Love Those Kinders!

Healthy Bodies

noreply@blogger.com (Kinderkay) — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 03:07:00 +0000

We started our "I Am a Healthy Kid" unit this week and the kids are having a ball and learning so much! This week we discussed the outside of our bodies. We discussed our skin, hair, and body parts such as elbow, kneecap, wrists, etc. We talked about how the front of our body looks different from the back. After this discussion, I gave the children construction paper and they created a cover for their "I Am a Healthy Kid" book that showed the way they looked on the outside. Then they created the back cover that showed the way they look in the back. It was so fun to watch them deciding how the back of their heads looked!
The next day we talked about our brain and nervous system. They laughed when I told them that our brain is the computer of our body! We discussed how our brain gets signals to the rest of our body through our nervous system. They glued the brain to the flip side of the their front cover and then glued yellow yarn strips from the brain around their body to symbolize their nervous system. Today we talked about our skeletons. When I showed the picture of a skeleton, the kids all went "Ooh, scary!" So we had a talk about how our skeletons are part of us and real skeletons are not scary. We did funny movements with our bodies and noticed that our skeletons moved with us! We talked a lot about our skulls and why it is such a important bone in our body. This brought us to a discussion of wearing helmets when we ride our bikes. It is interesting how many children said that they are too old to wear a helmet!
Next week we will start the inner pages. I'll let you know how it goes!

Happy weekend!

Money Trade Game

noreply@blogger.com (Kinderkay) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 04:17:00 +0000

Last week we had an introduction to money. This week I put a money trade game in a math center and the kids did GREAT! I was surprised at how well they traded pennies for nickels and nickels for dimes! This game is posted in my TPT store (Click on the image) - it's a freebie - and I also have it in a Google doc at this link. I divided the kids into groups of 2 or 3. I used real money, but I included money images in this packet if you would rather use those!

Hope you can get some use out of this! :)

African Art

noreply@blogger.com (Kinderkay) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 00:15:00 +0000

Once a month or so, our 3 kindergartens get together and do a collaborative project. This month the children learned about African art. We made masks, rain sticks, and Adinkra cloth. It was totally messy and of course, deliciously fun! Here are some pictures of their projects... These are the masks.

This is the Adinkra cloth. We did not print on cloth, though. We used white paper.

Here are a couple pictures of the rain stick. I wanted to get more pictures, but the kids were so excited to bring them home, I didn't get the chance!
To make the rain stick, use a paper towel tube. Insert a piece of card stock into the paper towel tube. Students make "grass" cuts along both sides and fold every other section.
Students decorate a 9" x 6" piece of earth colored construction paper with African designs. We just googled "African designs", printed off the ones we wanted, and glued onto a brown piece of paper. Here is a picture, but the glare from the laminating makes it a little hard on the eyes!

After the children decorated their paper, we wound it around the paper towel tube and secured with tape. Then we took a square of African fabric and wrapped it around one end and secured with a rubber band. The next step was to fill with the "rain." We used black beans and small plastic beads.
After filling, the other end was secured with a square of felt and secured with a rubber band. One IMPORTANT step - Make sure that you put some Elmer's glue on the ends of the paper towel tube BEFORE you add the fabric squares! This will ensure that the "rain" doesn't fall out as it is being shaken and shaken and shaken and shaken....... :)

Word Family Fun

noreply@blogger.com (Kinderkay) — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 02:13:00 +0000

This week we made 2 word families craftivities. We made Abraham Lincoln with an "at" family label on his hat. I attached a plain piece of paper under the words and the children wrote the beginning sound of an "at" family word on the top sheet and drew a picture of the word on the bottom page.
The second project was a popcorn box with popcorn pieces popping out with "op" family words. The popcorn box was made by making a triangle on red construction paper and cutting off the point.

I love to do these type of activities in literacy centers! They are fun and educational! If you would like the directions for these two activities, click here.
BTW.... I am not taking credit for either of these ideas! They are just cute ideas in which I added my own touches!

