One Lovely Blog Recipients

Hey there!  Something amazing happened to me last week... I received the One Lovely Blog Award from Maria at Kinder-Craze!  I am extremely excited about receiving this award... it's such an honor.  

Now it's my turn to pass this award along to 15 deserving bloggers.  I searched high and low and found these amazing blogs that I think you'll adore.  In random order here are my 15...

1. Sheila at Sprinkle Teaching Magic

2. Deeanna at Golden Gang Kindergarten

3. Michele and Amber at C.E. Kindergarten Kids!

4.  Sarah at Yeehaw Teaching in Texas!

5.  Dani at Just Another Day in 2nd Grade!

6.  Kayla at Teaching with Skill, Patience, & Laughter

7.  Laura at Over the 1st Grade Rainbow

8.  Welcome to KinderKiddies!

9.  Christine at My Not So Glamorous Life

10.  Miss Brown at Teaching is a work of Heart!!!

11. Danielle at Kroger's Kindergarten

12.  Lisa G. at Forest Friends in Kindergarten

13.  Ms. Thomas at The First Grade Jungle

14.  Mrs. Kerola at Happy Literacy!

15.  The Daily Cupcake- A Kindergarten Blog

Here are the rules for receiving this award: 

1) Follow the person who gave you the award
 2) Link back to the person who gave you the award

3) Pass the award on to 15 new bloggers

Miss Hood Had a Farm!

  Miss Hood had a farm Ee, I, Ee, I, Oh! And on that farm she had some...

We used different shapes to create our farm animals.  I enjoy doing art in this manner because it allows the students to be more creative with their art.  

We filled out this chart after we read a book about baby animals.  They learned about what baby belonged to what adult and the vocabulary words that went along with it.  

My class loved this book!  The animals in the book fold out which made this book extremely popular. 

I used this opportunity to teach my class about quotation marks.  After I taught the lesson I placed  it into the writing center for them to experiment with.  

Here are a couple of my farm themed centers.  Take a look...

This center required them to read the word and match it to the corresponding magnet. 

My class loves word searches.  I was thrilled when I found this farm word search on the blog Welcome to Room 36! 

I found this addition game at Kindergarten Hoppenings.  


Well friends I hope you enjoyed my farm unit.  Our next adventure is going to be to visit a real farm!  Boy are they excited!  Don't forget to leave me a comment as always I would love to hear from... anyone really!

Got Milk?

 

Where does milk come from? 

Inquiring minds want to know?

 

 Learning that milk comes from cows was an eye opening experience for many of my kinders.  You can imagine the answers I got when I asked them about where chocolate milk comes from.  One of my favorite comments was "Chocolate milk comes from cows that eat chocolate." How cute is that?  

We learned about the parts of the cow. 

This chart demonstrates the process of how we get milk.  

 They took home this little book to teach their parents about what they learned.

Down On The Farm

Hello Bloggers!  For the last couple of weeks I have been teaching a G.L.A.D unit on the farm.  Take a look at what we have been learning.

 We started our farm unit by filling out part of a KWL chart (KWL stands for know, want to know, learned).   At the end of the unit we will fill out the "learned" column.   

There are so many great books about farms!  Don't you agree? The books pictured above are some of my favorites.

This is my Cognitive Content Dictionary (CCD).  If you have never taught a G.L.A.D unit you probably are wondering what this is.  Well, it's actually quite simple, at the beginning of my lesson I  introduce a vocabulary word.  We discuss the meaning of the word and write it on the CCD.  The CCD can be used to teach vocabulary words that have to do with the a unit of study.  A new word is introduced each day and a movement is made up to help remember the definition. 

This short story comes from the Houghtin Mifflin Language Arts Curriculum.  We read this story and then completed the chart below.

Check back soon to see more of my farm unit.  

Don't forget to follow me and make a comment, as always I would love to hear from you.   

April Showers Bring May Flowers

 

TGIF! Wow... this week flew by so quickly!  I have been extremely busy teaching my class all about the farm.  In the very near future I am going to be posting some highlights from my farm unit ...  so stay tuned!  As for today I wanted to share with you this cute art project I had my kinders work on it's called April showers bring May flowers.  Hope you like it!

P.S.  I can't believe that I have 11 followers!  I am so excited!  

Easy Peasy Ideas for Reading Groups

  

 So... we meet again!  Two times in one week... how awesome is that? Tonight I wanted to share with you a few instructional activities that can be used in your small groups. There is nothing fancy about what I am about to show it's actually quite the opposite.   I have found that these activities are simple enough you can prepare them on the spot.  

Opps ...  I made a mistake on the "Q" it should have a lowercase "q" instead of a "u."

I have a few students who are still learning their alphabet.  This is one of the activities that I use to help them make letter sound connections.  I found these alphabet tubs at LakeShore and although they are a little pricy I broke down and purchased them.  I am so glad that I did because I use them in my small groups, centers, and during instruction.  As you can see in the picture, I write down the letter on a sentence strip and cut it like a puzzle.  My students match uppercase to lowercase letters.  Next, I give them a toy from a tub and they have to place it on the letter that has the same beginning sound.  These cards are taken home in their nightly book bags for a little extra practice. 

