Ocean unit

We just finished up our month long ocean unit. We explored all the different oceans, coral reefs, Oceanographers, and Blue Whales. We did so many fun things! Here are some of the fun things we learned about.

The students estimated how long a Blue whale  is, and then we measured how one really is.

These are painting of a blue whale from the artist Yusuke Yonezu.

 

We visited the Portland Aquarium

Water color painting of a coral reef

Anchor Charts

coffee filter fishees

Ocean Journal from 1st-Grade-Is-Wienerful and Reagan-Tunstall. I combined their two packets to fit what I needed.

This little light of mine

This is a cute little craft we did this week to go along with the song this little light of mine. This song is one of the students favorite (I work at a private school). Here are the materials I used.

• Cups for the Dollar Store
• Little lights from Party City (normally $20 for 20 but I had a half off coupon, sometimes the Dollar tree has them.)
• Tissue paper
• Glue

I had the students glue on cut pieces of tissue paper and then we took our craft into the bathroom where we could get it completely dark. They loved it! I talked about how sometimes the world is dark and sinful, but God gives each of us a light to make the world a prettier and happier place to live. My kindergartners are beginning to get this concept, we always talk about ways to shine our lights. One student even prayed "Father, thank you from my friends, and teachers. Please help us shine or lights today for everyone. Thank you for forgiving our sins." It was pretty precious! Here is a picture of a students completed cup.

This is a super easy and fun craft that my students loved!

Valentines crafts

Valentine’s Day crafts

There are so many fun art projects you can do for valentine’s day, but here are a few we picked.

For this project I used one back piece that was 4x4 then I cut out two smaller pieces to lay over it. I thought this was a good way to practice cutting. I did some practice scratch paper before I let the students do it on their final piece. Some students were able to do it themselves, and I had to trace hearts for some students.  

Confetti Hearts

This project was inspired by Jim Dine. Next year I would love to do an art unit on him during valentines! Though they didn't turn out perfect it was fun for them to try a new material, and they made it their own. We used markers for the confetti, and black charcoal for the heart.

Valentine’s Day Bags

Found this idea on pintrest, was easy and turned out very cute!

Kindergarten Literacy

With my two weeks off I have started reading a new book, Kindergarten Literacy by Anne McGill-Franzen. This is a great practice and theory type of book. This year my professional goal and teacher evaluation revolve around students data and assessment. I have that total nerdy side where I LOVE to keep data! crazy I know.

The book starts off by talking about the importance of assessing students, so you can make sure you are challenging students no matter what their level is. And sometimes the curriculum guide is not always the best route! For example is half of your class knows their letters and sounds and the other half barely knows any, is it really that helpful to teach a letter a week???? I don't think so, you need to keep challenging your above benchmark students while while doing interventions with your below benchmark students.

The assessments they suggest are: Letter-sound identification, phonological awareness, print concepts, spelling, text writing, word writing, text reading, and word reading. They also provide how to do the assessments, copies of the forms, and class recording sheet. They also give samples of student work to compare with your student's work.

I really recommend this book! I will post later what my data binder looks like, and some student work samples.

WOW!!!

Can I just say WOW! I am a first year teacher and the last four months have flown by!!!!! I had great intentions of writing on my blog a lot my often. I have kept up my classroom blog however, which is the most important. If you would like to check out how I have laid it out, the website is

http://mrsleeskinderclass.blogspot.com/

Since I cannot share everything I have done in the last 4 months I will give a quick overview, and try to continue to post through winter break.

Literacy

Daily 5 still going great! Hey know the routine down to a tee, and they are very independent. I do 3 rotations and 3 lessons, 10 minutes each. So 60 minutes of Literacy each day. The students can choose from Read to self, Writing, Word Work, Listen to Reading, and computers, or I will add small groups. Students pick their choices each morning. I ring a bell for transitions.

Read to self- students pick their books out each Monday. In the beginning of the year I let them pick any book, as they are beginning to read I am having them pick books at their level.

Writing- They can free write about what they would like. In writing lessons I give them sentence starters, or we do shared writing.

This is from one of our Shared Writings. The students were very proud!

Word Work- They do white boards, or Phonics cards. With the white boards students practice their words using Caitlyn Clabby’s (Kindergarten Smiles) Writing and Word Work Cards. The Phonics cards are from my favorite TPT Teacher, Julie Van Alst. 

Computer Work- I use www.starfall.com.

I am happy to say my students are doing great, and I think Daily 5 has a lot to do with it. They love writing, and are becoming great readers.

Math:

Math is what I want to focus on over my break. I am doing Math Work Stations by Debbie Diller. To be honest though, they are a huge mess!!! I am going back reorganizing them, putting them in new containers, adding the “I Can” paper, and getting new stations.

My students love them, but I feel like I didn't take enough time to explain how to take care of the material, and keep it organized. I also do not keep very good track of what they are doing. But as teachers we need to constantly reflect and revise, and I am not ashamed to say that! So here comes my second attempt=) When I am done reorganizing I will devote one post to just my stations!

Social Studies/Science

Another one I want to reflect on. I tried doing Science Journals with my students and they turned out kind of Messy=( I need to do some Post searching on this for help!

Well I hope to be back soon with some more posts on what I have been doing, including one on how I keep Student Data (Which is my focus this year.)

~Amber Lee

Dibels, and starting small groups

Seriously, how does the week go by so fast! This week was busy with testing our students in Dibels in math and reading. I teach at a Christian Private School so I have 9 students. 5 were at risk, 1 at strategic, and 3 above 40% in reading. In Math, 4 were at risk, 1 strategic, and 4 at level. Next week I will start small groups and can help my at risk students a little more!

In reading I am using Babbling Abby’s RTI letter recognition program for my at risk and strategic students. It was $10, but I seen a lot of good reviews so I hope it works for my little ones! You can click on the picture to go to her website.

 

For my students who know there letters and sounds I am going to use Julie Van Alst’s Write-it phonics cards.

This is good to help students learn

The beginning sounds in words.

I’m still researching what I should do in my math small groups. Though, I might have to wait to do small groups. My students need extra help getting started on workstations, so we are starting over and learning the rules again!

~Amber Lee

Butterfly Art

Last week my class did a cute art project that goes along with the butterfly theme. I taught my students about symmetry and how it means things look the same on both sides. I cut out butterflies and my students put paint dots all over the butterfly, when they were done they folded them in half which created both sides to be symmetrical. They turned out super cute! Here is a picture

Amber Lee