Heartprints

Hey everyone! I wanted to share some pictures from this years Heartprints activity. Each year for the past three years I have asked the school to participate in sharing Heartprints. A Heartprint (based on the book Heartprints by P.K. Hallinan) is an act of kindness that you do for someone or that someone has done for you. So... each year each student receives a heart and writes their own Heartprint. We then display them in the front of the school for everyone to see! I just love seeing all of the hearts everywhere. Take a look! So... How many Heartprints will you leave today? :)

Teacher Comfort and Style :)

Not exactly anything to do with academics... but I wanted to share a new purchase that does in a way have to do with my job! I'm in love with my new Sperrys! Every teacher should own a pair of these! They go with so many outfits, are super cute, and best of all... COMFORTABLE! A little pricey but well worth it and they last a longggg time! You can pick them up on sale at the Sperry outlet stores!

Promote reading with pets!

In order to help the kiddos at our school get comfortable with the FCAT rolling around... and just another fun way to promote literacy, I invited the school to start a fun activitiy with me. The students bring in pictures of themselves reading with their pets and/or stuffed animals. I started by showing them my pet reading a magazine. Tell me he isn't the cutest thing you've ever seen? Yay for reading!!!!

                      Tucker chose a magazine to read!

Tucky reflecting on his reading...hahahaha

Farm Mini Unit Sneak Peek :)

Hey there! Here is a sneak peek at my farm mini unit! What do we think? I will make an announcement when it's complete!

Dr. Seuss Week!

As part of the literacy committee at my school, I organized the Dr. Seuss week activities for all of the K, 1st, and 2nd graders and so far we have been having a lot of fun! I LOVE this week! So many possible activities and literacy extensions... how do you choose?? Take a look at one fun little activity we did yesterday after reading The Cat in the Hat. We made our own hats and then wrote some of our spelling words for this week on the hat. The kids loved wearing them. I enjoyed wearing mine as well. :) Today we read Oh, The Places You'll Go and wrote about places we would like to visit and why. We also read Because a Little Bug Went KaChoo, which is an excellent book for discussing cause and effect. More pictures to come!

Some of our Wockets in a pocket!

My hall display for Horton Hears a Who! 

Each kinder and 1st grade teacher chose a book to decorate the hall with. 

Horton Hears a Who happens to be a favorite of mine!

This little card made my day! Precious! 

SQUIGGLES!!

Oh my goodness I am in love... with a new writing strategy!!! I learned about it recently but I so wish I learned about it years ago! It's called squiggles! Essentially there is a line of some sort in a box and the student has to use that line to create a picture. Once they are done creating their picture they have to write about their picture (on topic writing - woohoo!). Who would have thought that a simple line inside a box could be so genius?!? I do not know the original creator behind this idea... but they are a genius - I wish I did so I could give them credit!! The students have been blowing me away with their creativity and their original thoughts (a big CC bonus). Take a look at some of the wonderful student samples below! I am so proud of them! P.S. I am not a pro on this by any means... I've simply learned through the grape vine and PLC time with my co-workers. We all attended the kindergarten conference in November and this was one of the sessions with Patricia Pavelka in her "Differentiating Assignments Through Literacy Centers" seminar.

This student made her line into a dog!! 

How cool is this?? A rocket ship! Love it!

A dresser?? Did you see a dresser? How creative! Love it!

This simple idea could easily be used for expository, narrative, and even opinion!!! I just love, love, love it! And best of all... so do my little ones! They think its the best thing ever!

Dental Health Month

 It's dental health month again! We will be going all out this upcoming week learning everything there is to know about taking proper care of our teeth! How appropriate is it that I went to the dentist today for a cleaning? Haha! I even took some pictures of me in the chair to show the students that I go to the dentist too!! Check out my silly pictures and some pages from my dental health unit that you can find on my TPT store... and below that you will find additional ideas that we did throughout the week. :)

Me in the chair getting my teeth checked!! The kids are going to LOVE this! I want them to see that if I'm not afraid, then they shouldn't be either!

Here's my x-ray!

Here are some fun pages from my dental health unit!

Additional things we did for Dental Health Month!

We compared and contrasted Moose's Loose Tooth and Bear's Loose Tooth

Building on to what we already know about dentists

We did Deanna Jumps Chit Chat on Dental Health

100th Day of School!

 Here are a few ways we celebrated 100th day of school in addition to my unit materials! Take a look!

We wrote 100 words inside 100!

Every 20-30 minutes we popped one of the ten balloons that had a 100th day activity inside! The kids absolutely LOVED this! It was a super fun day!

Some fun things from my unit that you can find on my TPT page! 

Happy 100th day of school!!! :)

Groundhog Day

A little late but here's something we did to celebrate Groundhog Day! We voted to see how many students thought he would see his shadow and how many thought he wouldn't! Didn't the groundhogs turn out so cute??