Christmas Season

        It's that time of the year again! CRAZY kids excited for Christmas! I love this time of the year because we get to focus on CHRISTMAS and the holidays! It creates a different environment when Christmas music is played and doing Christmas crafts makes it extra special for the students. We also have 2 WEEKS off from school which is something else to look forward to!  

       The only problem going into these final 2 weeks is how do we ensure that we are staying on task with our teaching, learning, and procedures in the classroom? Not only are the students feeling antsy, but so am I! At this time, I have to keep reminding myself to maintain a "sane" learning environment I cannot slack on procedures, etc. We have had a big discussion with the students about how even though, we have JUST two weeks left, we still need to do our "job" and continue to learn new things. I love how one of the other Kindergarten teachers came up with the idea of a "naughty/nice list" for our students in our classes. If we see naughty students or nice students - we have them write their name on the list - that way, when Santa comes and checks the list every night, he can see who is naughty and nice! ;)

       With that, I hope all of you have an enjoyable holiday season and MERRY CHRISTMAS to everyone! Catch you in the New Year! 

Fall Has Arrived!

         Well it's finally October and I'm happy to say that this year is going pretty good so far. With the added time I'm spending at school with co-coaching volleyball this year, I feel like I have to balance my schedule. Also, with our Indiana Teacher Evaluation - RISE evaluation, I'm becoming more and more stressed with SLOs and observations. One way I do de-stress is by working with technology. I'm becoming more and more comfortable with creating my own interactive board (mimio) lessons and other lessons to go along with reading, writing, math, science, and social studies. My favorite thing is creating lessons for students to "check-in" in the morning. So far I've made a generic one with pencils, pumpkin-themed one, and a beach ball one. I will be making many many more! My next favorite thing is finding free resources online! I love looking at pinterest, teacherspayteachers, and mimioconnect.com. 
        One of the big accomplishments, so far, of this year, is our AMAZING collaboration with our Kindergarten team to create an "intervention time", or like we call it, "success time", where we have arranged groups based off of what each individual student needs - uppercase letters, lowercase letters, sounds, sight words, and (as in our case) readers that are already working in guided reading groups. Last year, we had this intervention time, but, we hadn't started it until November and we only were able to meet 3 days a week. This year we started about 2 weeks ago (and have already noticed HUGE growth with our students), we are able to meet all 5 days, AND we have more instructional assistants to work with our groups! 
        Our school district is pushing PLC (Professional Learning Communities ) and it is making a big difference to take ownership of ALL of our students together and work as an entire school team to have successful learning on all levels! Something else we are doing as a district is pushing our students towards their dreams and showing how our students are enriching the lives of others. Now, on a kindergarten level you might say that's not realistic because at this young of an age students either have dreams like "becoming a superstar" and "becoming a princess", or their dreams are constantly changing; but when we talk to students about their dreams - we can show them why school and learning is so important to their future. As a district-wide Kindergarten team, we decided to display, in the classroom, pictures of students with their dreams written out - so that students may see what they are working for. As for enriching the lives of others - in my classroom, we are constantly talking about how we can be "bucket-fillers" (from the book, "Have you Filled a Bucket Today?" )
         That's all for now! Keep checking for future updates from my Killer Whale Kindergarten Class!

New Year, Old Me!

