An Apple A Day: Classroom Management

Today, I am  linking up with Leigh over at the Applicious Teacher.

Our topic for today is...

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT
If you've been following my blog for a while, you know I have a puppy theme in my classroom. For classroom management I use the clip chart system, with a twist. My levels are dog houses! 

The children all start on Green (Doggone Good) and either clip up for good choices (Top Dogs, Best in Show), or down for poor decisions (Kennel Time, The Pound). At the end of the day the children color in their calendars to reflect their color. This provides their parents with clear communication on their behavior for that day. 

The clip chart and Behavior calendars for 2013 can be found in my 'Doggone Good Behavior' Pack:
Once my students have achieved five or more clip-ups (to blue or purple) they've earned a treat. That treat can either be a prize from my treasure box, or a reward from my 'Behavior to Bark About Catalog.'

The catalog contains rewards such as jump to any spot in line, wear a hat to school, sit with a buddy in a booth at lunch, etc. But my kids favorite was the super supplies reward. I don't have a picture, but I took a regular pencil box and decorated it with glittery smiley face stickers. Then I filled it with sparkly crayons, crazy cut scissors, markers, colored glue sticks and other fun supplies. My students loved earning the right to use those special supplies for a day! 

Make sure to link up if you have cute ideas for behavior management! 

Five for Friday 6/14/13

I'm on time!!! Can you believe it? I'm posting a Five for Friday, ON FRIDAY! It's a summer miracle! Here's my five, and don't forget to link up with DoodleBugsTeaching!

1. On Monday, my husband and I got a new patio couch, and a new grill. The porch has quickly become our new favorite place to relax and every meal this week has been from the grill. Steaks, Hamburgers, Hot Dogs, Chicken, even a banana smore's desert!

2. Summer VPK (Florida Pre-K) started this week! Our goal is to be Kindergarten Ready by August! That means lots of phonics and math practice! I began teaching them color words and simple sight words using one of my pocket chart stories and little books from my August Packs. Wednesday we learned the sight words, color words, and read through the sentences practicing one-to-one correspondence.

Thursday we reviewed the sight words, read through the sentences again, and then we took out the pictures and the children volunteered to help us put the pictures back in the right order by their matching sentence as we read each one. Then they completed this simple recording sheet that contained all the same sentences. They read the sentence, traced the color word, and colored the picture to match.

Today, we practiced reading the chart again, then each child got their own little book copy. The little books correlate so they have all the same sentences. We practiced finding the front and back cover, reading the title, then practiced reading our sentences and pointing under each word as we read. Last, the kids colored.  They were so excited to realize that they are READERS. They all took their books home today to read them to their families.

3. Going along with colors, we also talked about what happens when you MIX colors and we did this fun science experiment!

4. Thursday the kids wrote their own I am sentences using their names, and then today they wrote I am sentences using color words. This was a great opportunity to talk about capitals at the beginning, learning to use a two finger space in between words, and a period at the end of a sentence. They did great!

5. And now it's the weekend! Happy weekend from my favorite spot!

The Pocket Chart Stories and Little Books for August and September can be found here:

Or as a year-long bundle here:

Or as an August/September Bundle Here:

Summer Bucket List 2013

Another year, another summer, another bucket list!! I don't know about you but there is not much I love more than crossing items off a list!

You're going to notice my bucket list is much shorter than last year. This is for a few reasons.

1.) I'm keeping the same theme. Blue, Green, Puppies. So ALL the crafts I made last year are staying and none need to be remade!

2.) I'm working this summer! Unlike last summer when I took the whole darn thing off, this year I'm working summer Pre-K. It's 9 hours a day. 5 days a week. All summer. So I'm trying to be gentle with myself.

There are however, just a few things I would like to get done on the weekends and evenings :)

I'll let you know how it goes of course!!

June Currently

I'm a little late (story of my life) but better late than never!

Listening: My husband recently got me Downton Abbey season 1 on DVD and I am OBSESSED. My Kindergarten team got my a Target gift card as an end of the year gift and I am itchin' to go get season 2!! If it would only stop raining....

