Peek at my Week-Spiders and a Freebie!

First I want to tell you a few things that  I'm pumped about. Last week I had three lovely, lovely ladies visit my classroom. They came on their DAY OFF to see if I was a big fat faker, my class in action... HA!   It was so fun to spend the day with people who are as passionate about teaching as I am!  Thank you girls!!!

This is an open invitation... come and visit us!  We would love to have you!

Speaking of visiting!   This week I will be at the Missouri Early Learning Conference

 (listening... not speaking... WHEW!)

I would love to meet up with any of you who are going!!!

I am super excited to see Matt Glover for the first time and Debbie Diller for the ump-teenth time!

Also, this week, we will be launching these two new units!   Kim's unit will take the students through the process of talking about characters, settings, and other story elements...SMART unit!

 Our Unit 3 will introduce the students to procedural texts. OH!  BOY!   I actually started this unit on Friday and they. do. not. know. this. genre.   However, I know that if I trust the process, I will see wonderful gains. I also think this type of writing will help the students write in a sequentially during other genres.

Here are my lessons for next week.

I made a little Spider FREEBIE for you all.  It has 1 literacy and 2 math station activities!

Have a great week!   Hang tough on Wednesday!!!

Batastic Week! All About Bats!

What a great week we had studying bats!

Our shared reading poem was 5 Little Bats.   This is a poem that I co-wrote with my teaching buddy.  You can copy it off or find it in our October Shared Reading and Poetry Station Packet.

 We followed Deanna Jump's bat unit.  We made the adorable bats from the unit, but did I get a picture of them... NOOOO... Seriously, sometimes I scare myself!

 I think my bat drawing improved over the week.

 Here is one student's report.   L-O-V-E!

I ended up pulling this out of my Nocturnal Math Work Stations.  We used the +1 dice, so I added bat erasers for support.  You can see one at the bottom of this page...he is trying to get away!

 The very sweet Tanya Solano sent me these darling little detective hats. I TOTALLY knew I wanted to use them, but I was not sure how.  Then I saw these fun I Spy activities from Marsha McGuire and I pounced on them!   I modified the card a little because I had printer issues...ERRR!
I was too cheap to print them again!  LOL

Click on the picture to find the above activity.

 AND...we pretty much went crazy for Vowel Bat by Shari Sloane.

This super-cute book is from Kim Adsit.

Click on the picture to find this book.

 I will leave you with this video we watched that will sort of haunt you because you will sing it while you are at the grocery store.    

So sorry!  I will be back tomorrow with my Peek at my Week!  I! Promise!

Spooky Sale! 20% offf

Happy Halloween!

Click on the image to go to my store!

Abby from The Inspired Apple made this adorable clip art... THANK YOU!!!

All of my items will be on sale for 20% off through Sunday!

I have also added my November Poetry Units this week!

I will try to get some images of work from this week up to share with you all!

Thank goodness it is Friday!

Peek at my Week-Scary Late!

Where in the world have I been?

Hanging out with some friends!

 Cheryl from Primary Graffiti

Abby from The Inspired Apple

Rachelle from What the Teacher Wants

Kim Adsit from The Kinder Gals

Lindsey from The Teacher Wife

Deedee from Mrs. Wills Kindergarten

Kathleen from Growing Kinders

Michelle from Fabulous in First

Sarah from First Grader... At Last!
Amy from Step into Second Grade

Deanna from Mrs. Jump's Class

Hope from Second Grade Shenanigans

Erica from Erica Bohrer's First Grade

Cara from The First Grade Parade

Amanda from One Extra Degree

So I am super behind!!!  Sorry!

Here are my lesson plans

Some updates!
So I have updated these units.  You can go to "My purchases" to get the updated unit at no additional charge.

Click on the picture to find this product

 Oh! My! Word!  My kiddos squealed when the got closer to the haunted house.  I had to shush them a few times because they were so excited!

Click on the image to find this product.

I added a page so you can type in your own words!

Here is a FREEBIE from last year!

Whew! I totally know I am forgetting something!

I hope you have a great week!

What's Working? plus a freebie!

New things that are working this year in my classroom.

Daily Calendar

Click on the image to go to Growing Kinder's Calendar Book.

I love Growing Kinder's calendar packet.  I love that I don't have to put planning time towards making this and planning my calendar activities. On our 38th day of school, I am pretty sure I could take a nap and my sweeties could do it on their own.  I show my calendar on document camera and they just zoom along.  AND they LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!  I just have to say, my kiddos have never been this comfortable with 10 frames this early in the year before.  We! Got! This!

