Borrowing Is What Teachers Do!

Hey we all do it!  That is where we get most of our ideas is passing our ideas through our fellow teachers.  Here is some things that I do in my classroom.

We do the letter of the week! Here are some activities we do during the certain letter!

Center Time

    In my first year of teaching I have put in center time.  Right now I have 5 different centers set up, for the 5 days of the week.  It works well for me right now because I have small class size.  The children work on a center for approx. 40 minutes once a day.  So through the week they complete all 5 centers.  For Kindergarten centers I have set up a Leapfrog Center, Listening Center, Math Center, Literacy Center, and Journaling Center. 

    I have set up a template that the children can rate themselves on how they worked then have a different place for me to rate them.  I also have a comment section.  I also type in what the activity is and the state standards met by completing this center.  I keep them in a binder so hopefully next year everything is already typed out and ready to go.  I have the standards on the sheets mainly because my administrator wants the standards written in our lesson plans.  So this way I can just pull it out next year and be able to just write it down instead of looking for the facts again.

    In the listening center I have the kindergarteners answer the following questions.  They started by just drawing the pictures by the end of the year the children are adding words.  The questions stay in the same order every week, and every time we read a book aloud we answer them in the same order.  So they don't actually have to be able to read the questions. 

  "What was your favorite part of the book?"
"Who was your favorite character?"
"What in this book has ever happened to you?"
"Is this story True or Make-believe? Why do you think that?"

    In the journaling center the children are either given a picture that they have to come up with a story to go with that certain picture, or I give them writing prompts.  The writing prompts turn out very well.  I have a word book in this center so they can look up certain words.  But it is ok if they write the word the way it sounds. 

Rewards in the classroom

Penny Jar  

 Each child decorated their own jar which they 'earn' pennies.  With their pennies they can choose to buy little things like pencils, erasers, or other little toys or save up to buy coupons for the class.  Example: Extra Recess, Popcorn Party, Extra Movie time, etc.  The children earn pennies by bringing books that they can read to the class, being caught being good, or going above and beyond normal expectations.    

Read Across America    ~~    In celebration of Dr. Seuss's birthday

    I try to plan some fun days for us to do during the entire week.

Monday~ Mix up Monday~ Where children wear their clothes backwards, or inside out.  We read And to Think I saw it on Mulberry Street.   For those who don't know the book it is a little thing that gets bigger and bigger.  Then we make our own book To think I saw it on Herreid's Main Street.  This is a bigger project.  The children vote on what small thing to start on.  Then one child makes it a little bigger, and etc.  I write what the main idea of the page is then later I make it rhyme like Dr. Seuss would have in his book. 

Tuesday~ Top Hat Tuesday~  We read The Cat in the Hat then make top hats to match the Cat's. 

Wednesday~ Wacky Socks Wednesday ~ Read Fox in Socks. 

Thursday~ Thinking Cap Thursday ~ Where children wear their own 'thinking' cap.  This day is open to the children to bring in their own books.  You would be amazed what some of the kindergarteners can read. 

Friday~ Funny Food Friday ~ Read Green Eggs and Ham.  Then we have food that is green.  Next year I am going to attempt to make green eggs! YICK!! :) I also made Green Eggs and Ham tick tack toe. So the children break up into groups of two and play.

Writing to Molly

    I have a mailbox in my classroom where Molly (my cat) writes the children daily.  They are expected even as kindergarteners to write Dear Molly, with the comma and then write what she challenges them to write her.  At the beginning of the year things are really easy like find me 3 words that start with P.  They use the word wall to find and write the words.  Then they have to illustrate what they write.  By the end of the year they are writing sentences to her.  Once in a while she treats the kids for doing a good job by sending them stickers or other treats.  Molly is mainly just a review that we use in the classroom.  You can do so many things with this.  It is handwriting, letter identification, grammar and phonics.  Sometimes she challenges them to do 2 things like find 3 p words then trace over the vowels in your letter. 

Word Wall

    The word wall that I have is developed by the my students.  We do a letter of the week, I know shame, shame!  But with all of the different things we do in the classroom usually they know all letters and their sounds by Christmas break.  But while doing letter of the week the kids tell me words that they have encountered that start with that letter.  Then I type the words out and add pictures (or clipart) to the picture.  Then the kids help me tape them to the wall.  The word wall is under my chalk/white board.  It uses 2 walls of my room...and by the end of the year most of the words need to be re-taped.  So the next year we start all over again.  The picture below is just a portion of the word wall.  We also then graph how many words we came up with for each letter. 

Mystery Bag

    This is an idea I 'borrowed' from my home town teacher.  I have never liked show and tell because I believe 1/2 the time it turns out to be show and brag.  But I like the idea and the concepts it works with like being able to express oneself, getting up in front of people, and plus it meets many speaking standards.  So instead of leaving it out I assign each child a day of the week where they will bring in an item in a brown paper bag that starts with the letter of the week.  Then they will come up with 3 clues and their classmates try to guess what is in the bag. 

Helper Chart

My helper chart will have to be adjusted yearly.  I try to have enough duties for each child to do.  Mine also go weekly.  So on Monday we get new duties.  This Year I had The President - The Line leader, The Meteorologist - Weather and calendar, The Teacher Helper - Check the mailbox and assist the teacher The Farmer - The person who deliver the milk. 

Kindergarten Graduation

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!  A lot of work!  My graduations are pretty simple and easy.  It is tough tough when the teacher before did a lot.  But to each teacher their own!  This year I picked a theme of Beach.  The kids are singing 2 beach songs.  I made memory binders for the parents to keep.  The binder has the year of Molly's letters, Assessments, Name writings, and some pictures.  I also make a slideshow.  I have it based off of the kindergarten....

K is for Kindergarten---hip, hip, hooray.

I is for imagination we use everyday.

N is for numbers—we know one, two, three.

D is for drawing, the best you can see!

E is for Education it is the way to knowing!

R is for reading books to make us cunning.

G is for good friends. We made more each day.

A is for the alphabet we know how to say.

R is for remembering everything we learned.

T is for treats every everyday we earned.

E is for excitement. This year we’ve had some.

N is for next year. First grade here we come.