In Honor of Those Who Were Lost

I'm still in shock, as I'm sure most of you are, about the shootings that took place on Friday in CT. Those sweet little angels are being taken care of now, and the heroic teachers who helped save others will never be forgotten. 

I hope we don't take one day for granted, because we never know what will happen. I will be hugging each of my Kindergarteners a little tighter this week and laughing a little more with each of them too. Life is so precious, and we never know when it will end. My thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of all of those who were taken.

I'd like to share a poem I saw today:

twas' 11 days before Christmas, around 9:38
when 20 beautiful children stormed through heaven's gate.
their smiles were contagious, their laughter filled the air.
they could hardly believe all the beauty they saw there.
they were filled with such joy, they didn't know what to say.

they remembered nothing of what had happened earlier that day.
"where are we?" asked a little girl, as quiet as a mouse.
"this is heaven." declared a small boy. 

"we're spending Christmas at God's house."
when what to their wondering eyes did appear,
but Jesus, their savior, the children gathered near.
He looked at them and smiled, and they smiled just the same.
then He opened His arms and He called them by name.
and in that moment was joy, that only heaven can bring
those children all flew into the arms of their King
and as they lingered in the warmth of His embrace,
one small girl turned and looked at Jesus' face.
and as if He could read all the questions she had
He gently whispered to her, "I'll take care of mom and dad."
then He looked down on earth, the world far below
He saw all of the hurt, the sorrow, and woe
then He closed His eyes and He outstretched His hand,
"Let My power and presence re-enter this land!"
"may this country be delivered from the hands of fools"
"I'm taking back my nation. I'm taking back my schools!"
then He and the children stood up without a sound.
"come now my children, let me show you around."
excitement filled the space, some skipped and some ran.
all displaying enthusiasm that only a small child can.
and i heard Him proclaim as He walked out of sight,
"in the midst of this darkness, I AM STILL THE LIGHT."

Written by Cameo Smith, Mt. Wolf, PA

 In honor of all those that were lost I'd like to give you this Reindeer Craft freebie for you to make and enjoy with your kiddos this week.

I hope that you may find joy in your journey through life this holiday season and may we all remember the true reason for the season.

(UPDATE: I apologize, but due to some graphic images used I cannot offer this as a freebie. It is now posted in my TPT store for $1.00 if you are still interested. I also have other Christmas freebies in my store if you'd like to check those out. Sorry!)

Merry Christmas!

 -Melissa

12-12-12 and a FREEBIE!

I hope you've all had a wonderful weekend and are getting ready to head back to school tomorrow! 

I am very lucky, the private school I work at only has school Tuesday-Friday so I get an extra day each week. I still go into work for a few hours each Monday to make sure I have everything prepared for the week, which is extremely nice! 

I don't know if any of you are in the same situation as me, but my husband has a full week ahead of finals for grad school. He already took 2 last week and has 5 more this week. (Even on his birthday which is on Wednesday....12-12-12....He's SO excited about that!) 

Do you have anything fun planned for your kids on 12-12-12? My kids are so sad that this won't happen again because 13-13-13 will never exist!

I made a simple Holiday Traditions page that we will make into a class book this week. Do your kids like reading your class books? My kids are always trying to read ours. (We should probably make them more often). I thought I'd share it with you! 

Please leave a comment or follow my blog so you'll know of other fun freebies coming up!

Enjoy and have a great Monday!

Melissa

Roll Say & Keep FREEBIE!!!

Happy Saturday! I hope you all had a great week. I finally got over the cold I've had for over a week and I'm contemplating about getting a flu shot this year {I never have!} What about you, do you get a flu shot each year?

 I have two more weeks with my kids before Christmas break....and they are getting very antsy and excited! I hope they can give me one more week of academics, then the last week we'll be having a review week, doing "Christmas around the world" & our class parties. I'm really excited! 

Do you get to have class parties this year? I work at a Christian private school, so we get to talk about the true meaning of Christmas each day. It's so fun to watch their excitement of celebrating Christ's birth. In fact, yesterday we just made Doodle Bugs "Baby Jesus craft" and my kids loved it! I forgot to take pictures, but I will next week and add them on. If you're interested in this free craft, click the picture and it will take you to the download on tpt.

What are you planning for the last couple weeks before the break? This next week we will be focusing on Gingerbread Men and will be doing a science experiment on what would have happened if the he did fall in the water. I have a fun gingerbread add and color math center and I also made a "Roll, Say & Keep" game for them and want to share it with you! 

