Tuesday, November 1, 2011

It's about time!

We have been in school for over 40 days and I still haven't updated this blog! To say I've been busy is an understatement! I took on the position of Interim Principal as well as a a full-time Kindergarten teacher. It has been a love-hate relationship. My kinders are my first love.

I have done some amazing things so far with the kids. I couldn't have done it without all of the fantastic Kindergarten bloggers that I follow! I can't wait to check the blogs for new and innovative ideas to use in my little classroom. I wish there were more hours in the day!

Sunday, August 14, 2011

My Kindergarten Handbook is here!

I have updated and redid my handbook for this year. I am trying a new feature called :flipsnack. I can turn my handbook into an interactive book with turning pages.

<iframe src="http://files.flipsnack.com/iframe/embed.html?hash=ba293e2c8e412c0cb25511016q236788&bgcolor=EEEEEE&t=1313349149" width="640" height="385" frameborder="0"></iframe>

I am hoping this works! OOOppps I guess I have some more work to do.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Dollar Store Junkie!

I am always on the lookout for new pointers to use in my classroom! I was in my local Dollar Store and found some cute cat toys that I quickly snatched up and made into pointers.

I found great plastic bugs and frogs to use to sort and count with!

What will my next trip bring?

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Hot, Hot, Hot!

As much of the United States is, Wisconsin is under the grip of the heat! Normally I don't mind the hot weather but it has gone on long enough! 
     So today, I spent the day at Target and the Dollar Store. Two stores that LOVE us teachers! I found lots of things to use this next year.
  • New pointers!
  • a beach ball (old one has a hole!)
  • calendar - blank (old is getting tattered)
  • 2 pair of Dr. Seuss socks - (Thing 1 and Thing 2)
  • 2 cookie sheets for Playdoh
  • 4 plastic shoe boxes for whatever
  • Wall clings for the teachers at school (and myself!)
  • Popcorn box for popcorn words
  • more that I can remember now!
I spent the rest of the day sitting here on the computer reading everyone's awesome teaching blogs and wondering HOW do they do it? I need to find out!
My blogging led to many great ideas, thanks Heidisongs, and many others.

I also felt the pang of regret that I was unable to attend the "I Teach K!" conference last week! I was in Vegas in June at the Venetian for my little sister's wedding and I just couldn't afford another trip in less than a month! I plan on going next year!

Thursday, April 14, 2011

The Mysterious Egg Experiment

Egg Scientists

We are studying eggs this week and we performed an experiment using vinegar and two uncooked eggs. We made guesses what would happen to the eggs after sitting overnight in the vinegar.
·       The shell will disappear – Bryce
·       The egg will shrink to a jelly bean. – Brett
·       The vinegar will turn black from the black crayon. – Geena
·       The egg will turn into the yolk. – Lucy
·       The egg will turn into a butterfly. – Tristan
              (We knew this really would not happen.)

When we were observing the egg, the eggs were sitting on the bottom of the jar. They had bubbles coming off of the shell. Brett thought it might be sugar crystals floating off.

The next day, we were shocked to see the eggs floating in the vinegar covered with bubbles. Once out of the vinegar, we gently touched the eggs and found they were soft! The shell seemed to have disappeared! WOW!

Friday, February 18, 2011

Valentine's Day

Valentine’s Day is always a treat to watch the kids dig through their bags checking out each valentine. We partied with the first and second graders. The most popular valentine this year was the paper football and goalpost one. Also, every dentists’ nightmare was the Fun Dips with all the sugar. Our class must have gotten the defective ones since they were leaking sugar all over the place.

The game of the day was sweetheart stacking. The object of the game is to see how many sweethearts you can stack on top of each other. After a rough start, we able to stack 7, 8 or 9 hearts on top of each other.  The day ended quickly and we packed up and went home. Then off to a computer grading inservice!

Zero the Hero visited on the 100th day of school! He led us on a wild chase through the school from the daycare to the church, through the library and up to Pastor’s office and finally into the Kitchen and in the new refrigerator! We found Zero with a cake with 100 candles!

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Our first snow day!

Southern Wisconsin is bracing for a blizzard! Most schools have already called off tomorrow! I took the kids out at lunch recess and they had a blast in the snow piles already! I can't wait to see how big those piles will be by Thursday! I plan to do some knitting and some scrapbooking tomorrow and plan my first Kindergarten Open House.


As this is my first year, I changed up the roundup to more of an Open House. I am planning on a teddy bear theme. I made huge plastic bear signs and put them out on the school sign. I should have taken them in before the blizzard so they are probably miles down the road by now! I sent out handmade invitations to our potential students. Some ideas that I have for the Open House is to have them paint a teddy bear with q-tips, a scavenger hunt for bears placed around the room and having them sort the plastic bears into groups and colors. I hope that they each bring their favorite stuffed animal and I will take a picture of the family and send it to them as a thank you. I have to do some more searching for ideas to do to make it successful. Teddy grahams as a snack will be good.