Draft Book Time

This is my first year where I am actually really enjoying teaching writing. 

Yep. Believe it. 

If you read my blog you know that I was always trying to figure out a way to get writing in my day and for me to actually think it was worth while. This new school we use Lucy Calkins and her writing workshop technique. I have had her books forever, but this year having them in our curriculum it is like it all comes to life. :)

This is how it all rolls out:

I start each lesson with a modeling mini-lesson. This is where I go over all the little details that we need in our writing. Right now we are talking about "small moments" those little bits that they can turn into stories. I show how to start with a capital letter, finger spaces, and punctuation. This is also a time where we work on phonics. You can see from my story the other day that I let them sound out the words for me.

 After the mini-lesson, they head to their desks to start working in their own draft book. I put classical music on and leave them to it for about 10 minutes so they can get the creative juices flowing. :)

 Once I see most of them have a good start I conference with one table. I do a different table everyday. I go to each kiddo and ask them what they are writing about and have them read their story to me. We chat for a bit and then I give them a star and a wish.

A star is something I thought they did great with, and a wish is something I would like them to do next time. I always ask them to tell me what their wish is before I give them one. 

 I just put this picture because it makes me smile. "I wish I can be the popstar."

So that is our draft book time. I am really loving it and I can see how much it is helping my kinders!

Can you believe it is almost Thanksgiving!? We have a feast on Friday that I will be gearing up for. I have these babies in my TPT shop right now if you want to check them out! I did them last year with my firsties and they were great writing activities.

Happy Sunday!!

I PROMISE I am still here!

O. my. word. 

I am sorry. 

I have been MIA forever. My life is so ridiculous right now. I am adjusting to everything new in my life! I am LOVING my new school, and I have been getting used to how everything works. I cannot even tell you how happy I am at this school. :) It is just an amazing change for me!

So, this is the post where I just play catch up for you! My kinders are doing amazing and we are now at 41 days of school....WHAT?! 

I am adjusting to Daily 5 and so far I am loving it! {don't tell Debbie}:) We started word work stations, and you can tell Debbie that I have the rotations set up as if they were literacy workstations. 

win-win!

We made these name posters with star stickers to practice letter formation and name writing.

 This is pom pom words, the students spell their hot words with pom poms and have to use tweezers to pick them up. Working those fine motor skills!

 This is a memory game using our zoo phonics characters. Loving watching them act out each animal.

We did this poem from a Fountas and Pinnell book. It puts rhyming words in the poem. 

 This is the alphabet arc, they match letters on it.

This is a little sheet to reinforce our hot words.

We have been working on numbers from 0-20. We have been working from Growing Kinders AWESOME fun with numbers unit. These were the little mini books.

This week we were talking all about pumpkins!

We started with a schema chart:

Then, we went to the pumpkin patch and after we came back we made our own pumpkins. The turned out very unique! ;)

So there is a brief snapshot into what is going on in my kinder classroom!

In other news!!! {can you tell I am excited?} 

My teacher biffle Morgan {First Grade Fresh} and I have started a blog together!! We have been nurturing this baby for a while now and FINALLY it is time to reveal the child! HA. 

I give you All That Glitters in Teaching! 

Go over and check it out, we have a giveaway for our inaugural post! :)

Happy Hump Day!

Really Good Stuff Giveaway Winner!

Kinder in Pictures and a REALLY GOOD STUFF GIVEAWAY!

I have now made it through *almost* three weeks of kindergarten! 

In case you just read that and was like..."ummm this called the first grade jungle?" I moved from Louisiana this summer and took a job in Texas teaching kindergarten! It is just too much nonsense to change the name of my blog so I will be posting ideas that could work for either grade level!

In kinder this week we started Daily 5! We went to read to self starting last week, and my oh my! My kids blew my mind the first day! We are already at 5 minutes! 

We also are using this awesome phonics technique called zoo phonics! It is so precious. Each letter has an animal and an action to help kids remember their sounds. Today, we did this cut and match activity that will be their first word work station. 

Give it a google search and let me know what you think!

Now.... you have waited through all my pictures,

Really Good Stuff (the best teacher store) has asked me to do a giveaway of one of their products! YAY!

They were so kind to send me four-compartment caddies in neon, with label holders! 

