Five for Friday {5-3-13}

It's Friday! Time to link up with DoodleBugs! Here's 5 random things from my week:

1. I mentioned last week how a bunch of our projects got funded on DonorsChoose. This week they started rolling in. Seatsacks. Big Book Storage. Leveled Readers. Books. Books on Cd. A Reading Bench. If you don't have a DonorsChoose account... you need one!

2. On Thursday we went to see the Windmill Theater production of Grug! Which is based off a beloved Australian storybook Character. Think Little Critter down under. They kids loved it! After the show the classes got to go on stage and see the sets up close!

3. On Friday the kids did a craft I made to go along with the play. I'm hesitant to put this on TPT, because I have no idea if there are copyrights on Grug. (There are no other Grug products up, despite some Australian sellers) So, if you saw this performance, or live in Australia and love Grug, leave a message with your email and I'll send it to you!

4. It rained. All. Week. Long. Somebody send us some sunshine!!

5. Now for some exciting news.... all of the Common Core Checklists I created with Jessica Purtell are now editable!!! You can type your name into the cover pages, and your students names onto the checklist pages. The best part is, you only have to type your kids names on the first sheet and they will automatically show up on the rest! If you've already bought, re-download for the editable version. If you haven't, check them out! (5th grade coming soon!!!) A HUGE thank to DeeDee Wills for helping me figure out Adobe Pro to make this possible!

Happy Weekend Friends!!

Five for Friday! {4/26/13}

Woot Woot! It'sFriday! I'm linking up with DoodleBugs to share 5 random things from my week!

1. DonorsChoose continues to be such a blessing to our class. We recently received a rather large shipment including books on cd, science mentor texts, a reading bench, levelled books for Daily 5, new seat sacks, and a big book organizer thanks to two wonderful foundations here in Florida!

2. We've started our Insect unit! SO much fun, this is always one of my favorites! (I know I say that about them all...)

from Deanna Jump :)

From Deanna Jump :)

3. I finally finished and put up little books and pocket charts for June and July which now completes the year! I was so excited to finally be able to bundle them all together for those who have been asking!

4. We also learned all about Earth Day this week! The kids really got into it! We watched the Lorax today after reading the book and there were cries of " No! That's bad! You're hurting the Earth!" every time a tree was chopped.

5. On Thursday we got to go to a local Beach State Park! It was so beautiful there and the weather was perfect!

In fact the weather has been pretty perfect in general....

Happy Friday everyone!!

Our Daily Five Podcast

I'm so excited to share with you the podcast that our class made! I am so glad I started the Daily 5 this year, my students get SO pumped about it and I've seen them take interest and ownership over their reading skills like never before! My principal asked me to present on a professional development day about my Daily 5 experience so that others at our school could feel more comfortable starting it. I did a lot of explaining of course, but I also let my kids tell all about it in their own words. Check it out....

American Symbols!

Whew! We have been having a blast learning all about the symbols of our country!

This first activity is from my friend Caitlin over at KindergartenSmiles. To give the kids an idea of just HOW big the Statue of Liberty is I cut out a nose that is 4.5 feet tall to match her dimensions. Then each kid stood next to it to measure themselves. Then we compared our height to hers! They loved it! They thought it was hilarious that not a single one of them was taller than her! This also his one of our math measurement standards - two birds with one stone!

We've also been learning about the Bald Eagle, Liberty Bell and the White House!

If you're interested in these graphic organizers and anchor charts I created, you can check them out here:

Marshmallow shapes! (freebie)

Someone had their annual evaluation this past Thursday.... and hit it out of the park!

We've been working on shapes as part of our Geometry standards. (CCSS.Math.Content.K.G.A.2)

 My kids had gotten very good at naming shapes and describing their sides and vertices so it was time to kick it up a notch and apply that knowledge. (CCSS.Math.Content.K.G.B.5)

Now we all know littles get excited about food so it was time to break out the marshmallows and toothpicks!

*Note - we did have a discussion before hand about which shapes we would not be able to build - cones, cylinders, circles, ovals, etc - because they are round, and also about toothpick safety. (those buggars are sharp!)

Each child build a shape, then drew it and described it. I had little scaffolding cards on hand that showed a model of how they could build a shape if they were struggling, but not one of them needed it!

You can see my lesson plan by clicking on the picture below:

And you can grab the freebies you need for this lesson by clicking here: