Decomposing Numbers in Kindergarten

My district uses the math series My Math.  We started using this series a few years ago and there are a lot of great things that I like.  Mainly our team of six Kindergarten teachers like it because it allows us to follow the same structure (previously we didn't have a specific math series, but used a variety of resources to teach our math curriculum and standards).  So, using My Math allows us all to follow the same plan and then add and supplement as we need for our individual classes.

My Math has some great online features as well.  We are still adding and modifying it as we need in our classrooms.  Right now, we are working on composing and decomposing numbers.  My class makes these anchor charts to give the students a visual to refer to. We make one a day until we have them all completed.  Then, they hang in our classroom and the students refer to them often.  It is great when I see them using these anchor charts as an independent learning tool during work time.

March

March came in like a lion in Southern Illinois with storms and hail in our area!  Our class is ready for warmer weather and the chance to get outside more often for recess!

March is one of my favorite months of teaching themes!  We start the month off learning about Dr. Seuss and all of his fun rhyming stories.  The students love to compare and contrast the numerous stories.  We also learn about the season of Spring!  It is always so much fun to brighten up our lessons with Spring topics and crafts!  This is one of the fun ones we will complete this week!  We add glitter paint to the cloud and the students always love to see them hanging in the classroom!

Planning Ahead for Spring

As teacher, we are always planning ahead for the next holiday or event coming up!  I am always on the look out for fun items for my classroom at a great deal.  I just found this cute matching activity today!  For only $9.99, it's a great addition to a Pre-K or Kindergarten room for Spring!

Easter Matching Set for $9.99

*Disclosure: TLC Kindergarten is a participant in the affiliate program for Jane.com, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Jane.com. 

Valentine's Day in Kindergarten

My sweet Kinders had so much fun celebrating Valentine's Day yesterday!  Here a few of our highlights!

These are the stations from our Valentine's Day Party. We rotate through three 15 minute stations.  At the end of the party, the class comes back together and they all enjoy a snack together.  This year, parents brought in cookies to decorate, they made a love bug craft, and played Bingo! At the end of the party, they had yummy cupcakes, at their cookies and enjoyed popcorn and juice!  Their bellies were full! :)

 My Kinders love to read the sweet messages on these little hearts!  We also use them for counting and math activities!

This torn paper craft keeps the students busy while they take turns delivering Valentine's Day cards to each other's boxes.  Tearing the paper also build their fine motor muscles! 

I found these fun bouncy ball Valentine's Day Cards at Walgreens this year!  30 of them for $8 ~ can't beat it!  Walgreens and Target never disappoint with fun holiday treats perfect for the classroom!

100th Day of Kindergarten

Our five Kindergarten classes celebrate 100th Day with a rotating party! Students rotate to each Kindergarten classroom where they complete a different 100th day activity! It is always a lot of fun! In my room we make 100th Day necklaces.

Our home school extension for this fun day is creating a project out of 100 items at home! Check out these cool projects that were shared!

Letter of the Week - Letter Nn

I love our letter of the week program that we use inKindergarten!  We start the year off with letter of the day and then follow it with letter of the week.  Completing letter of the week allows students to be familiar with alphabet order and creates an organized plan for lessons.  This week, our letter of the week is letter Nn.  One word to have fun with during Nn week is the word nest.  My favorite book for this week is The Best Nest, written by P.D.Eastman

After reading this story, the students use their fine motor skill to build a nest and paint some eggs in it.  This story lends itself to sequencing events.  We make a list of the places Mr. and Mrs. Bird went to try and find a new nest.  We mix them up and try to put them back in the correct order. We also follow up the next day by using the word nest in our word family activities.  My Kinders always come up with a great list of words that rhyme with nest!

A second story we read during Nn week is The Napping House!  Another all time favorite with beautiful illustrations.  This story is the absolute best for sequencing.

I discovered The Napping House Wakes Up a few years ago and this one is a lot of fun too! (It is a pop up book) Definitely worth checking out! :)

Throw Kindness Like Confetti -

Last week, we completed our February Bulletin Board!  The students always love creating bulletin boards to decorate our hallway.  For the month of February, my Kindergarteners thought of kind words and sentences.  We made a list of these ideas.  The students then selected a few of their favorites to write on the hearts.

One of my favorite stories to read with our kindness lesson is "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?" by Carol McCloud and David Messing.

