Kindergarten Kindergarten

Blog Hoppin' Teacher Week: Classroom Pictures

I'm not ready!!

 I cannot post pictures of my classroom yet, because...

1. Today was the first day of school and it looks like a small tornado hit.
2. Most of my shelves are completely empty. Seriously, this is how I start school. I don't put out anything until we have gone over the expectations for it.

Exhibit A: Art Center

 
Exhibit B: Writing Center

We learned about crayons. gluesticks and scissors today, so they are now in the table buckets. But we don't even have pencils, yet! (We have to learn about the sharp/not sharp bucket--tomorrow!) We will also do the whole dried out marker lesson, and then we will add those to the shelves, as well.

In a few weeks, the shelves will be full of paper, stamps, drippy glue, fun foam, watercolors, even glitter and a stapler! And the kids will be able to use them as they need/want. But the key is laying a strong foundation and going over expectations explicitly. That takes time--but it's worth it. The kids become extremely independent.

So, I promise I will get some good pictures of my room soon. In the meantime, here's a sneak peek of my new Expedit shelves in the library:

 
And here's a link to last years pictures:

2010-2011 Classroom

I am exhausted and am off to bed now!

Sweet Dreams!

 PS...

I'm sure there are lots of finshed rooms over on the Blog Hoppin' Blog. Check it out! 

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Teaching Rules and Routines: More glue and markers...

I'm diabolical. Truly.

I got the brilliant idea to purposely leave the lids off a few markers and gluesticks and let them dry out.

 

Today, when we were making our No David! puppets, I innocently handed out the dried up gluesticks for the kids to use. They tried and tried, but those noses just kept falling off. A few kids caught on pretty quickly..."Ms. Warner--someone must have left the caps off these gluesticks and now they won't work anymore!" (Me, in response) Really? Well what should we do?

 

We agreed that I would give the tables all new gluesticks and they promised they would always put the caps back on so they would never dry out! Then I taught them the song--which, by the way, I wrote wrong on here a few weeks ago. It actually goes like this (to the tune of London Bridge):

 

Put the lid back on the glue, on the glue, on the glue...

Put the lid back on the glue, so it won't dry out! SNAP!

Tomorrow...same lesson with the markers! (I think the kids really get it now.)

By the way, another helpful hint...

 
Keep a collection of spare lids. Because no matter how great your lesson is, lids are still gonna get lost! 

Teaching Rules and Routines: Taking Care of Books

I'm really excited about my latest project. I worked on it all day Sunday, even though I had loads of laundry and lesson planning to do! But it was worth it. I made a book to teach kids the right and wrong ways to handle books.

This is not my idea. There is a famous book out there called Mr. Wiggle. Several teachers at my school have copies made from laminated construction paper with a cute little bear. I even think there is an actual published book out there, but it seems that it's out of print, and used copies are running $80 and up (yikes!). Anyway, making this book has been on my to-do list for years. So when I finally got around to doing it, I decided to update it a bit.

So here it is:

 
Just like in Mr. Wiggle, someone has been very naughty with this book and the forest friends are very sad! (Cheesy, huh?!)

Here someone scribbled with markers and crayons... 

Here somebody drew a picture with a pencil... 

Here somebody got mud on the page... 

Here someone got juice and chocolate on the page... 

Here someone glued on paper and stuck on stickers. And yes, that says snail when it's actually a caterpillar. I fixed it. (Thanks, Anh!)

And here somebody ripped a page... 

But now all of the forest friends are happy again, because they know the kids are going to take good care of the books in their class (awww....) 

When I'm done reading this book, we will make a T-chart of good/bad choices when it comes to handling books. Here it is, all ready for tomorrow. 

I'm also going to make a bookmark that the kids can take home to remind them of how to properly care for books (I'll post it when I'm done). 

You can download Forest Friends here:

Download Forest Friends

I printed mine on cardstock and had it bound at Office Max for just a few dollars. You will have to do the scribbling and ripping yourself (it's kind of cathartic, although my friends inform me that I am not a very realistic scribbler). I used red watercolor for the juice and let it drip. I used brown tempera paint for the mud and chocolate.

