Weather Watcher Book Pocket Chart freebie

I have created pocket chart words to go along with my Weather Watcher book.  Thank you to all of the sweet ladies who have given me positive comments.  I totally eat them up! Pocket Chart Freebie

Winter Weather Easy Reader (freebie)

When I head back to the classroom with my kinders on January 9th, we will be learning more about the weather. I will be relating it to all of the seasons, but specifically winter.

I created a simple weather book with sight words and weather words.  The children will draw the correct weather outside of the window until the last page where they can draw the actual weather outside!

 
                                        Winter Weather Book

Please let me know what you think of this book!  I really do LOVE the feedback and yes, it keeps me motivated to do more!

Belated Merry Christmas!

So sorry that I have been away from Blogging for a week now and I must say I miss it so much!  I am worried that I have missed some great ideas already and some beautiful stories of everyone's holidays.  I hope to catch up this week. 

 My last week of school (we ended on the 23rd!) was insanely busy (I know you all understand that!) and then I got sick Friday night and I am recooperating.  The stomach flu had me on the couch for most of Christmas, but I still got to watch my kids open their gifts and had time to reflect on Our Savior's Birth.  So many blessings!

I didn't take many photos, but here are a few:

I made each student their own Gingerbread Playdough ball and found a gingerbread man cookie cutter for a good price at a craft store.  They loved making little Gingerbread Cookies and added beads for decorations. They were so excited that they could take it home!

Got this at Hallmark on Dec. 26th for $6  Too Funny!

Wisecrackin Gingerbread Man

Gingie came from Sweden to teach us about St. Lucia Day

A New Blogger Award!

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My Week In Pictures and Links (12-12-11)

This week is going to be another week filled with the Travels of Gingie and Christmas activities!  We are having a Holiday Show on Thursday and are practicing our songs and a poem and creating art to decorate our room and the MultiPurpose Room. Our centers are a bit easier this week to allow for more singing and stories and creating our family gift and ornament.  The following are a few photos of what we are doing.  If these pictures and links are helpful, please leave me a comment!  I really do love your feedback and eagerly read them!

Gingie has sent letters, facts and photos from 4 countries so far. (Mexico, Germany, Africa and India) We are having a great time learning about other cultures and how
they celebrate.  Parents have helped us to learn traditions and we have been creating an art project from each country.
Gingie will be visiting from Israel and China this week!
If you would like to see more of the letters and photos, you can let me know.

Just a simple form with teens numbers.  The children will use tiny Christmas stampers to show the number. 

The students will put the gifts in order 10-20 and then record in the boxes and color them to look like presents. Get it Here

A great beginning and ending sounds activity (Link to come) 

This cute chant is from Shannon Martin!  The children have learned it in the pocket chart and will circle the sight words and color it before adding it to their  Reading Binder  Grab it Here

Our weekly Heart Word station  The spin a sight word is from Fran Kramer and the letter/sounds fluency strip is from Julie Lee.  See previous posts about the red books and writing book.

Ending sounds practice (an oldie but a goodie worksheet)

I can't wait for the students to make this adorable book from Fran Kramer!  Run, Run as fast as you can to get it here!  Then we will make the bead bracelet to go with it!  The kids will love that!

We will be making a banner (Oriental Trading) for our families.  The reindeer was inspired by an adorable card from a past student. Good thing we have 2 more weeks to finish them!

Rudolph Directed Drawing.  I taught the students how to draw this step by step and then they traced with a sharpie before coloring with crayon.  The blue is watered down tempera paint washed over.  They were amazed by the way the paint resisted the crayon, especially for the white snowflakes! Like magic!

We will be finishing our Christmas drawing book and lots more with numbers 11-20.

I hope you have an awesome week in your classroom and still have energy for your own celebrating and preparations for the Holidays.  Please leave me a comment if you liked this post! They really mean a lot to me!

A New Week in Pictures and Links (part 1)

This week we have transformed the Playhouse into The Gingerbread Sweet Shoppe!

The kiddos will be able to visit this fun area in our classroom after they cut and sequence the Gingerbread Man story below.

This is from an old book, but it is a great skill for the students to be able to put the story in order.

There will be stockings hanging and the tree will be decorated by the kids.  They can pretend to be baking and selling cookies and sweets!  How Sweet is that!

We will do this fun chant from Shannon Martin at Kinderpond Four Gingerbread Men
Her copy will go in our poetry books and we will circle the sight words too!