Well I have one year of kindergarten under my belt now and I'm feeling a little more relaxed and comfortable in this grade! I can't wait to meet my new students tomorrow and begin the learning process all over again! When planning for the first week/couple of months, I had forgotten where all of the kindergarteners start out! It's amazing how much they grow throughout one year and all I can think about is where we ended the year...amazing readers, mathematicians, and so much more mature! As we start out this school year, we will be working on a letter of the alphabet per day (learning the sound, what it looks like, and how to write it). To go along with that, I am going to zone in immediately on sight words also! This is something I want to push the students toward right from the beginning! I am also going to go about introducing my centers a little differently this year. Instead of introducing several in a day and expecting the kids to be successful, I am going to try introducing one center per day. We will go over what the center should look like, the materials that will be used, what things we can do at the centers (including making an "I Can..." chart), and what skill(s) we should be practicing at the center. Each day I will add a center and we will practice them and along with that we should become more on-task with what we are doing during center time! During Writer's Workshop, last year I hopped right in teaching lessons. This year, I am going to start more with drawing with a purpose and showing details! Math was such an exciting time last year with the various parts - Calendar, Math in Focus lessons, and our math center time. I was told several times by students that their favorite part last year was math centers so I can't wait to delve right in and get started! With Science last year, I was really glad that I jumped right in with the program because it was really interesting and it definitely fit our kindergarten terminology and it was geared towards the students with making it very interesting and exciting! I am really excited to use more of the technology that goes along with the program this year! I'll try to keep you up to date about our National Geographic curriculum! Social Studies will still remain a little tricky because I still don't have all of the Big Books to go along with the program, but my colleagues have been AMAZING with loaning whatever I need! (I also can't wait to do our "All About ME" unit and learn more about the students!) This year's schedule is SO AWESOME! All of our grade level's specials were scheduled in the afternoon which will provide consistency in our classrooms and allow a common collaboration time (PLC time - see below)! This past week I attended a PLC (Professional Learning Community) conference. It was very encouraging to see that our Kindergarten Team was on the right track with taking ownership of all of the students, realizing that we are working on each student in our school rather than just the ones in our classroom! One thing I want to work more with this year, is focusing on intervention time. I think that if our entire team works together and separates the students into groups based off of their needs in various standards = our students will be so successful in their learning! Along with teaching this year, I will be co-coaching our elementary volleyball team and I am very excited to get started with that! I think that's all of the updates I can think of so far, but I made it my goal this year to get on and write more every month - hopefully I stick with it!

Full Day Kindergarten

So here I am... A few of months away from my first year of teaching Kindergarten completed and I am so excited to see how the students have progressed throughout the year. The other kindergarten teachers and I have been talking about how this year has been different from years past just because our students are a lot further along than years past with half day kindergarten. We are actually having a problem with trying to find assistance to help us with guided reading groups throughout our classes! It's a good problem though! Our students are high enough that they are beyond phonics and need help with reading. Another thing that I have been doing is working on adding things or changing my literacy centers to keep students interested. One problem with this, is I am having trouble with management during the center time because students are becoming so comfortable with their centers and with their center buddies. I need to figure out what to add to keep students working and have them try their hardest. So far, picking a student, at the end of center time, to get a prize is working somewhat, but I want the students to want to work hard and have fun while doing centers without having to give a prize. But overall, having the kids for full day is paying off and instead of teaching them how to read in first grade, we are now doing it in kindergarten.:)

Math Centers

      The time change really affected my students! This past week was a crazy week with students getting excited about the first snow (even if it was just a sprinkling, it looked like glitter!).
Let's talk math centers now.
      Over the past month I have been incorporating a different set up of math centers. I have 10 baskets each touching on a different aspect of math: number sense, measurement, graphing, adding/subtracting, number order, counting, patterning, sorting, geometry, and anything extra! Each group of students (2-3) visits one math center every day, so they are focusing on 10 different areas over a time of 2 weeks. I like it simply because I am planning new things only every 2 weeks! No requirements of changing it out every day! In the baskets I am working on having a variety of tools for students to use during this time to focus on these aspects of math. With the new state MCLASS testing, I think I'm going to be focusing more on some of those standards in my "extra" basket! :)
      Over the past week (and upcoming week), I have had technology incorporated at 4 out of the 10 math centers! Talk about crazy! It was tricky the first couple of days; making sure that I had everything up and ready to go, but now, it's working a lot smoother and the kids are LOVING them! The 1st 2 weeks that I integrated these math centers during math time, I really struggled with having too many "tricky" centers, where I had to constantly move around the room, helping groups. Now, it's a little more simpler and working more nicely. I'm finding that with kindergarten, the more simpler the center is, the easier it is for them and me! They still are learning, but now I don't have to monitor EACH group EVERY second!
     Another update...I'm in LOVE with using technology in the classroom! Last week I spent hours at school finding more mimioboard activities to use in the classroom! I also searched for more IPAD apps! I'm finding out that looking for these things while watching TV, makes it much more fun!
Feel free to inform me of any specific APPS or computer programs/internet sites that would work awesome in my classroom! :)

Literacy Centers

It's been a few weeks since I have given any updates on here, so here I am!

       We have finished going through all the letters and are starting sight words this coming week. I have been surprised at how well the students are able to write their letters now and their names! What a huge accomplishment for them and I know they have been working hard on that, so it's exciting to see it and to have the students constantly showing me their work! We also have been sharing about ourselves through "All About Me" posters, which has shocked me with how cool all of the students (and me) think this time of sharing is! These kids love hearing about each other!!! 