Valentine land

noreply@blogger.com (Kinderkay) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 04:26:00 +0000

Today I asked the kids to create a Valentine land from paper scraps. I gave them no guidelines except that the items that they put in their land had to have hearts on them. We brainstormed what the land might look like and then I let them go. I am posting several of their pictures because I thought they did great! This was definitely a "free art" form of expression! They will write about their land tomorrow.

noreply@blogger.com (Kinderkay) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 04:38:00 +0000

Adrianne from Kids CogWorks is sponsoring a Valentine freebie promotion on her blog! Stop on over and check out all the fun freebies!

Valentine Sweeties!

noreply@blogger.com (Kinderkay) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 03:18:00 +0000

We had such fun creating these Valentine sweeties! The kids created them on white paper, but I think when we do them again, we will have a colored background. But I had them create them on the white paper so that they could record how many hearts they used for their animal. Tomorrow the kids will write about their animal and I think that I am going to have them create a Valentine land from paper as well....... Click here or on the mouse image to get a free sample of the Valentine Mouse Sweetie. Happy Monday!

You know you are a teacher if....

noreply@blogger.com (Kinderkay) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 03:19:00 +0000

A bunch of us are having fun on Pinterest posting "You Know You Are a Teacher If....." Here is mine!
This is SO MUCH like me! I have such good intentions to get school work done at home and then when I get there, I get distracted by home things and then when I FINALLY get around to starting, I'm too tired to start! So...... I usually end up getting up at 5:30 a.m. and bring my bag to school and finish it before my students arrive at 7:50 a.m.!

Telling time

noreply@blogger.com (Kinderkay) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 18:49:00 +0000

This week we worked on telling time..... I know, I know..... telling time isn't a kindergarten common core standard! BUT, really when you think about it, learning about clocks does give students an opportunity to look at numbers in another way. So this week in one of our math centers, my students learned the words "digital" and "analog" and practiced matching digital times to analog times on a clock. I made the cards in a spring theme with the hope that spring will be here soon......dreaming........ :) I made the green cards with the orange tulips a few years ago, so do not have the templates for them. But if you would like the newer version, you can find it in my TPT store at this link or on the picture at the bottom of this post. It's free!
Have a great weekend! It's cold here in central Illinois, but the sun is shining! I can't complain about the weather this winter, though. Our winter has been very, very mild this year!

The Queen of Hearts

noreply@blogger.com (Kinderkay) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 13:29:00 +0000

This project had many steps, but the kids did great on it and had fun doing it, too! I was going to teach the kids the Queen of Hearts nursery rhyme, but have you ever read the WHOLE nursery rhyme? It wasn't anything that I wanted to teach kids since the KING of hearts beat the knave of hearts for stealing the queen's tarts! So we just recited the first part "The Queen of hearts made some tarts" and discussed how hearts and tarts rhyme! :) After reciting this sentence, we then changed the words to "The Queen of Hearts made some Word Family tarts"; which of course made everyone laugh which of course made ME happy because they were having fun while learning!

I printed word family choices, but you could also have the kids write their own word family words. After choosing their word family, they were to write the word family ending on a heart that the queen was holding. The thing I love the best about these type of projects is that they all look different! I do not give my students patterns; rather just the steps. My pictures are a little dark - sorry about that! I took them after school and we were having a little snow storm, so I think the halls were darker than usual.
As you can see from the pictures, some of the queens are big, some are small, and do you see that scary looking queen - oohhhh, shiver! :)

The steps for making the Queen of Hearts can be found in my "It's All About Hearts" literacy packet in my TPT store.

Color Words and Hearts

noreply@blogger.com (Kinderkay) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 03:44:00 +0000

I thought I would share a few pictures of what we did today. I hope to have a longer post this weekend!
We are reviewing color words and the children are reviewing them in a center this week. EVERY single child can find the color match to the color heart! I am so proud of them! They matched the hearts with the words and then filled out a recording sheet to show their result.

In reading groups, we worked on word families. Here is a picture of an activity that we did in our word work today. Please try not to notice the messy easel and table.... Life has been busy in kindergarten this week! The children matched chocolate candy pieces with word family endings
on hearts. I put Velcro strips on the hearts and candy.