February Bulletin Board

January ~ Wrapping up Winter

During the month of January, our Kindergarten theme was Winter.  The students enjoyed learning about animals in winter and having fun with snowmen and snow activities!  These were the topics that our reading and writing activities centered around.

We worked together to create a web of "Animals in Winter".  The students enjoy referring to this web when doing their winter writing.  They also love to use these animal names to write for our "write the room" activities. 

We read the story, "The Mitten", by Jan Brett.  Many sequences activities go along with this fun story and we wrapped up the week by watercoloring our own mittens. 

A winter favorite is, "Snowmen at Night", by Caralyn Buchner .  My Kinders always have a few giggles about these silly snowmen.  We used our Mr. Sketch markers to create a chart of all of the events from the story.  The students used our chart to get ideas for their own writing.  

Labeling is one of our weekly writing activities. We take time in January to label a snowman and write sentences to go along with it.  We always "butter" our popcorn words (use a yellow crayon to highlight our sight words).

 The class worked on fine motor and listening skills to create these two fun snowman crafts that decorate our classroom!

Adjectives are always fun in Kindergarten.  They loved coming up with words to describe snowmen. Another one of our fun anchor charts.  Anchor charts fill our classroom with meaningful texts that the students refer to often. 

*Disclosure: TLC Kindergarten is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.  

Anchor Charts

Anchor Charts are pretty amazing in Kindergarten!  I started creating a lot of anchor charts last school year.  The charts provide a visual for students when we are learning a new concept. We hang our anchor charts all over the classroom and the students refer to them when they are doing their own writing.  It is amazing to see them use these anchor charts as a resource!👍 We created this chart to summarize what we learned about bees during our Bee Unit.

I create anchor charts as well to show the expectations for our Daily 5 Routine, letters of the week, and various other concepts and expectations.  The students love the visuals and the fun colors associated with anchor charts.  Anchor charts are so much more fun to create with Mr. Sketch Scented Markers!  If you don't have some of these, I highly recommend them!💜  It makes anchor chart creating SO much more fun!  I love to use them for checking papers as well ~ so fun for my Kinders when they receive a "watermelon" smiley face!

*Disclosure: TLC Kindergarten is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.  

A New Adventure

And so...it begins.  I am so excited to begin this new blogging journey!  I know that this will be an amazing adventure ahead for me.  I have blogged before, however, it was more of a website created in order to keep parents of my Kindergarten students informed of the happenings of our classroom (I still have another website dedicated to that). This blog is devoted to connecting with other educators and growing as an educator myself! 💜 Education and learning is my passion and my hobby and I am extremely pumped at the possibilities out there in the blogging world!! 💫

There are a variety of paths that have finally led me to this new blogging road.  It is something I have been contemplating for a long time. What made me finally take the leap is the graduate class that I am currently enrolled in.  Although I have taught for 14 years, I have never been able to pursue my goal to obtain my Master's Degree until recently.  I have an amazing husband (however, he travels frequently for work), and I have three amazing children (however they are VERY busy). 😉 My evenings have been devoted to my family for years and as my children have become more independent,  I have a little more time to devote to my career.  I wouldn't give all the time back with my family for anything though. I loved every minute of it. 💞

Back to the graduate course...  I am pursuing my Master's in Instructional Technology ~ WOW! It's amazing!  I love the classes (that is for another post though).  My current grad class, for so many reasons, encourages journaling.  One main reason is for a common place for all of the many notes we will be taking and information that we will need for future assignments.  Journaling!!! I love it!! I used to journal when I was younger, but as you know,  life gets busy, we get busy.  It is something that I haven't made time for.  However, I grew up loving writing and I continue to love to write.  So, if I can blog and connect with other educators, this is definitely a WIN - WIN! I would love to hear from other grad students out there!! What are your goals for your program? Anyone else journaling?

 I grabbed this journal and of course had to get some colored pens as well (We all know teachers love colored pens! Scented ones are even better!)

So, not only will I start journaling, I decided I will start blogging! 😃 This first post has taken me a week to finally accomplish, but alas, it is completed.  I can not wait to start connecting and collaborating with other educators!  I recently began an Instagram devoted to teaching as well ~ @TLC_Kindergarten. I have been overwhelmed with the connections I have made in the last two months.  It is truly inspirational to connect with other powerful educators! 

In the words of a dear parent that I have been blessed to work with this year - A NEW ADVENTURE AWAITS!

*Disclosure: TLC Kindergarten is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.