Where We Live!

The theme for the second week of the school year was "Where We Live". All of my class but one lives in New Jersey, one lives in Pennsylvania, so we spent the week talking about both.

This week we read: Wish You Were Here by Kathleen Krull (only the NJ and PA pages)
                                        Goodnight New Jersey by Adam Gamble
                                        Goodnight Philadelphia by Adam Gamble
                                        The Quiet Book by Deborah Underwood
                                        The Loud Book by Deborah Underwood

Our question of the week was "Where do you Live?"

For our song this week we sang "The Itsy Bitsy Spider".

The activities that we did this week were mostly centered around our theme. We did a few things that continued letting the class get used to the classroom and routines. Last year I made the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree and I love having it at the entrance to my classroom with everyone's name letter on it. We took some time this week to get that project done. I traced the letter and wrote their name on it. The children colored their letters and I cut them out.

We took advantage of the gorgeous weather this week and had went on multiple nature walks on our trail.

Partner play with treasure boxes, puzzles and my eggs boxes were definitely another hit this week.

Our school's back to school night is next week, and I like to have some kind of project out on the tables for parents to look at while they arrive. I found this project on pinterest and thought it would be cute to try out. The kids made their person, and I scribed one thing that they wanted to work on or do during this school year.

From the website HandwritingWorksheets.com I make a worksheet for each child with their full name, first and last. It has 3 lines for the children to trace their name and one line for them to write it on their own. I like to do these a few times throughout the year to see how their fine motor control really does improve, so I always stick them into their portfolios.

Alright, back to our theme activities for the week. Using pictures of New Jersey Symbols I made a New Jersey memory game that we played in small groups.

Since we're talking about where we live, I thought that I would challenge my kids to draw a picture of their house. Early on in the year I like to get my class comfortable with "trying". Immediately I get "I don't know how", or "I cant" which just makes me so sad. I love children's art, and as long as they are trying I love it, and I want them to be proud of their abilities and their accomplishments.

We made handprint state bugs. A lady bug for Pennsylvania and a Bumblebee for New Jersey!

I printed out the state flag of New Jersey (and one Pennsylvania) and showed the children pictures of it. We talked about the colors that are one the flag and the pictures. Then we painted our own!

Using dot painters, we painted New Jersey Violets.

To end the week on a super fun note, we had a Bon Jovi dance party. It was awesome!

 Leave a comment below and let me know that you stopped by!

Welcome to the School Year! Building a Classroom Community

The theme for the first week of school was "Building a Classroom Community". I wanted to really get to know my class and let them get used to the room and to our daily routine, so we focused on becoming friends and some fun activities.

This week we read: Llama Llama Misses Mama by Anne Dewdney
                                        Splat the Cat by Rob Scotton
                                        Miss Nelson is Missing by Harry Allard
                                        A Book of Friends by Dave Ross

Our question of the week was "What was your favorite thing about the summer?"

For our song this week we sang "The Wheels on the Bus". It was fun to let the children pick what parts of the song to sing each time.

The activities that we did this week really helped us to become a tight classroom community! Everyday we went over class rules that the children helped make. We sat in a group and I asked the children what they thought some rules to keep us safe and happy in the classroom might be. I fit in my own too! We also took tours of the classroom so that the children get used to where the centers are.

We played "Just Like Me" to help get everyone comfortable with each other. I start by modeling with a few statements, i.e, I like vanilla ice cream. If a child also like vanilla ice cream, they stand up and yell, "just like me!" After I model a few statements like that, each child has a chance to be the leader. It's so cool to see them thinking about what they want to say!

The kids drew "first day of school" pictures. These are fantastic to throw in their portfolios! I have mostly blank piece of paper that on the bottom says, "I drew this on the first day of school!" and the children can draw anything that they want. It's an easy project for them to complete, and it also lets me see how the kids draw, and how they hold the crayons.

To help get the children playing with each other we used puzzles and treasure boxes to partner play with. They get to take turns choosing what they play with and work/play with new friends. To learn more about my treasure boxes and other ways they can be used, check out this post from last year!

We walked on our school's nature trail in the woods. All of the new children to the school LOVED it! Since our school is so connected to the outdoors and we are always looking at and talking about the seasonal changes that we see, I started us off by asking the children to look for different color flowers as we walked down. They were so excited when they saw purple, white, pink and yellow.

At morning meeting one morning we played body drumming, another game that helps the children become comfortable leading the group. I model 3 or 4 different motions, like patting the knees, clapping, snapping, and stomping while the group follows the change of the motions. Then any child that would like a turn (I do not force children to do something like this if they really don't want to) leading the group.