In a math center, they are creating candy pieces from paper and gluing into a heart shape. They are counting the number of candies that they have in their paper heart, recording that number, and writing the color word of their candy.Have a wonderful Friday!

No Polar! No Circus! Just hearts and friends!

noreply@blogger.com (Kinderkay) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 01:32:00 +0000

Today was the first week back after a CRAZY January! Hurray! We had a NORMAL Monday! No circus practice; no paper mache! I love to go the extra mile when it comes to doing something out of the ordinary, but when it is all over, it is nice to get back to a routine. It's kind of like when I go on a vacation - I love that I went away and had the opportunity to do something fun, but when it is all over, it's nice to be home! :)
So today my students practiced their rhyming words with a broken hearts game. Once or twice a week, I like to do some kind of rhyming word practice and I try to make it a little different every couple of weeks. In January we did a lot with mittens and snow. Now that it is February, we will be doing a lot of games that involve hearts! I created a free packet of heart rhyming games that you can see my students using here as well as my "It's All About Hearts!" literacy packet, too! !I also am going to brag on my students..... I am NOT a worksheet teacher. I KNOW that there is a place for them in the classroom and I DO use them. But on the average day, I believe that children learn and retain knowledge more when they are creating some type of project. The project does not have to be major. A lot of times, it just involves some sort of drawing or cutting and gluing. So.... at the beginning of the school year, I start out with simple instructions on how to draw and cut shapes to create a picture. I guess the proper term for this type of instruction is "directed drawing". But I call it "Listen and cut" with my students because I want them to concentrate on LISTENING! As the year progresses, I back away slowly and usually by this time of year, my students are creating amazing drawings/cuttings. I usually have step by step illustrations available for them to use and most choose to use them, but some do not. So today their project during a literacy center was to create a Valentine animal from hearts, write the name of the animal, and count and record the number of hearts that they used. Later in the week, they will be asked to write a story about their animal. I am posting a few of their pictures. I am really, really proud of how well they did! Unfortunately the pink paper that they used did not scan very well - it looks like a pale white! But I think you can get the idea..... This is taken from my "Valentine Sweeties" packet. I let the kids choose which animal they wanted to make. I also gave them the opportunity to create their own. Tomorrow another group of students will be at this center - we'll see what they choose! Click on the picture of the hen to get a free sample of the step by step directions I use with my students. The hen is the simplest of the animals included in the packet....

Also, I do NOT give them heart templates to trace! I show them how to draw a heart upon paper and then cut out their hearts. We do not cut out
hearts on the fold. I have found that my kids just don't get the fold vs the open area! :) Here is an image of the poem I say to them when making a heart. If you would like a copy, you can click on the image for a google doc. Please let me know if the doc does not work and I will try again! It is just one simple page.....

The Circus Came to Town!

noreply@blogger.com (Kinderkay) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 14:07:00 +0000

Whew! Our circus was a success and all our little performers knew their lines, spoke loudly enough to be heard, and had a good time! We started in the primary end of our building and had a circus parade through our building. Our clowns carried plastic buckets that were used for students along the "parade route" to donate money towards our "Save the Polar Bears" project. Between what we collected from the student body and what we collected from our circus audience, we made over $600! Wow! Incredible! Now we are trying to contact Polar Bear International to let them know HOW our students earned this money. We do not want to just send in a donation that might get lost in the queue; rather we want them to know how hard our students worked to make this money. We haven't heard from them yet, though. They have no phone number. All communication is through email, so we are patiently waiting for their response.....

