Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

I love the book, love the video even more and that song is SO catchy! If you have never seen it you need to check it out:

Anyway, we made chicka chicka boom boom trees by tearing with our fingers and they had to glue letters of their name on the tree. I got the letters from oriental trading ($8 for over 1000 pieces!) and love how they turned out. The trees are on half sheets of construction paper so the letters don't seem too small on the tree.

 

letters from Oriental Trading

Thank you, little giraffes, for the awesome idea! :)

Marzano Thinking Skills

Wow I forgot how exhausting the beginning of the year can be!  Just wanted to share a goal of mine for this upcoming school year - to be better at questioning! I made examples of different types of questions I can ask during whole group carpet time (during read alouds, etc.) and guided reading groups. They are based off of Marzano's 7 thinking skills: knowledge, organizing, applying, analyzing, generating, integrating, and evaluating. I plan on putting these on a ring and keeping them by my small group and carpet areas. Hope you can find them useful!

You can get yours here!

Lucky Ducks

I saw this idea from Growing Kinders and fell in love with it! She has sticks in a can that she draws names from and calls it her "lucky duck" can. I made my own version of it:

The paper I used is from a scrapbooking paper pad from Hobby Lobby. I bought it a few days ago for 50% off (so it was around $8 for the whole thing) and the best part about it is that the paper is made a little bit longer to have a bumpy border edge! I love bumpy borders and you can cut it off to use for something else and the paper would be back to regular scrapbooking size.

I don't remember where this next idea came from but one teacher painted her sticks 2 different colors so that after you call on someone, you turn their stick around and it's a different color so you know who you've called on. I've been using it for a few years now and works really well.

Multicultural Daily 5

I have had a lot requests for multicultural posters and choice cards so here they are. Thanks for the feedback! Click on the picture to go directly to the Google doc.

Full page posters

6 to a page choice cards

Computer Choice Time Cards

UPDATE: Click on the first computer cards to download! Thanks, Tracy, for the cute computer kids!

Emilys, I have not forgotten about y'all! I'm still in the process of trying to get permission for these cute kids on computer clipart so in the meantime, here is a preview of what it looks like.

Not sure if you were interested in them all looking the same so I made this one as well.

Hopefully I'll hear back soon!

Reading Log

In Kindergarten we ask all parents to read with their child for 20 minutes, 5 nights a week. We used to have parents list out the date, what books they read, and how long they read for. To make it easier for the parents and for me this year, I decided to create a Calendar-style reading log, where parents have to fill out what they read/how long on an actual calendar so they can visually see which days they read/did not read with their child and if they met the goal of 5 nights a week. I think it will also be a great visual for the kiddos to see as well. Spacing was a little tight so there wasn't room to make it cute!

This explanation will go in front of the whole packet. I have also included a blank reading log instruction sheet incase you have different reading goals.

This is what each month looks like. This reading log calendar goes to the end of May.

You can get the .pdf version here
and the Word version here.

Ongoing Assessment Tool

We're starting something new this year as a tool to monitor the students throughout the year. Each student will have a file folder where they can decorate the outside to make it personalized and inside will look like the picture above. The right side is based off of what The Sisters have in their "pensieve", but modified so that it is a little simpler. On the left are things that we will continue to monitor the students' progress in (letter/sounds, number recognition, counting, etc.). The hundreds chart is for when listening to the students count - circle how far they counted to. I like it because it lets the students visually see how far they counted to. 

I'm excited about this file folder idea because it lets anyone coming in to work with that student know at a glance how he/she is doing. There is a section called "all about me" where you can write what you have learned about that child - likes, enjoys, etc. so that another teacher working with that child will automatically be able to make a connection. I really wanted to make something that will not be seen as "just another thing to fill out" but something that you can actually use in small groups (math, reading, writing) and have all that data in one place. I plan on punching 3 holes in them and keeping it all in a binder. Anyhow, you can click on the pictures below to download the pdf and if you want the .doc file to modify that will be available below the picture. Hope you can use this somehow!

Version 1

Version 2

Student File Version 1 - Word Document

Student File Version 2 - Word Document

Goals - Word Document

The fonts are from Kevin and Amanda - Pea Hollee and Smiley Monster. I also used a basic print one that was on my school computer - abcprint.