100 Day Fun

Today was our 100th day of school. That is such a fun day for kinder kiddos. They LOVE to dress like they are 100 years old. They hoot and holler when they see the teachers participating too. Here are our great Kindergarten teachers who dressed up with the kiddos today.

One of the new activities this year was graphing 100 gum balls. The kids did a great job keeping up with their graphs as we drew "gumballs" from the special container. As they were drawn, I used bingo dotters to add "gum" to the gumball machine.

This allowed for great discussion of many math concepts related to comparing columns on our graphs.

Each child completed an individual graph.

If there is one thing we learned today...........it is that 100 is A LOT!!!

Bucks or Ducks

After many snow days, we were happy to be back to school (with a 2 hour delay).

In our classroom it was Bucks and Ducks Day. We dressed in our scarlet and gray (or green and yellow if you must) in support of our Buckeyes in the National Championship game. 

We created a graph to predict what our class thought would happen during tonight's big game. 

We were hoping our graph was long enough for all the Buckeyes we had to add to the graph. It was...just barely!

Two of us want the Oregon Ducks to win.

22 of us wanted the Ohio State Buckeyes to win the big game!!! (go Bucks!!!!)

When we looked at our data this is what we learned.

Only time will tell.......

50s Day

Today was 50s day. We had a great time.  A parent of a child in my class brought in his 1950s candy apple red truck. The kids loved getting their picture taken with it. They were  also amazed that it didn't have heat, AC or seatbelts. The manual windows were also a hit.

Today's agenda included:

Hoola hoops

Root beer floats

A sock hop

Board games and 

Bubble blowing

What a great time we had!

Listening to Reading

I was looking for a way to extend my "listening to reading" portion of the Daily 5. I searched the internet for listening response sheets that were free and best for my students at the time. I made Response Logs for each student by alternating 4 different response sheets.

Before I introduced the response logs, I exposed the class to each of the different response sheets. As a class, we listened to a story and completed the response sheet together for that story. Each of the next three days we followed the same process for another response sheet and story.

After all four different sheets were familiar, I split the class into Daily 5 groups. We again used all four response sheets, but this time we used a "jigsaw" approach.  Each group has a "helper" (It is a life saver during typical Daily 5 operations) and  was given several copies of one of the response sheets. After listening to a story with the whole class, the groups each completed their response logs individually asking questions of their helper or other group members if necessary. (Each child had a response sheet identical to his or her group members.)

After the forms were completed, the groups reviewed the response sheets of all of their group members. The groups voted on the one paper that best exemplified the expectations of that response sheet. The groups then presented the exemplar paper and told what was best about it without revealing the author.

     These peer evaluated exemplars were then hung in the classroom marked with the title "Ask an Expert". During our Daily 5 time then the class used these response logs. If at any time they could not read the sheet or did not remember what to do, the child could refer to the displayed papers.

The names of the helpers for each group were listed with the exemplar papers since all members of that group were somewhat "experts" on that response sheet.

Daily Math-Set up

      I recently paid a couple dollars for this mailbox structure. It had been listed on line from a district getting rid of many things.  I had not actually been able to see it before I bought it. I wanted to make it into a place to store game boards for Daily 5 Math. So here is what it looked like after I had removed some of the sticky debris. ( I forgot to take a true "before" picture.)

So I have begun to transition this into something that will compliment my classroom. Here is the progress. I am pleased so far......

Learning bottles-how to

Many people glue the lids on their learning (discovery) bottles. If I had very small children with which to use them, I would certainly glue them as well. But since my students use them during supervised times like during our Daily 5 block and Math centers, I do not glue the lids on. Instead I fasten the lids tightly. Cover the entire lid area with a circle of a pretty fabric and secure it with a pretty color zip tie. I make sure the zip tie is as tight as can be so the lid area is secure. (A note of caution about zip ties, they can be a bit sharp on the corners of a cut off part. For this reason, I snip off the tiny corners that stick out after cutting the zip tie to the desired length.)
Now, if I decide to change the contents of a bottle for some reason, I can do so fairly easily.
                                          
The zip ties can be covered with a ribbon or ponytail holder if you want. The bottle in the top picture that has the tens frame attached to it uses a ponytail holder to attach the tens frame to the bottle. That way the student can remove the frame and mark the items found with a dry erase marker to keep track. More on the specific bottles will be posted soon.

Learning bottles -use at home

Learning bottles are soooo much fun! You can ADR them to ANY level. This year for our "curriculum night,"  I wanted to allow parents to make something to be used at home to study various. Skills. I asked each family to bring a clean, dry plastic bottle with the label removed (for the easiest label removal, please see my post pertaining to that topic.)

I gave each parent a spreadsheet of various skills the child may need to practice throughout the school year. The spreadsheet included sight words, numerals, sets of numbers, letters of the alphabet, 

Short vowel cvc words, number words etc.

I also gave each a bag containing appt 2 cups of colored rice (for tips about coloring rice please see that post.) and a paper funnel.

Parents cut the skills they wanted to practiced first at home. They alternated adding rice and slips of paper. I reminded them that they could empty the bottle throughout the year and remove the papers to add slips of paper with a new skill to be practiced.

The activity went very quickly. The children whose parents had attended were thrilled to have this special bottle at home. They thought it was neat that their parent(s) made them with me without the child being there. 

If I did this again with parents, I would have them add 4-7 toothpicks into the jar as well. This variation in the flow inside the bottle helps to pull the small pieces of paper down into the colored rice as you turn the bottle over and over. Otherwise the paper tends to come to the top and stay there.

For other learning bottle ideas, please click on learning bottles on the archive list to the right of the posts. I am going to continue to add posts about various bottles I have made and used.