End of the year

In some ways it is hard to believe the school year is coming to an end. Yesterday was our family picnic and awards day. We had a great turn out. 

As always the parents loved receiving a copy of the video of all the fun we have had in kindergarten. I swore I wouldn't tear up, but I did. After spending a year with these precious little ones, it is hard to say good-bye. They have learned and grown so much!

Here are the cute gifts I shared with my kiddos. 

fifth grade OAA help

Good luck on the OAA fifth grade. Each kindergarten class at our school "adopts" a fifth grade class to root for through their OAA testing time. My class adopted Mr. Armstron's class. Friday was the Math OAA. Our message was to be sure to Check your work, check your work, and check your work s'more.

Inside the jar is s'more ingredients for a snack after the test.

It was a hit with the fifth graders from what we hear.

Next week is the Science test . . . More fun to come!

Cool sites

Today I went to an In-service at our ESC. Among the many great things I learned, is a great new website. It is like "you tube" for teaching.  It has videos of teachers engaged in learning activities and activity ideas for the standards. I was excited that all of the videos they showed were kindergarten examples.  Most of the time at in-services the videos and samples are way above kindergarten level. I loved the video for a game called "Mingle and Count". I love the activity!.
The site is:
www.teachingchannel.org

Dr Seuss

We LOVE Dr Seuss centers! The kids were all hoping that the Lorax would win this dice game. I love how excited kindergarten kiddos get for the smallest things!

Marshmallow Math

Here is our visual display of numbers 1 to 20. This idea came from Deanna Jump.

Great books

On silly sock day we also shared this book that was not by Dr. Seuss. It is a great book by Bob Shea. The kids love it. You could use it any time of year!

I had the opportunity to meet Bob Shea last year at the Dublin Literacy Conference. He put this great autograph in my book:

Click here to go to Bob Shea's website. Check out his other books too.

and

Click here to view a cool you tube video to go with the book

This book is about this adorable bird who gets new socks. He has such fun enjoying in all the things he can do in his new socks!

Here is the book our class created. First is the cover:

And the student pages:

It is a perfect way to review color words and concentrate on blends since many of the color words begin with blends.

Dr Seuss

We celebrated Dr Seuss this week with lots of fun and silly activities!  Silly Sock Day

Here are pages from our silly sock book before it is bound.Each child made a matching pair of socks and attached one to a page of our book. We counted by twos to see how many silly socks we had all together. This year we had 40 silly socks. After laminating the pages and individual socks, it will be bound into a matching book. The kids love to play this matching game.

It works well in a book format.

Here is the envelope page. Having a place to put loose socks 

makes transitions easier in our classroom. Cleanup is quick

When there is a quick place to put all loose socks.