Reader's and Writer's Workshop update!

Hi parents and teachers!!

Be in the lookout in the next week or two for a peak at our Gingerbread centers AND our "Around the World" Christmas fun! We will be eating, crafting, and learning our way though Asia, Africa, Mexico, and Germany!! SO EXCITED!

We finished our second unit of Writer's Workshop (from Deedee Wills and Deanna Jump) on Friday and I am THRILLED with all the progress the kiddos have made!! Check out two of their ADORABLE books!

We made a Christmas tree.

We went to bed.

We went downstairs.

We play in the snow.

School Day.

We had a bus evacuation.

We lined up.

Next we had snack after the bus evacuation.

I was sad that school was over.

So proud of how hard all of my students are working at their writing!


We also had some fun Friday celebrating the end of our second unit of Reader's Workshop (from Kim Adsit)! We worked really hard all week retelling the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, so we made yummy bear cookies!!

Happy December!!

A little bit of Thanksgiving, a little bit of Christmas! (and a FREEBIE!)

Hi Parents and fellow teachers!

We have been busy! We had a great time last week learning about Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims, and turkeys. We also has a super fun time at our Thanksgiving feast with Pre-K and Preschool, check out a few pictures below!!

I'm REALLY looking forward to all of the Christmas fun we will have this month!! Teachers, I have uploaded a Gingerbread themed center packet to my TPT store, 8 math and 8 literacy centers for just $5.00!! If you want a taste (haha) of the gingerbread fun, download my little freebie below :)

GINGERBREAD FUN!!
Happy teaching!!

Turkey Time!

Hi parents!

We have been having a BLAST working on our turkey centers! Some of the skills we have been working on are sight word recognition, number sequencing, graphing, beginning sounds, CVC words, and number word recognition. Check out some pictures below!

Turkey Fun...and a FREEBIE!

Hi Teachers!!

I have been so busy with Parent/Teacher conferences (which were WONDERFUL) that I have been slacking a little bit with my blogging.

I have been building my TpT store and filling it with lots of fun products!! I just posted TWO new turkey and Thanksgiving themed products. The first is a set of SIXTEEN math and literacy centers themed for November and Thanksgiving. The whole set is ONLY $4.50! The second product is a mini unit about turkeys. I cannot WAIT to start using the mini unit with my kiddos next week. The mini unit is on sale in my store for just $2.00!! Click the link on the right and zip right over :)

Here is one of the activities from my turkey mini unit as a freebie for you! It is a sight word game that can be used in a pocket chart. Click the link below for your download.


Turkey Sight Word Game!


More turkey and Thanksgiving ideas to come later this week! Gobble, Gobble!!

Odds and Ends

Hi parents! Hope you had a great weekend. I also hope you are enjoying the kids' Family Journals, I know I really enjoyed reading them last Monday!

I wanted to share two things with you during this post, the first being our calendar. Each day during calendar time we explore various math concepts. As the year progresses, the pages change and the skills become more difficult. Look for the calendar pages to come home in a bundle each month. Check out the picture below to see what our calendar wall looks like.

The 2nd part of this post is a request. I have been slowly building an environmental print wall in our room (picture below). Right now, the kiddos use magnifying glasses to find, and record, any letters they recognize. If you have any easily recognizable labels at home (Barbie or Lego for example) I would LOVE to add them to our wall! Thanks in advance for your help!

Teachers- you can pick up that "I Spy" sheet as a freebie from Growing Kinders :)

More Pumpkins!

Hi parents!

We are wrapping up our pumpkin centers Friday and trading them for bat centers! During our math centers we were working on number formation, one-to-one correspondence, number sequencing, graphing, color words, non standard measurement, and using 10 frames.

Teachers, all 12 Pretty Pumpkin Centers are available in my TPT store for only $3.50!

Going Batty for Centers!

Hi Teacher Friends!!

I've been a HUGE fan of so many sellers or TpT for awhile but I hadn't ever put up any products. Well, over the summer the opportunity presented itself. My husband and I took a DREAM vacation to London and Ireland for two weeks, great time, but, I had some difficulty finding a summer job due to the vacation.

