Mrs. Garretts Groovy Kindergarten: October 2013

What a crazy couple of weeks. End of quarter and grades due last week and Parent/ Teacher Conferences Thursday and Today! I am one exhausted teacher! Looking forward to my day off on Friday.

I did want to share one thing we have been focusing on this week. We began to study and learn about those "TRICKY TEENS". I have been so impressed with my students this year and how well they are understanding numbers. We began the year by creating number posters with all the ways to create/ represent that number. They have been amazing! For more on Number Talks and Math Workshops, take a look at this link here!

Well, I have been so excited creating my own units and work for my students this year. My latest unit is on the Tricky Teens. Included in this unit are teen number posters that have the ten frames for the number and a poem to remember the number (could also make a book for students to refer to as well. I have just been showing mine on my Smart Board for right now. Today as we were discussing the numbers 11 and 12 and creating our number posters, I was so excited to hear my students talking about how we could use a ten frame to show our number. Another student said but "how can we do that when there is only room for 10 dots" and then another quickly replied back, " I know, we could just use two frames so that will be a 10 and 2." Can you say, Woohoo!

We then did some work exploring the numbers 11 and 12. This worksheet is the same format as used in the Exploring Numbers 1-10 Worksheets.

During Math Workshops, one of their favorite games was the Tricky Teen Spin and Write. Here it is as a FREEBIE just for you: Click here to get yours:

Here are a few pictures of what's included in the Tricky Teen Centers & Activities (Common Core Aligned) unit!

I hope that you will enjoy this post and these activities as much as I have enjoyed writing it! If interested in more great Kindergarten ideas, take a look here at my TpT Store! Blessings to you and have a great rest of the evening! I am off to bed!!!

Angel

I am so excited to get to share my five favorite things this week!

1. I have been on an incredible journey to become healthy. As of this week, I have lost 32 lbs. I am learning what it means to "eat clean" and am quickly becoming shocked at what I have been putting in my body for all these years. I feel so much better! Here is a a poster of some good ways to add protein into your diet naturally! Love it!

2. My second favorite thing this week was last night was Skate Night for our school. It is a once a month fundraiser and is a great at building a sense of community within our area. It was the first one for this year and so it was so cool to see so many of my kindergarteners (and previous students) show up and get on those skates. Many for the first time. I was impressed with this little daredevil as he went all the way around the rink by himself and fall after fall, he got right back up. We talked a little bit about that today in class and how it works in school too. We may struggle sometimes, but we always keep on trying and do our very best!

3. I taught my students how to play Sight Word Bang today (we now have 28 sight words that should be known) and they are absolutely in love with it! They were asking to play again at the end of the day. I love this little group of mine. They are so excited and motivated to learn. It has motivated me this year to discover more and more engaging ways to help them learn. Every day is a groovy day in Mrs. Garrett's class. Two of our favorite Games are Candyland Alphabet Game and our Sight Word Candyland Game . Both of these can be found in my TpT store. The Sight Word Candyland game includes all 105 of our expected sight words for the year, but we only use the ones that I have taught so far.

4. I was so excited at how well my students did with our Concepts of Print Assessment this week. Most of the assessment students are asked to determine the difference between a letter, a word, and a sentence. I was so impressed with how well they did at this activity. I introduced early in the year my Pete the Cat - Is it a Letter, Word or Sentence Sort? I think this has really helped my students with their understanding of these concepts. Plus, we are crazy about Pete!

Another one of our favorite sight word games is Around the World. Again because we love Pete so much. I created this Pete the Cat sight word cards you could use for many different sight word games. There is micro (for craft sticks) ; small cards (that would fit perfect in a pocket chart) and a large size to play Around the World or many other Sight Word games! Each size includes all 105 Sight Words our K kiddos are expected to know! Click the picture below to take a look!

5. MY MOST FAVORITE THING WAS TODAY'S PUBLISHING PARTY DURING OUR WRITERS WORKSHOP TIME. It was our publishing party for our first Unit of Study. The students did such a great job. We circled up inside and outside and then just rotated the outside circle and shared our stories with one another. I was amazed to hear them giving details about their illustrations and their stories. I shouldn't have been surprised - they are ALREADY authors and illustrators after all. I heard lots of things like " I noticed you have lots of details in your pictures", I added a background because my trees aren't just floating in the air" and " I like the way you added your period at the end of your sentence." All my students were very aware of encouraging each other. My favorite was "your picture of your mom is pretty, but boy she is fat" ( she was having a baby) ! LOL