 

Just click on the picture above for this FREEBIE and please feel free to pin it, and tell your friends about it too! I included a blank card sheet in case you'd like to write in the concept you need for your class....so this could be used for anything, not just math!

I am also planning on using the cards for a "Write the Room" activity- my kids loved the last one I made for them! Here is a recording sheet if you're interested in doing that as well. You'll just have to add the numbers on each card, and then hang them up around your room! 

I hope you are able to use these! I would really appreciate some feedback if you download them! Make sure to check out my other freebies while you're here!

Thank you!

Melissa

Reindeer Write the Room FREEBIE

I've decided to transition this blog into more of a "teacher" blog instead of a "class" blog. I've used it to keep parents informed as to what we've been learning about at school....but I've decided to jump into teacher blog-land, and I'm SO excited to post my FIRST official FREEBIE!! 

I'm so happy Freebielicious has started doing link up parties on the first of each month! Make sure to check out all the other freebie's that linked up by clicking the button below!




This is also my first time linking up with Freebie Friday...you should go check out the other fun freebies there if you haven't already by clicking the button!



I've seen a lot of Write Around the Room activities all through blog-land, but I have yet to try it out with my kinders!

The other day one of my boys came and asked me for a piece of paper, then went around the room asking everyone to write their names on it....including me! Of course other kids wanted to join in, so they asked for paper as well. Some kids wrote all their classmates names by looking at each nametag, while others wanted "autographs". 

I decided right then that I'm sure my kids would LOVE to start doing WATR activities! 

We've been learning about "adding one" and this week I'm going to introduce "Counting on addition". I  made this Reindeer WATR activity for them and decided to share it with you! (I teach at a private school, and we teach first grade math.)

I hope you enjoy it and are able to use it with your kiddos! 

 

You can get this FREEBIE by clicking the picture above! It will open in Google Docs. (I recently updated the freebie and changed some of the math facts. You can now find it in my TPT store....still a freebie!)

I'm very new at this, so let me know if you like it by leaving a comment and I'll make more freebies!

Thanks for stopping by!

 Melissa  

I also just linked up with "The hands-on teacher in first." Make sure to check out those freebies too!

Merry Christmas!!

Turkey Craft

I found this free Turkey craft at Mrs. Miner's Monkey Business and knew my kids would love to make it! I just printed mine on white cardstock and let them decorate them how they wanted. It such a fun activity! Click on the picture below to grab your free copy of the pattern!

We also brainstormed what a turkey would want us to eat besides him! They came up with all kinds of ideas. I wrote them on the board, and they wrote which one they wanted on their turkey....Pizza was the most popular!

"Eat pizza, not turkey!"

 "Eat green eggs and ham, not turkey!"

"Eat steak, not turkey!"

"Eat hamburger, not turkey!"

"Eat chicken, not turkey!"

"Eat pizza, not turkey!"

"Eat french fries, not turkey!"

"Eat ham, not turkey!"

"Eat pizza, not turkey!"

"Eat pizza, not turkey!"

Pumpkin Report

Character Pumpkin Book Report

I found this fun idea over at Simply Kinder and fell in love with it! I downloaded the freebie (Click the picture below and it will take you right to it!) and got my kids excited about it! I was so surprised by the pumpkins they brought to school! I had to take pictures of them with their pumpkins and the books they made them from to show you. They put a LOT of hard work into them! We displayed them in our classroom the whole week! 

Monster Math

I found this on Pinterest and thought it looked like so much fun, I had to make it for my Kinders! We are learning doubles addition right now, so that's what I used it for, but the possibilities are definitely endless!!! 

Click on the picture below to go to "No Time For Flash Cards" to learn more about how she did it!

 Here are a few pictures of what my kids did at school They had so much fun with it!

(I purchased the small cookie sheets, google eyes & fun small containers [in the baby section] at Dollar Tree)

 

 You could use this idea with so many things....Turkeys with feathers for Thanksgiving, Cotton balls with Santa for Christmas....Hearts, 4-leaf clovers, Easter eggs! Such a great idea! 

Thanks for stopping by!

Melissa

Pumpkins Pumkins Everywhere!

Wow this school year is FLYING by so quickly! It's already my 8th week! This week we are going to start our pumpkin unit and I'm so excited! I've looked online and found some GREAT freebies that we're going to use. I thought I'd put them all here in one place in case you're looking for some too!

I've listed the source of each activity, and if you click the pictures it will take you directly to it to get your own copy!

