What Happened to February? Whirlwind Review and What’s Coming up…

Seriously.  It flew by!

Here is what we have been up to in my classroom…

We celebrated the 100th day.  The day was so crazy I barely had time to capture many pictures!  All of the activities we did came from my 100th day unit.

Here is a TINY snippet…

You can see more 100th day ideas {here}!

We’ve also been working on some lovey dovey Valentine’s fun!

These are all from my Valentine center pack!

 

This week we are working on US Symbols.  I am not quite ready to switch over my daily 5 and math centers yet, but when I do, we will be doing activities from this unit:

Here is a fun little game to review US Symbols that you can download for free from my store:

and I absolutely ADORE these QR activities from Sharing Kindergarten. We did the US President’s set on President’s day, and my principal was THROUGHLY impressed! My kiddos were SO engaged – I can’t wait to do the US symbols one!

I will also throw in some of my center activities from my I Can Learn Can You pack, in honor of the kitty that wears that striped hat! In case you’re looking for some fun stuff for Dr. Seuss week, you can take a peek at my Circus themed centers – I know they aren’t Dr. Seuss, but that kitty in the hat is protected by trademark.  These activities fill in nicely! Click {here} to check it out!

I’m hoping for a little more normalcy in March – my life has been a bit crazy – we almost lost my Dad at the end of January when his heart stopped TEN times.  Oh boy.  It’s been a long medical journey for him, but hopefully things will start to go better now.  I spent many days at the hospital keeping him and my mom company.

My girls have been dancing like crazy this month too! My oldest has had 2 competitions, and will be competing one more time this weekend.  I REALLY wanted to do Word Work packs for February and March, but with my dad’s health and my girls’ dancing life, other things had to be put on hold!

So, until next time friends!  Be sure to stop over by my Facebook Fanpage too! I’m thinking I’ll have a few surprise giveaways over there this week!! Stay tuned…..

Valentines for the Kiddos

Here is my little project tonight…

I was inspired by this…

you rock my socks off tween valentines | thirty handmade days

My wheels started turning…. I always say to my kiddos “you knocked my socks off!” or “do you think you can knock my socks off?” They always get so giddy when I say it, so I hope they become equally as excited with their Valentine’s from me!

You know I love you all so much, so I’m going to share this little printable in case you want to use it with your kiddos!  I know they all knock YOUR socks off too!

Happy Heart Day!!

Thanks for the amazing fonts Cara!

Heart Day

Valentine’s day seems to pop up so quickly each year!  January buzzes by so fast, and then all of a sudden it’s here!  This month we focus on Friendship, standing up for each other, and kindness.  We’ll be reading some of my very favorite books this month:

  We will also be working on some of these activities this week and next

Here are some centers that we have worked on in the past as well:

Just a simple vowel sort. I love doing sorts with the kids.  This sort is from Hugs and Kisses – Short U and I games.

I’m in the process of making a bunch of sorts from a book recommended by my super smart friend Kim Adsit :  Word Sorts and More.  It’s a long process, but I think in the end it will be so worth it!

Here is a freebie game that you can use with your kiddos!

This sort is from Kim Adsit’s Heart’s Friends and Valentine’s Pack.

Here the children practice with onsets and rimes in these adorable word family books! This is a center called Monkey Love!

This is one of my favorite centers! It’s a “lift the flap” center.  Each heart is a flap.  The children lift up the flap, look at the picture, clap the syllables and record it on their recording sheet.  It’s so fun!

We will also be learning about Pandas this week and next!

 

Some other goodies that I will be doing this week:

 

Even though I’m still going to be in school all week, I still am using Cheryl’s fantastic sub tub unit!

We were lucky enough to get a snow day today! (surprisingly, although I live in the arctic north, we NEVER get snow days!) It’s nice to be home to catch up on laundry, cleaning, and cuddle time with my little ladies! 

Valentine’s

Some Valentine’s fun!

During play centers at the end of the day, the children have been wanting to learn how to make a heart. So, we decided to do some interactive writing. We talk about the steps of making the heart, write about it, and practice it.  The easiest way I’ve found to teach kids how to make a heart is to tell them to draw a 2.  Some kids get it, some don’t! We have lots of fun trying to make hearts though! {And I love getting lots of sweet hearts from my kiddos!!}

I haven’t wanted to do these window decorations before because they are such a pain!  During my prep it was contact paper mayhem … OLD contact paper that wouldn’t peel off nicely…argh…but, the did turn out soo pretty

On Valentine’s Day, the children made these adorable little hats.  I saw them on a website a couple of years ago, but I can’t remember where! {If you know, please leave a comment, so I can give credit!}

You can download my version here.

These turned out absolutely ADORABLE!  However, I learned my lesson to not make the arms sooo long and to use bigger hearts – maybe I die-cut next year… (They are from Kim’s Valentine Pack)

I always do a ice cream sundae party on Valentine’s day, but thanks to the girls over at What the Teacher Wants, it became extra special!! The kids had a fun scavenger hunt to get their ice cream.  You can download the recording sheet here.

I have ALWAYS wanted to recycle our old crayons to make the cute shape crayons, but never had.  This year for Valentine’s Day, I saw this blog post and decided to do it!  I had already bought the ice cube trays intending to make them at some point, this was just a nice kick in my you know what to get them done!  I can’t wait to make another set for my girls! I love my 8 year old for helping me to peel all of the crayons!

Literacy Centers for the week:

Short U and I vowel sort:

Short A and O vowel sort:

(This is also from Kim’s Valentine Pack)

Building word families:

Listening Center:

Lift The Flap Syllable Center:

Phoneme Substitution:

I had this AMAZING idea when I was putting this center together to keep all of the pieces together.  First, I printed the game pieces on the white side of scrapbooking paper to keep everything all coordinated.  You could also mount on construction paper, but this is SO much faster.  THEN (and here’s the brilliant part) instead of using a baggie to keep all the pieces together, I stuck a library pocket to the back! I just cut off the top part and stuck it on!  The cards fit nicely in the pocket, and the kids are doing a great job keeping all the pieces together!

Valentine Spin And Write – the kiddos LOVED this new twist on the dice roll sight word graph.  They spin the spinner to determine the word they are going to write, and then spin the second spinner to determine which tool they use.  Too Fun!

You can download the Valentine’s version here!

Valentine Math Centers:

(No action shots here, just snapped some quick pictures of the centers in their drawers!!)

In this center the children count the number of hearts as indicated by the response sheet and place them on the 20 grid.  They then color in the corresponding number of square on their sheet. (The dice don’t belong in there!)

Measuring hearts with standard and non-standard units (conversation hearts and inches)

Time concentration for reading clocks to the hour. (Again printed on the back of scrapbook paper – not my idea, but brilliant!!)

Odd and Even Numbers (don’t you just love the heart shaped pasta! I snap shaped pasta up when I see them! You never know when you can use them for counters!)

Coin identification: (I’ve fixed the spinner! It was missing the dollar!!)

Subtraction with Hershey’s kisses.  I also have the subtraction cards from Making Learning Fun.  They really help those kiddos that need an extra hand!

Vertical addition with the fun heart shaped pasta shapes!  I used a 12 sided dice for this one.  The children have a good handle on adding with manipulatives with the numbers 1-6, so I wanted to push them a bit further! Those kids that still struggle with higher numbers use the regular dice.

Up next on my blog list:

Friendship
Calendar Book
Armadillo’s Orange
President’s Day
Writing Rubric

(Not necessarily in that order!!)