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!

Setting up the Classroom!

I can not believe an entire year has gone by! It feels like I just started this blog. It has been so fun each week reflecting on the projects and activities that we've done. As it got to the end of the year I wondered whether I would continue blogging, and the more I thought about it, the more I thought... YES! It was just too fun to stop!

So, I start this new year with setting up the classroom! An important part of any teacher's beginning of the school year. I got the room sparkling, the toys and shelves scrubbed, all my paperwork set and the room rearranged.

 First came cleaning.

Then came organizing and arranging.

 I reorganized my bookcase and files. I bought this filing cabinet at GoodWill and painted it... 

I love it!

 I updated my classroom bulletin board for parents with our schedules, important dates, my teacher bio and interesting articles and information.

Im so ready for the new school year!! Can't wait to meet my new class!

The Pumpkin Plant (a year long project!)

Probably my favorite thing from this past school year, was our year long Pumpkin Project. I had found the idea to "plant" a pumpkin from this blog.It was so fun to have this growing in our classroom and the class LOVED watching the growth and changes in the plant. I posted periodically about this project over the year, but I thought it would be great to see it all in one place.

WEEK 1:
Just put dirt in the pumpkin and let the seeds sprout. Genius! I cut the pumpkin open and we talked about what was in there, what it looked like, what they thought about the inside of the pumpkin. Then they each got to put some dirt in the pumpkin... and we're just waiting for a sprout! (All that day they kept coming to tell me that we didn't have anything growing yet. I don't think they really believe me that it's going to take a couple weeks. =])

WEEK 3: There was nothing more fun than coming in each day to see if anything had changed in our pumpkins. This week we finally saw a sprout!

WEEK 4: The original sprout got so tall quickly and we had some more popping up!

WEEK 5: Right before the long Thanksgiving Weekend, I noticed that the pumpkins were starting to get soft on the bottom and sides, so I decided to plant them under some dirt. They were sprouting like crazy.

WEEK 10: I had been regularly watering the plants, and unfortunately we had a little bit of a set back when the first batch of sprouted plants died. They seemed to mostly come from one of the pumpkins, and then the other one began to sprout! On these sprouts we also got to see the first real pumpkin leaves. Very exciting!

WEEK 15: The pumpkins really started to comeback strong after half of the sprouts withered away.

WEEK 18: The pumpkin plants had been growing steadily and were doing really great. This week we had noticed that there were little "bud pods" and the kids could not wait to see what they would become.

WEEK 19: The pumpkin plants had been growing like crazy and were quite full of sprouts, and we were still getting some sprouts. We learned that the flowers can be either male or female. The male flowers are on the end of just a long vine, and the female flowers have that small little ball at the base of the flower (what becomes the pumpkin).

                                                 

WEEK 26: Our school does an art show every year, and this year's theme was "In the Garden". One of my class's projects for that was to paint pictures of our amazing pumpkin plant.

                                                

WEEK 28: The pumpkin plant had really been thriving and had filled out their container. I wanted to make sure that they could grow more, so I moved them outside into the school garden!

                                         

WEEK 30: The pumpkins took to outside really well! They basked in the sun and flourished!

WEEK 33: It seemed like everyday I looked at the plant outside it just got bigger and bigger. Some of the leaves were so large that they were bigger than my head. Incredible!

WEEK 34: A baby pumpkin!!

WEEK 36: The main part of the pumpkin plants unfortunately became infested with some sort of bug and was starting to rot. Most of the plant had to be pulled and I was only able to leave a few of the sprouts in the ground. At that point there were two pumpkins on the vine.

WEEK 45: I didn't do anything with the pumpkins, because I heard that the pumpkins might keep ripening, even off the vine. I waited as long as a I could (until I noticed that the stem was starting to get a little moldy). It turned orange! Even the little one started to change to orange.

I wanted to cut the pumpkins in half, because one of our projects during Halloween week was to talk about the parts of the cross section. 

The pumpkin was still good so I saved some for the bunnies and my rats (they'll be psyched!) and I was able to save most of the seeds from the large pumpkin. Not sure what I'm going to do with them yet... Maybe plant some more pumpkins? =]

Question of the Week (The Whole Year!)

This year I started asking Questions of the Week! The kids all really liked answering the questions and the parents loved to come in throughout the week and see their children's answers. I write them on a large white board in our classroom, you could do it on chart paper too and save the answers to make a giant book.

Here are the questions that I asked this year.

1. What was your favorite thing about the summer?
2. If you could be an animal, what animal would you be?
3. What is something that you are really good at?
4. What is something that you are not so good at?
5. What do you think Dad does at work?
6. What do you think Mom does at work?
7. What is one reason you like the Fall?
8. What is your favorite song to sing?
9. What is your favorite candy?
10. What would you grow on your farm?
11. What is one word to describe you?
12. What would you bring with you on the Mayflower?
13. What is something you are thankful for?
14. What is your favorite color?
15. What is your favorite thing about school?
16. What do you want to be when you grow up?
17. What would your elf name be?
18. What do you want to do in the New Year?
19. How long would you like to hibernate?
20. What is your favorite thing to do in the snow?
21. What is your favorite letter in the alphabet? Why?
22. What would you like 100 of?
23. What would you not like 100 of?
24. Who do you want to give a valentine to?
25. What can you make music with?
26. What is your favorite weather?
27. Who is your favorite Dr. Seuss character?
28. What would you do with a leprechaun's pot of gold?
29. What do you eat with noodles?
30. What kind of flower do you like?
31. What kind of food do you think is yummy?
32. Why do you like to come to school?
33. What could be inside an Easter Egg?
34. How can you "Go Green"?
35. Where do you want to go on vacation?
36. Why do you love Mom?
37. What color is your house?
38. If you were a bird, where would you fly?
39. What are you bigger than?
40. What is your favorite kind of art?
41. Why do you love Dad?
42. What was your favorite thing about school?

This was the beginning of summer camp, but we kept them going!!
43. What will be in your garden?
44. What are fireworks made of?
45. Why do you love the summer?
46. What do you want to be under the sea?
47. What beach do you go to?
48. What is your favorite animal at the zoo?
49. If you were a dinosaur, would you be an herbivore or a carnivore?
50. Where in the world do you want to go?
51. If you were an astronaut where would you go?
52. What do you like the most about our school?

Do you ask your children questions of the week? What questions do you ask? I love sharing ideas with other teachers, make a comment to let me know that you stopped by!