Shared Reading!

I love having my poems interactive. My students enjoy manipulating the poems.  I also love this pocket chart that I borrowed from my teacher neighbor!   So cute...not sure if I will be giving it back!

Click on the image to go to the October Shared Reading Poems

Literacy Station Task Cards

This is my pocket chart station.  I am often asked if I give students options.  I sometimes give them open choice, but sometimes I want them to do one task first, then they can do other tasks.  These task cards are perfect.

In this example, I want my students to first sort the cards by beginning sound.  Then they can put the poems in sequential order.  

I have the poems hooked together on binder rings.  They hang next to the pocket chart.  I have the Frog Street Press poems on here (sorry I can't post them because of copyright rules) and I have the October Poems.

Click on the image to go to the Literacy Station Task Cards

Writing

We are almost done with Unit 2!  I have felt pretty good about my writing instruction in the past years.   Tonight I just scored my writing prompts and my results were better than last year... I am excited!

From Unit 2

From Unit 1 and Unit 2

From Unit 2

Writing Unit 1-Getting Started

Writing Unit 2-Narrative Study

Writing Unit 3 will be posted within the next day or two

Stations

I am often asked how I motivate students to give me their best work.  I am also asked if I "grade" their station work. I do not "grade" their work, but I do review every page they do at stations.

Here is the deal... I want their BEST work.  Now some of my student's best work right now needs some serious interpretation. Not every student has the same fine motor abilities. However, they all have the ability to try their hardest.
After 38 days, I had better know what each of my students are capable of (or I am not doing my job correctly).

So, when my students finish a station, they put their response page in one of these bins (they coordinate with their table shape).

 Several times a week I have my students take this bin to their table and sort out the papers.  I quickly come by and look their papers over. I add a smelly marker smiley face to those who look like they gave it their best try.  REALLY, REALLY good examples go on the ALL STAR wall.

Each smiley face paper earns a punch on their card (they keep these in their crayon boxes).  When they get 5 punches they get a Jolly Rancher!!!

Grab your own punch card FREEBIE by clicking on the picture.

Whew!   So this is what is working in my classroom.

Parent Teacher Conferences tomorrow!  Gotta Go!

Peek at my Week-Poetry Station and Freebie

You may have noticed that I am WAY late in getting this posted.   I have a REALLY good excuse!  I was in Iowa visiting relatives for my great aunt's 80th birthday! What an event! 

All the way there and all the way home I worked on this! Last weekend I had blogged about my need for a poetry station that could be sustained throughout the year.   I had received such a positive response and an expressed interest for more, that I put these together with the help of my friend Janet.

I have tried to update the thumbnails on TpT but their system is acting buggy... sorry! I promise the unit has been updated!

Here are the Common Core Standards that are addressed during this 4 week poetry set.  

(I think there are more)

Here is how it works.  Each week there is a new poem with new activities to do each day. Once you have finished with the poem, it can go right into your literacy stations (pocket chart and/or poetry).  

I know some of you bought the Fire! Fire! poem for $2 last week. I attached all of these poems to that unit, so you can get them all by just going to "My Purchases."  No additional charge to you!

If you click on any of the pictures above it will take you to the unit.
This unit will be discounted until Tuesday.

Here is a free counting book from last year.

Here are my lessons for next week!   Click on any image below to download my plans with activity links!

Because we had a short week last week AND this weeks is a short week, my stations have not changed.

Assessments and Report Cards (Free)

Assessment, assessment, assessment...Sound familiar?

This year we revised our report card.  I have had many requests for a copy of what ours looks like.  I just finished the editing today with the help of our fantastic kindergarten team.

You can grab your free copy below. 

 You can edit the following fields: School Name, Student Name, Teacher, and Principal.

I am sorry, I am not able to send the Power Point version. 

Google Docs was causing problems, so I moved this FREEBIE to my TpT store.

 These are the assessments I use with my class.

My Math Assessment Pack is fully aligned with the Common Core Standards.  I spent last summer revising it so many of the assessments can be given in a whole group setting (vs. one-on-one).

 I had intended on revising the English Language Arts Assessment, but I ran out of time this summer... How did that happen??  It is on my "to do" list, but THAT list is long. 

Additionally, we will do the DRA in December and we have a district writing assessment.

Sweet friends... I would love to hear your feedback on this!!!

How are your assessments going?