Character Day

To celebrate March as reading month every Friday in march we do something small to celebrate literacy.  We have had a book swap day, pajama day, and tomorrow is character day. Last year I was Scooby Doo, so I really like to get dressed up so....I thought this year I would do Fancy Nancy! Quiet honestly I was wandering through goodwill hoping to find something to wear for a costume that the class would know who I am. One year I was Waldo and the kids were clueless as to which character I was supposed to be.  Waldo is generational I guess.  Now the catch is students have to bring their book in as well to read (or look at the pictures) with their reading buddy. So here is my outfit for tomorrow. Please ignore my mess of bedroom in the background.

Fancy Nancy for character day

Thanks for reading,

*Jessica*

I'm Ready for Spring...for sure!

I am so sick of driving in snow! I think I have several new gray hairs from driving in this stuff. Yesterday it took me an hour to get to work. First there was an accident on my usual route, so I had to turn around and do a detour. My whole way to work I was white knuckle driving, since it was PURE ICE! 30mph the entire way....sigh.  Here is my proof of how sick I am of snow!

The tire swing on our playground is just sitting on top of 2 feet of snow

The bench

Picnic Table....need I say more?

Alright, so that is enough complaining. I thought if I thought about spring, and made something springy that maybe, oh, maybe it would warm up over here!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Spring-Sentence-Scramble-1136879

Thanks for reading,

*Jessica*

The "Things" of K-B

Next week we our having our family fun night, and each class gets to decorate their door with cute crafts/things that go along with the theme of Fun Night. The theme this year, that I am so excited for, drumroll please...........Dr. Seuss!!! How how many fun things I can do with this! I chose The Cat in the Hat, and here is what I put together with a little bit of help. My heading for my door is going to be The "Things" of K-B" This is seriously going to be TOO CUTE! The kiddos are going to go nuts! So, I had to test out my design on my husband....you can see how excited he is about the whole idea, thankfully he just puts up with my crazy shenanigans:) I have The. Best. Husband. Ever.
Thanks for reading,
*Jessica*

All about Elephants

The month of March is nonfiction writing month. What is an easy thing to teach kinders to write about that is nonfiction? Animals! So my school is in short supply of nonfiction books that are age appropriate for kindergarten, so I decided to make my own. We read Horton hears a Who last week, so I decided to stick with the theme of elephants. I truly believe that as kindergarten teachers we are ALWAYS looking for ways to simplify and modify to make things better for our kiddos. So I put together some info I found on the web into a keynote. I put in some youtube videos. Here are the links:
Elephants eating
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaKVewUeo6w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5kip6hU0C8
Elephant playing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIs1_3v559k

The kids went crazy for the elephant playing in the water!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7yJ9Mr-2JPIT2k0TlpBTkZqZlU/edit?usp=sharing

I also made a report book that goes perfectly along with the slideshow. Check it out! Let me know what you think:)

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/All-about-Elephants-Writing-1137014

Thanks for reading,

*Jessica*

New Writing Showcase

In my classroom right now we are working on nonfiction writing. Oh me, oh my, this is a tough one to teach kinders. This is what I did, I let each kiddo choose a book that they like to read, even if it was completely above their level. We then worked on a sentence they could write to tell about the book.  I give each student a writing goal sheet, so that I can write on it exactly what I want them to work on. With some of the kids it is finger spaces, others are working on word wall spelling. I used this sheet to correct the things in their sentence that needed work. While I worked with some kids, the others got to work on their cover. I had them try to do it exactly like it is on their book. Well, I put together a bulletin board to show off our book reports. Book reports are non fiction, so it works!