 They are great for my kindergarten tables! This is my first year with tables, so these are great to put all the crayons and pencils and erasers. It is organized with compartments so you can easily find a place for everything. I have put two of the same color on the tables, and then that is the name of that table! It is great since it is a great visual cue!

 I also got these awesome label holders with it! They clip on the caddies and ANY basket! I knew my kids would mess with them, and then I needed some way to label my social centers and TA-DA I put them on here. The come with the border to write and a plastic square to keep it nice. They stay on the basket really well too!

Love these, and the great news is you can WIN your own set! Here is how:

Post a comment for each!

1) Follow my blog!

2) Follow my TPT store

3) Like Really Good Stuff on Facebook

4) Follow Really Good Stuff on Twitter

One entry for each! Make sure to put your email address in the comment! :)

Giveaway ends on September 19, 2012 at midnight! I will announce the winner after that!

First Day Check!

SORRY! 

I feel I should say that since I have been MIA! I started two weeks ago and since I am in a new district, I had A LOT of stuff to learn. I am so glad I did though, because my district rocks! I would know that already because a VERY popular first grade blogger used to work here before she moved to Houston...wink wink. :)

So this post is all pictures! 

First, my baby Penny

She makes getting home SO much better!

AND now my classroom!

The Reading Jungle! My mom made that tree for me! It's made of pool noodles and brown paper bags!

So lucky to have a bathroom in my room!

Home center

My desk and area

Small group table, with word wall and daily five/CAFE wall

Good work wall and math wall

Front of the room

My door and word work station storage

View from the door

Yee-haw! My kindergarten picture! No clue why I am on a horse

? Those bangs are killing it too.

Cubbies with birthday wall above

We don't do clips here so I blew up my WBT rules and put it on my tree.

Lunch choice wall, they will have clothespins with their names.

My outside display

YAY!

WBT classroom rules

So that's my classroom! I had my first day with my kiddos this morning. It was great! We do a kindergarten camp at my new school, where we have a new class everyday. Whew. But it is great because we really learn a lot about the kids before we put them in classes. 

Stay tuned for a giveaway from Really Good Stuff.....because it is!

Animal print makes me feel sassy :)

So, I got my baby girl Penny!! She is actually laying on my lap right now fast asleep. :) Since I have been hanging at home with her, I have realized some other signs I needed to make for my classroom! I am loving animal print, because it's sassy and I like that. 

I just finished making these two sets of signs and they are up on TPT! I made a set of signs that have the months of the year and the days of the week:

And the next set is for colors:

I realized I needed to display these for my kinder kiddos. I also plan to make a set to put on my word wall. 

I am off to see if I can get this potty training thing down....when they say you should have a puppy before you have kids they were right!

Good luck to those who go back tomorrow! :)

Class? YES!

So, the last few days I have been in my classroom...sweating. Gross, I know. BUT the AC has been off. :( I have been waiting till the afternoon to go up there and in the mean time I have been watching Grey's Anatomy from the beginning. I forgot how amazing that show is! McDreamy...mmm.

Anyway, teaching stuff:

I am a HUGE lover of Whole Brain Teaching. I discovered it last year, since I had a rather rambunctious class and needed something new. I watched SEVERAL videos on YouTube of how it worked and fell in love. This was the first video I watched:

I found it so amazing how the kids are all into it, and I knew that I needed something to get my kids in gear! So, I went home and typed up all the key points and then the next day put it in motion. I started with the rules. Here are my kiddos doing it last year:

After we had the rules down, I taught them the scoreboard which I LOVE! It was such a great way to provide rewards and consequences quickly. I also used the Class? YES! response which is a great way to get attention quickly. After, I started using the Teach! OK! during whole group time. I LOVED this too. It was a great way for my students to do peer teaching quickly. I would have them discuss sight words, spelling words, or math skills. It was such a treat to watch them during this time. 

This video is also amazing! It is a lesson on compound words, completely using the WBT method. I was so impressed!

So, for my new classroom I made this set of posters with my version of the WBT rules! I just put them up in my TPT store. 

The first THREE to comment get them for FREE!!

Also, my fab teacher biffle Morgan is doing an amazing giveaway with Lakeshore! Go check it out! One of the ways to enter is follow our new blog! {note: there is nothing there yet :) we want it to be a big thing and since it is August and she just got married we are working on it HA}

Happy Friday!