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