IF IT IS GIVING, THEN GIVE GENEROUSLY

If it is to encourage, then give encouragement; IF IT IS GIVING, THEN GIVE GENEROUSLY; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully. Romans 12:8

I can not believe...probably along with everyone else...that it's November. After looking at this month and the month of the December the rest of 2012 is going to fly by. Soon we will be rehearsing songs for the Christmas musical and ending the first half of our year.

My school, because it is a private school, must have fundraiser type events to remain open. Every year Kerman Christian has an auction both live and silent as a fundraiser for the school. Each class makes a project to be sold at the live auction. I came up with the idea to make a lemonade stand. A wonderful man at my church constructed the whole stand for me and after discussing the cost with him he told me he would donate all of his time and money. What a blessing! The only cost to the school was the paint.
Here's how it turned out...

Here is the stand in its beginning stages....

This is the shelf before it was painted.

Here is what the stand looked like with it half primered.

And here is the final product!

All of the flowers, butterflies and grass were made from my student's handprints! 

The black portion on the top and the bottom are chalkboards so that the kids can write what they're selling and how much it costs

This is the other side of the lemonade stand

I think it sold for $500. The bidding was happening so quickly that it was hard to keep up. I was so impressed by the generosity of people and the devotion they have for our little school. I'm glad they believe in the school as much as the teachers do. 

Now I am starting to think of ideas for my project next year. The competitive side of me wants to make more money next year for the school. Let me know if you think of anything grand!?!? The possibilities are endless!

I'll end with a few of my favorite kinder quotes this year...

"You can only get married again if your husband dies....or if you get bored!"

"I don't watch that show, I have just send the appetizers for it." (I think this was meant to be advertisements)

"I love pizza! It's my favorite thing I've been dreaming about all day!"

"I have soo much candy, I mean sooo much candy I can't stand it!"

"I have beaver fever! That's what my Grandma says I have."

First Weeks & Rigor

Soo....Here are a few pictures from my first weeks of school. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.

We started graphing this week. We graphed what our favorite color crayon was to begin our graphing unit.

Each week we learn a new letter with the help of a poem. We read the poem together and then we are letter detectives looking for the letter of the week. We highlight the letter together on the poem on chart paper and then I have the kids highlight the same letter on the same poem on a paper copy. This is a quick way for me to informally assess them to see if they can identify the letter we are focusing on.

I found this idea off of Pinterest. Kids draw with pencil their idea of what their first day of school was like. Then the kids watercolor over their pencil marks and I go in after it dries and draw over the pencil lines with permanent marker. They turned out really cute... here they are!

Don't you love this beautiful watercolor above?!?! :)

Here are the kids self portraits & name writing.

I thought it would be adorable if we attempt to draw our favorite kitty character from some of the books we've been reading. We chose either Skippy Jon Jones or Pete the Cat. Here's how they turned out.

Love the head attached to the legs!

Look at how many buttons Pete has on his coat! Oh, ya...and supposedly that's Pete with his kitty dad! :)

For every letter I introduce we also get to do an artsy project. We made the rainbow fish for the letter Ff. I had students color and had a shiny scale made from scrapbook paper to glue on.

I acquired this little baby with the other color posters from a retired teacher. Thank you much! We have done a new color each week and I was even ambitious enough to make my own play-dough to go with the red week. 

Sorry for the creepy picture. This is the beginning of my rigorous board. My mom and I have been talking about making a "rigorous" board that features all of our wonderful, quirky students doing what they do. The reason it is called a "rigorous" board is because this is a buzz word in education right now and this board is just to show what teachers really deal with on a day to day basis and how rigor, though excellent, can sometimes be something that will not be achieved some days...with some students. This is just a board of silliness that you just have to take lightly.

This is a little friend of mine who decided to bring a Costco sized bag of Lay's potato chips in his backpack...Mind you, this was the only thing in his backpack that day. Then he proceeded to open his backpack and the entire bag of potato chips exploded all over the floor. I told him that he had to pick up every piece so that we didn't end up with critters. I snapped this picture as he was placing potato chips in his sweatshirt pocket and hands to clean them up...so funny! 

A story that I heard from my mom is...a student had a frog backpack...you know the kind with the eyes and legs sticking out and the top and sides. She looked over and he had the entire frog backpack over his head and shoulders and was making croaking noises and rocking back and forth. Oh how I wish I had a picture because the picture in my mind just makes me giggle. So there you have it, the start of my year and the rigorous board full of silliness!

I have had a great time getting to know my students and parents. They have all been so great! My parents are so willing to help and provide for our classroom and my kids are so ready and willing to learn. I am so glad that I have such a small class because I can get to know all my kids really well. I am having fun learning how to meet their needs and it's challenging me to teach to their needs instead of by the book. 

