments (one kinder at a time), return to school at 6:30 for our spring music program (which was really very cute - we have a great music teacher!), Wednesday - early (7:10) workshop on Prader-Willi syndrome, finish quarterly assessments (do the Happy Dance!), stay after school until 6:30 to work on prom decorations, Thursday - pick up granddaughters from daycare & stay to help with bedtime (I love this part of my week, but there is a reason women have babies in their twenties & thirties...), Friday - stay after school until 7:30 to set up prom decorations, run home to change before heading out to participate in Relay for Life until 12:30 (AM).  Saturday - sleep in until 8:00 to save up energy for tonight's prom. 

Don't get me wrong - I'm not whining...  It's just a lot in one week!

1.  The Sweetest Night...  Our school's tradition has been to have an elaborate Grand March before the actual dance where the community comes out to support the kids (and to see them in all their formal attire).  As each couple promenades to this cute backdrop, a little blurb about them will be read.  The prom queen & king are announced during this event.  This year's theme is "candy."  I think it turned out very cute!  (How many other schools have kindergarten and fourth grade teachers for prom sponsors?) 

 2. Jolly Phonics.  Our PTO has generously purchased three (one for each kinder class) complete sets of Jolly Phonics.  My daughter, Sarah, who teaches kindergarten in a neighboring corporation uses Jolly Phonics and feels that it is a great resource.  My teaching partners and I approached PTO with a request that they provide funding for it, and happily they agreed.  Our PTO is a great support for our students and school!

 3.  Knowledge Quest.  I recently purchased several sets of Scholastic's new Knowledge Quest series.  We had fun with this, Let's Visit a Farm set.  Living in a farming community most of my students were familiar with many of the concepts presented in the books.  The books range from fantasy fiction to non-fiction, but they all had some vocabulary words relating to farms.  I made a Vocabulary Cloud activity to go along with this set (it will be available soon on TpT).  I am looking forward to purchasing and using more of these great collections.

4.  Relay for Life.  The elementary teachers, aides, and principal took part in yesterday's Relay for Life.  We had so much fun!  We walked, talked, ate, laughed, and cried together.  We not only came together to raise money for an important cause, we came together as a group of friends.  I feel blessed to be a part of such a wonderful team of educators.  (My pedometer counted 27,099 steps yesterday!)

5.  Macie's Word Work.  Here's a new product from my TpT store.  I created this as a fun way to practice a variety of literacy skills.

The final slide of the download features a photo of the real Macie!  I'm just sure everyone wants to have a picture of my dog!  lol

Be sure to visit Doodle Bugs to link up your week!

Five for Friday

TGIF!!  It's Friday, and time for another Five for Friday linky!  Thank you to Doodle Bugs for hosting such a fun link up. 

1.  Shower update:  Here is Mommy-to-Be Emily looking beautiful behind a mountain of gifts.  Baby Amelia is all set to enter the world!  I can't wait!

2.  Mother's Day gifts. We made these beautiful handprint pictures.  I'm sure the moms will love them (and keep them as a lovely keepsake of their little darlings' little hands!)  I wish I could say that this was an original idea, but alas, it was one of my many Pinterest finds.  Find my inspiration on Splish Splash Splatter.

 

 3.  Teachers Appreciation Week.  Our PTO and student council spoiled us with lots of goodies and treats this week.  Yesterday we each received a bag with some fruit, Hershey Kisses & a water bottle.  Today, after a delicious Mexican fiesta lunch our PTO president hand delivered a thank you card to each of us - along with a $100 gift card to our local teacher store, Sharp School Services!!!  Needless to say we were all stunned and very thankful!  Our PTO rocks.

4.  Robin eggs.  A silly robin chose a chair on our front porch as the location of her nest.  Of course, now that there are four beautiful blue eggs, we are just going to have to wait to sit on the porch.  This next reminds me of when we had a robin nest in our girls' backyard clubhouse.  When the babies were big enough to leave the nest, but not strong enough to fly, Emily (who was about ten) picked up one of the babies.  She didn't hold it for long because a half dozen or so robins dive bombed her.  She came racing up to the house!  I'm pretty sure she will leave these baby birds alone.  :-)

5.  Literacy Stations for this week.  Two of the stations we are doing are from my daughter's Teachers pay Teachers store.  In the first picture this little Kinder is writing the room to find words that form a sentence  to  illustrate.  The second picture shows a beginning/ending sound literacy station.  Go to Sarah's blog, Kinder Cakes, to see pictures of these and several more in action in her classroom.  While there, please show her some love and become a follower (me, too, please!).  I was so excited when Sarah got a kindergarten position - even though we teach in different corporations - we have fun sharing ideas and talking about our Kinders.  When you are visiting Kinder Cakes be sure to check out her cute Mother's Day video.