The children made paper plate snakes. Such an easy and fun activity. Either the teacher or the child draws a spiral on the plate, and then they color it however they choose. When they are finished coloring, they cut along the spiral that they drew, and voila! A snake!

I traced the children's hands and they colored them in. Again, a simple project to help the children get used to coming to the table to do projects and following directions.

We played "I Have, Who Has" with colors. We played a few times because the kids loved it. I have these games on hand that I made simply out of index cards. I have a shape and alphabet version as well.

The children made lions out of paper plates. They drew faces and the manes, and then growled for me!

We also played Simon Says.

We had a great first week of school, how was yours? Leave a comment below and let me know that you stopped by!

Gardening!

 Our theme this week was "Gardening" and it was the first week of our school's Summer Camp!! Who-hoo!

During summer camp, we always have a Yoga day where the school all together does a child centered yoga workout. The video we've been using is great because most of the poses are named after animals, like a lion... RAWR!

We also have splash day, where all the kids put on their bathing suits and we play outside in water tables and have a fun squiggly sprinkler to run through.

We read this week: My Garden by Kevin Henkes
                              Mortimer's First Garden by Karma Wilson
                              Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman 
                              Living Sunlight by Molly Bang
                              The Story of the Root Children by Sibylle von Olfers

Our question of the week was "What do you want in your garden?" This worked really well after reading the book "My Garden", because that's what the little girl talks about, flowers that can change color, chocolate bunnies, a jelly bean bush etc.

For our theme of the week, found worms outside and made them a habitat. We will observe them over the course of the summer and then put them back out in the woods in August. The kids really had fun digging for the worms! Here is a great step by step of what to do.

On TeachersPayTeachers I found a great FREE worksheet that not only makes a cool project, but really helps kids with those tricky teen numbers!

We planted seeds for flowers that hummingbirds will really like once they can go outdoors, and we watched a cool video about hummingbirds that talks about how they fly. It has great closeups of the birds. Worth a look!

We made hand print flower pictures.

Using toilet paper rolls, peanut butter and seed, we made bird feeders!

We played The Lady Bug game.

We wrote in our journals about what we would like to have in our own gardens.

 This summer we have some older kids on our class with us. While my kids are working on their journals, the older kids work on this reading log where they respond to the book we read in the morning.

And for Movie Friday we watched The Lorax! Yum, we had popcorn!!

Our song of the week was "Planting Time" (Row row row your boat), I found it here.

"Dig, dig, dig the earth (make digging motion)
Then you plant your seeds (pretend to drop seeds)
A gentle rain (Flutter fingers down)
And bright sunshine (Circle arms above head)
Will help your flowers grow."
(Hold one arm parallel to ground and move other arm up behind it with
fingers extended to represent a flower growing)

We had fun with all things outside this week!

I had a leaf nose! =]

The younger class grew grass this week! When it was all finished, they let us give it to the bunnies for a snack! =]

The games that we played this week at morning meeting were so fun!

We played "Alphabet Catch" with a beanbag. We toss the beanbag around the circle and the kids have to say the next letter in the alphabet. We started tossing it to the person next to use, once the kids get more comfortable with the game we'll stand in a circle and toss the beanbag across to friends.

"The Weather Changed" is a fun game. The kids decide on certain movements for weather, and we continually do the movements until the weatherman changes the weather. This week I started out as the weatherman, but I will have the kids be the weatherman too.

We played "1,2,3" which we have played before and is definitely a fan favorite! We stand in a circle and each child says 1,2 or 3 consecutive numbers starting with 1 up to 9. So for example: "1,2,3" "4" "5,6" "7,8,9" and the next child who would have to say 10 sits down and is out of the round. Then it starts back at one. My class really loves this one, and usually if we play it in the morning, I will hear them in centers or at their lunch tables playing their own facilitated versions of the game.

"Zoom" is a fun and quick game to play with a class of any age. First you need to pick a direction that the zoom is going to go around the circle. The person starting says zoom and turns their head the the person next, and it goes around the circle. Once the class gets comfortable with this game, I will record how long it takes us!

"Number Ball" is a lot like our alphabet catch in that we toss a beanbag to our friends. This game is a little different. The goal is to get to 30, but if the beanbag is dropped we have to start back at 1. I wonder if we will be able to get to 30 by the end of the summer?!

We are keeping up our work on our sight words! Every morning we go over around 10 of them. Once we've mastered them, they will go on our sight word wall! So exciting! We're working our way through the 220 Dolch sight word list.