Loving: I accepted a job teaching summer VPK that starts on Tuesday, so I've only got three days to sleep in, but I am cherishing them!!

Thinking: Summer VPK is all summer, 5 days a week, 10 hour days. I know I won't have energy to cook after that so I'm on the hunt for good crock pot recipes. Send em' my way if you've got some!

Wanting: I swear it's been raining for weeks on end. Thanks a lot Tropical Storm Andrea!!! I REALLY want to go to the pool tomorrow so I am praying for sun!!

Needing: Is there anyone that actually likes grocery shopping? I don't!!!!!

Vacay Essentials: My husband and I are chill vacationers. We take our books everywhere. He does anyways. I now take my Kindle everywhere, much lighter! I also need sunscreen for my fair Irish skin, and shades to keep out the sun!

Don't forget to link up with Oh' Boy 4th Grade!!

Minute To Win It!

We had the BEST end of the year party this year! One of my Co-workers saw a pin on pinterest about doing minute to win it in the classroom, and it went so great I know I'm going to do it every year! The original pin contained games from Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits, but I also found some around the internet.

I broke my class into three teams and gave them a bracelet (thick hair tie) in their team color. Then we played each game five times. That gave everyone on the team a turn. It may seem like a lot, but remember each game is only 1 minute long! Anyone who completed the challenge within the minute got a point for their team. This was a great chance to practice tallying!

Here are the games we played and a description of each! (And before you ask, yes it was pajama day!)

Tweeze Me: Students had one minute to move all their tic tacs from one plate to the other using only tweezers. 

Face Cookie: Students had one minute to move their cookie from their forehead to their mouth using only their facial muscles. 

Suck a Bean: Students had one minute to move all their beans from one plate to another using only their mouths and straw

There she blows: Students had one minute to blow their cup from one side to the other, making it fall off the table. (You can see their team color bands in this picture)

Tower Heist: Students had one minute to build the tallest tower of dixie cups they could. Whoever had the highest tower at the end of the minute got the point.

Peter Cotton Nose: Students received a dab of vaseline on their noses and had one minute to transfer all the cotton balls from one plate to the other using only their noses. 

Dice Balance: Students stuck a popsicle stick in their mouths and had one minute to stack four dice without them falling. 

A certain teacher had to demonstrate because they didn't understand that the dice had to be stacked up, not across...

Cheerio Stack: Students had one minute to stack six cheerios (harder than it looks!)

Noodlin' Around: Students had one minute to get two pieces of past onto a stick of spaghetti using only their mouths. 

Ping Pong Toss: This looks like a certain college game, but is child friendly ;) Students had one minute to bounce their ping pong ball across the table into the bowl.

Floatin' Around: Students had to keep their feather up in the air for one minute using only their breath. (This was hard to get a picture of!!)

Tissue Paper Fish: Students received a paper plate and a fish made out of a single sheet of tissue paper. They had one minute to fan the fish from one side of the carpet to the other. 

These games were such a hit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We Did It!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Graduation Day 2013!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Five for Friday {May 31st}

 
Please pretend I'm not a day late once again!!

I am so jealous of all of you already on summer vacation, we have four more days!!

1. One of the things left to go during those four days is our end of the year ceremony. I've been hard at work on our End of the Year Slide show.

Some of the songs we're using are:
Count on Me ~ Bruno Mars
Little Wonders ~ Rob Thomas
Rainbow Connection ~ Jason Mraz
My Wish ~ Rascal Flatts

2. We made this super cute summer craft from Miss Kindergarten Love this week. Love those shades!

3. We've been popping a balloon each day (more on that here) and some of this week's treats included popsicles, and choosing their own seats!

4. I completely redid my word wall for next year and even got the new headers hung up in my room already. I love how it turned out!

5. I had got to grade my student's last writer's workshop unit this past weekend and I am SO proud of their progress. It is so amazing to look at a Kindergartners writing in May compared to their writing in August!

Don't forget to link up with DoodleBugs Teaching!!