I'm BACK!!!!!

Hello fellow mothers and teachers!  I fell off the face of the earth, but I am really trying to get back into the education world again, while being a stay at home mom.  I have a fourteen month old little girl and another little girl due to arrive in January.  I wouldn't trade staying home with my children for anything.  I am looking to create some pre-kindergarten and kindergarten learning units to put on teacherspayteachers.com.  Please let me know what kinds of themes you think your children and students are interested in.  I want to create themed learning units that will keep children interested and motivated while basing them on common core state standards.  Please share your thoughts and comments I appreciate them!

Harry's Mad by: Dick King-Smith

I read Harry's Mad the other day to my husband to see if I wanted to read it to my class.  It was absolutely fantastic!  My husband and I loved it so much!  I cannot wait until I get to read it to my students!  I have not looked for lesson plans to go with this, but even if there is not any its definitely worth reading to your students.

The Hundred Dresses

The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes is a wonderful yet, humbling read for children or anyone.  I began reading it last week to my class.  I am using it as my listening comprehension book.  There is a great intermediate lesson plan in the August/September 2003 issue of The MAILBOX magazine.

There is also a verb lesson plan that goes along with this book by Teach21.  So to incorporate both of these ideas into my classroom.  I created verb centers for this week.  One center is verb charades which I found on teachers pay teachers.  My students LOVE this game, it never gets old.  Another center is creating verb collages.  This activity has kept them very engaged.

Another center activity that I chose to do was based off of the verb lesson plan as shown above.  My students had to search through chapter one of The Hundred Dresses and find all of the action verbs.  Once this was complete they had to categorize them by body action or mind action verbs.  This was good to reinforce the verb lesson and to read part of The Hundred Dresses again.

My last center was a writing center with a writing prompt taken from The Hundred Dresses.  The Mailbox magazine gives some great prompts for this learning activity.

Moving On Up!

 I have been terrible at keeping up with my blog, but life is super busy, and I know a fellow teacher can definitely understand that. Especially one that is getting their masters degree at the same time.  I moved to fifth grade this year and since we are departmentalized I teach three ninety minute blocks of reading and writing.

I am loving this change, but if any of you have any tips for teaching fifth grade reading and writing I would love to hear from you!  Thanks for reading!

Spider Unit!

When it came time for Halloween this year another kindergarten teacher and I decided to do a spider unit.  This was the most fun and most successful unit I have ever done!  My students loved it!  It really incorporated the Common Core Standards too.  I wish I had taken more pictures, but I promise to be better in the future!  Scout's Honor! Before this unit I used to be scared of spiders and I am proud to say that now after studying them I am not scared at all! I actually think they are pretty cool creatures.

 I turned my dramatic play center into a Science Laboratory.  I went wondering around my house and around the school and caught about fifteen different spiders and placed them in bug containers.  The kids were able to study them and try to figure out what kinds of spiders they were by using the "All About Spiders" books we borrowed from the library.  They tried to measure them and write descriptions about them.  They were also able to take different pieces of colored paper and see which color each spider was most camouflage on.

Here is a math game that went along with our spider theme.  I took a piece of poster board and drew a spider web on it using a black permanent marker.  I then laminated it to keep it sturdy and placed small sticky notes as the game spaces.  I then made spiders out of pipe cleaners and pom poms (thanks to Hobby Lobby!) but you could use any kind of spider game piece you would like (even spider rings would be great).  I then added a dice to the game.  If they rolled a number five they were able to move up one space.  If they did not roll a five they had to say whether the number they rolled was greater than or less than five and pass the dice to the next player.  They LOVED this game and it never got old!

On Halloween we had a Spider Celebration!  We encouraged the kids to dress up like spiders and we rotated through the kindergarten classes doing fun activities with and about spiders.  Some kids were so decked out it was fantastic!  Some of the teachers dressed up too we had a blast!

The Human Body and the Five Senses

For my 5 senses unit I turned the dramatic play center into a doctor's office and they adored it!  Dramatic play and most of the other centers were easy to set up for this unit, but I could not decide what to do with my blocks center. I was working on a Saturday trying to get some masters' homework done and set my room up for the new unit and I had an epiphany!  I used some of my blocks and drew some of the main organs onto them.  Then I separated what I called "bones" blocks into one tub and "organ" blocks into another.  I showed my kids how to build a skeleton from blocks and then had them place the "organs" in the correct spot on the skeleton.  There were books at the center to guide the kids where to place the "bones" and "organs".  I also placed a picture of a full body x-ray at the center.  It was such a great learning experience for the kids and they had fun doing it!

Welcome

     Since I started teaching Kindergarten last year I have wanted to create a blog and now I am finally doing it!  I have a lot going on and I am super busy, but bear with me and I will get this thing up and running!  I created this blog so that I can share and inspire and so that I can be inspired by those who read and post their ideas here as well.  I believe those teachers that share and learn from other teachers are the best teachers (this goes for parenting too!).  I love to get ideas from others so please feel free to leave suggestions and comments.  And to those of you who like things that I post; take it, use it, and make it your own!  Enjoy!