I'm sure we will still have a few torn pages here and there, but I think the kids will be more invested in taking care of our library. 

Have fun scribbling! 

Kindergarten Rules and Routines: Getting the Lids back on Markers and Gluesticks!

How many of these have you found lying around your room?

 

Dried up markers with the lid just a few inches away. It's hard enough getting the kids to put the lids back on. But even if I can do that, they don't push down hard enough and the lids just end up falling back off again.

So we sing a little song to the tune of London Bridge. Sing along:

Put the lid back on the marker, on the marker, on the marker...

Put the lid back on the marker, until it goes

click!

We sing it everytime the kids use the markers. And they love listening for the click. Even in May, I would catch them listening for the click.

It also works with these:

...although the click is not as clicky. We sing the song anyway (substituting gluestick for marker, of course)--the kids get the point. Just one more little trick to make our lives easier!

Classroom Supply Labels

A lot of people have asked for my classroom supply labels seen here in my Art and Writing centers...

So here they are:

Download Supply labels2

I cut them out and put them on these cute little black and white polka-dot labels from Barker Creek. (I got mine for 50% off at Mardel. I bought all they had!). I use these labels for everything--I love them!

Hope they are helpful!

Organizing my Classroom Library

Here are the labels that I use to organize my classroom library. I'm a little wacky in the way I sort my books--some are done by general categories (Animal Books, Class Favorites); some are done by genres (Fairy Tales); some are by character (Maisy Books, Clifford Books) and some are done by author (Mo Willems, Kevin Henkes, etc.) It works for us. I want the kids to be able to easily find books and then put them away when they're finished!

Download Book Labels_Fiction

I use the tried and true colored dot sticker system to label the books. When I run out of colors, I add a colored star to the middle. For example, all Mo Willems books have a black circle with a green star in the middle. Between that and the labels on the bins, the kids do a pretty awesome job of keeping the library neat.

You can also see I have leveled books. Those are die-cut numbers on the blue and green tubs. I use Scholastic Book Wizard to help me level books. I do a lot of "educated guessing" on books that aren't in their system.

I put themed books on the leaning book stand. It's where I put most of my non-fiction books--but I only pull them for specific units (i.e. these are "Back to School" books). This year, I plan on having a more permenant expository book section. I just have to find a place to put it! So, stay tuned...

Happy Reading!

Super Scientist Badges

We do a lot of hands-on science in my classroom (the goal is 80%!) The potential for messy, sticky, dirty, uncontrollable mayhem is high. So I came up with a system to help manage 20+ little mad scientists while still letting them interact with science materials in a meaningful way--Super Scientist Badges.

I have 5 tables--yellow, red, blue, green and purple. I make badges numbering 1-6 for each table in the corresponding colors (I only have 4 or 5 kids at each table, so a few of those are extras). I got my badges at Office Depot. You can print the blackline master here. Print one for each table you have.

Download Science Badge Labels

When we start a science activity, each child at a table wears one of the badges. Then, when I am giving directions, I call a number out--and all the kids wearing that number perform the specified task.

For example, if we were making a PB&J, it might go like this:

• Scientist #1, please put 2 pieces of bread on the plate. (So all the scientists #1--at the yellow, red, blue, green and purple tables--put 2 pieces of bread on the plate).
• Scientist #2, please spread some peanut butter on one piece of bread. (So all the scientists #2--at the yellow, red, blue, green and purple tables--put 2 pieces of bread on the plate).
• Scientist #3, please put some jelly on the other piece of bread. (I think you get it know!)

A problem does arise if you have an uneven number of students at each table. In that case, I just have a student wear 2 badges and perform the duties of 2 scientists (I chose responsible students for this honor--so it solves a problem and encourages responsible behavior--BONUS!)

I don't want my kids to have to sit and watch me or other kids perform experiments. I want them to have as much hands-on experience as possible. But I also want to keep my sanity and not have to deal with the constant "But he already got to (whatever)" whines! This has been a good solution. I hope it can work for you!