First up, 1plus1plus1equals1 has made a number word pumpkin page along with pumpkin simple addition:

  

Crayons & Curls made a fun ghost sequencing game....great for fine motor scissor practice!

 

Kindergarten Smiles has made a candy corn number puzzle freebie. I was so excited about this one, I've wanted these for a long time! My Kinders can't read quite yet, so I also added tally marks on the middle section for them to make it a little easier.

Kindergarten Lifestyle made a fun pumpkin memory game! My kids love memory games!

"In the Math Lab" has a fun Pumpkin Patch freebie, also great for strengthening fine motor along with putting numbers 1-10 in numerical order:

Little Miss Kindergarten is giving out some monster mash roll and color pages. My kids love these activities and will be excited about the fun monsters on these pages:

I hope you're able to use some of these fun FREEBIES and that your kids enjoy them!


Thanks for stopping by!

Melissa

The First Day of School 2012

Wow, how time flies! I can't believe school has already started, but I'm excited about this year. My cute Kindergarteners are all adorable and so excited to be at school! 

This year, my school has 2 full day Kindergarten classes. I currently have 12 kids, we call them scholars, and the other class has 14. We, as teachers, decided we are going to split the curriculum. I'm teaching Math, Geography & Science. My co-teacher will be teaching History, Literature & our Literacy program- Riggs. We will have our own classes in the morning, then after lunch we'll switch classes and teach the same thing we did that morning. at 1:45 we switch back...I take my class to their specials, and get them back at 2:20 until they leave at 3:00. 

The first day of school was really hard for them. They were all VERY hungry, and by the end of the day- EXHAUSTED. A few scholars were even asking me if we take naps at our school! Thankfully, each day since then has progressively got better!

This is what we did on the first day of school this year:

We went over what they do each morning when they first come to school. Then we had a group circle time and I made an "All About Mrs. Johnson" book that I read to the kids. I got the idea HERE.

We went around the circle and each said our names in different ways: whisper it, roar it like a lion, sing it, say it normal, etc. We also played THIS question game to get to know each other:

We are using Saxon 1 this year for our Math Curriculum. We started with lesson 1 today which was going over our "Math Meeting" (calendar time). 

We talked about lining up and the rules for the hallway (Click on the picture to go to the link):

We then went on our Pete the Cat school scavenger hunt! The kids LOVED this and were so excited to see Pete. In the end he had to return to his school, but he did leave us a fun coloring page. (Which we put in our notebooks...I'll talk more about notebooks at the end of this post). I got this freebie from Inspired Kindergarten. She did such a great job with it! To get the Kindergarten or First Grade version click HERE. If you want her Pre-K version click HERE.

I took their 1st day of Kindergarten pictures. Here are just a few:

 
 I got the printable "First day of Kinder" HERE. 

They were also able to do Math Centers. This week we were just getting used to the materials: Playdough, legos, linking cubes & THIS "I love dice" page from Little Miss Kindergarten.

We had our lower grammar devotional with our headmaster in the library.

Following the devotional we had lunch, then the kindergarten classes switched and I did the same thing with the other class in the afternoon while my class had History & RIGGS (our literacy program) with the other teacher. 

My kids have specials from 1:50-2:20, then I have them back until carpool starts at 3:00. When they came back to the classroom we read "First Day Jitters." Then they got to try "Jitter Juice" and we graphed if they liked it or not. (I made our "Jitter Juice" with Sprite and Hawaiian Punch mixed together.)

I found THIS freebie page at Crazy for First Grade:

All in all I'd say it was a great first day! Hopefully they start getting used to have school full day, and they won't be as hungry or tired. How did your first day of school go?



NOTEBOOKS:
Our school uses a notebook method. It's a 3-ring binder, divided into different areas for different subjects. It's a product of the individual's own hand, a record of what they've done at school throughout the year. There are skills developed and exercised by using this: listening, writing, organizing, managing, consistency & criticism.
In Kindergarten we put their best work in the different subject areas into their notebook (instead of sending them home). At the end of the year they get to take their notebook home to save and keep their best work from the year.
The notebook method incorporates 4 steps of learning: (the 4 R's) Research, Reason, Relate & Record. The older grades research different notes on the board, vocabulary, etc. They then internalize the material, relate it to themselves, and record it in writing which becomes a permanent part of them in their notebook.

This is a new approach for me. I'm used to just sending their work home each day. The notebook is a  way to help their parents save their work in a small space, and the students are very excited to take it home at the end of the year with all of their work inside.