Now that the circus and the polar projects are over, we will start next week with a regular schedule - hurray! It was fun, but I think even my students will be glad to get back into a routine!
Here are a few pictures of the circus..... The "big" clown is me.... no comments on her appearance .... Ha! :)

Tomorrow is the circus!

noreply@blogger.com (Kinderkay) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 02:13:00 +0000

We had our dress rehearsal yesterday and when it was over, we REALLY understood WHY we have dress rehearsals! :) The children were so excited to be in their costumes, so they totally were focused on their costumes instead of their lines! :) And the bareback rider's hat kept falling off when she was riding her horse and the ring master's moustache kept tickling his nose, so he kept pressing it back on when saying his lines, and one of the monkeys got stage fright and wouldn't say his lines. (We invited the first grade to watch our dress rehearsal.) At the end of the day, we decided that we needed to practice ONE more time before the performance tomorrow. So..... today...... despite the fact that this was our Open House day, we managed to get in a circus practice and the kids rocked!!! Now we are wondering which group of kids will be showing up tomorrow - the shy guys or the kids that rocked! Of course, no matter which group shows up, their parents will LOVE them and they will be adorable no matter what!
Here is a picture of our clowns....... I have to say they sure are looking sweet! We put up the scenery after school today, so the background will not be this bare tomorrow! Stay tuned!

100th day of school

noreply@blogger.com (Kinderkay) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 01:45:00 +0000

We were pretty busy on our 100th day of school, but we still managed to get a few fun 100 day activities accomplished!

Here is a glimpse of our day......

The children made a Fruit Loop necklace with 100 pieces of cereal.
The children sorted the collections that they brought from home into 10 groups of 10.
At the end of the day, the children made a 100 day snack using 10 different kinds of food.
I printed the number 100 onto card stock; cut out the holes in the zeros and the children decorated their masks with sequins, feathers, crayons, and pieces of paper.

We also made Deanna Jump's "What I Will Look Like When I am 100 Years Old?" They are a hoot and are hanging in our classroom. The children also wrote what they would buy if they had $100. I put this activity in the writing center this week, so not all children have rotated through it, but they have been really cute so far!

Real size penguins

noreply@blogger.com (Kinderkay) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 05:08:00 +0000

It's getting really late and I am getting really tired! But I thought I would post this picture of comparing real size penguins to the real size polar bear. The picture didn't turn out how I wished, but I think you can get the idea! I used the overhead projector to trace an Emperor penguin, a Macaroni penguin, and a fairy penguin. Then I used construction paper to fill in the shapes. My co-partner, Lea, painted hers; so both ways work! What is fun for the kids is to compare themselves to the penguin sizes - they are amazed that an emperor penguin is almost as tall as they are! I laminated the penguins and attached them to a tri-fold board so that they can be used again next year!

Polar display is looking great!

noreply@blogger.com (Kinderkay) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 03:47:00 +0000

The 3 of us started at 12:30 p.m. today (Sunday) and finished at 8:00 p.m. - Hurray! It was a ton of work, but our hall looks fabulous (or so we think!). We can't wait to see the kids faces in the morning when they see all the work they have done for the past two weeks put together in a fun display! We are performing the circus to make money for the
polar bears, so you can see that we dressed a polar bear in a clown suit and he is pulling a sled with a little polar bear sitting on it. The little polar bear is holding a sign that says "Save the polar regions!". Here are some pictures of the construction of our big polar bear. We stuffed a pillowcase and added a polar bear face and attached snow goggles with pins onto his head. Then we attached his head to a pole that was stuck into an outside umbrella stand.
There are 3 kindergartens in our school, so we divided the polar regions into 3 parts; the Arctic, the Arctic tundra, and Antarctica. Here are pictures of my part - the Arctic tundra. The kids added details to their paper mache animal on Friday and we created the polar display on the floor of our hall. We covered it with white plastic table cloths that we purchased at the Dollar store. To create the illusion of ice bergs, we stacked Clementine orange crates under the tablecloth.
This part of the hall is SO CUTE! And so easy to do! We cut paper doll people from card stock. The we made pant, shirt, hood , boots, and mitten patterns for the children to trace. The children traced their clothes onto brown construction paper and used crayons to add details. We added a photograph of their face onto the little person and then the children tore cottonballs into small pieces to give the illusion of fur around their face. We then attached the little bodies to a plastic cup and set them around our paper world. Cute, cute, and double cute!!

