Monthly Archives: August 2008
Award!
Donna sent me this award for my site! Thanks for picking me Donna!!! I appreciate it!
http://www.kinderglynn.com
Kristen 🙂
New Pictures…
Here are some newer pictures of my classroom as it gets a little more “used”. I have also included pictures of my Literacy Work Stations pocket chart (with pictures that I made) so you can see those. I cannot post those pictures because I used a program that I purchased for my computer and the images won’t upload, but at least you can see what you could use.
Kristen 🙂
New PDF’s
I’ve uploaded some more PDF files, letters F-part of M. I’ll work on it more tomorrow or this weekend. I am unable to get any of my files that are graphic rich-meaning they have lots of pictures in them to upload and then tranfer to PDF files correctly–so I can’t do anything with them unless someone out there has a great idea! 🙂 I’m also going to try to go through some of my other files and upload those in their respective categories.
Kristen 🙂
Update…
I am trying unsuccessfully to upload most of the other PDF files. They have all been converted, but for some reason are not uploading today. Must not be my day! 🙂 I’ll keep trying and let you know when that happens.
Is anyone else wiped out after their 2nd week of school? I didn’t anticipate the jump from 1/2 day to Full Day Kindergarten would be so big! I’m usually a pretty non-stressed out person, but man, this week has been CRAZY! The kids are starting to get the routine–I just need to! 🙂
Kristen 🙂
Behavior Card
****Edit–this somehow linked to the wrong file, so I’ll post the corrected one soon! ***** 9/9/08
**** The correct one is now here!***** Kristen 😉
I had to sit down and make a new behavior card because my 1/2 day cards just weren’t working for Full Day! 🙂 This is what I came up with:
I would have liked to keep it down to 1/2 of a page, but with all the different chunks of time and activities that Full Day allows for–I just couldn’t make it happen. I’m leaving the document unlocked so that you can change the times if you would like and use it in your classroom. I had a particular student in mind when creating it, so if you need to include small time frames or larger, feel free. I usually copy 200 of these and then keep them handy and fill them out as needed. I try to use them as often as possible, but also realizing that after about 1 month of a student having “great” days, I wean them off because I want them to understand that they have truly changed their behavior and no longer need my reminders.
I tape these to the table where the child sits (I tried keeping it with me, but I kept laying them down and loosing them!) and that way every time they sit down, they can self-monitor how their day is going thus far. I also leave these when I have a subsistute in my room to help with the “difficult” children 🙂 .
My husband-being the wonderful Special Ed. teacher that he is, went round and round with me about the time frame chunks in the afternoon as opposed to the 30 minute frames in the morning. We are doing less structured activities in the PM, and I find that I have less problems there, so I want to try as hard as I can to give my students the benefit of the doubt. Our AM activities are the mostly academic times and I want to stress to the students that what we are doing is important and deserves their attention. You change it to reflect your classroom! 🙂
Kristen 🙂
Literacy Work Stations Pocket Chart
OMG!! I just found the BEST pocket chart! It is used to manage Literacy Work Stations and from the looks of the catalog, it seems as though Debbie Diller helped/gave input to create it! I am ordering one RIGHT NOW!! You can find them here: http://www.reallygoodstuff.com. I was so excited to find it! Just wanted to share! They have them for Pre-K-K, 1st, and 2-3, so there is one to fit what your grade level is.
What are you doing?
I always start the year off by reviewing shapes/colors. I use the Big Book Brown Bear, Brown Bear to get my theme going. We also play color bingo, shape bingo, sing and learn Dr. Jean’s color song, and Hap Palmer’s color song. We also play color dice toss and shape dice toss. During my science time, I introduce White Rabbits Color Book or Mouse Paint and we mix water colors or food coloring and record the results (see the Inquiry Science section for color mixing lesson plans and the recording sheet). I could go on and on, but what I want to know is what are YOU doing in your Kindergarten Classrooms this year to get things started? Leave a comment and we will all share our ideas! 🙂 The next week we will be on to Cookie’s Week! 🙂 Any ideas??
Kristen 🙂
Dr. Jean’s Color Farm Song
I made these pages a few years ago-okay more like 8-9 years ago, but they are still useful! You can use them to show the kids how to spell the color words (they print out in the correct color) and the animals to cue them to what animal is coming next.
Needless to say, I haven’t had much time to post anything. Our guest from China is staying in our computer room/office/guest room so I can’t upload anything unless I remember when I’m at school–where I STILL am now! 🙂
Our Guest…
Our guest from China arrived safely yesterday and is setting in. Right now we are enjoying the China/US Olympic basketball game from another perspective! We enjoyed some wonderful green tea last evening along with an Italian meal that my husband made for us. Tian brought some spices with him from China and although I do not enjoy spicy foods, my husband shared them. We went on a tour of downtown Indianapolis yesterday upon leaving the airport and showed Tian my school where he will also be teaching. We are heading out to McAllister’s Deli now for a good old American lunch, so that should be a fun experience! More later…
Kristen 🙂
Mini Economy Classroom Job Cards
Here are the cards I made to use in a pocket chart for our Mini-Economy Jobs. You print them out on business cards and then tear them apart. I would suggest laminating them before you tear them apart-or you could do what I did–laminate each individual one! 😦 I hope they save okay and download okay! Let me know if they come out funny and I will try to find a way to fix them!