Kindergarteners Ramping Up for First

We are almost there! It is so hard to believe I have only a few weeks left with my sweet kiddos. We have been talking quite frequently about getting ready for first grade and being the best first graders possible. Knowing that, my students have really been working on improving their writing skills and handwriting as well as practicing our reading strategies. I love this time of year because I get to see how proud they are of themselves when they start trying to read EVERYTHING! They all get a little gleam in their eye when they can read a chapter book or write a beautiful letter for their parents. Below you will find a checklist students must use to check their papers before they can turn them in to me.

We have also been looking at our numeracy skills. We have been focused on addition, subtraction, and comparing numbers. We have made the following anchor charts to help us remember our different skills.

Not too many crafty projects but we did do these fun bunnies for Spring. The kids wrote about what they would do if they were a bunny. 

They turned out so cute! More fun things to come including our unit on financial literacy. The kids have really enjoyed it and I cannot wait to show you what we have been doing.

Rodeo Time!!!

I am so excited to post the fun and exciting things my students did before we left for Spring Break. We had such a fun week learning about cowboy life. We learned what life is like as a cowboy and wrote about what we would do if we were cowboys. We also had fun making a craft.

We also enjoyed learning all about our Texas symbols. You can see the fun flags we made above. Each student made a flag and wrote about what it represents. We also learned about the different animals and plants that represent Texas and create a class ranch. The students had so much fun creating the ranch.

In Math we always have fun graphing. This week we graphed if we had been to the rodeo and then wrote about what we did at the rodeo or what we would do at the rodeo. 

What a fun week we had learning about cowboy life and our wonderful state!

Celebrating Dr. Seuss

We had such a fun week last week doing an author study on Dr. Seuss. The kids really enjoyed his books and the fun activities that went with each book. We started out the week by doing research on Dr. Seuss and writing him a birthday letter about what we learned about him.

As you can see by the picture we read Horton Hears a Who, and each student had to write about a time they felt "big." The projects turned out great and I was really impressed with what the kids wrote about. Such out of the box thinkers I have. We read Cat in the Hat, and wrote a book about what adventures we would have if Thing 1 and Thing 2 came to our house. It was great to see how creative they got with their books. We read Green Eggs and Ham and graphed whether or not we would want to try it. I also had them write where they would or would not try green eggs and ham. One of my students said the ocean which I thought was pretty creative.

We ended our week by making a promotional poster about which book we liked best, and encouraged people to read our book. The final touch to our unit was when a special visitor came to read to us. 

Thank you Mrs. Dolan for ending our unit with such a wonderful memory!

So sorry I have been missing!

We have had a busy couple of weeks. We celebrated Valentine's Day by Reading Froggy's First Kiss by Jonathan London. My students always get excited when they see me pull out a Froggy book. They love to join in and help me read. We made Valentine cards for someone we care about just like Froggy. I don't have any of those to share because they all went to very special people!

We also ended our study on landforms by completing a model of the different landforms. I gave the students shoe, boxes, pieces of butcher paper, and modeling clay and let them go. They had so much fun making their landscapes.

We also learned about two of our presidents and why we celebrate President's Day. The students had so much fun learning about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. We created a Hall of Presidents right outside our classroom.

This week we are gearing up for our trip to the Zoo next week. Those pictures are to come!

Happy 100 Days!!!

We had such a fun week celebrating the 100 days of school. It is so hard to believe that 100 days have flown by us. We started out by reading 100 Day Worries by Margery Cuyler. I absolutely love reading this book to the kids. The kids wrote about what they would do if they were 100 years old. After the writing was edited they were able to make portraits as seen below.

On the 100th day of school the kids came in through the banner seen at the very top. They felt so special coming into our classroom. We did a rotation with 3 other classes in our pod. At each classroom students did a different activity. Each teacher was responsible for coming up with their own activity. I of course went to Pinterest and found this great activity where they try to stack a tower of 100 cups. I turned mine into a contest between the boys and the girls. All of the classes had so much fun! It was so great to see my kiddos working as a team to accomplish the goal.

Another great activity we did was write about what we would do if we had $100. We read Alexander Who Used to be Rich Last Sunday. The kids really enjoyed this book. It helped them see how quickly money can disappear. We compiled all of our writing and created a class book. They love to read books created by the class in the library work station.

We ended our week with a fun activity in Math. Each student was given a balloon to see if they could blow it up. We made a graph of who could and could not blow up the balloon. We then analyzed the graph and used our balloons in a creative way.

More fun times coming next week!

Fun and Exciting Week

We have learned so many new things this week. We started off our week by discussing the different purposes for maps and how some maps can be used for different things. The discussion led us to the differences between land and water on a globe or map. We made these fun maps ourselves and then wrote about the difference between land and water.

After this discussion we learned about other different forms of water that can be found on our planet like lakes, rivers, and oceans. We had so much fun acting out the difference between a lake and a river.

In Science, we had fun learning about the different states of matter. First we acted them out.

After acting them out we completed a tri-fold where the students had to model the different states of matter. 

In Math we dove into addition and role played using whiteboards and number cubes the proper way to write a number sentence. Those pictures are to come!

Tomorrow the class is excited because they are going to start friendly letter writing and a mailbox will be placed in the writing work station with different types of stationary. Again I will take these pictures once they have been introduced. 

As you can see we DO have a very active classroom! 

Oh Symbaloo, I am so addicted to you!

So I went to a district Technology conference and actually led a class in technology in the primary classroom. I had been meaning to implement all of the fun things I knew but I guess needed to get re-energized after having my adorable baby. Needless to say I came home and had a mission! I am so proud of my new Symbaloo page. It takes a long time but so well worth it for my students.

http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/zigelmanhome

Maps, maps, and more maps!

A few weeks ago we reviewed maps. We had so much fun creating our own little city. The kids really got into it because they created it! 

First, we made a list of everything we need in a city. This was completely student generated. I couldn't believe how many places they came up with! What a smart group I have.

Each student chose two things they would like to illustrate in our city. We had a movie theater, doctor's office, beach, and oh so many more. I even had to choose which places went on our map because we ran out of room. I guess I should have gotten a bigger piece of paper.

Next, we had to  design our city. I simply put down the roads and the students did the rest. We also had to name our city. We voted on the name School City.

Next I had my students give directions to someone who was pretending to visit our city. They did such a great job!

Hello World!

Hello all! I decided to start this blog to show off the fun things we are doing in our classroom! So come join us and have fun!