Our theme for this week is: FAITH , SERVICE and ACADEMICS. So we cut out the letters for those words and attached them to a popsicle stick that was stuck into Styrofoam. This made a striking display against the black night sky mural that the kids painted! Here are some long shots of the hallway..
Yawn...... time to get some sleep.... tomorrow is the 100th day of school! :)

Polar project display coming soon!

noreply@blogger.com (Kinderkay) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 02:41:00 +0000

It's been a few day since I have written a post here! We have been SO busy at school! We put the finishing touches on our paper mache animals and painted the murals for our snowy murals for the hall. Tomorrow (Sunday) the 3 of us will spend the afternoon putting up the kid's polar projects and creating a polar atmosphere for our hall. I will post pictures as soon as I can!

Pictures soon of our polar projects!!

Peace and blessings,

Today we made our paper mache polar animals

noreply@blogger.com (Kinderkay) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:45:00 +0000

Today we worked on our polar paper mache animals. I usually ask for parent help on this day, BUT I forgot to ask, so I was on my own....... but we did it! Hurray!

So..... Last week I posted pictures of 16 Arctic tundra animals on my Promethean. The children picked the animal that they would like to learn about and I attached their choice to a simple report that they did at home with their parents or older sibling. In the meantime, I took their choices and created a shape for them from newspaper and masking tape. I think of this project as a "Paint your own pottery" type of science/social studies lesson. This is a science lesson; not an art lesson. Unfortunately, there IS a ton of teacher prep with this project, but well worth it..... Besides creating the shapes, I cut non-bleeding tissue paper into small squares that are the colors of each polar animal. I insert them into a Zip lock bag with each student's name written on the outside.
The children tear plain, white paper towel into small pieces. Then they cover their entire shape with paper towel dipped into art paste. I tell them to make sure that they smooth their shape as they put it on as well as keep the paper towel very wet.
When their animal is completely covered with paper towel, they then use their tissue paper squares to cover their animal. I LOVE doing paper mache like this because you can get everything done in one setting! You do not have to wait for the shape to dry and then paint it. You put the color on with the tissue paper! The important thing to remember is that you do NOT dip the tissue paper into the art paste; rather you lay the tissue paper squares upon the paper towel and smooth with your wet hands. If you put the tissue paper into the art paste, it will most likely disintegrate. It is also very important to use non-bleeding tissue paper. We order our non-bleeding tissue paper from Dick Blick.

Here are some photos of a few of the almost finished pieces.
When they are dry, the children will attach details such as feathers, fur, and buttons for eyes with tacky glue.

I know this sounds like a complicated project and well, it is.... but we also make paper mache apples in the fall which are NOT complicated! All we do is roll newspaper into balls and cover completely with masking tape. We use the same procedure as above: 1. Cover your whole shape with plain, white paper towel squares. Dip each square into the art paste. 2. Cover the shape with non-bleeding colored tissue paper. Let dry and you have an apple!
Here is a picture of one of our fall apples created the same way as our polar animals. It really is worth the effort and the kids LOVE their finished project!

Tomorrow, we will have no special projects! It will be nice to get back into a schedule again....

Mouse tail Measuring Freebie!

noreply@blogger.com (Kinderkay) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 04:52:00 +0000

I did not add mouse tail measuring to my Winter Measurement packet because it was the idea of my awesome co-teacher, Lisa! But I am offering it here as a freebie for any one interested in downloading it. There is a clip art copy of a mouse and a hand-drawn copy of a mouse that was drawn by me. I like the hand drawn one better than the clip art because there is no tail on it and therefore more fun to add a colored tail onto! Enjoy! Click here to download!