       The last time I was on here I was talking about my literacy centers and how much fun it is to watch students during this time. I have a total of 7 centers now and I'm adding more in the next couple of weeks. I have a reading center, "big" center (where big poems and charts are), listening center, abc center, word center, computer center, and my soon-to-be guided reading center. I'm in the process of getting things ready for a phonics center, block/word games/puzzles center, sand center, and pocket chart center. I've just finished Debbie Diller's book on literacy centers and that's the format I'm following in my classroom. The more traditional centers have teachers preparing lots of materials and activities for the students, but with my centers, I have more basic things with students being able to choose activities, which is easier and fits ME! With each of my centers, I have created "I Can" posters where the students and I have come up with the things students can do at each center. I will admit, at the beginning of it, I really didn't know how it was going to all fit together and work, but it is! It requires TIME to go through each center and have students practice, and practice, and PRACTICE them! :)

       The Reading Center has students reading books by reading the words, reading the pictures, and retelling the stories. I'm very satisfied with how this center is working because it has students talking about what they are reading and also writing/drawing about what they are reading. Plus, it also is nice to have bean bag chairs and stuffed animals for students to read to! And prepping...I just need to ensure that there is paper, pencils, crayons, and post-it notes there.

       My "Big" Center is neat because students are able to practice pointing to words, reading familiar poems and charts (like ABC chart), and writing/drawing about the poems they are reading. Kids are so creative and come up with the best stories in their writing and drawing! I also have "cool" pointers which makes it more fun with using extra big pointers, chopsticks, pipe cleaners, and popsicle sticks. 

      My Listening Center is becoming more of a challenge just because of the books I have to continually check out from the library! I wish I had my own books, OR even better, IPADS for students to listen to the stories on! I've been having a few students at that center, use my one IPAD and it's worked out great...I just wish I had more! DONATIONS ACCEPTED!! :)

      My ABC Center has been interesting just because it is one of my most diverse centers with all kinds of materials for students to use. I told you that I had banagrams there, but I also have traceable letters in sheet protectors for students to practice writing them, I also have wikki sticks for students to trace out on big ABC flashcards, I had ABC puzzles there, but I'm going to move that to my puzzle center, and I did have blocks and letter outlines, but I'm going to move that to my block center.

       At the Word Center, students are able to move letters around to create words (and match words) on a magnetic board, they can also fill out a chart that has the word listed on it, and they need to make it with letters, and then write it out, and finally they can copy words from our word wall. 

      At the Computer Center, students have been doing a variety of things from working on Sesame Street website, to ABCYA, to listening to books from Tumble books. This, by far, is the students favorite center and I wish that I could provide them with more computers! ;)

      At my "Soon-to-be" Guided Reading center, currently I have been working with groups on Phonics work, such as beginning sounds and rhyming words. We have been manipulating picture cards with this. 

     With the other centers that I will be introducing soon, I'm still tweaking them and trying to figure out how I want to actually present them. I'm not sure if I want to simply add them to my Perfect Number 7 centers, or to create new ones. I feel that if I add them, it would be overload for some students because they would simply have too many things to choose from at each center, which is why I'm leaning towards creating new centers. 

      With my pocket chart center, I'm really excited with having students being able to move around words, letters, and such. 

       My phonics center will be one of the more easier centers since I purchased from Lakeshore some pre-made center material for phonics-type work.

      Now, I have already discussed with several teachers about having a sand center, and I'm really nervous at getting my head chopped off by the custodians if I spill any sand, so that leaves me still debating between having it or not. I have uppercase and lowercase molds and number and shapes molds, so you can see that I really, REALLY want to do this!!! :)

     With my  Word games/Puzzles/Blocks center, I still want to help students develop their motor skills while having it be more literacy-based. I have ABC puzzles, ABC games, and tons of ideas for blocks with literacy. We shall see how this will turn out though...especially with students wanting to use the materials one way, and me, wanting the students to use it a different way!

      I will make sure to keep you updated on how this goes in the next couple of weeks! My next post, I will be talking Math Centers...I'm also reading Debbie Diller's book on that! I'm really not sure how it will all fit in my schedule and how I want it to be done, but I will discuss that next time! 