Here is our bulletin board with last week's glypgh gingerbread friends and our pattern candy canes.  My wonderful partner, Kate and I had fun creating this and the kids love it!

(sorry it is sideways!)

One of my students drew this after Gingie sent a letter from Mexico. So cute!

We are creating a bulletin board of the travels of Gingie.  So far he has sent a letter from Mexico and Germany.  We are posting a picture of a landmark in that country and the art project we are doing to represent the country's celebration.
I will be creating a seperate post to share the letters and what's inside soon.
My partner Kate and I are taking turns creating the envelopes and contents from each country.  

After visiting the listening center, the students will make a Santa face.  This is really for a countdown to Christmas activity, but we use it as a counting/art project instead.  They just color and then glue the cottonballs and say the numerals.  Great independent, fine-motor activity!

The new word of the week.  Students will read and write the word "is".

The students will pattern small pics from the local teacher shop and then make the great Gingerbread Pattern book from Mrs. Wills

More to come...

My Week in photos and Links

These are the stations that my students will be going to this week.  They will do all of these activities in small groups of 4-5.  They do only 2 stations per day.  Thank you to all of the amazing teachers who have shared and created so many great activities!

I found this on Pinterest The words that have hearts are our "Heart Words" that we have already learned.

The Listening Center and then on to Our Gingerbread Glyph

(from my good friend Suzie)

I do mixed centers that students must go to during the week. They may focus on math or reading or art.  I do a variety of activies in one station. Here are the stations with a math focus:

Our adopted Math Program (Scott Foresman) The students will use counters to fill in the tens frame and then write the numbers.  The other side has counting and writing (I forgot to take a picture)

Next students will cut and glue the Gingerbread Friends onto a sentence strip to make a headband.

This is a freebie I gave in a previous post.

This is from Donna Glynn.  Click Here To Go To Her TpT Store

 A great tens frame game from Learning With Mrs. Parker 

An adorable and free tens frame activity

Livelovelaughkindergarten

Journal Writing in our Starfall Journals using our dictionaries

In my reading group the students practice letter and sounds fluency

Get these forms from Julie Lee

Students review our "Heart Words" with these blue cards from Lakeshore.

Then we read this book 3 times and the students circle the Heart Words on the 3rd reading and then put them in their book bags. 

These are from The Short Books

Next the students practice the new words with this great game from

Fran Kramer's TpT store

Then on to this page from The MoffattGirls 

A final station begins with phonemic awareness practice from

SuperDuperInc. The kids love this!

Then they practice beginning sounds with this great activity from Lakeshore and also do a simple worksheet about beginning sounds.

Then they will do "Talk Buttons" where I recorded 3 words into the button and they will draw the 2 that begin with the same sound.  This was a freebie from a great blogger, but I can't find where and there is no name on the form.  Here is the document.  Please let me know if it is from you!

Talk Buttons from Mrs. Will's Kindergarten

I hope you have enjoyed seeing my stations this week.  I will be reading several versions of The Gingerbread Man and he will begin his world tour (please see previous posts)

It is going to be a fun week in my class!  If you liked this post, please leave me a comment. That will help me to know if I should continue to post like this.  It is fun!

Have A Great Week!

More Gingerbread Man Fun!

I am getting ready for my Gingerbread Man's World Tour that begins this week!  I have written the first letter that he leaves telling about his trip and then the letter from Mexico.

Here is a new book I got at B&N books.  It is really fun!



I also love playing Pass The Hot Cookie! This game comes with an inflatable Gingerbread Man, but you could easily play with a plush GMan that you own.  The CD plays Christmas music and it stops and pauses on it's own.  You could also play your own music and pause it!  Last year I had the students go to their seats when they were out and then they got to eat a small Gingerbread Cookie.  That way, they weren't sad to be "out!" The final winner got a small Gingerbread Man prize.  This is a great party game!  I picked up mine at our local party store.


Last night at Target I scored this awesome book!  It was in a shopping cart full of items that needed to be returned to the shelves.  I couldn't believe my luck!  The first country that my Gingerbread Man will visit on his world tour is Mexico!  This book will be in the envelope for the kids to see.  I may even ask my dear friend who teaches first grade to come and read it since I do not read/speak spanish.
I am getting really excited about this unit!

All of these items are available from Amazon too!