Soon to come blog...my TPT items that are available for purchase or for free! I have been posting items on TPT for purchase and I will try updating my blog soon so that all can know what is available. I know you're super interested! :)

Grace, Friendship, Creativity, Music, and Challenges

I took these photos the day of Kindergarten Orientation, which was yesterday. I was very happy with the way that my classroom looked and had a great first day with my kiddos today.

Without further ado...

Here is how I've decided to do my centers. Because of the small class size I figured this would be the easiest. I put each child's name on a clothespin and the center that their clothespin is on is where they begin. From there we complete the next two centers by moving in a clockwise rotation.

Each center has a matching center card.

Here are my make-shift cubbies. It was a cubby shelf but they were way to small to have any use so I pulled the middle shelf out and there ya go. Notice that I only have 5 cubbies in use...I can't believe it!

On top of the cubbies I have my books with "fire-proofed" stuffed animals of course. :)

This is the most recent picture of my "calendar" wall. I feel like it looks more organized now.

Behind the cubbies I put this bookshelf and cart. The bookshelf is and will be filled mostly with "teacher" books, as I like to call them. Otherwise known as the books greasy fingers aren't allowed to touch. The cart will be used for a writing center. It is filled with all kinds of writing goodies (HWT foam boards, HWT wooden letters, Colored pencils, crayons, paper, whiteboards, etc.

At the bottom of the bookshelf I made panda bears for my classroom jobs. Every student has a job every day. I plan on moving them weekly so it's not too much work. 

Here's a close-up of the line-leader panda.

Here is a picture I posted earlier on Instagram because I was so proud of my caterpillar. I came up with the crazy idea and my mom helped make him. In each segment of his body I will write our focus letter, number, etc. for the week. At the bottom of the focus wall are our classroom rules and tooth tally chart. I put some white chart paper up to make a place to project with the overhead projector because we will be doing writing time facing this wall. 

Here is this lovely guy up close!

I got this idea off of Pinterest to put numbers on the back of chairs so that students have an assigned seat everytime. We practiced going to our assigned seat today and it went really well. The kids were happy to know where they needed to be when they were asked to go to the table, well at least I was happy. :)

These adorable work hangers are brown bear, panda bear, and polar bear from the Eric Carle books. 

Here are my reading buddies. These guys get read to at the Library center. The beady eyes poking over the top of the basket are Stanley's eyes. I'm not sure what he is supposed to be but he is now named Stanley. 

Here is the listening center basket. Panda Bear is the first book of course!

Here is my writing sample journals. 

Sorry for the fuzzy pic. This is the inside of the writing journal.

Memory books! Love these! I will placing all our wonderful pictures, art, writing, etc. throughout the year in here! So happy to do these. Thanks to my mama of course!

Just in case I forget who I am. :)

Saw this on Pinterest as well and goodness knows I need reminders. If something is not right in front of me it does not get done. Out of sight, out of mind really does apply to me. So here is where I will hopefully remind myself (if I remember to look) of very important things. My first reminder: Turn off the air!

Fuzzy quick picture again with my phone...sorry! This is where I will be showing the kids progress in sight words, letter recognition, sound recognition, and number recognition. The panda bear is for letters and it says, "Panda Bear, Panda Bear, what do you see? I see children that know their letter A-Z". The rainbow idea I stole from my former partner...Thanks Audra! It just says, "I know a rainbow of words" and for each 20 words they know they get a rainbow stripe. The ladybug says, "Don't be grouchy, learn your sounds." I know so original...It's all I could come up with. And finally, the monkey says, "We know our numbers from head to toe". This is supposed to be a play on the head to toe book by Eric Carle but it's not the most popular of his books so I may be one of the only ones who gets this. Oh well!

To display beautiful writing! If you notice, my name tags match the hungry caterpillar border! Yay!

Writing Steps

HWT letter poster

This is at the top of my calendar wall. Cute right?!? Thanks mom, again!

Forgot to mention that I put up sentence frames over the writing center. I had these in my first grade room last year and thought I could start introducing my kinders to them so that they are even more prepared for first!

Another cutesy addition. Boys and girls bathroom passes are hand sanitizer. 

I also had these reading strategies up in my first grade room last year and I loved them. I will start using these when we start guided reading towards the middle of the year. 

Back to old school! Hopefully I can figure this thing out. Believe it or not I am better acquainted with newer technology.

Wish list from last nights parent orientation!

We read "The Kissing Hand" today and wrote down the feelings we had about the first day of school. Thank you Pinterest...again.

Lousy picture... but it's the before and after of my book bags. 

Well, I hope you enjoy all my ramblings and random pictures of my room. God has already given me a snapshot of what this year is going to be like from my first day. My year will be filled with grace, friendship, creativity, music, and challenges that I am so excited to face. Could this not be more me or what!?

Thank you Jesus for you blessings!

Laura