Just another day

This week completely flew by! I had so much fun with the kindergarteners! They are getting so excited about the different things they are learning and it's making teaching them so much fun! Today we actually had centers running so smoothly! I was able to take a breather and help those that needed it and I didn't have a zillion people coming and asking for help! It was so much fun! I love kindergarten! One of the new things that I did was with the abc center...I had banagrams and the kiddos matched the letter tiles with an abc chart! Wth the listening center I had checked out, from the library, books on cd for students to listen to and read... It's amazing how well these students are listening! I love experiencing everything with them and being there for their learning! This past week we also introduced a new letter every day and I hope this really helps students in learning about different letters and their sounds. We have a lot of work to do this year! It will be fun!

Survival Week

Well I am happy to report that I survived the first week of kindergarten!
It was so much fun to meet all of my kindergarteners in my class and get the year started! It was also really nice to meet the parents during our Open House night! I'm really excited that our class is already on a roll and already working!
This week consisted mainly of repeating various school and classroom procedures over, and over, and over again! I saw a huge improvement over the week and so did many other teachers! By Friday, we were getting so many compliments in the hall on how well we walked!
One of the coolest things I saw this week was how much fun these kids had during our math time! This week I had students each adding a page to a few class books we did. One of the class books we created were how many people were in our family. I had students draw their families and were able to tell me about their families. We used that concept later that day during math time when I asked students to write their name on post-it notes and place on a graph showing how many family members students had in their family. The kids got so excited when we added names because it felt like a competition between the numbers! I was excited that the kids were enjoying this time, doing "math talks" in complete sentences, and understanding all of the "mini-lessons" that came from our time!

I look forward to all of the other fun lessons we have! I also introduced "silly-brations" from teachertipster.com this week and my kindergarteners had a blast with performing them after earning them as a class!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj8f2R-dTAs

Classroom Coloring

Well, this weekend I have been spending quite a few hours in my classroom, but I think I am finally ready to begin the school year with my kiddos! Of course, I will still probably be doing A LOT more decorating and planning throughout the year! I'm hoping that I stay organized and have my room clean, full of colors, and fun! I'm so excited to meet my students and hopefully make them excited about school. I'm praying that I don't have too much crying, but hope instead, that students will be DYING to come to school every day! 
I'll leave you with a few pictures of my classroom...

Goals

As I near my first day with my kindergarteners, I am getting more and more excited about the new year, the new grade level I get to teach, and all of the kindergarten blogs I have found and discovered! I am totally OBSESSED with finding cool new free things on these sites! As a think about this coming year, I have a few goals for myself during the school year. 1. Start a journal of funny/cool things that kids say (one of my coworkers and I last year decided we needed to start this!!!) 2. Have all learning be fun and interesting for students! 3. Get plenty of sleep! 4. Prepare thoroughly for each lesson taught.

I'm sure I will come up with more goals, but those are just a few to start the year. 

Year of Changes

I just got word last week that I am to take on the adventure of being a kindergarten teacher!
What great news! I'm thrilled for the chance to make a difference in the lives of young ones! I am filled with excitement...so much that I went to the teacher's store this weekend, dragging my husband along, to start buying the essentials! I will continue blogging about my experiences during this year and any feedback is welcomed! I recently started reading the book, "Kindergarten through pictures", where a mentor teacher describes and explains her classroom, organization, classroom management, etc. What a fantastic book! I have already learned so much!
During this time, I will also start my Master's of Art in Curriculum and Educational Technology through Ball State. I'm filled with excitement on what's to come this year!
Til next time....

Literacy

       Found some really good reading in the book, Breakthrough in Beginning Reading and Writing, by J. Richard Gentry. Dr. Gentry has a lifetime full of studying/teaching reading education in the classroom and university. He is highly qualified with his 16 years of research and writing in literacy education.  He has published Breaking the Code: The New Scienceof Beginning Reading and Writing and the Science of Spelling.
      Dr. Gentry talks about in his book, Breakthrough in Beginning Reading and Writing, about the process of every aspect of literacy coming together, working harmoniously to create a literate student.
      On page 66, " Writing for reading makes sense because invented spelling is the perfect vehicle for code breaking. Writing puts both meaning and phonics first and helps the child synthesize knowledge enabling her to understand how aspects of reading and writing- such as letter knowledge, sound correspondences, directionality, phonemic awareness, phonics and sleeping, book concepts, and the concept of 'what is a word'- fit together. These are all the dots the child must connect into one grand unified process called reading."