Here is a simple way to have your students practice sentence structure and conventions.  I have my students choose a sentence from their book or write their own.  I copy it on a sentence strip and cut it out like a puzzle for them to take home and practice putting it back together.

Word rings are an important staple in my small groups.  Each child has a ring that they take home each night and read.  High frequency words are gradually added to their words rings.   

I use Post it notes to practice beginning and ending sounds.  Each child in my group will have two Post it notes in front of them.  I say a word and they have to slap the Post it that has the correct placement of the sound.  If I say "ham" they would have to slap the Post it on the right that represents the ending sound.  

Here is another tool I use to practice beginning, middle, and ending sounds.  With this activity I will say a word and they have to stretch the word while they are writing it.  Then I have them point to the beginning, middle, and ending sounds.  This is an open ended activity that you can change to suit your needs.  At the beginning of the year I used this activity to practice letters and sounds.   

These alphabet cards are from Hooked on Phonics.  I used these to review letter names and sounds at the beginning of the year.  I am still using these cards with my group that still needs alphabet practice.

I would love to hear what you think!  Please make a comment or two!  Don't forget to follow my blog ... I was excited to see I have seven followers woo hoo!

Experimenting with Solid Figures

Hi friends!  I'm sorry that I have been M.I.A. for the last week but to be perfectly honest, I had a good excuse!  Last week was my spring break and I promised myself I would not think or do anything work related.   WHY is that so hard to do?  

My class has been learning all about solid figures.  There was one particular question that had been weighing on our minds and that is, "What solid figures slide, stack, and roll?"  It's a great question right?  In order to find the answer my kinders performed an experiment (This activity came from KIndergarten Kindergarten).  Take a look ... 

  I paired up the kinders in groups of two.  Each group had their own set of solid figures.

They recorded their findings on this worksheet that was from Kindergarten Kindergarten.

Here are some pictures of the experiment in progress.

These two scientists experimented with different solid figures to see which ones could roll.  

This scientist experimented with solid figures to see which ones could slide. 

My last group of scientists stacked their solid figures.

The results were staggering! 

I would suggest trying this hands on activity with your class.  It kept them engaged for quite a while.  

5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ... BLAST OFF!

Hey friends! I'm so glad that you dropped by my blog today!  You're in for a treat!  Today I am sharing a few highlights from last weeks space unit.  I know that you're all in suspense, so lets get down to business.

We kicked off our space unit by reading books about space.  These are a few of my favorites. 

We watched a Brain Pop Jr. movie about the Solar System.  I am always amazed at how much information they pick up after watching these short movies.   

The students helped me fill out these charts after we read Life in Space and The Planets A Stickerbook.     

I found the idea for the astronaut anchor chart on Mrs. Williamson's blog Welcome to Room 36!.  Her anchor charts are truly amazing!  Go check out her blog if you haven't already!  

 We learned the words and movements to a fingerplay called Five Little Spacemen.  

                        

Here is a picture of this weeks writing center.  I included some space vocabulary words and the names of the students in the class.  The object of the center was to choose a person and a place to make the sentence complete.  

What space unit wouldn't be complete without a giant floor puzzle of the Solar System?  Everyone had a chance to put the puzzle together during centers.  

To wrap up our space unit the kinders made astronauts (with a little help from Miss Hood).  I think they turned out so cute!  

Thanks again for taking time to read my post.  Don't forget to leave me a comment I would love to hear from you.  

It's Easter in Miss Hood's Class

Hello Friends!  My four and a half day week seemed to last forever!  The kinders, on the other hand would politely disagree.  According to them it was the "best week ever!"   Here are a couple of highlights of our week.

                                             

The kinders loved these Easter books!  Although we read many books this week these in particular received two thumbs up and some jazz hands.  Come on...  who doesn't love Splat the Cat and his buddy Seymore?  

We added a new poem to our poetry journals called Peter Cottontail.  

Chocolate bunnies anyone?  Kinders love to get messy and what could be more fun than getting messy with chocolate pudding?  This is one of my favorite art projects that I have the kids do.  The finished product is adorable... don't ya think?  

The kinders documented their thoughts about spring in their journals.  

Estimating can be a difficult concept for the kinders to grasp.  While patrolling some of my favorite teaching blogs I came across this great idea from the KinderGals.  Put a number line at the bottom of your estimation chart that way the kinders can visually see the numbers.  I'm not kidding when I say that this is a beyond brilliant idea!  The kinders estimated bunny marshmallows that I put in a jar.  They recorded their educated guess on an egg and glued it to the chart. 

The kinders weaved their own Easter baskets and Miss Hood filled them with goodies.

Here they are all wrapped up and ready to go home!  

To top off the "best week ever" we had a Spring Hat Parade!  The kinders and their families created a hat for them to wear in the parade.  The hats were amazing this year!  

Thank God spring break starts today!  I am tired and ready for a vacation!  I hope you enjoyed this peek into my crazy week.   Don't forget to leave me a comment.  I would love to hear from you.