So, there I was, a few days back from Ireland BORED out of my mind and it hit me, I could be making products!! It was really a double bonus, I've been having a great time using the things I made AND I've been able to share them with other teachers :)

That being said, I wanted to let you know, I posted a 91 page center packet with 8 literacy and 8 math centers!! The centers are the PERFECT addition to any Kindergarten classroom this October.

Here's a sneak peak at the packet, Going Batty for Centers. If you like what you see, head over to my TpT store and check out the rest of the centers...for only $3.50!

Blasting Off With Reader's Workshop!

Hi parents!

I wanted to give you a sneak peak at something new I am trying this year, Reader's Workshop! In the past, I have often wrestled with the best way to teach reading because many of the kiddos are not able to read when school starts.

Then I found Blasting Off With Reader's Workshop and my world was changed forever! I know it sounds a bit dramatic, but its true. The first thing I did was to split phonics and word study from reading. We now have two, shorter, literacy blocks during the day, one for phonics and one for reading. The shorter blocks of time REALLY help the kids to maintain their attention :)

A typical day of Reader's Workshop runs as follows...we start with me teaching a mini lesson that will cover an essential reading skill for about 10 minutes. We are starting small, like studying the parts of a book and we will continue to grow from here! During the lesson I might be modeling a skill, the kids might be talking with their elbow partners, or we might work on an anchor chart as a whole class.

After the lesson the kiddos get to go practice the skill they talked about. They LOVE this part :). We worked very hard choosing books that were just right for them and have begun keeping our own libraries in ziplock baggies to use each day for reading. Our baggies get stored in our group's reading tub.

I am really looking forward to using this unit for the rest of the year and seeing the kids grow as readers. Check out a few pictures below!

*For my teacher followers, this is a unit by Kim Adsit that can be purchased by the month in her TpT store!*

Some Pumpkin Fun

Hi parents!

On Tuesday we will be starting a science unit about pumpkins. We will be using our senses to observe pumpkins, practicing estimation, exploring life cycles and more!

We started centers with a pumpkin theme this week, here's a sneak peak of a few of them. I also included s picture of the overhead center, one of our free choice/all done centers. Check back next week to see more centers, learn about Reader's workshop, and see some of our pumpkin science fun!

:) Mrs. Rogers

SO Sorry!

Hi parents!

Blogging has been off to a slow start for me this year. I had several photos of some recent science activities and centers on my phone and...that phone died! Bummer!

Cue my hubby to the rescue! He got me my very first IPhone! I'm pretty sure this thing will never cease to amaze me. Long story short...I can blog from my phone and here I am!

We have been super busy learning about the solar system for a couple weeks now. This week we are studying the moon and today we made the phases of the moon with Oreos, yum! The kiddos had fun and loved getting to eat some cookies :)

Mrs. Rogers

Hi Parents!!

This is my first post for the 2012-2013 school year, so exciting!  Whew!  We HAVE been busy and I will post some pictures this weekend showing some of the learning we have done about the sun and giving you a peak inside our centers, starting with our "Free Choice" centers.  Until then, I wanted to let you know that I will be sending book orders home on Friday.  This is a great opportunity to purchase books and at VERY reasonable price and earn free books for our classroom.  Happy reading!!

Wrapping Up the Year!

Hi Parents!

This year has been so wonderful!  VERY truthfully, I'm sad to let the kiddos go on to 1st grade :)  Here are some pictures of just a few things we have been doing the past few weeks.

We've made a HIUGE end of the year push to incorporate blends, tricky words families, and  silent e words into our writing.

Practicing identifying and finding numbers on a 100s chart.

This one is upside down but it is working on place value.

Super E Bingo!

Adding by counting up :)

Letter writing center.

Letter writing center 2.

Determining greater or less than using 10 frames.

One of our experiments from our Conservation Unit.

Our poster that we made to represent nonfiction elements.




Next week will be Beach Week.  I will do one more post for parents about Beach Week before school  is over!