Preparing the scenes for the circus

noreply@blogger.com (Kinderkay) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 04:20:00 +0000

This week we have been practicing for our circus as well as getting our scenery ready. Today the kids painted the background mural. We have 3 kindergartens and each one of us painted a circus mural. This is ours! Tomorrow the kids will be using paper mache to create their polar animal. As part of our polar unit, we are also teaching our students respect and stewardship for our Earth. So we came up with a unique idea of combining our polar unit with our 2nd annual kindergarten circus of the stars! The children will be performing their circus as a service project. We will be collecting a free will donation from our audience on our performance day as well as the rest of the student body during our circus parade. The money that we collect will go to polar bear international where we HOPE to have collected enough to "adopt" a polar bear. Besides creating scenery for our circus, we are also decorating our halls as a polar habitat which is where the children will be displaying their paper mache animal! Believe it or not, we are still managing to get our literacy centers, math, and religion units done ..... but we are certainly tired by the end of the day! Tomorrow, I will post pictures of our polar animal project...

Winter Rhyming Pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Kinderkay) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:13:00 +0000

I am excited that one of my free products was featured in the TPT newsletter this week - Winter Rhyming Picture Match ! If you would like to download the free product, you can find it in my TPT store OR here is a Google doc link. Also if you already downloaded the product before 10:30 a.m. CST today (Sunday), you should re-download because I changed a few of the pictures.

Here are some pictures of my students using the rhyming words. I changed many of the pictures that you see, but you can get a general idea of what they did! This week the children will review the rhyming words and then use letter tiles to try to spell the new words. Besides working on spelling, we will also practice listening for phonemes.

Yikes! Are we REALLY going to be able to pull this off??

noreply@blogger.com (Kinderkay) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 03:34:00 +0000

We just finished assessments - I KNOW assessing is SOOOO important, but it takes a lot of time because we assess one student at a time so that means that the rest of the children need to be working independently in a "fruitful" and fairly quiet way! :) It takes a lot of planning to get this done, but we got through it and report cards were sent into the office today! Hurray!

NOW, we are working together as an entire kindergarten (45 children total) to put on a circus to raise money to save the polar bears! Yikes! We just started practicing today and when our practice was over, our first words to each other (teachers) were "Oh my goodness, are we really going to be able to pull this off?!" :) BECAUSE besides practicing for our circus, we are decorating our kindergarten hall like the polar regions, and making paper mache paper animals as part of our theme decorations. We will be creating "Save Our Polar Regions" posters that the kids will carry during their circus parade as well as painting murals for our background scene. Of course, in between all this, we are teaching literacy, math, and religion! Whew!

I plan to put our entire circus unit into a packet, but it will take me awhile to get it ready for publication. My students are working to make a circus book by illustrating the pages with draw and cut techniques. Here is a sample of one of the pages.

More Measuring! More Polar Animals!

noreply@blogger.com (Kinderkay) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 01:32:00 +0000

This week we are finishing our Measuring unit. The children are using Unifix cubes to measure area, making a growing pattern with Unifix cubes and paper, playing a size game, and measuring mouse tails. A comment that one of my students made to me today was "I was surprised that the mouse tail was bigger than the area!" Which when translated means "I learned something today!" :) The kids really enjoy playing the size game because after they have compared sizes they pick a card to see which tower wins - tall or short. This eliminates feeling that the biggest is always the winner - sometimes the shortest tower wins, too! Click here to find my measurement packet.

We are still enjoying our polar unit! We have one more animal to learn about before moving on to Antarctica. Today we talked about the Narwhal. Here is a great link for a National Geographic video about the Narwhal. My students LOVED this clip!

The pictures show the children using their directed drawing skills to create a Narwhal. I import my Polar Animals unit onto my Promethean with a few Google images and the children have a great time creating their illustrations. Here is the link to my Polar Animal unit. Next week, we will learn about penguins!

A Little More Polar Bear

noreply@blogger.com (Kinderkay) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 01:03:00 +0000

I am posting one more polar bear idea..... It is SOOOOO cool for the kids to see how tall a polar bear would be if he stood up on his hind legs - almost 10 feet tall! My co-partner, Lisa, gave me this idea! I enlarged the polar bear picture to 10 feet on our old overhead. I had to do it in two parts! The polar bear sketch is very skinny because I wanted him to fit in the laminating machine. So, the realism is a little off, but the IDEA of the height of a polar bear is brought into the classroom! I take each child's picture standing next to the polar bear - Wow! A polar bear is big!
Click here to get a copy of the polar bear sketch!