I hope your week was fun and productive, and that you felt appreciated.  And, I wish all of you moms a very Happy Mother's Day!

My Marvelous Mom

We have been busy working on goodies for Mom this week.  Today we wrote about our marvelous mothers.  It turned out to be a pretty good writing prompt - the Kinders were eager to write all about their mothers, and tell why they loved her.  Here are some samples.

Super cute, don't you think?  The kids used the word wall and phonemic spelling to write these all on their own!  A few kids did ask me how to spell a few words, but for the most part these papers were done completely on their own!  *YAY!*  One little student very seriously asked me, "How do you spell rum?" Um...  I gently asked him what he wanted to write, and he explained that he wanted to write about his mother's yummy rum cake!  Well, that was a first!  I have never had a Kinder ask me how to spell rum before!  That's one of the reasons I love kindergarten - you never know what they will say!  Click HERE for a copy of this writing paper.

Sale on Teachers pay Teachers

Teachers pay Teachers is hosting a big sale, and I am participating by putting my entire store on sale!  Please check out my products and snap up some at bargain prices May 7 & 8.

The Great Outdoors

As the weather gets warmer, the days longer, and the sun sunnier Kinders love to be outdoors.  We recently spent some time discussing activities that they enjoy doing outside.  After so many recesses spent indoors, the just can't wait to get out on the playground.  (We are lucky to have access to the gym in the morning and the cafeteria in the afternoon for indoor recess.  My daughter's school has recess in the classrooms, which I think may be common.  What do your kiddos do for indoor recess?)

Anyway, after discussing all the fun things to do outside, they wrote about some of their favorite activities.

 "I like to do outside is jump rope.  I like to jump rope *because* there is this song called Teddy Bear and when you are jumping you turn around and you touch the ground."

 "I like to look for waterfalls because it is fun to play in them."

Click HERE for your copy of this writing prompt.

I also made some little posters to use on the bulletin board for this writing (and a summer version).  Get yours HERE.

And lastly, here is a fun linky from Kindergarten Works that is all about Kindergarten.


                                      

Five for Friday - Number Bonds Edition

I'm in a Linky mood tonight!  I am now linking up with Doodle Bugs for another fun linky. I love to visit all the great bloggers who link up, and my "following" list is growing.  (Hint, hint... If you follow me, I'll follow you.  Just leave me a comment & I'll pop over to your blog.)

 This past week my Kinders have been hard at work making number bonds and transcribing them into number sentences.  They have really grasped onto the concept and have had fun spotting number bonds in our environment!  Here are five things we did this week.

1.  We collaborated to make number bond posters.  The kiddos enjoy working together to make  posters for our Focus Wall.

 2.  We used these super cute work mat and animals from Learning Resources to make number bonds.  (Number card is an oldy-moldy card left over from our Saxon math series.  We use them all the time!)

 3.  Piggy number bonds!  Using tiny pigs to act out part-part-whole is lots of fun!  I have number bond flash cards available on my TpT store.  HERE

 4.  Flipping number bonds.  We flipped ten coins to complete the number bonds: part were heads, part were tails.  This was definitely a noisy activity, but they had lots of fun.  It was cute how excited they got when then got "doubles!"  There is something extra fun when you add the same number twice.  :-)

 5.  Looking for number bonds.  We took advantage of the beautiful weather one day and took a walk.  With "clipboards" (paper secured by a wooden clothespin onto their white boards) in hand, we went out to search for number bonds around the school.  The cars below were perfect:  2 silver cars and 1 blue car make 3 cars!  After we came inside the search continued.  While seated one student exclaimed, "We have a number bond at our table!  Two girls and two boys make four kids!"

I really can count.  Really!  I know this is #6, but I wanted to share the activity we did in our math station this week.  Get your freebie here.