To Correct...or Not to Correct, That is the Question

  
     Over the past week, I have had several discussions with people of various backgrounds over whether we, as teachers, should correct spelling errors when students are writing. From a variety of elementary education classes in college to research done lately, I have been reassured, that as a teacher, I should not always be correcting the spelling of a student.
     Depending on what stage of spelling the student is in, determines how "involved" I am, in their spelling, and in a whole, in their writing. In this particular article,(link included), it informs readers about spelling development, the stages of spelling, and what teachers can do in the classroom to progress them through stages and benefit their individual growth.
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/267
Here is a quote from the article, which supports my standings on correcting spelling errors:
       In teaching students to write, teachers should avoid overemphasis on absolute       correctness, mechanics, and memorization. Early emphasis on mechanical aspects of spelling inhibits developmental growth. When frequent purposeful writing takes precedence, adherence to the rules is secondary. The teacher in no sense abandons expectations for correctness. Rather, correctness is nurtured more effectively through knowledge of the pupils' level of development.

       I understand all of the hype and talk about students today not being able to spell. But can we honestly blame it on their development of spelling and how teachers are approaching it in the classroom of early grades? I think not! I feel that spelling errors are developed from these possibilities: lack of TIME spent in each stage of spelling development (rushed through stages), our "technology aides" (such as spell check), or pure laziness to figure out how words are spelled correctly.

3rd grade Swoop

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/3147954/3rd_grade_swoop

This week for school is B.E.A.R. week...Be Excited About Reading! Today we thought of all of the words that come to mind when we think of reading or what excites us about reading, and created a Wordle! Check it out!

What did I Just Read?

Today I was faced with the problem of comprehension when a few of my students could not answer questions about a book they were currently reading. Lately, we have been so focused on how to help students with phonics and how to help them decode words, that comprehension is often overlooked or placed on the "back burner". It is so hard to have an equal balance between these three, put yet it is so important to have all, to have a well-rounded reader. Therefore, my goal this week is to put a bigger emphasis on comprehension and help my students understand what they read is important to the growth of their reading.

The Importance of a Teacher

With the recent Arizona shootings, my heart aches for the families of the ones that were injured or died from the hand of the young man. Thinking about this young man, makes me wonder if his teachers in school ever had an impact on him, or wonder if they could have tried more to influence him in the right direction.  I often wonder if this kind of thing will happen to my school, if it will happen to my students, and it honestly scares me. As a teacher I feel like I have a responsibility to make a difference in students' lives through their education AND their personal lives. My heart aches for those students who can't focus on schoolwork because they are too focused on issues going on at home, problems they might be having with their families, or negative thoughts that are going on in their head. God has placed me here for a reason; a reason that could be just THAT important that it could change the lives of future Americans and could possibly save millions.

Helping Elves

You know what makes a teacher's heart soar? When other students, older and younger, help each other out. I believe that being a teacher is more than just work, it's a part of who you are. You don't have to have a degree to want to help others, you can simply have a compassionate heart. It makes a huge difference to younger students to have someone to look up to and look towards for help with homework, and just with life. So I am thankful for those students who have that desire!

Time is flying and I can't believe it's November! My small leveled literacy intervention groups are running well but I feel like the kids are starting to get drained! I'm noticing that they are starting to zone in and out while I am trying to teach them the tools that they need to better their reading! It's so frustrating to see these distractions! I cannot wait for Thanksgiving Break because I think the time off will help them get focused for the last few weeks before Christmas Break!

All About...

During the past two weeks, I have had the opportunity to create "All About..." posters with my students in my various Guided Reading groups based off of the nonfiction AND fiction books we have read. It was really cool to see the students getting excited about what they were reading and pulling away from their books. They spent a lot of time and effort on these posters and they came away from these books knowing more, about the different subjects, than if they had just read the book. When parent/teacher conferences came around, my friend, and co-teacher, and I were able to put up the posters we both created with our groups, on a bulletin board outside our room. Today, I was thinking about how excited these students are going to be to see all of their hard work displayed for everyone else to see! It's always nice to know that your work is appreciated and thought to be "cool" by fellow students.
From: http://www.responsiveclassroom.org/newsletter/14_4nl_1.html
"The work shows our best efforts, not just perfect work.The work shows growth or improvement...We feel proud of the work.The work is important to us."

Starting off on a Good Note

As we are coming to an end of this quarter and we are preparing for parent/teacher conferences, I am realizing how important it is to have good communication between parents and teachers. If you don't start off the year communicating with parents how well their students are doing in class so far, then it will be harder to communicate and have parents on your side when "bad" things happen in class. When you start the year off on a positive note, then things work out so much better throughout the year.