Catching Up, Part I

My district has approached full day kindergarten in a unique fashion.  For the first trimester, we work with our partner and our students come for half a day.  Beginning second trimester the kids come to school all day.  I love blogging, however after we go full day, I'm out of steam by 3:00.  Hence, I'm pretty far behind here at throothelookingglass.  So I'm going to post a few pictures and ideas from the past couple of months.

I don't know about you, but report cards create a great deal of stress for me.  It's tough to assess and keep the little ones engaged, productive and reasonably quiet.  This year I came up with a simple way to assess sets.  First, I placed numbers on the flannel board.  When I called on a child, they took their name card out of the pocket chart and placed it in the felt tray.  (Placing the name tags in the tray reminded me who had made the sets.  I do have memory problems from time to time:)  Next they used felt critters to make a group for each number.  After completing the task, they went back to whatever they had been doing before I interrupted them.  When I had a moment I pulled them back and we went to the board to go over their work together.  Afterward, they cleared the board and returned their name card to the pocket chart.  Then I called the next child on the list.  It worked really well for me.

This apple is another example of a project I found on Pinterest.  The apples were so cute, but the pockets were empty.  I didn't want to send them home empty, so I asked my WH to create apple seed number flash cards to put inside.  Using the seed from KPM doodles Johnny Appleseed digital clip art , he put the numerals on one side and a group to match on the back.  I sent a note home with them asking the parents to review them with the kids as part of their nightly homework.  They can also be used to practice number order and to name the missing number.

We took a trip to the pumpkin patch a week or so before Halloween.  My grade level colleagues and I purchase the little pumpkin faces kits from Oriental Trading and have the kids decorate their pumpkins before taking them home.  It's great fun.

We don't have a Halloween party per se, but we do make treat bags and decorate cookies.  Here are the treat bags.  I got the idea from Pinterest.  I love that site!

This year we have a nice group of moms who volunteer regularly.  They're terrific helpers and I love them all.

While cruising through Pinterest one evening in early November, I came upon the cutest Veteran's Day craft activity.  It is necessary to have parental supervision when putting this project together.  We did it in stages.  It took three days to complete.  Day one  we made the head.  Day two the kids wrote.  Day three we put it all together.  They were so proud of their finished product.

You can find Miss Kindergarten's craft and writing templates here.   

One of the fourth grade teachers at our school sent out an email asking for student work to send to soldiers in Afghanistan a week or two after we made these cute little fellas.  The children willing contributed to the care package.  I hope the soldiers who received them enjoyed them.  The kiddos  were so proud to have their work sent off to cheer up the troops.  

My husband and I are working on some activities for January.  I look forward to sharing them with you. 

Enjoy what's left of 2012!