We have a squirrel problem at my house. I fight with those darn squirrels every year when I plant my sunflower seeds. I plant hundreds every year and I never have a single flower to show for it. I haven’t given up on my planting, but every year I cringe as I watch them digging
I was asked to review Kwik Stix Paint Sticks and jumped at the chance. I love art materials and this is a product I’ve never seen before. I don’t say yes to every offer I receive to review products because I don’t want to clutter my blog with reviews, but when something looks cool and
We all love Summer. Carefree days of sunshine and playing outside are teamed with family vacations and lazy afternoons. As a teacher, my mind also goes to the dreaded Summer Slide. Don’t get visions of a fabulous slip and slide in our head when I mention the Summer Slide. The Summer Slide is something teachers
Sight words are a big deal in kindergarten these days! It’s Spring and we’re trying to master our ever-growing list of words and make it to Reading Level D by the end of the year. I try to find a variety of ways to practice reading and writing our sight words in the classroom. We
There’s something magical that happens in my kindergarten classroom each and every Spring. They start growing, by leaps and bounds, as writers and then they start choosing to write during our free choice/center time. I love it when kids write just for fun, rather than as an assignment.
I try to show kids in my class that writers have many different reasons to write. Sometimes, adults need to write something as simple as a grocery list.
Writing out a grocery list
I found some printable lists on the Nellie Edge Pinterest page. There is a list for birthday gift ideas, favorite colors, favorite animals, groceries, and several others. My students are able to write on their own, but sometimes they just love to copy. I have grocery word cards with pictures and text available for them to copy if they choose.
One of my students went to his grandma’s house for Spring Break. He took our stuffed Pete the Cat and a few Pete the Cat books with him and wrote about all of their adventures together. You can tell from the proper spelling that his mom helped him out on some tough words. If you know this guy in person, you can totally hear his voice coming through in his book. He read the book to his classmates today and they were very impressed. There were rumblings of, “Of going to write a book like that when I get home today.” This type of thing makes my heart sing. I love it when parents are our partners in education!
Reading a self-published book to the class
During Center Time, we had several different rock collections out for the kids to check out. One of my little guys, who is passionate about science, looked at me with a look of panic on his face. I thought there was something wrong but then he said, “OH MY GOSH. I need to go get a book and write about these before I forget everything I’m thinking.” He ran over to the bins where I keep pre-made blank books and started writing. His story was about the shapes of the different rocks and how they reminded him of certain animals by their shape. I was kind of amazed at the ideas he came up with for his story.
