Classroom Photos

I have finally gotten the chance to take a few pictures of my classroom.  Not the best pictures in the world but it gives you a general idea.  :)

Our Lockers - We store our rest mats above and the orange and blue baskets are used to store our shared reading books.  I get all of my shared reading teacher books and student versions from Hubbards Cupboard!  They are great.  Check out the link here :  http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/sight_words.html.

 Our carpet and Calendar wall - On the far right our pocket chart center.  I store everything in those fancy storage drawers.

Another view of the carpet.  Behind the rocking chair is the Handwriting Highway center.

Our social centers workboard.  Students move their name to which center they would like to play/work at and it works great. We never have too many kids trying to get into one center that way.

 My reading table and desk area.

 Our Book Nook

 Our Names Nook center.

 Our word wall and ABC Avenue Center.

Names Nook Activity

I was just working on making my names nook activities to introduce tomorrow. 

My first activity is pretty boring... Oh well.  It is just a name practice sheet.  This year I found yet another new website to make my worksheets.  They will work.  
http://www.handwritingworksheets.com/flash/printdots/sentence/index.html

And then for my Name cubes activity I have students make their names with interlocking cubes that have letters on them.  I have a really fancy set that was left in my room from a previous teacher years ago.  They have a capital letter on one side and then the lowercase letter on the other.  And vowels are a different color too!  However you can make your own too by purchasing unifix cubes and writing the letters on them with permanent markers.   They have lots of fun building their names!!
I type their names up like I did with mine below by creating a table in word.  Then I slide each of the names into a plastic sleeve in a binder.  Lots of fun!!

A

l

i

c

i

a

We made it through Day 1!!

Today was our first full day of Kindergarten and we made it!  I could just feel how exhausted those poor little munchkins were getting in the afternoon.  It is hard work being a Kindergartener!  They did fantastic though!  Hoping to get up some pictures of my classroom in the next day or two.  I have meant to do it every day that I have been there for the last week but keep forgetting to take pictures.  Oh well!  They are coming soon! 

And I must say that I am so in love with my laminator!!  I have had it for two or three years and have never used it so much! 

Literacy Centers for my First Rotation!

Alright!  Here it is!!  This is a sneak peek at my literacy centers for the first rotation of the year. 
At our school we do literacy centers a bit different.  Instead of completely changing things out every week we tend to keep things in longer and just add to it.  That way, if they finish early they still have other activities to review.  So you will see as I post througout the year that some items stay on for a few rotations.  This year I will be having kids go to their literacy centers for 2 rounds each day.  We also have Daily 5 at our school but I am not ready to give up my literacy centers. 
Hopefully this will work out.  I plan on introducing acivities this week during our literacy block and then next week Monday we will be starting our two rounds each day.   I'll let you know how it goes!

	1st Rotation of the Year - September
Listening Lane	Story – Chicka Chicka Boom Boom	Listening Response Sheet – name, title, picture	Listen Again
ABC Avenue	Chicka Chicka ABC – match the monkeys to their tree	Roll A Letter and Trace It
Names Nook	Name Practice Paper	Name Connect the Blocks
Handwriting Highway	Colors in the Coconut Tree – match trees to words and then trace that color	Name Practice
Pocket Chart	Poem Review – Friends Star word – a	Student Name Match – math pictures of class to their name
Theme of the Week	Here is the Shape- book to read and color	Colorful Fall Leaves and Words page
Nursery Rhymes	Twinkle, Twinkle Project	Felt Board with Twinkle, Twinkle
Book Boulevard	Read to Self	Read with a Partner
Work with Teacher	Work on Skills Needed

Mrs. Will's Kindergarten is #1!!!

I love to check out so many blogs but my favorite by far is Mrs. Will's Kindergarten!!

DeeDee has the most fanstastic ideas and I love how organized she is!! 

She has inspired me to get going with my literacy centers and math work stations much sooner this year than ever before!

This award is for you DeeDee!!  You are great!!

Kindergartener's Start Tomorrow!

Tomorrow is the big day!!  My kindergarteners will be coming for the full day.  I have 18 kids this year.  School offically started last week Thursday but Kindergartners have Ready-Set-Go conferences on Thursday and Friday.  They come in with their parents for an hour and a half.  It used to be more of a get to know the classroom and start feeling comfortable at school sort of thing.  Now that we have 4K in our district that most kids attend we have been asked to change the format.  This was the first year that we did a full assessment of the students when they came.  Way different for some of us to get used to.  Do any of you have anything similar to this for incoming Kindergartners?  I'd love to hear your thoughts!! 

Fabulous Fun with my Laminator!!

I am trying hard to get back into blogging.  I have been checking out lots of blogs but haven't had a chance to post anything in a long, long time. 
Tonight I worked on my first round of literacy centers for next week. 
I have 9 literacy centers: listening lane, abc avenue, names nook, book boulevard, pocket chart, theme of the week, nursery rhymes, handwriting highway and work with the teacher. 
I have gotten some great ideas from the packet I purchased from Deanna Jump and Julie Lee in their TPT item School is Fun Literacy and Math Centers for August and September.
Tonight I laminated the Chicka Chicka ABC matching game from their packet. 
I also made their Colors in the Coconut Tree game! 
They are super cute and there are many more activities in there that I will be creating as well. 
You should check it out!!