Teacherspayteachers

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My first posting was Homework pages suited for Kindergartners. It is offered for FREE and is weekly pages for January. It includes handwriting, sight words, math, science and social studies review questions. It Has the objectives listed at the top of each paged that are based on the Virginia SOL, but since the standard labels have been removed it can be used with Common Core also! I plan to post more homework sets to run from February to the end of May in the future, so check back for more!

My next three posting go together. I took the top 120 sight words from Fry's list and created flash cards, but it does not stop there!  Flip over the word cards and print sentences mostly based on Fry's corresponding phrases on the backs. To help keep track of the flash cards there is a free Wonderful Words name card page. Printing 8 sets can cover 18 students seeing as though you give them out in groups of 10 cards per student. I tested my class to see what words they knew and the first ten unknown words will be each child's starting point. Then you change the cards out a few at a time adding in new ones. Just hole punch one corner and add a ring clip and each student has a handy loop of cards!

Behavior

Being forced to scrap my behavior management method....ugggg!  But there is a bright spot. I found help from http://hornedfrogsandfairytales.blogspot.com/2011/05/oh-behavior-right-now-is-frightful.html . I have modified one of her charts slightly and will be trying it out. I will also have one of the move your clip type charts hanging up (I have yet to make it. This was my anti-work weekend!).

Here's to hoping this makes the powers that be happy and that it will work with my class?!?!!?

Chaos in the Classroom

Well, we are now on plan three of how to ask to go to the in-class restroom. Original plan raise hand and ask, but with 24 kids in the class thats all we did. I.E. no teaching just can I go the the bathroom. Plan two if the door is open walk to the restroom. This too backfired as multiple kids would run to be the first one to the door. They began "sliding into home plate" in an effort to get in the doorway. Now we are almost a week in to plan three, my most creative yet! I took a plastic construction workers hat and taped a sign to it reading "Bathroom Hat." We pass the pass hat around to our neighbor  if you need to go you put it on if you don't you pass it next to you. It was working fairly well until a girl dropped it in the toilet... thankfully I had another hat. Note to self bleach wipe the other hat incase we need another switch out.

Thanks to the hat we are getting through more lessons. Mind you there are now 23 kids in the class but still crazy busy and very immature for most of them. So things aren't flowing like I'd like, but hope comes when the school hires 2 new teachers so I'll have about 5-6 fewer kids!

First Day of School 2011

Well all the school clocks have reverted to their own time keeping method, ie none had the same time. I thought I had a few minutes to put name tags on the desks but really the clock was 10 minutes behind, Oh Joy! So we spent what seemed like forever in a hot sweaty hallway wrangling together 6 classes worth of kindergartners before going to our classroom. I wobbled down the hall with a scared child attached to me, thankfully she calmed down after breakfast.

I successfully unpacked and labeled book bags and supplies by myself. This required stopping to hand out paper and crayons to entertain the class since my Betsy Q c.d. was not keeping their attention as I had hoped. But once we went to the carpet to share our drawing a friend decided he did not want to follow directions so I had to bounce between him on once side of the room and the class sharing on the other side of the room.

Lunch was interesting to say the least. We had last lunch for the first time and had the tables at the back of the lunchroom. You thinking so what, right. Imagine this, little people on the first day at school with styrofoam trays filled to the edges bending as they walk from the line to the back of the room. Food is dripping on shirts and about to slide off of trays that look like they are about to break. So being the attentive teacher walking between our table and the walkway I grab trays from kids to keep them from loosing their food and put it at  our table for them. This is all done while we all sweat 10 pounds off in a HOT lunchroom.

Things got better once we had recess. Which I am proud to say ended with all my kiddos lining up and no one being left outside! I say this since I found a previous years student wandering the playground as my class came outside, his class had already gone in. Once inside we practiced walking in the hall and finished 2 mini-lessons!

Now if only packing up early had allowed us to still be on time, but it didn't. How is that you ask? Two families pick up kids early and more calls from the office than I can count stalled us from having smooth sailing. I had so hoped to have us lined up for parent pick-up, daycares, and buses before they started calling for them. Well I think I may have a way to help fix that!! I'm going to assign seats by how they go home. I so hope this helps things move faster. I'll let you know how it turns out and post some pictures as time permits.

Classroom Prep 2011

Well in between holding my son and his naps I have laminated the bulletin board decorations I have made and cut them out. Now I am waiting for our school district the update and post this years K curriculum so I can update a years worth of homework activity pages. We still have a while before teachers report to set up classrooms for the year, but once that starts I'll be sure to post my progress for everyone to see. Wish me luck as I start the adventure of a theme decorated room for the first time.

P.S. I even made a set of Character Education bulletin board pieces to go with my theme!

Under Construction

This blog will be about my life as a kindergarten teacher and a new mother. I hope my "snowflakes of knowledge" will help me to grow as a teacher and mother and possibly help you also!

The end of August I hope to post about how my room set up progresses. This will be my first year using a theme to decorate my classroom. I have been busy printing decorations on my computer and laminating them. I also purchased a few things and some boarders to add to my creations.

On the mommy side of things I am currently experimenting with a Baby Breeza. It cooks and blends homemade baby food. So far my little one has not eaten any of the creations yet seeing as though he is only 2 months old. It is packaged and stored in the freezer for a few months from now.